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After going over every possible job I thought I could do, I’d settled on the one at a bar in Houston. I fell asleep quickly because I knew I had been under stress from being in the water with the hot sun bearing down on me for a week, and I was worn out. I wasn’t myself just yet, and I knew it and so did Lucas. Perhaps that was why he didn’t bother me.
When I woke he’d delivered some food into my room, and I could smell baked chicken and macaroni and cheese which had been better than boiled chicken. Along with the meal came a note:
Gone to the clinic for an emergency, be back when I can. This is all I know how to cook. A chicken and mac and cheese, and a salad. Hope you enjoyed it.
Doc
I wondered why I never met a man like him before, I thought, as I took a mouthful of mac and cheese. “Hmm.” The best I’d ever eaten, but underneath the note I found a bill from a restaurant.
He had me excited and into him with that note about him cooking me a meal. Now I had to think about him and why he’d lied about such a simple thing as cooking. Why would he lie over something as simple as this? I wondered. What more lies could he be telling me? And why did I care when I’d told him a lie also.
“Hmm. No one is ever what they seem.” I just didn’t want to be confronted this early and have to think about what I’d done by accepting his invitation to live here with him. What else could he be hiding? I’d have to figure out how to get some money and get out as soon as possible.
I didn’t judge him just like I hadn’t judged Max when I first met him, and the way I’d met Max. I knew Max was mysterious, sexy, and the best fuck I’d had in my life, but I didn’t know how much I’d enjoyed him and the sexual things we’d done together.
I didn’t know he loved to be tied up and wanted me to whip his ass and how he’d enjoyed spending hours licking my pussy giving me the most satisfying and enthralling orgasms a woman could have. That part sealed it for me and now I couldn’t function with a man unless he was into that.
It appeared Jonas had those inclinations, and I enjoyed him so much, but I was afraid to admit it and recognized that I’d fallen for him too. That would never work out, and there was no way Max should find this out, because if he did, even though Jonas and I made love under duress, I didn’t think Max could get over it or our family would be the same.
That would be the secret to take to the grave as some would say.
Max loved when I satisfied him, and he loved to satisfy me more. He wasn’t a selfish lover, but he was a selfish husband. He was jealous of everyone including Jonas. Nothing had happened between us before, and I thought nothing would until we had no choice aboard Christian’s yacht.
Jonas did everything for me. He risked the love of his brother to keep me safe from that man I’d married, and from the other men Christian had planned on selling me to.
Picking up the paper and marking the ad that fitted what I needed, I found something I could do. I’d been a cocktail waitress when I ran away from Max because he took my son, Maxim, and wouldn’t let me have him unless I married him. At the time I didn’t want to because I didn’t know him, and I didn’t know he loved me, and the only way he knew how to show me was to hold me close to him, have Jonas stay nearby and watch me. When Max was ready to give me his attention, which had become occasionally after we married. He was busy and never around, therefore, Jonas became my constant companion.
I reached for a pen near the bed and circled a place where I could drive to early tomorrow and apply for a position as a cocktail waitress. Since Lucas would usually leave early it should be easy to drive there, and get back to his place before he arrived home that evening.
Just as I looked up, and placed the paper to the side, Lucas knocked and walked into my bedroom. He’d said it was my sanctuary, and he would never enter it unless I asked him in. Another lie.
“I thought you would be late. I ate the dinner as you can see.” I offered him a closed smile, not wishing to find out why he’d lied about a little thing as cooking. “Are you hungry?” I stood and before I could hand him the salad or offer it to him, he reached for my wrists, and turned me around to face him. We were close, eye to eye and I was uncomfortable, afraid. “You’re hurting my wrists, Lucas.” He dropped them like they were hot pokers.
“I’m sorry, Alex, but I don’t know what it is when I’m with you. I like you so much and I want to protect you.” Staring into his eyes, I thought, maybe protect me from you. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He read my thoughts, or he glanced at my face and saw that I was afraid of him. Maybe he should be afraid of me.
If he’d read the papers lately, then perhaps he would be.
