Captive Bride (29 page)

Alan pushed into her once, twice, three more times before his body shuddered and his cock pulsed inside her. His warm release reminded her that they’d taken 268

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no precaution. Worry flickered but quickly died. She’d prefer not to become pregnant when they were just starting their life together, but if it happened, it was meant to be.

Alan lay on her and she wrapped her arms around his back. She closed her eyes and nuzzled her nose into his skin, inhaling the salty tang like an ocean and the earthy musk of man.

“Mm.” His satisfied groan pleased her and she hugged him even tighter. He lifted his face and looked into her face. “I love you.
Wo ai ni.
” She caught her breath. To hear him declare his feelings in her own tongue made her heart stop beating for a moment. “How you know words?”

“I asked Dong Li. I’ve been practicing them in my head. I wanted to be able to say them to you.”

“
Wo ai ni,
Alan. I love you.” She smiled at him and his answering smile lit the room.

He rolled onto his back, throwing an arm up over his head.

She drew a deep breath and glanced down at her breasts flattened by gravity, the slick of sweat on her torso. She felt his juices slipping down her inner thigh and tensed her vaginal muscles, enjoying the slightly bruised feeling that marked her as his.

“I hope Jeremy is good,” she said after a moment.

“I’m sure Miss Dodge is taking good care of him.” Huiann looked at him and raised her eyebrows.

“Miss Dodge the green dress?”

“Yes, her.” He grinned. “There’s quite a romance between them. She left her parents to be with him.

They had a minister marry them last night.” Bonnie Dee

269

She tried to picture Miss Dodge and Jeremy together. In her mind she clothed the girl in bridal scarlet and gave them a traditional Chinese wedding.

The image made her smile.

“You did not say they like each other,” she complained.

“I thought it was only Jeremy, but I guess she feels the same way. Last night while you were being kidnapped and I was searching for you, Jeremy and Cynthia were off getting married. Life is strange.”

“Yes.” She rested her hand on his chest, reassuring herself of his heartbeat, steady and strong beneath her palm. “But good too.”

He covered her hand with his. “Very good.” Huiann’s bruised backside ached and she was exhausted, ready to slip into the oblivion of sleep. But when she closed her eyes she pictured Alan chained to the wall, Xie falling to the floor, whips and guns and violence. Her body tensed at the memory of how it had felt when her weapon entered Xie’s eye. She felt she was still in danger and jerked awake every time she began to relax.

At last she gave up trying to sleep and stared at the ceiling overhead and then at Alan’s sleeping face. She studied the sharp angles of his cheekbones and jaw and his long nose, the twin crescents of his eyelashes. His eyes moved rapidly behind his lids and he frowned.

Was he, too, dreaming of their ordeal?

He made a small sound and reached out for something. Huiann clasped his hand and murmured comforting words. “Rest now. You can sleep. We both can sleep now. We are safe.”

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Repeating her own advice in her mind, she closed her eyes and rested at last.

Chapter Twenty-One

“We stirred up a hornet’s nest.” Alan handed Jeremy
The Examiner
which featured a story about the rising crime-related violence in Chinatown over the past week. “The police have a special unit investigating the Tong Wars. In a related article, the government’s passing a law against importing Asian women for purposes of slavery. It’s written in delicate terms so as not to shock female readers, but it’s an anti-prostitution law.”

Jeremy set his sandwich on his plate and read the article.

It felt strange for Alan to be a guest in the kitchen that had been his for so long, but this was Jeremy’s apartment now. Taylor had become his partner, putting up half the money for rebuilding the store. Now that Alan’s reputation was destroyed because of his involvement with Huiann, his political ambitions were over, but hopefully customers wouldn’t boycott the store if it was considered to belong to Jeremy.

“How was your meeting with the Dodges yesterday?” Alan asked after a bit.

Jeremy set the paper aside. He seemed a dozen years older than he’d been only last week. “Mr. Dodge was polite, but Cynthia’s mother will never forgive me for stealing her little girl.”

