Page 56 of Wife Number One

On autopilot, I followed the path, overgrown with weeds up to my knees. The first bedroom window had once been covered by dirty, cracked glass, but now that was in shards, crunching beneath my boots.

The room beyond was where I’d delivered a baby girl five years ago.

Where I’d held her panicked mother’s clammy hand, looked her in the eye, and told her she was going to push and get that baby out.

It was also the room I’d kept five women in against their will, because I’d had no other choice.

Caleb and Luca had owned me. They’d owned Kara and the other women. Caleb had threatened my family until I’d been nothing but his puppet, doing whatever my master told me.

But Hayley Jade and Kara had been the beginning of my undoing.

In trying to save them, I’d gotten shot and almost died myself.

It had been worth it. Knowing they’d spent the last five years away from all of this, out of this shithole town, and safe with Kara’s family, had been the only way I’d gotten through the days. I’d only let myself ask my brother about her once, and when he’d reported that she’d gone home, I’d tried to put the woman and her daughter out of my head.

That hadn’t worked. I thought about them daily. Wondered if she’d married. Wondered what Hayley Jade would look like, now she was older.

I couldn’t forget the little girl who had been named after me.

Nor could I forget her mother.

A tiny, out-of-place noise shook me from my memories.

Instinctively, I reached for my gun, only to remember I hadn’t carried one in years. Shit. Coming back here unarmed had been stupid.

I froze, scanning my surroundings. The street was quiet. Nothing but the rustle of a gentle breeze that stroked the long grass, and the distant sounds of traffic on the main road in the distance.

I squinted, slowly swiveling in a circle.

Something had made that noise.

It came again, along with a scrawny creature who crawled out of the long grass to wrap her way around my ankles.

“Fuck, cat. You scared the shit out of me.” I breathed out slowly, letting my blood pressure come down before I squatted to stroke the kitten.

I withdrew my hand quickly, the animal covered in fleas. The kitten scratched its itchy spots against my boots and mewled insistently.

“You’re probably hungry, huh? You’re definitely in need of a bath, though I’m sure you won’t like that… Oh, fuck.”

A second and third kitten made their way out of the long grass and joined their sibling, scratching themselves on my shoes.

I groaned. “Seriously? I did not have kitten rescue on my bingo card for the month.” I shrugged. “Suppose I didn’t have getting fired on it either. Or arrested. Or offered the job of my dreams only to refuse it.”

The cats ignored my bitching and started up a chorus of noise, each one seemingly competing with the others for who was the hungriest.

“I hate cats,” I told them. “I think I’m allergic to you guys.”

They didn’t care.

I squinted at the wall of grass around us. “Don’t you have a mom somewhere to look after you?”

But if they did, she wasn’t doing a very good job of it. They clearly had empty bellies. One had a gunky eye that probably needed medication from a vet. And they all needed flea treatment.

A hawk flew overhead, letting out a screech.

Instinctively, I crouched over the little creatures, blocking the hawk’s view.

These kittens were easily small enough for a bird that size to pick up and make a meal out of.

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