Page 18 of Two Hearts' Accidental Heroes

It was a windy August day, and she shivered as Wes approached the weathered pier located along the edge of the overgrown property. No one in a vehicle on the lake would even know that the cabin was standing there in the woods, built less than twenty yards away from the Pebble Lake shoreline, slightly elevated so that it overlooked the lake. In fact, in its state of disrepair, even the rickety weathered dock was barely visible from the lake.

“It’s a good thing we got a warning that someone bought that house,” Wes said, shutting down the engine and coasting into the dock. “There’ll be a shit load of workmen snooping around that place while they’re remodeling.”

Shanna nodded because she’d learned long ago that she should always agree with Wes. He had a volatile temper. At least he used to have one. She’d been puzzled by the changes she’d seen in him during the past five years.

“Someone who doesn’t know that the tunnel’s there probably wouldn’t stumble on the entrance very easily, but it’s better to be safe than sorry,” she replied mechanically.

“They’re not going to be able to use that basement anymore after they did all that remodeling work down there,” Wes muttered under his breath.

She’d always been pretty sure that she knew what was going on in that location, but Wes kept her out of the loop. She suspected it was because he didn’t want to humanize the women and kids they were probably trafficking and possibly even auctioning off right there inside the underground cavern that had a hidden passageway leading from the house.

Not letting her in on the plans of his trafficking gang was another excuse for him to be able to keep her alive. Weirdly, she suspected that he’d formed some kind of an attachment for her.

And not just because of the amount of money that he’d paid to own her ten years earlier.

But he answered to someone else, and it was that person who had been hanging something precious over her head during the later years of her captivity to keep her in line.

“We’ll finish power washing and restocking the other locations next week. Maybe we can deliver a few more of your paintings if you have some ready? Someone bought two of them yesterday,” Wes said, stacking the bags of groceries they’d purchased on the dock so that she could carry them into the cabin.

He never went into the cabin, and she suspected it was because he wanted to keep any traces of his connection to her from appearing inside in case she was ever discovered. She knew that he had a huge home and marina in Rice Lake, but she’d been held underground somewhere, and was pretty sure that she hadn’t been anywhere near his home during all the years she’d been held captive.

She had a limited amount of freedom here. When Wes dropped her off, she was sure that he assumed that she locked herself up in the cabin at night and never left the property during the day. What Wes didn’t know was that she’d discovered an old canoe and had patched it up. Since she used a lot of strange materials in her artwork, it was easy to sneak in a few extra items for Wes to purchase when they went into town to go shopping.

It was kind of a long haul to get to town in the canoe, but she did it occasionally, always making sure to bring along the burner phone that she was supposed to have on her night and day. But most of the time she headed toward the old family cabin on Crystal Rock Lake that her grandparents had owned. It had fallen into a state of disrepair, but hopefully her sister Anya would return to town someday and see that it was restored. Shanna’s best memories were of the summers she’d spent time at the cabin with Anya and her grandparents.

Besides, she had no spending money, so going into town was more dangerous than productive, although wearing her dark-haired wig and frumpy clothes, she was positive no one from the past would recognize her anymore. She was sure she was forgotten.

Although a pair of deep green piercing eyes occasionally came to mind. If it hadn’t been for Rick O’Neill, Shanna would have never confessed everything to her mom. They’d become so close for a while. Now that she was forced to remain in hiding, all Shanna did was worry about Mom, who was obsessed with finding Shanna. Shanna was scared to death that something awful would happen to Mom if she didn’t ease up.

There was no such thing as a pay phone anymore. And she couldn’t take a chance and use her burner phone since Wes monitored the minutes available closely. Besides, someone might somehow trace him back to the number.

And then she had an idea.

It could work, she realized after thinking about it for a moment.

She reached for the last sack of groceries, resting it on the dock before climbing from the speedboat carrying her rack of cleaning items by the handle so that Wes could be on his way.

“I can probably have a few more pieces of artwork ready by the middle of next week,” she said.

“I’ll give you a call,” he muttered, starting up the engine. “We need to finish making the rounds by October.”

“I’ll be ready,” she replied, waiting as he put the boat into gear and quickly sped away.

As usual, she breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that she’d probably be able to be on her own for the next four or five days.

Grabbing a couple bags of groceries by the handles, she carried them up to the cabin along with her cleaning supplies.

Entering the cabin, she rested everything on the table before rushing back outside and grabbing the other two bags.

Wes had been in a strangely generous mood today. He’d insisted on purchasing a lot more groceries for her than he usually did.

Come to think of it, he’d seemed very happy about the sale of her paintings. Last week he’d ordered several different sized canvases for her from an online source. When she said that she’d prefer using older frames because of the subject matter of her artwork, they’d gone to some second-hand stores so she could find what she wanted, and sometime or another, he’d taken the time to contact someone who hosted auctions so she could have her choice of what she thought would work with what she was painting. Maybe that’s why he’d bought her extra groceries, including fresh chicken and hamburger meat. Not just the microwave items that he usually scooped up for her.

The interior of the two-bedroom cabin had surprised her the first time she’d seen it. Sure, the appliances weren’t up to date, but everything was neat and clean—the original wood flooring was buffed, and the furnishings matched.

Wes had noticed how surprised she was. Supposedly, he’d intended to rent the place out at first but had changed his mind.

She’d made sure not to let her excitement show. Wes had begun letting her have more freedom in stages, taking her with him on numerous business-related outings. But he’d always been around to keep an eye on her.

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