Page 12 of Wife Number One

Camilla didn’t offer any sympathies like Laurie or Scarlett might have. She hurried up the stairs, leaving me blissfully alone to sneak out of the house.

I slipped out, closing the door quietly behind me and searched the darkness for my actual sister. “Alice!” I hissed.

“Took you long enough,” she huffed, grabbing my arm and pulling me into the trees that surrounded my house.

I shook her off, casting a nervous glance back at the house, half expecting Camilla to be watching me out the window. “Stop it. You’re going to get us both in trouble. What are you even doing here? Does Dad know you’re out of the house?”

Alice huffed. “I’m a grown woman. I’ll do as I please.”

“Don’t talk like that,” I scolded. I knew all too well how sass and independence got you in trouble. I grabbed my sister’s arms and spun her to face me. “You know what happened to me when I started thinking along those lines. Don’t follow in my footsteps. What do you want that’s so important it couldn’t wait until morning?”

Alice swallowed thickly, her expression turning serious. “I think Hayley Jade is in danger.”

My mouth went dry, and my heart that was already beating too fast, just because I was breaking the rules, went into overdrive at the mention of my daughter’s name. “Is she hurt? Where is she?”

It didn’t matter that she no longer knew me as her mother. That it was some other woman who got to tuck her into bed each night. My heart still knew she was my child.

“I’ll show you.” Alice dragged me into a brisk walk, and this time, instead of protesting, I followed, keeping pace with her quick steps.

“Don’t ask me why I was out past curfew. I just was. But when I was sneaking back, I noticed that.” She pointed ahead.

Through the darkness, a dull orange light glowed. The sounds of voices floated in the cold night air.

I stopped. “The men are at the bonfire. So what?” It wasn’t exactly an unusual event. We didn’t have a bar within the community, and drinking in homes wasn’t allowed. Women were expressly forbidden to indulge.

But we all knew the men did. It was hardly a secret when they rolled home at two in the morning, too drunk to hide it. Not that they would have bothered trying.

Alice’s lips twisted into a grim line. “They have Hayley Jade with them.”

My eyes widened in shock, and then I was running through the woods, not caring if anyone heard me coming.

Alice caught me and pulled me down to the ground as the circle of men appeared. “Are you insane?” she whispered, puffing slightly from having to jog to catch me. “You can’t just run in there!”

I tried to calm my rapid breathing, but I couldn’t suck in enough air at the sight of my little girl, sitting on a man’s lap looking tired and confused while he drank from a dark-colored bottle.

“Where’s Shari?” I bit out around the lump in my throat. “Is this what she thinks being a mother is? Leaving your child to a group of men she barely knows?” I wrung my hands, fighting the urge to leap out from behind the fallen log we were using as cover and race across the clearing to snatch my daughter from the arms of the man I’d only seen a few times at church. I couldn’t even remember his name.

“I don’t know.” Alice rubbed my hand slowly, soothingly. “But right now, everything is okay. I don’t know what’s going on here, which is why I came to get you. But Hayley Jade is there. She’s safe at least for now. Maybe Shari asked Onith to babysit her tonight?”

I stared at my sister. “So he brought her to a bonfire so he could get drunk?” I stared back at the possessive hold the man had on Hayley Jade’s waist and didn’t like it. “You can’t seriously tell me you believe that, otherwise you wouldn’t have just told me my daughter was in danger.”

Alice sighed. “Maybe I’m just being dramatic. This could all be very innocent…”

Except her instincts had been it wasn’t. And mine were screaming in alarm at the very sight of one small girl surrounded by so many men.

Drunken laughter came from the woods beyond the far side of the circle, and out stumbled Shari and a man I’d never seen before. Shari tugged at her clothes, trying to straighten them, while the man groped her breasts, fighting against her to free them from her woolen top while she tried to get it back into place.

Alice gasped. “Oh, that slu—”

I cut her off with a glare. “Don’t you dare call her a name. Look at her face. You think she has a choice in whatever is going on here?”

Josiah raised an eyebrow at the couple, but his gaze focused on the man. “Well? What do you think?”

“I think your women are very lovely.” He sat heavily on one of the wooden seats surrounding the fire. He grinned at the circle of men. “She was real sweet, bouncing up and down on my cock.”

They all laughed, while Shari blushed and stared down at the ground, mortification written all over her face.

Josiah nodded like he was pleased and turned his gaze to the man beside the newcomer. I didn’t recognize him either.

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