Chapter 6
Chapter six
Noah
I woke up and slowly opened my eyes. Light streamed in through the wall of windows across from the bed, which meant I’d slept in.
That was surprising. I hadn’t expected to get any sleep after my nightmare.
Normally, I lay awake for hours after I had one, afraid to go back to sleep.
Afraid I would see their faces again, feel the zip ties on my wrists, or see what they did to the other people they held.
The man who’d purchased me at the auction had insisted I be kept in what he called pristine condition for the price he’d paid, but I saw the way a couple of the men looked at me.
They treated the other captives like they were property, and I could tell they longed to treat me the same way, like it was their right.
I was never sure if their greed would win or if they would break and decide to take what they wanted.
I closed my eyes tight enough to see stars and then shook my head to get rid of those thoughts. I wasn’t down in that basement anymore. Not only that, Jackson and the rest of the guys at Three Bears were going to make sure it never happened again.
I looked over at the empty side of the bed where Jackson had been.
I couldn’t believe I’d practically begged him to stay with me, but he made me feel safe in a way I hadn’t in a long, long time.
I was guessing sleeping with your client, even platonically, was against some kind of bodyguard rule, but he’d done it for me anyway.
I sat up in bed and looked out the window. It looked out over the backyard, and it was beautiful out there. I was about to get up when I caught movement in the trees and froze. A large deer stepped out of the woods, followed by a little one with spots on its back.
I looked around for Jackson and found him sitting in the recliner in the living room, drinking a cup of coffee and reading a book.
“Jackson,” I hissed like I was afraid the deer would hear from in here.
He looked up. “What is it?”
“It’s a baby deer, come look.”
He put down his coffee and his book and walked over so he could see, a smile spreading across his face.
“She’s a pretty one. Isn’t she? Let me grab my camera.”
I sat there afraid to move, not sure if the deer could see me as well as I could see them, until Jackson came back with what appeared to be an expensive camera in his hand. He took a couple of shots from inside the house, then he looked at me.
“I’m going to go out the front door and try to get close enough to take a couple of pictures. I’ll be right back. They won’t notice if you move around in here if you want to get yourself a cup of tea. I put some water in the electric kettle for you.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
I slipped out of bed and went to the kitchen area.
He didn’t really strike me as a tea drinker, so I was surprised to find a small tin filled with a selection of tea bags sitting next to the kettle.
I selected a nice herbal tea, and once it was steeping, I walked over to the window so I could watch what was happening.
The mother deer was eating the berries off a bush while the little one stayed nearby.
I saw a shadow move off to the left as Jackson slipped around the corner of the house.
Either he was being extra quiet, or the deer was so into her snack she just didn’t care.
He lifted the camera and stood there taking pictures for a while until something startled the deer, and they both loped off into the woods.
Jackson came up to the back door and tapped on the glass for me to unlock it. I flipped the dead bolt, and he came inside. “That was fantastic.”
I went over to the kitchen counter to retrieve the tea I’d forgotten about while watching the deer. I took the tea bag out of the mug and took a sip before saying, “I didn’t know you were a photographer.”
“Amateur at best. Gator’s the real photographer. If he ever decided he didn’t want to keep running Three Bears, he could easily make a career of it, but he’s the one who got me interested in it.”
“Well, I would love to see your pictures sometime.”
He nodded. “Sure, but for now, let’s get you some food. I can cook eggs and bacon, or we can do bagels with cream cheese for breakfast.”
“Bagels sound good. Can I help?”
“Sure.” He motioned to some fruit he’d set out on the counter. “How about if you slice up some of that to go with it?”
“I can do that.”
He handed me a cutting board, and I pulled a knife out of the knife block on the counter and got to work.
“Do you cook much?” he asked me.
“Not often. I enjoy cooking for friends, but it seems like a lot of work just for me. How about you?”
“I mostly just toss some meat on the grill and have it with a salad. It’s easy.”
“I buy those pre-prepared meals at the grocery store that you just have to toss in the oven. They aren’t the best, but I figure they’re healthier than fast food.” I put the kiwi slices on a plate and reached for a handful of strawberries to cut up next. “What are we going to do all day?”
“I don’t know. We can go for a walk, watch some movies, or if you’re a reader, there are plenty of books to choose from.
