Held (Finders Keepers #1)

Chapter 1

MARA

Angling my pregnant belly away from the wall in this small, dirty room, I press my face to the even smaller and dirtier window that’s cracked open.

It’s only an inch, but it’s enough for me to close my eyes and breathe in the outside air until my lungs burn.

I don’t know why I do it, though. The bleakness smells the same as yesterday. Like stale hope.

Which is ironic given the town’s name of Hope’s Stand.

There’s no hope for me. Not here and probably not ever. Hope and anything resembling it abandoned me from the moment of my birth when I was surrendered to a strict missionary couple. Unwanted because of my Indian blood, no matter how I came to be.

That’s what the Overstreets told me, at least, between forcing scriptures down my throat during every daily lesson. Whether it’s true or not, my bright blue eyes, brown skin, and black hair were more than enough for people to look down their noses at me.

A half-blooded savage girl.

And now Joe’s favorite thing to do is advertise me as such, forcing me to wear a mockery of a buckskin dress. The white men call the Indians savages, but they’re the only ones lining up to use me now.

Seems to me it’s just men in general who are savages.

It’s been almost a full year of being carted from town to town so Joe could sell me to whoever had enough coin to fatten his purse.

Until he decided this filthy back room here in a rundown building on the outskirts of Hope’s Stand was a good place to stash me a few days ago.

I had two blissful days of solitude while he and Chance sat out front and forced people down on their luck to sell themselves into indentured contracts.

It wouldn’t surprise me if some of them weren’t even sold willingly.

But that’s not my problem. Even if it was, what could I do about it?

No, if these past four years have taught me anything, it’s to keep my guard up and not let myself care about anything or anyone.

That staves off the hurt when things are inevitably snatched away.

Things like the mangy, stray dog who brought me small moments of happiness with her licking kisses before my first owner emptied six bullets into her frail body just because he could.

Or like the quiet toddler boy with mismatched soulful eyes from two years ago.

He’d clung to me with chubby hands on the auction block and whimpered as his new owner roughly jerked him from my arms, and then he was gone, too.

The baby in my belly stirs, and I absently rub the spot until its kicks settle.

I’m not naive enough to wish to keep it with me after it’s born, but I have the smallest peace of mind in knowing that it won’t suffer the same fate as the little boy from the auction block.

When I’d hesitantly told Joe one of the men had gotten me pregnant, I’d expected him to force me to get rid of it the next time the doctor with the grabby hands came around.

But he didn’t even ask which one did it. Part of me wanted him to question it, because then that would mean he cared just a little bit about me. Not that I could tell him even if he did ask, because I didn’t even know myself.

Instead, he’d told me to keep it. That he’d take me to the park and we’d watch all the respectable couples on their evening stroll, and I could choose one of them to adopt it after it was born.

But here I am almost ready to give birth, and there’s still no family for it yet.

Joe never did bring me to the park before he brought us here.

All I want is for my baby to go to a respectable family.

It’s not likely that we’ll stay in Hope’s Stand too terribly long, but maybe it’s long enough that there’s a chance I could see the baby every once in a while if Joe ever took me to the park.

Then again, if they saw me, they’d probably walk the opposite way and ignore me.

I suppose I wouldn’t blame them. It only serves to further the fact of why I don’t want the baby raised like this.

Raucous male laughter oozes beneath the closed door, and my entire body slumps with the heavy weight of my sigh.

I only have a few more minutes to myself before another dirty, sweaty man comes in.

I should have known more than two nights without having to service someone was too good to be true.

And once he’s done, it will all begin again the next day.

I never would have chosen this life for myself, but there’s no escape from it.

Rebellion is always an option, of course, fighting off every unwanted touch and being punished with no food.

But when one day without food continues into three days, and three days into five, hunger and a will to live overpower the defiance.

I might have tried going past five days months ago if I weren’t pregnant.

But now I have a baby who needs me to eat, so I stay and choke down each wretched bite of lukewarm food so my baby can have a chance to go to a family who can care for it better than I can.

All that’s left for me is to push the pain and humiliation of each encounter aside and escape in my mind to a blank emptiness where nothing and no one resides. My eyes might be open during every encounter, but I don’t see much anymore. All the men’s faces blur together.