“You didn’t hurt me, it was just that I wasn’t used to anyone approaching me in that manner. I thought we were friends.” I tried to make the situation comfortable because, after all, I had to live with him for a few mornings.
“I know, but would you consider being more than just a friend?” He tucked his hands in his pockets and shrugged his shoulders while wearing a deceptive closed-mouth grin.
“You know nothing about me, Lucas, and I don’t know anything about you,” I lied. “I may have a husband and children and a lover for all we know. Then that wouldn’t be fair to either one of us if we struck up a relationship. Maybe when we’ve found out about each other, then we can make a decision on how far we can take our relationship.”
I was stalling for time, and Lucas might have believed me when I said I would take on another relationship. I had too many now, and there was no way I’d complicate my life with another man I knew little about, or cared to know about him.
Lucas pushed back my hair that had fallen over my eyes. “I don’t doubt that someone is looking for you. If you were mine, I’d comb the seas and every town from here to New York.” I’d bet he would at that. That was another reason not to get too involved, and to leave here as soon as I could afford to.
“If you don’t want someone to find you, I can make it so they never will... I have resources where you and I can go away to another country, you name it, and you’ll never be discovered until you want to be found.”
I tried to calm down, but I shook inside. I didn’t change my expression because I didn’t want to tip him off. I thought he was insane and scary. I managed to pull it off because he smiled. If Dr. Lucas was thinking like that, then I’d misjudged him once more, and for a doctor to make such statements, who knew what he was capable of doing?
“What about your practice?”
“I have to close down my practice anyway. We could go to the south of France or anywhere you want. What do you say Alex?” What could I say. Hell no. I just got out of a relationship with a man I’d married in a hurry and lived to regret it in so many ways. “How many men can make that kind of promise to you?” More than you think. “I can give you every monetary thing you’ve ever wanted in your life.”
I stared at him, knowing he couldn’t read my mind. I smiled. “I don’t need much to make me happy.” Just a man or the men I love, and I don’t love you, and I can’t go through this again. “All I need is to get out of here and buy some clothes to make me feel better. I can select them myself, and can I borrow your Jeep tomorrow?” I strode away from Lucas, but I felt his eyes on me, if there was such a thing.
“I don’t think you’re ready to exert yourself so soon, but I’ll give you a credit card and some money and you can go shopping. I hope you come to realize that I only want you to get well.” Then you’ll want to have sex with me, I imagined. When I refused, then what?
My whole body lit up when he said I could get his car and money. Now I could go out and try to find out what the authorities know, and whether they thought I was alive or dead. And get to Houston, and try to secure a job, get the hell out of here, before I found myself in another hot mess.
“Would you give me a kiss?”
Oh for fuck’s sake. I stood back with an expression of shock and revulsion. Didn’t he hear or understand what I’d been saying. I’d just met him, and I didn’t feel about him the way he felt for me.
I’d been caught off guard. He appeared to be needy, but not a man who would beg a woman for a kiss. He was handsome and personable, and rich I thought. Aside from the glasses he wore on occasions he was great looking. As far as I could see or tell, he had no sexual deviancies or hangups in his life. But then I didn’t know him well enough, I could be wrong. I’d been wrong about Max, I’d been wrong about Jonas, and I’d been wrong about Robert and Christian, and scores of men I’d met in my thirty years. What could make me think I’d found the answers to the age-old questions why men were the way they were, and functioned the way they did?
“I don’t think I’m ready. Although I have little memory there is something in my past that prevents me from striking up a relationship with you at this time.”
Lucas narrowed his gaze then as if he was holding back and didn’t want to run me away, his expression smoothed. “But it’s only a kiss. Let’s say it’s a friendly kiss.”
I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek and when I pulled back he had his eyes closed.
He shrugged his shoulders and gave a sly smile. “I guess that’s better than nothing,” he said, and reached for my hand and kissed my palm. Then he picked up the tray of cold uneaten food, and sauntered to the door, then he turned, and said, “I’ll be gone all day at the clinic tomorrow. I’ll leave the keys to the car, the code to get into the house, and money in the bowl in the kitchen. Sleep well, my beauty. I’ll see you tomorrow evening.”