“And Cynthia?”

“Isn’t ready to come home just yet.” Jeremy stared at his plate. “I think you were right. Maybe I imagined 272

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she was different than she is or that she cared for me more than she does. But she was counting on me to take her back east and now that that’s changed…” He shook his head. “She doesn’t understand that the opportunity to buy into the store was too good to pass up. I’ve got a real chance to get ahead in the world here which I never could do starting over someplace else.”

“Cynthia’s very young,” Alan said. “And she’s listening to her mother. But I believe she does love you and once she gets past her disappointment, she’ll remember it. Maybe you shouldn’t simply wait for her to come home. Maybe you need to take her—show her how strong your feelings are.” Jeremy frowned. “Do you think so? I’ve been wondering. Sometimes I don’t know whether a man’s expected to be forceful or gentle. Women should come with instructions.”

“That would make things easier sometimes,” Alan agreed. “Come on. I suppose we should get back to work.”

They returned to the store, which was still closed for renovation. Construction was almost finished and they hoped to have the shelves stocked and the doors open for customers by the following week.

Alan was squaring the corner of a new shelving unit when someone knocked on the door. “Sign says Closed,” he muttered as he went to answer it.

A policeman stood outside. Alan’s stomach tightened at the sight of the uniform. This couldn’t be good news. “Can I help you?”

“Mr. Alan Sommers? I’m Officer Ronald Crowley.

I have a rather unusual request. You might have read Bonnie Dee

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about the task force that’s going to clean up Chinatown. In the past the department’s policy has been to let the Chinese manage their own affairs, but some of us on the task force are ready to make immediate, serious changes.”

“Come in,” Alan invited. “We can talk inside.” The policeman entered the store, taking a quick look around the chaos. “You’re lucky. It could’ve been a lot worse. I’ve heard your story and know about your part in Xie Fuhua’s death and your involvement with the Oriental woman.”

“Yes.” Alan kept his tone neutral until he knew where Crowley was going with all this.

“I’m sure you’ve seen the cribs, the prostitutes kept like dogs in kennels. It’s time someone put a stop to it.” Crowley lowered his voice, although Jeremy wasn’t in the room at the moment. “What we plan isn’t legal. To the Chinese, these women are considered property, bought and paid for. We intend to go in and free as many as we can. I hoped you might be able to help.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“We’ll need a place to take them. Someplace outside Chinatown. I know you just bought a farm and that your lady friend lives with you there.” He held up a hand, stopping Alan before he could take offense. “I got nothing to say about that. It’s not my business. I just need some place to put these women for a while, and I thought your friend might come along on the raid to act as translator.”

Alan pictured the many rooms of his large house, intended for a growing factory full of sewers. They needed to hire more women. These women needed a 274

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home. The match was obvious, but he feared inciting the anger of more crime bosses, bringing new trouble to himself and Huiann. Still, there was no way he could refuse.

“I’ll be happy to host them, but I won’t put Huiann in danger.”

Crowley nodded. “I understand. I can find another translator, but I thought a woman might be more comforting to them.”

“I have rooms enough for a dozen.” Alan felt a little sick at the magnitude of the responsibility he was taking on with the casual air of a man offering to adopt a basket full of puppies. These were human lives, which would be dependant on him for food, shelter and livelihood.

“I don’t know how many to expect, and you’re right, there could be danger. But this is something that many of us believe is long overdue,” the policeman said.

That evening Alan arrived home as the last glorious blaze of sunlight painted the western sky. He stabled his horse and walked to the back of the house where Huiann was working in the garden. He silently watched as she poked around in the dirt, unaware of his presence. The domesticity of the scene, his soon-to-be wife growing food for their table, seized his heart and tightened his throat.

“Finding any vegetables yet?” he asked.

She shrieked and dropped her trowel, putting a hand to her chest. “
Chuó!
You scare me!”

