Page 29 of Keeping Ruby

Is anyone looking for me? Is my face on posters at the local grocer, pinned to trees and streetlamps?

Do the police think I’ve run away, considering most of my personal things like clothes, personal products, and my Kindle had all disappeared with me?

Do they think that, with the death of my mother, I’d lost my touch with reality and disappeared into—what? The mist? The ether?

Has anyone even considered my nefarious reality?

The guard with the army green hat pulled low over his ears, the rim of thick fuzz low on his forehead, huddles into his jacket as he makes his third pass outside my window in the study, his eyes meeting the gaze of the man who sits in the window of a small, but quite nice, shed-like building at the entrance of the gated estate.

They do this often. A silent communication relaying the rightness of everything that is so wrong here.

Do they know I’m a prisoner within these walls? Do they know the man they work for kidnapped me? Do they know how terrible the man they serve, with such bizarre loyalty—or maybe it’s fear, is?

Do they care?

Still, every time I think of escaping, I’m reminded not only of the fact that the entire property is encased in a high, iron fence I have no hope of climbing—but of the gruesomely ugly things my brother had said. I’m reminded of who these men think my father was, and how that man hurt people. How those people would take their revenge out on me if I presented them with the chance.

I keep my side-eye trained on the window that overlooks the front of the property as I scan the words of my book, not really reading. Beside me, the dog—a purebred Doberman I’ve come to know is called Simba, is sprawled on the floor.

At first, Simba had terrified me. With his sleek, obviously powerful body and teeth meant for chomping, I’d taken care to keep my distance. But he wore me down, his wise doggy eyes chiseling away at my fear enough for me to offer a pet. That pet turned into frequent strokes and absent ear scratches, before morphing into full-out belly rubs. I’m confident I have a friend here in Simba, at least. Though I’m not sure he’d choose me over my husband.

I count a fourth pass of the man with the green hat, a fourth chin dip to the other who sits behind the glass of the little building I’ve covertly named ‘The Watch House’. I know, too much Nancy Drew as a child. Too much James Patterson now, a guilty but delicious pleasure, I’ve indulged alongside all things Nora Roberts, which doesn’t help things in my current situation.

My heavy sigh is echoed by a much deeper, much darker one from not far away. It doesn’t belong to Simba. I’ve come to know Simba’s sighs well, and this is not his.

Heart kicking in my chest, I turn my head slowly to find my new husband—my keeper—standing just inside the door. His dark eyes are fixed intently on me, and I don’t like that I don’t know how long he’s stood there, watching me.

Unease spreading along the length of my spine, I shoot him a pointed, and unwelcome, glare.

I think his lips twitch, but I can’t be sure.

“What do you want?”

He begins to move into the room, closer to me. I feel like a fly caught in the sticky web of a spider.

“I think the better question, wife, is what are you doing?”

I make a point of lifting my Kindle. “Reading.”

He gives his head a slow shake. “I don’t think so.”

Well, crap. The man is on to me.

Still, I’ll admit to nothing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He is standing close enough that I can smell him now. That annoyingly distinguished, and yet thrillingly addictive, mix of cedar and flame. The man is sin in its purest, most dangerous form. A hit straight to the bloodstream. Intoxicating.

I frown at the thought. His eyes hone in on it, the darkness expanding in such a way I fear the void of it. It’s so vast, so reaching, the threat it might latch onto me and pull me inside, forever a prisoner to him, feels like a very real possibility.

I need to change the subject.

Think, Ruby. Think.

My eyes drop to the Kindle in my hands. I give it a wave. “Why do I have this?”

“Did you not want it?”

I look to him again. Again, I feel like he might swallow me whole. Fighting my shiver—I’m so terribly aware of him—I say, “I just think it’s weird that you took it when you took me.”

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