Page 20 of Triple Threat

But it wasn’t. I felt like a right heel now.

Chapter Nine

Sadie…

We declared a truce, Roan and I. Sort of. I mean, I was still scared of him and I was definitely afraid of who this Lock might be.

Howdid he know me? Did he really know me at all, or was he some creeper that had seen me on the streets and decided I was easy pickings?

Whoever this Lock was,and Roan too, they were rich, and I had about as much trust for the super-rich as I could throw one of them. To the rich, I was invisible, until I wasn’t and then I was just supposed to magically, somehow, just go away… my existence an affront to their fine sensibilities until one of them somehow managed to see through the dirt and rough living to realize I was somehow pretty.

Then it was a whole different sort of disaster. I don’t know. I never really saw myself as conventionally pretty. Too skinny, not tall enough, bony, flat chested,crazy…I closed my eyes, the rain pattering against the window pane in front of me, and I hugged myself.

Roan had left, mercifully leaving the bologna sandwich behind, saying he would fix something proper forthwith. I’d smiled, told him again it wasn’t necessary, and I was hoping that if I tried to be polite, gracious, and obedient, I might figure out how to get away.

I may be a prisoner here, but I may have been looking at it all wrong… there was no reason to bring even more trouble on my head. I needed to work smarter, not harder at this.

“Sadie.” I jumped, rubbing my arms and turned from the window, digging my toes into the plush carpet.

Roan frowned slightly and brought the tray he carried to the little round table with its two chairs perched near the window.

“Are you cold?” he asked, and I nodded. “I see,” he murmured and took off his dark gray cardigan. He came nearer, and I shrank out of habit. He stilled and held it out to me.

“Thanks,” I murmured and took it, shrugging into it, pushing the long sleeves back over my hands to the elbows. He was so big, and I was so rail thin, I could have wrapped the sweater around me twice.

He smiled and it made him almost… no, not almost. It made him handsome.

Still, he was my jailer, and I wasn’t about to buy into this whole Stockholm syndrome shit people were forever on about. I wasn’t like that.

“Come, have your tea,” he murmured, and he picked up a pot from the end of the tray and poured a measure of fragrant tea into a matching cup.

“Thank you,” I murmured, adding a bit of honey and cradling the cup between my hands for warmth.

“Sit,” he urged, and I did. He removed the silver dome from over the plate and said, “To start, a lovely potato and leek soup with fennel accents.”

“It’s the perfect day for soup,” I said and my gaze was drawn back to the windows.

“Bless,” he said. “Happy to have you in out of that.”

“I would be lying if I said it wasn’t nice to be warm and dry,” I replied. “But at the same time, out there, I’m free.”

“Oh, undoubtedly,” he said in his crisp and proper sounding accent, standing almost at ease, feet shoulder width apart, hand grasping opposite wrist, over his watch. “Free, yes… but are you really?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” I returned, tasting the soup. It was rich and flavorful, surprisingly so. It was reallygood. I had no idea what a leek or fennel was, but I was on board.

Roan smiled appreciatively at my expression, his chest puffing out in pride and something else. Something that looked a lot like vindication, but I couldn’t be sure.

“I mean, out there you lived in a different sort of bondage, did you not? The bonds of finding a warm, dry place to sleep, of scraping by for your next meal… here you have not a care, not a worry.”

“I have plenty to worry about,” I countered. He cocked his head, and I said, “Will you sit down? I’ll get a crick in my neck looking up at you – plus you’re creeping me out standing there looming like that.”

He pulled out the chair across from mine and seemed to have a little trouble lowering himself into it, his hand going to the thigh above the knee of his bad leg, wincing at a certain point before he became seated, and the discomfort faded from his strong features.

“Does it still hurt?” I murmured, then blushed. “You don’t have to answer that. It was rude of me to even ask. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said, shrugging it off. “It’s a natural curiosity, I imagine.”

“Still rude,” I mumbled, and he chuckled.

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