“Sorry.” He stepped over the low fence meant to protect the garden against ravenous rabbits and ground Bonnie Dee

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squirrels and walked between the beds to where she stood—so beautiful in her plain brown dress and muslin smock. He pulled her into his arms, treasuring the warmth of her soft body. She was so short he could comfortably rest his chin on top of her head. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

She squeezed her arms around his waist. “How was you day?”

“Busy.” He paused, considering how to present the news that they would soon be hosting an unknown number of refugees. “A policeman came to the store today.”

She knew what a policeman was since they’d been questioned at the station after the incident with Xie.

She pulled away and looked at him sharply. “What he want?” She clucked in annoyance and repeated, “What
did
he want?”

Alan explained the situation.

Huiann’s eyes shone with tears and her throat worked as she swallowed. She spoke rapidly in Chinese before addressing him in English. “I see those women on boat in cages like animal. We must help.”

“Yes. I thought I’d go with the police.”

“Me too.” She bobbed her head. “I will help.” He thought of Crowley’s request to use Huiann as a translator, but nothing was worth putting her at risk.

“You can prepare rooms and welcome them here.”

“Alan.” She had a particular way of saying his name when she was about to disagree with him or tell him something he might not want to hear. Her eyes were two fiery coals. “I want… No, I
need
go with you.

I need help free women. I talk to them, make them feel safe.”

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He couldn’t deny her, because he understood her need to save the helpless all too well. It had been fodder for his nightmares for years, the shaming vulnerability of being powerless and unable to do anything to aid your fellow prisoners. This might be a way to finally exorcise the dreams of grasping skeleton hands at last.

It was the same for Huiann. They had escaped Xie Fuhua, but they needed to free others as well.

Huiann’s stomach was sour from nerves as the police wagon she rode on stopped on a dark street illuminated by a rare streetlight. A row of doors with barred windows faced the street, the cribs where women were penned like animals for men to use. Their lives were short. Disease or violence took them young, but they were easily replaced by others, shipped in a hold like any other commodity from overseas.

It could’ve been her in one of these pens. She had no doubt Xie would’ve ultimately sent her here when he’d gotten all the value he could out of her. The only thing that had separated her from these girls were some social graces and education that made her more desirable. Peasant girls were treated like pigs and she was billed as an exotic princess, but all were destined to be whores, however packaged.

Alan squeezed her hand. “Are you all right?” Huiann nodded. She’d demanded he bring her along and now she must be brave. The police weren’t here in an official capacity and the task force expected some resistance from the procurers who ran the row for their bosses. The street had already emptied of pedestrians at the sight of the police.

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As Alan helped Huiann down from the seat, several uniformed officers dismounted from their horses or climbed down from the back of the wagon. They fanned out, clubbing the procurers, taking keys from them and opening stalls. They rousted clients and prostitutes from the small cells. Men ran away, pulling up their trousers or half-naked with clothes clutched in their hands.

The women huddled in small groups like sheep, bleating their fear. Huiann plunged into the melee, calling out reassurances in both Wu and Mandarin. “It is all right. You are saved. The police will not harm you. They are here to help you.” Terrified of the uniformed white men who herded them toward the police wagons, the women clustered around Huiann, clamoring for information.

“The police will not hurt you,” she repeated. “You are being rescued. Trust me.” She clasped one hand after another, offering comfort and directing them toward the back of the wagon, breathing in the scent of sweat and sex and fear.

Alan had gone to help the policemen in their mission. She glimpsed him farther up the street, speaking to a young girl. He took her hand and led her toward the wagon.

A shot cracked through the air. Several of the women screamed. Policemen shouted and ran toward the source of the gunfire, their pistols drawn.

“Get inside!” Alan ran toward Huiann, dragging the girl with him. “Get them all inside before someone gets hurt.”

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Huiann continued to try to soothe and calm them. The girl Alan had brought clutched her arm. “Will we go home now?”

“Where will they take us?”

“What will happen to us?” others asked as the door clanged shut and only a barred window emitted light into the black interior.