Twenty-Three

Oakley

I finished drying my hair and plugged in the straightener just as my cell phone rang in the other room. Setting down my brush, I walked into the bedroom to get it. Hamilton’s name lit up the screen. I’d managed to avoid him since Thanksgiving, but I was starting to feel guilty about it. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He was nice to me. He liked me. He wasn’t Wilder, and that counted for a lot since Wilder was a jackass.

I answered my phone.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Hey, stranger,” he replied. “You’ve been hard to get in touch with.”

Yeah, no kidding. “Thanksgiving ended up being busier than I’d thought, and then I had work to catch up on. How have you been?”

“Good, but I thought I’d see if you were available tonight. Dinner and a movie?”

I stared straight ahead, looking out the window. There was no future in this, but did I never see a future because I measured everyone up to Wilder? The Wilder I’d once known. Not the jerk he had become. I had to find a way to move on and let go of the past. Hamilton wasn’t that guy, but was it wrong to enjoy dating? It wasn’t a promise for a future. Just dinner and a movie.

“Yeah, that sounds nice. What time?” I replied.

There was a brief pause. I started to check to see if he was on the line.

“Let’s say, six? I can pick you up.”

“That sounds perfect,” I told him.

He let out a soft chuckle. “If you only knew how those three words have changed my mood.”

At least someone was happy about being near me.

“I’m glad I could help,” I said, smiling.

“What are you doing now?” he asked me then.

“I just finished drying my hair, and I’m about to get ready to go buy some groceries.”

“Why don’t you finish catching up on all your work, and I’ll pick you up at five instead? We can go get your groceries together.”

I frowned. That was a weird suggestion. Why would he want to go grocery shopping with me?

“Uh, okay, if that’s what you want to do,” I replied.

“It is. Besides, it gives me an excuse to be with you longer,” he said.

That was … sweet. Possibly. Or just odd. But whatever.

“I’ll finish up the orders I had come in last night, and then I’ll see you at five.”

“Promise?”

Okay, so Hamilton was starting to get a little clingy.

“Uh, yeah, I promise.”

“Good. See you soon, beautiful.”

When the call ended, I stared down at my phone, confused by that entire conversation. I should call Daphne and ask her about Hamilton’s relationship history. She wouldn’t have set me up with a stalker type.

I started to set my phone down when I saw five missed calls and five text messages. What in the world? This had to have happened when I was in the shower or drying my hair. Opening my phone back up, I saw they were all from an unknown number.

I clicked the voice mails first.

“Oakley, it’s Wilder. I’m going to call back. Please answer your phone.”

The next one.

“Dammit, Oakley, answer! I need to talk to you. It’s important!”

My heart started to race. Was Sarah okay? Oh God, what was wrong?

“Oakley, listen to me. Stay in your house. Do not leave. Do not open your door to anyone. Do not walk outside. And please, I am begging you, DO NOT get in your car.”

I was gripping the phone so tightly that I realized my hand was sweating. What was going on here?

The last voice message.

“Please. Call me back. For Sarah, listen to me. DON’T leave your house. CALL ME.”

Pulling the phone from my ear, I opened the text messages, all from the unknown number Wilder had been calling from.

Oakley, you are killing me here. I need to know you’re okay.

Answer me, dammit!

Stay in your house, Oakley. Do it for Sarah.

I need to know you’re alive. Just give me something here.

Oakley, please! Answer your goddamn phone!

I was shaking. I checked the time these had been sent, and it was an hour and a half ago. I’d been in the shower with my favorite playlist blaring.

I started to dial the number back. Sarah had to be okay. Why was he worried about me? What was going on? So many questions were running through my head. I didn’t know what to ask him first.

The moment the phone rang, I heard a loud noise in the front of my house. It sounded like someone had kicked in my door. I looked frantically around the room for something to use as a weapon. The only things that looked remotely dangerous were my hand weights. I ran over and grabbed them. They were only fifteen pounds each, but if I hit someone in the head with one hard enough, it might buy me some time.

When I turned around, Wilder was filling my doorway, and the sight of him made me want to weep with relief. Until I remembered that he had just broken into my house after calling and texting me several times.

“What is going on?!” I shouted, panicked. “You could have knocked or—I don’t know—used the doorbell.”

“We have to leave. Let’s go. NOW!” he barked at me.

I didn’t move. “I don’t have to do anything. You can either tell me—” I stopped talking as he stalked over toward me. “Wilder, what are you doing?!”

“We are leaving,” he said simply before taking the weights out of my hands, tossing them onto the floor, then picking me up and throwing me over his shoulder.

“WILDER! What in the hell?! PUT ME DOWN! I don’t even have on clothes! This is a towel wrap!” I beat on his back as he carried me through my house.

