Chapter Seven
Pepper
I run the water in the sink and lean in, splashing my face over and over until my brain feels normal again. I’m not sure it does, but I hear a weird noise, so I turn the faucet off to listen closer.
Now, of course, I hear nothing.
Maybe I imagined the noise the same way I imagined Rhett’s massive fingers inside of me. God, I hope I didn’t imagine it, or at the very least, I hope I can imagine some more. A lot more. Maybe this time I sink onto his cock and bounce.
My clit throbs as I strip off the scratchy, crinoline skirt and slip into the T-shirt Rhett left for me earlier. It’s solid gray with their business logo on the front.
‘Combat Craftsman.’ It has a nice ring to it.
The T-shirt hangs far below my knees, swallowing me whole, and it smells woodsy and warm just like the man that was pressed up against me thirty minutes ago.
God, I need something productive to do so I don’t sit here and spiral.
When I start thinking too much, I start rationalizing, and I don’t want to overthink this.
I want to stay oblivious as long as possible.
Thankfully, the paint for the lake house is sitting in the corner of the room along with all the supplies I dropped off before Nathan made me quit.
I still don’t understand why he and Rhett don’t get along or how they even know each other, but whatever it is, I’m not thinking about it.
I’m enjoying my break from reality in this tiny, little, kidnapped bubble.
How sad is it when someone needs to get kidnapped before they get a break? It sounds like a joke.
I suck in a deep breath and use a quarter I see lying under the bed to open a can of light green paint. Rhett said he wants a beachy feel for the cabin. Not an ocean type of beachy, but a mountain-lake type of beachy, so I went with light turquoise… or ‘emerald skies’ as the paint swatch insists.
When the top is off, I pick up the wood stirring stick, and dip it into the paint slowly, watching as the yellows, blues, and greens remix to form the smooth greenish color I ordered.
Then, I grab the plastic sheet and spread it over the newly installed pine wood floors.
I could cover the whole room, but I decide to start with the two back walls instead of diving into the whole room tonight.
I’m not sure I have energy for it, anyway.
Energy… shit!
I should call my mom!
I was going to call her earlier, and instead I got distracted with calling Nathan.
Paint brush in one hand, I grab Rhett’s phone off the nightstand and dial my mother’s number through the app he downloaded. I’m sat in front of the wall, painting along the top of the molding when she answers in a panic.
“Hello?”
“Mom, it’s me.”
“Peanut!” she exhales loudly. “Oh, my Lord. My sweet, little peanut! How are you doing? Where are you? Are you okay?”
I hold the phone between my shoulder and my ear, trying to figure the best way to calm her. I should’ve thought of all of this before I called.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I say, dipping my brush in more paint. “I’m,” I should’ve thought about what I’d tell her first, “with a friend. I’m okay.”
“With a friend?” Mom groans. “What friend? All your friends were at the wedding. They’re all wondering where you are. Honey, what’s going on? Nathan is saying someone took you.”
I lean into the wall, carefully drawing the slanted brush in a straight line. “Technically, someone did take me, but I’m okay.”
“You’re being very vague, peanut. What’s your address? I’m sending someone out there to get you.”
I should want to leave, right? I should want to run.
I should want to get back to my life and see what the world looks like without Nathan.
Without a groomzilla. Without the guilt and pressure of knowing I stayed with a man that hurt me.
Instead, I’m a little sad at the thought of this alternate world with Rhett being over with already.
I don’t know why, but it feels like we’ve slipped into another dimension.
Like here in this lake house, we can be whatever we want to be, whoever we want to be, and we don’t owe any answers to anyone.
He can be Daddy, I can be his baby girl, and we can do filthy, nasty, liberating things to each other.
“Mom, I’m okay.”
“Pepper Ann,” my mother’s voice turns stern, “if you don’t tell me right now where you are, I swear on all that’s holy! You know how sick I am! I can’t be worrying about where you are too!”
My mother never pulls the sick card. In fact, most of the time she’s avoiding the subject completely. I once found her lying on the floor, her leg broken from a fall, and when I rushed into the room, she told me she didn’t call for help because she didn’t want to interrupt my study time.
So yeah, the fact that she’s threatening me right now and using her illness means she’s serious. “You remember that paint job I was going to take?” I say, smoothing paint into the corner of the wall.
She clears her throat. “You mean the one with the big, hot, bad boy I told you wasn’t for marriage?”
