Page 1 of Taken By the Bounty Hunter

Chapter One

Georgie

I trace my index finger over the marks on the floor beside my bed.

Today is day 31. Almost summer.

I want. To go. Outside.

My throat aches and my eyes sting. This can’t be my life now.

My hands itch to get back to the garden and the greenhouse. No one is taking care of things in my absence. I just know it.

Why would they? No one is taking care of me.

On day one of my imprisonment, I knew I needed to keep a record. Maintain some kind of order.

You must get creative when trapped in cinder block and concrete and have nothing to write with but a plastic spoon.

Surprising no one, my uncomfortable bed doesn’t get any less comfortable when it’s missing a spring. And cinder block is an effective sharpening too.

Counting the days by scratching the floor with a sharpened bedspring is difficult, but I make it work.

Anything to keep me sane.

As of today, I’ve been under lock and key for longer than I had my freedom.

For one month, I had a life outside.

I had a job.

I had a bank account.

I had friends to guide me and protect me.

I was on the cusp of getting an apartment all to myself.

But then everything came crashing down.

The elders found the safe house.

They didn’t kick in the door or barge in with guns blazing. The church leaders have to maintain their image in the community, after all. They can’t do crimes. Not obvious ones, anyway.

The threat was indirect but clear: We know how to find you, we have the cops on our side, and The Prophet is still calling the shots.

The terrible news could not have been delivered by a more ruggedly handsome but clueless face. Poor Jefferson. The bounty hunter was so confused by what he’d stumbled into.

Getting involved in helping victims escape a polygamist cult can take over your whole life. Just ask Olivia, Louisa, Goldie, and all their friends and newfound families.

If poor Jefferson has been added to the mix, I feel two ways about it. On the one hand, my friends need all the help they can get. Particularly from someone with the skills I imagine a bounty hunter possesses. On the other hand, that’s a lot to ask of an outsider.

If he’s tangled up in rescue efforts and has turned his life upside down, I feel partially to blame for it.

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: The church elders found us because of me.

What I didn’t tell Goldie—what I didn’t tell anybody—was that I had run into a sister-wife in Bozeman.

I had been on my way to work, and I desperately needed a coffee. I should have put on my wig and sunglasses as always, but I was in a hurry. And being in a hurry makes you reckless. So I went inside the Gas & Sip without a disguise.

---