He didn’t respond, so I kept pounding on him and started kicking. This was insanity, and he needed to talk to me now.

“You are crazy! Put me down!”

“Don’t make me gag you and tie you up, Oakley,” he warned as we walked out of my house.

The damaged door was standing wide open. He hadn’t even tried to close it.

“I need clothes, my phone, to lock up my house! Wilder!”

“You need to shut up!” he snarled.

I couldn’t see where we were going, but I tried to lift my head enough to see my surroundings. We passed by my car and kept going. My house wasn’t locked up and couldn’t be thanks to the damage to my door. That stressed me out.

“Wilder, my house can’t be left open like that. I have my things in there. Anyone could break in.”

“It’ll be taken care of,” he replied, then opened a car door I couldn’t see and shifted me into his arms before shoving me into the backseat.

Black leather, tinted windows, the faint smell of cigar, and a man I did not know was in the driver’s seat.

Wilder climbed in after me and slammed the door. “Buckle up,” he ordered me.

I glared at him, tugging my towel wrap down to cover up what I could of my upper thighs and adjusting it over my breasts. I was practically naked and being kidnapped by my former brother-in-law. Things could not get any more twilight zone than this.

“Ready?” the driver asked.

“Yeah,” Wilder replied. “Make sure the house is locked up when the car is taken care of.”

The guy nodded.

“What car? My car?” I asked him.

He didn’t respond. The only reaction I got from him was his jaw clenching. This was Wilder. Sarah’s father. He wasn’t going to hurt me. I knew this. Yet here I was, barely covered up, in the back of a strange SUV, after he barged into my house and took me.

“Wilder, can you tell me if Sarah is okay?” That was my one real concern. The rest would fall into place after that.

He nodded. “She’s fine.”

Okay. I could at least be relieved about that.

“Thank God. Now, will you please tell me why I am basically naked in the backseat of this vehicle after being forcefully taken from my home?”

He turned his head, and his gaze drifted down my body, as if he was just now registering that I was wearing a terry-cloth wrap. I had told him I was naked before. He hadn’t cared.

Muttering a curse, he leaned forward and pulled off the brown leather jacket he was wearing. “Put this on,” he said, shoving it at me.

I reached out and took it. “This is great and all, but you need to explain what is going on.”

His gaze swung back to the road in front of us. “You’re in danger, Oakley. I had to get you out. That’s all you need to know.”

Danger? Me? What?!

“Wilder, that isn’t an answer. How am I in danger, and how would you know I was in danger? Are you … high?” I asked finally, not able to come up with any other reason this man had lost his damn mind.

The driver laughed, then tried to cover it up with clearing his throat.

“No, I’m not fucking high,” he bit out.

That had clearly annoyed him.

“Well then, why are we doing this? Why do you think I’m in danger?”

“Because you are.”

I threw up my hands in frustration. “Thanks for clarifying. I feel so much better about all this now. My phone was in the house, Wilder. What if someone calls me? I have plans this afternoon. Hamilton is coming to pick me up. What happens when he shows and I’m not there, but my door is smashed in, and my phone, purse, car are all there? Did you think of that? This is technically a crime you’re committing here. Taking me by force. It’s called kidnapping.”

“You can shut up, or I can gag you,” Wilder said, cutting his eyes toward me, as if he’d rather look anywhere else.

“Gag me? See, that’s only making the crime worse. None of this is legal. I’m your daughter’s aunt, and I realize you don’t—” I stopped talking as he reached behind the seat. My eyes dropped to his bicep that was flexing against the fitted, short-sleeved black shirt he was wearing. For a moment, lust made me forget what I was saying.

But the moment was brief when he jammed a piece of cloth into my mouth, grabbed my shoulder, turned me away from him, wrapped the cloth around my head, and began to tie it. I reached up to grab it when he yanked back on it.

“If you touch it, I will tie your goddamn hands,” he warned me in a low voice.

Whoever this was, it was not Wilder. I didn’t recognize this man impersonating him. Wilder was a jerk, but only to me. He was a computer nerd, albeit a sexy one. He lived in a fancy house and drove an expensive car. He loved his mom and lived on the right side of the law.

The cruel, unhinged guy who had just gagged me was not Wilder Jones. Although he looked just like him and smelled like him. And he seemed to hate me as much as him.

I sank back against the seat, leaving the fabric he’d tied around my head in my mouth. He wasn’t going to explain. I could trust him, couldn’t I? I mean, he hated me, but would he do something bad to me? He’d said he was saving me. I didn’t see how this was saving me, but okay. He was Sarah’s dad. He loved her. She loved me.

