Page 25 of Preying Heart
Her.
How strange it is to borrow underwear from one of his lovers to go see a female doctor who might have also been offered her pick from Heath’s collection.
I take a beige bra—the largest one I can find—and a pair of beige bikini panties. Not touching the hot red or sexy black ones with a ten-foot pole. Maybe the doctor can help me find a shelter where I can lay low until my baby is born.
And then what?
I’m getting ahead of myself.
“How soon can we go see her?” I tuck the underwear under my armpit and pick out a pair of sneakers from the shoe tree.
His gaze does a slow tour of my body, almost like he’s picturing me in the racier pieces or maybe he’s fantasizing about undressing me. I should be uncomfortable, but part of me relishes his attention and I’m struck with an unusual sense of adventure.
You ask a man to protect you and he wants benefits. It doesn’t scare me, as long as he doesn’t hurt me—or threaten to kill me because I won’t do what he says.
“Heath? I need to know because I don’t want to keep bleeding. You wouldn’t happen to have any pads, would you?”
“Oh, I might. Let me look in the bathroom under the sink.”
“Youarerunning a department store.” What I don’t add is the question niggling at my mind. Where did the women go? And why did they leave their clothes?
Could Heath be helping himself to the trafficked women he rescued, and is this why he’s hiding? From the offended traffickers or from the law?
He returns with an opened box of sanitary pads. Looking sheepish, he hands it over. “Let’s have breakfast, and then we’ll go. But first I have to take a picture of you.”
“Why?”
“Fake ID. Pick a name you’ve never used before.” He winks as he leads me from his room and locks the door.
“Is Heath Ruger a fake name?”
“Depends on your perspective. When I’m in town, I go by Tristan Summer.” He gets close. “I prefer to be Heath to you.”
“Okay, then I’ll go by Blair Greene.” I’m not sure why my voice is so breathy like I’m on a windswept moor with a mysterious stranger.
“Tristan and Blair are lovers.”
“Yes, we’re vacationing—driving across the country.”
“And that’s my baby you’re carrying.”
“I don’t want to lose it.”
“Good. That’s all the doctor needs to know.”
For a moment there I imagine he’s about to kiss me. But he stops himself and nods, almost as if he’s convincing himself this isn’t a good thing. Him claiming the baby and us being lovers.
I turn away from him as if it doesn’t bother me. It shouldn’t. We’re only playacting for the doctor’s sake. She doesn’t have to know the real reason I’m living at Heath’s place.
“Does she know you’re Heath?” I ask conversationally.
“I pay her in crypto, and she treats the women I bring her. She doesn’t ask questions, but I’m sure she recognizes the tattoos some of them are marked with.”
“And you? Where do you find the tattoos?” I have one in between my inner thighs, the spear of Odin, as a symbol of the type of man I admire—a strong, silent, heroic man who could earn my respect and devotion without bullying me and using my fear.
“The traffickers brand their victims, but since you’re not one of them, the doctor will have no reference point for how I found you.”
Neither do I.
