One foot in front of the other, he thought, his whole body feeling somehow lighter with every step. Just keep going.
“Lead the way, ma’am,” he told Jewel when he stood beside her in the hallway, swaying slightly, but resolutely staying on his feet.
She smiled and started down the hall.
Jake Nichols, with a rapidly lightening heart, followed in her wake.
2
Darla didn’t bother clothing him for the trip to his temporary home, so gooseflesh prickled his whole body before they even left her front yard. They also filled him so full of the damned drug he shivered with fear and flinched at every sound. And they chained him again, but this time, he didn’t have to wear them long.
Once he reached his destination, Darla’s guards dragged him from the back of the cart and threw him to the ground. He landed on his knees and stayed there, knowing they expected him to be submissive. And, since they dosed him with the drug again, he didn’t have much choice.
“Be careful with him,” a woman’s voice warned, but he didn’t dare look up to see who defended him.
No one else spoke as Darla’s women climbed back in the cart, jangled the reins, and drove away. As soon as they were on their way, someone was at Jake’s side to help him to his feet, but he jumped and grunted, shying from their touch.
“It’s okay,” a man told him as he gripped Jake’s arm. Jake peeked over and met the other man’s dancing brown eyes. “I’m the foreman, Shawn Brohm,” the man said with a crooked grin, “and she runs the place.” He nodded to the woman opposite him as they helped Jake to his feet.
“Hello. I’m Monica Avery,” the blonde woman said as she released his arm and moved to face him.
Upon laying eyes on her lovely curves, bright smile, and twinkling hazel gaze, Jake blinked in surprise before he recalled his circumstances and dropped his gaze. Something in her direct stare, in the kindness of her expression, unnerved him as much as the woman did herself.
“Welcome to our home,” she said in a friendly voice.
He flicked another glance in her direction, but only nodded in reply. He was so wound up with dread and anxiety from the drug, he could barely communicate; yet he was not so unnerved or disorientated that he didn’t notice her breathtaking beauty.
He couldn’t work any moisture into his mouth. His throat was too tight and his shaking so bad, he knew he would stutter unintelligibly if he tried to utter a single word.
“Are you cold?” the woman asked.
He shook his head, still unable to speak.
“What’s your name?”
He looked up again and then back at the ground. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Coughing, he tried again.
“J-Jake…Ni-Nichols.”
“Jake. I like that.”
Something in her tone, or maybe it was just his fear of being close to another woman with power over him, sent an icy shiver of dread down Jake’s spine.
“So, you’re not cold,” the woman said, “but you’re trembling like it’s twenty below. Did they give you the drug before you left?”
He nodded again.
She rested a hand on his arm and looked up into his face. He wanted to pull away, but something in her eyes held him immobile.
“You won’t have to suffer that again for as long as you’re here,” she told him. “I don’t use the drug and never will. You’ll be treated like a person here, not a possession, and you’ll be expected to treat others the same. Do you understand?”
He nodded once more.
The tightness in his gullet spread to his chest, and his breathing hitched uncomfortably with her standing so close.
“No chains either,” she said as she fit a key into the lock of his wrist shackles. “I hate to see these on you.”
He glanced at her face as she removed his restraints, and he met her eyes again when she reached for the one around his neck. He pulled back, a little alarmed, and she smiled at him.
“I won’t hurt you,” she said in a soft voice. “You’ll learn that in time.” She pulled the restraint from his neck and grimaced upon seeing the angry, red rawness beneath the metal, but she didn’t comment on it. “Are you hungry?”
He moved his head in the affirmative, and she turned to Shawn.
“Shawn, would you show Jake where he can get cleaned up, then find him some clothes and get him something to eat?”
“Sure,” Shawn agreed, his crooked grin once again adorning his suntanned face.
“You’ll probably want to rest after eating,” Monica told Jake. “The room Shawn will take you to is all yours. No one will bother you there. However long it takes, feel free to lie down and recover. Shawn or Rosa”—Monica tilted her head to indicate an older Latina woman standing a few feet away, scrutinizing them closely—“will check in on you to make sure you get anything you need.”
Jake nodded once more, understanding her words but not entirely believing them.
Shawn took him to a long, finished two-story building set to one side of the main house’s construction site. The building contained several one-room apartments with shared bathrooms and showers on both floors. Shawn showed him to a shower with hot running water, and Jake was in heaven. He hadn’t set foot in a hot shower in years.
Once he had cleaned up—he wished he could shave and trim his beard, but he was still shaking too much—he dressed in the hand-me-down clothes they had found for him and followed the foreman to the dining room for