Except for the bits and pieces of faces of the ones who like to make me cry. The ones who commit to inflicting even more pain when I refuse to shed a tear. Those are always engraved into my memory.

Like the man with the pockmarked nose who forces me to unbuckle his gun belt and kiss the leather before he marks up my back with it.

Or Joe, who makes me stare into his cold blue eyes and chokes me with his shaft until my eyes water and I almost vomit.

Or the man with the permanent red mark beneath his gloved hand, the cruelest of them all.

The one that has me willing to sell my soul to the devil himself if it meant I would never be hurt by him again.

To the ones who use me, it doesn’t matter that I have a belly swollen with a child due any day now. It doesn’t matter that any one of them could be the father.

The door opens, but I don’t turn around. I can smell the newcomer from here, and with a smell that strong, I don’t even want to see him. Instead, I silently bid farewell to the tiny window and lumber five steps to the dirty mattress with its filthy, crusted bedsheets.

Once I’m on the bed, I drift off into my hiding place inside my mind.

Sometimes it’s a dark void. Other times, like now, I’m in a field of giant, colorful chrysanthemums as the breeze ruffles over them.

They’re beautiful today. Bright petals of red and yellow and gold mixing with softer colors of peach and pink, all packed around their yellow centers.

I reach out to see if a petal is as soft as it looks. The blossom nuzzles my hand, then whispers to its neighboring flowers. Like Moses and the Red Sea that I was taught about, the chrysanthemums part, offering me a pathway of escape.

I wander for hours down that winding path, just me and my baby, until darkness falls and the flowers begin to droop. They won’t last long now.

Finally, a grunt and fingers digging into my hips signifies this is over.

I blink, but instead of dying chrysanthemums, the sparse room of what might as well be my prison comes into view.

“Yeah, you’ll do.” A stinging slap to my backside. “Get dressed and get your things together cuz you ain’t staying here no more.”

All the throbbing pain in my entire body rushes in now that I’m no longer able to hide in my mind.

Gingerly sitting up, I rub the distended curve of my unsettled belly as I decide to look at the man who was just inside me.

“Christ,” I mutter, taking the Lord’s name in vain as if I hadn’t eaten enough soap growing up to deter me. He’s ugly. And old. “What do you mean?”

Cutting a hard look my way, the man pulls his pants up over flabby buttocks before throwing a hat over what’s left of his gray, matted hair. “I mean Joe just sold you to me.”

What? I’ve been sold again? I bite back a laugh of misery. But then a forceful blow knocks my head to the side, bringing a more welcome pain than what I just experienced. After the ringing in my ears subsides, words trickle in.

“...hear me, you dumb bitch? I said get your things. Now hurry up, girl.”

Fine. It’s just another owner. I knew I wouldn’t be here in Hope’s Stand for long.

Cheek throbbing and back aching, I struggle to stand and feel around for my clothes, ignoring the wetness leaking from my backside and dripping down my thigh.

Wearing no clothes is nothing new, and in all honesty, I’d rather a man’s eyes than his touch.

Eyes don’t cause the kind of pain hands can.

Just as I pull the wrinkled and dirty dress over my head, the door to the small room opens, bringing in a fresh wave of dusty air. My lips curl when I see who it is.

Joe.

I hate the chill of his blue eyes. I hate his wiggly gray mustache. I hate the way his boots click on the floor as he walks to me. I hate even more the way he mockingly pats my cheek as he talks to the man claiming to be my new owner. “How was it, Crowley? Nice and tight like I told you she’d be?”

Crowley. So that’s the name of this disgusting old man whose leering eyes are almost as offensive as his stubby cock. But did Joe really sell me to him or is this man trying to steal me?

“Tightest little rump I ever had. And now that I’ve got my debt with the Dooleys paid off and a little left over to spare, I’ma make it all back again in a hurry with her and the brat she’s carrying.”

“Two for one for your new brothel. Plus whatever lucky bitch we snatch up for you. She’ll never see it coming.” Joe and Crowley share a cruel laugh, but two words ring in my ears as I realize what leaving Hope’s Stand means for me.

The brat.

Does he mean my baby?

No. Icy dread stabs into my stomach as if the baby overheard its inevitable fate. He promised me...