I didn’t know how to feel when he closed the door behind him. I never liked to use a man because I didn’t like being used or lying. I’d never put myself in those situations with anyone except when I first met Max, and I tried to teach him a lesson. I was in my own world thinking I could teach men lessons. Because of that I’d gotten myself in all sorts of trouble.
After selecting something to wear tomorrow, a short black skirt and black top and for some reason there were a pair of black pumps in the closet that just happened to be my size. Seven and a half and with red bottoms. Did I mention how much I liked the red-bottom shoes to Lucas?
Picking them up and trying them on, I said, “These must have set Lucas back a pretty penny. Over a thousand dollars. But looking at this home and the property, I thought my doctor could afford it.
Here I was calling him my doctor. If he wasn’t before, he was now. Well, only for one more day or two. I would not be caught here any longer. Not after our conversation.
I watched a series on Netflix and fell asleep in the middle of The Witcher. I must have been tired and not ready to do anything but sleep and so I did.
When I woke up the episodes of The Witcher were coming to an end, and the sun was shining through the shutters. I knew it had to be around 7 a.m. I placed a robe on and went to the kitchen where I smelled fresh-brewed coffee. Thinking I’d find Lucas sitting at the table or on a stool, I decided to join him. When I glanced around no one was there. He must have gone to the clinic early.
I sat and ate the cold toast left on the counter after I’d poured myself a cup of coffee and turned on his small flatscreen television. I took a sip and when I raised the toast to my mouth, a newsreel came across the bottom of the screen and a reporter stepped into view of a strip mall.
My mouth opened and I placed my hand over my mouth, but it didn’t stop me from absently saying, “Isn’t that the clinic where Lucas works? There’s his car,” I said as if there was more than one person in the room.
Breaking News: “Dr. Lucas Wilcox has been arrested along with several nurses and two other doctors who run this clinic. He’s the head physician who administered pain medication to over a thousand patients, and he has been accused of running a pill mill, and helped addict thousands of people in over seven states.”
I stood, breathless and my heart knocking in my chest. I laid the toast to the side and took one last gulp of coffee, and searched around for the keys and money. I found it just where he said they would be. However, I left the keys to the house, grabbed a small bag and dumped some of the clothes into the bag, dashed to the garage, found the Jeep and hopped in shaking and hoping the FBI wouldn’t stop me before I reached the driveway.
After opening the garage door, I looked around and backed out, driving fast as I could get out of there. I didn’t know what to do at this point, except to head for Houston which was over two hundred miles going north.
As I drove to the road and managed to get out of the gated community, I came on six dark police cars barreling into the community with sirens blasting. What have I gotten myself into? I thought. I’m having a fucking bad year, and it looks like it’s not going to get better.
Finally I could rest, and I placed my hand inside the bag to check and see how much money I had to survive if I couldn’t get a job. Driving and looking down and up it became impossible to count it. But when I glanced down, it was all hundreds, and with one hand on the wheel and one hand on the money, I managed to feel my way through twenty one-hundred-dollar bills. I can get a suite or kitchenette at a low-cost hotel until I could secure some kind of employment.
In Houston I had choices, but I had to get enough money where I could get to my children when Max was away, and hope they didn’t look for this Jeep until I could replace it. I’d never done this kind of thing before. I’d never done a lot of things before, until I did.
Now I had to act like a fugitive when just recently I thought I had problems, but none would compare to being married to a monster, and now I was on the run with a car that belonged to a doctor who obviously bought this with the money he received from addicting everyone in the south and northeast. I had to keep my eyes on the road and my mind on what I had to do next. I almost ran that red light, and if someone discovered I was driving around in a stolen car, then that was another problem because I had no driver’s license, and nothing that said I should be driving this car anyway. And then that would present another problem. The problem of my dead husband. Everything would be easy to get out of, but the dead husband, I thought that was frowned on in most places, and presenting my case would be hard.
“Just who was the victim?” the DA might ask.