“Yeah,” I squeak. “That one.”
“So you’re with him?”
“What?” I flatten another line of paint, as I try to shape what I’m going to say next. I can’t tell her I’m really with him, right?
I think I already have.
“Mom,” I pause, a drop of paint dripping on the plastic, “listen. I want to be here, okay? I need some space to figure some things out.”
“Peanut,” my mother steadies her voice, though I can feel her stress through the line, “what about Nathan?”
“I broke up with Nathan.”
“What?” she gasps. “When?”
“I called him a few hours ago. I… I didn’t want to go through with the wedding. Something wasn’t right. He’s not my person. You have to trust me on this one.”
“So, you ran off with the tattooed guy? Pepper Ann… you’re,” her voice drops off and she huffs, “not thinking straight. Nathan is wealthy. Wealthy men can be… strange, but he cares about you. You said it yourself. Plus, you’ll be taken care of for the rest of your life.
So will your children. Don’t you want that? Come on, honey.”
I never told my mom Nathan had been abusive because I knew it would stress her out. With her multiple sclerosis, often times big stressful issues cause her physical pain as well as emotional. “He isn’t the right guy for me, Mom.”
“And the bad boy is?” she says, her voice lowering as though the room is filled with people, though I doubt it is.
My parents never have guests these days.
They used to all the time, but Mom’s diagnosis changed a lot of things.
“Peanut, think about this for a second. I saw how happy you were with Nathan. People get scared before weddings is all. Go back and call him. He’ll understand. ”
Given the fact that Nathan always puts on a show of compassion and kindness when he’s around others, it’s not a surprise to me that my mother thinks he walks on water.
I mean, the man gave thousands of dollars to an animal shelter in my name last year for my birthday.
Publicly, he’s a saint. Privately, that same night, he called me a bitch and told me I was selfish for wanting to spend time with him.
“I’m going to sleep on it, Mom,” I say, assuming this will appease her.
“Sleep on it where? In that bad boy’s house?”
I giggle a little when she calls him a bad boy again… to myself, of course.
“Yes, Mom. I’m sleeping here.”
I can almost hear her shaking her head. “Pepper Ann, maybe you should talk to your father. I don’t think I’m getting through to you.”
“Mom,” I smile as I draw in a deep breath and set the paint brush on top of the can, “there’s nothing to talk to Dad about. I’m fine. Are you fine? How are you feeling?”
“Worried,” she snaps. “Very worried.”
“I get it,” I say softly, truly hating that I’m causing her any pain, “but does this call help a little? Do you feel any relief?”
“I do, but… I don’t know this man you’re with. People are saying they saw some big guy carrying you out of the venue. That he put you in a truck. That this man you’re with is aggressive.”
I wonder for a second if anyone got pictures of Rhett’s truck, or a license plate number.
There aren’t security cameras at the inn.
I know because the bakery installed a few cameras years ago to see who was breaking into the shop every night, and the whole town had a conniption and demanded they not be surveyed.
Turned out, the break-ins were due to racoons, and the bakery removed their cameras and reduced the price of bear claws as an apology to the very private mountain folk.
That doesn’t mean though that someone didn’t get a picture with their cell phone. I mean, people are looking for reasons to go viral these days. A video of a man kidnapping a woman in a small mountain town would definitely catapult someone’s social media career.
Why does it make me nervous that I might be found? I should want to be found.
I’m a mess!
“He did carry me out of there, Mom. I—”
“So, you weren’t planning to leave?”
I dip the brush again and refocus on cutting a sharp edge before I answer.
“I was thinking about leaving all morning. That’s what we talked about, remember, when I called you.
Nathan and I aren’t right for each other.
I was too scared to say it before the wedding, and I was wrong to leave today, but…
thankfully a friend was there to talk some sense into me. ”
“A friend,” my mother repeats as though I’m talking shit.
It’s a familiar tone. One she’d use with me when I stayed too late at Nikki’s when I was a kid.
“Well, if you won’t talk to your father and you won’t listen to me, I guess you’ve made your choice.
Just tell me one thing. Do you really trust this guy? ”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation, my heart thumping as I wonder why I trust him.
I shouldn’t.
I have no reason.
In fact, I have a negative balance on the ledger of reasons to trust him, yet I do.
“He’s kind, Mom. Really, I’ll be okay.”