In his voice messages, he had sounded frantic. Worried. Actually terrified. He had been scared someone was going to get me. He warned me not to leave the house. Begged me not to leave the house, was more like it. All those things meant I was not being kidnapped to be sold into the sex trade or something equally horrible.

I had to trust Wilder. Assuming he wasn’t mentally insane and no one knew it.

The SUV pulled through the entrance of the Shephards’ ranch. I’d been here many times when I had dated Sebastian. I knew exactly where we were, but why were we here? Did this have to do with the dark, illegal things that I had heard this family was involved in? If so, why was I a part of it? UGH! So many questions, and if I took this stupid gag off to ask any, he’d tie my hands, and that would be terribly uncomfortable.

The driver didn’t go toward the house, but took a dirt road out behind the stables that went on for another mile. I’d never been back here. This was new for me. I looked at Wilder, wishing he’d say something. Tell me what was going on. He didn’t even acknowledge me. Damn him.

Finally, the SUV came to a stop near the foot of the mountain that backed up to the Shephards’ property. Wilder opened the door on his side and climbed out, leaving me sitting there. I watched as someone walked around the edge of the rock in front of us, and Wilder spoke to them. I couldn’t see who it was, only the back of someone’s head. The driver opened his door and got out, leaving me alone.

Wilder turned his attention back to the SUV, then said something before making his way to my side of the vehicle. He yanked my door open and held out his hand to me. “Get out.”

I glared at his hand, then back at him. He wanted me to get out in the woods behind the Shephards’ ranch? Dressed in a towel and his leather jacket? And I was barefoot.

“Man, you gagged her? What the fuck is wrong with you?” King Salazar asked, stepping up beside Wilder.

My gaze swung to him, then back to Wilder. King was out here. He was a Salazar. This was the Shephards’ property. All we were missing now was a Kingston. My heart rate sped up. I’d thought I was safe with Wilder, but if this involved the others, that meant it had to do with the illegal things that they might or might not do.

“She wouldn’t shut up,” Wilder told him.

“It’s Oakley. Jesus, you’re ending up as fucked in the head as Thatcher,” he grumbled, shaking his head. “Come on, Oak. I’ll take that off you.”

I reached up and pulled it down myself. Since I had someone on my side, I felt like my hands were safe from being tied. Sighing in relief, I smiled at King. “Thanks.”

He nodded. “No problem, sweets. Come on out. We need to get you inside. He’ll chill out once you’re safe.”

Inside? We were in the middle of the woods.

“Uh …” I looked down at my feet.

“Shit. You’re barefoot,” he said, stepping toward me. “Can’t hurt those pretty feet. Come here.”

Wilder moved then, stepping in front of him with a scowl. “Move,” he grunted, then grabbed me, picking me up and carrying me like a bride over the threshold. At least this time, I wasn’t slung over his shoulder.

He didn’t look at me as we walked over to the rock and then around to the side of it. Once we were close, I saw it. The door hidden by moss. He pressed a code into the keypad, then opened it before stepping inside with me. The moment we were through the door, he set me down. My feet hit cool, smooth rock.

“You got this? I need to get to the main house and check on things,” King asked from the doorway.

“Yeah,” was all Wilder said in response.

King winked at me, then closed the door. A loud click, followed by the sound of a bolt sliding into place, was the only sound in the quiet space. I turned to look down the tunnel and saw light and … a rug?

“Go on,” Wilder said behind me.

I was curious enough that I didn’t argue and walked the small distance to the opening. Pausing, I took in the large, open space. A sofa, recliner, twin bed, and a coffee table, three different floor lamps and an area rug filled the left side of the space. A kitchen, complete with a small table for two, filled the right side. There was an arched doorway straight ahead, and although it was dark inside there, I could make out a toilet. On the opposite wall was a set of barn doors.

Was there a bedroom in there?

“Wilder, what is this?” I asked, still trying to make sense of the fact that I was inside a mountain.

“A safe house,” he replied. “I’ll get you something to put on.”

He walked over to the bed and squatted down to pull out a drawer underneath it. I watched as he dug around and finally pulled out what appeared to be sweats and a hoodie. Both were going to be too big on me, but anything was better than what I currently had on my body. It would also be warm, and I was covered from head to toe in chill bumps.

He stood up and brought me the clothing. “Bathroom is in there. No door, but when you get inside, there is a lamp to your right. Turn it on, and you’ll see a curtain you can untie and use for privacy.”

I took the clothes from him. “Are you going to tell me what is going on?” I asked him.

He sighed, then nodded. “Yeah. First”—he waved at me—“just get some clothes on.”

I looked down at the clothes. “Yeah, okay.”