Oh, we also have some puzzles. Wyatt’s really into jigsaw puzzles, word searches, and crosswords.
Oh, and those ones where you have to fill in the grid with the numbers.
There’s a little bit of everything in the closet over there.
” He pointed at a door in the living room, next to the bathroom.
I looked up from the strawberry I was cutting and grinned. “I think I’d like Wyatt. I do love a good puzzle. I haven’t done a jigsaw puzzle in ages, but my grandmother always had one going. She even had a special table she used for nothing but puzzles.”
“Well, we don’t have a special place, but after we eat, we can clear off the table, and you can pick one to put together.”
I paused to take a drink of my tea. “So is Wyatt the tea drinker? You seem to prefer coffee.”
He laughed. “No, the tea’s for Mabel Jenkins.
She lives around here. She and my grandfather were friends, and anytime she hears that me or Wyatt are in town, she stops by and drops off homemade things for us.
This time it was salsa. She likes to have an afternoon cup of tea when she visits, so I keep some around for her. ”
“That’s sweet of her, and of you.”
I popped a grape into my mouth and then set to work pulling a fair number of them off the bunch. By the time he got the bagels toasted and a couple of mini-tubs of cream cheese on the table, we had a decent plate of fruit to eat from.
We’d just sat down when Crowe’s phone rang. He looked at it. “It’s Wolfe.”
He answered the phone, and I sat there and ate my bagel while they talked.
“We’re okay here for a few days, but after that we would need to go to town for supplies, and I’d rather not have Noah that exposed…Yeah, if someone could get us one of the tanks, I would feel a lot better about that… Sure, here let me put you on speaker.”
He pressed a button and put the phone on the table between us.
“Hey, Noah. You hanging in there?” Wolfe asked.
“I am.”
“Okay, we have a plan to get you from there to here. I’ll be sending one of the guys to get you in one of our armored vehicles. You’ll be a lot safer out on the road in one of those.”
“Thank you, Wolfe. I don’t know how I would get through this without y’alls help.”
“Well, the good news is you don’t have to figure that out, because you have it. I’ll get back in touch with you as soon as I know our ETA.”
Crowe picked the phone up, took it back off speaker, and listened as Wolfe said something to him. He picked up what was left of his bagel, then he locked eyes with me. “I’ll be right back.”
He walked out the back door, and I watched through the window as he paced while he talked to Wolfe.
Every so often, he would glance in the house and give me what I took as a reassuring smile, but I knew they were talking about me.
I just hoped Wolfe didn’t decide I was too much trouble.
I couldn’t pay them, and I knew their services were pricey.
A few minutes later, Jackson walked back in. “Sorry about that. We needed to talk about some business pertaining to the camp.”
“It’s fine. Did he have any idea how long I might have to stay in Vesper?”
“No, we don’t even know for sure who the enemy is. Like he told you yesterday, he has his suspicions, but that’s all they are at this point. Are you in a hurry to get back?”
“I hate leaving Carina short-handed, but she can hire someone else, so I don’t have any reason to rush back.” I paused. Shit. I did actually have a reason. Things had been so crazy yesterday I hadn’t even thought about it.
“What is it?” he asked.
“There’s this fundraiser that I agreed to speak at. It’s really important, Jackson. I can’t back out.”
“Fundraiser?”
“Yeah, it’s to help raise money for the victims of human trafficking. Not everyone has Three Bears Tactical on their team, and therapy and starting over isn’t cheap.”
“How did you end up involved with that?”
“My therapist is on the organizing committee, and she asked me to speak. I’d told her I feel a lot of guilt because those assholes treated me differently than the others, and she thought doing something to help other victims might help.”
“Was this fundraiser publicized? What’s it called?”
“The Freedom Forward Gala, and yeah, it’s pretty well publicized. It has to be for them to meet their fundraising goal, but they assured me they wouldn’t use my name.”
“Okay, I assume they didn’t, or Kat would have seen it.
Give me a second.” He pulled out his phone and made a call.
“Hey, Kat, can you do me a favor? See what you can find out about an event coming up in Houston. It’s called the Freedom Forward Gala.
It’s a fundraiser…Yeah, thanks. I’ll talk to you later. ”
He hung up and then shot off a text to someone before turning back to me.