Page 19 of A Very Mountain Man Wooing

She takes a shaky breath and nods. I pick her up, carrying us over to the futon and settling her in my lap.

“My dad is pretty far up in the church. He’s basically the leader’s right-hand man, which is why my brothers and mom didn’t want to leave. They’re treated well and respected, but I’ve seen what it was like for the other members. There were kids living in squalor and people beaten or tossed out because the leader said so. It’s sick, Whit.”

I nod, hating that she grew up like that. I wish I could go back in time and find her earlier. I wish I could have rescued her from all of that.

“When did you decide to leave?”

“When I was fourteen, but I didn’t actually pull it off until I was nineteen. The compound is locked down pretty tight and no one really comes or goes so it took me a while.”

“What happened there?” He asks quietly and I swallow hard, my fingers twisting together in my lap nervously.

“They were marrying off girls young back then, and I was so afraid that I was going to be chosen. I realized then that I couldn’t live like that.”

“How did you escape?” I ask her, and she seems to deflate in my arms.

“I had convinced them to send me to cosmetology school so that I could learn a trade. I lucked out and they agreed. I thought that it was because maybe things were starting to change, but really they just wanted me to be more amenable when they told me that I was marrying Richard.”

I want to kill Richard. Her whole family, actually. How could they treat this angel that way?

“I graduated, and they told me that night at dinner. The church was involved in drugs. I know because I walked in one time to a bunch of people stuffing white powder into a bunch of bags. I knew when the trucks left, and I stowed away on one of them. When they stopped for gas, I snuck off, and I’ve been trying to put distance between them and me ever since.”

“And you think that they’ve found you now?”

“My mom has been calling. That can’t be a good sign,” she says, and I have to agree.

I brush some of her black hair away from her face, and she looks up at me, her blue eyes luminous in the low evening light.

“I have contacts. I’ll have them look into your family and the church. We can keep tabs on them, okay? Maybe I can find some dirt on them all and we can get them arrested. Then you won’t have to worry about them for a while.”

She perks up at that, at the thought of not having to worry about if she’s safe somewhere or not and my heart breaks a little more.

“I’m going to keep you safe, Anise. I’ll always fight for you,” I tell her, and she nods.

“I know,” she admits quietly.

The words are on the tip of my tongue and I’m so sick of holding them back. I know she’s been through a lot today, but she needs to know.

“I love you, Anise.”

She looks up at me, her dark blue eyes filled with hope, and my heart stalls in my chest as I wait to see how she’ll react.

“I know. I love you too, Whit,” she says, and the words are like music to my ears.

I want to demand that she says that over and over again, but I know that she needs me to comfort and distract her right now, so instead, I seal her mouth with mine and do my best to make her forget the past.

EIGHT

Anise

“I’ll be close by.I’m meeting Hunter and we’re going to do some recon on your parents and the church. If you need anything, you call me, okay?” Whit asks as he pulls into a parking spot in front of Snips.

He didn’t even want me to go to work today, but I fought him on it. He wanted to sit in the lobby and watch me, but I want to be able to live my life, and having Whit hover over me is only going to put me on edge.

I finally convinced him to let me go to work alone, but he made me promise to text him every hour to check-in.

“I will,” I promise him. “Mabel and Grier are here, and I’m sure that Jonah will be by at some point. Plus, the other girls are coming in today for their appointments. There will be a ton of people around.”

He nods and hops out to get my door. When he opens my door, I smile, wrapping my arms around him.

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