Page 231 of Love Me in the Dark
I glanced at the crate and internally cringed. I could use the large kennel in the cellar, but the memory of finding her curled up in the corner, dirty and scared, canceled that idea. I wouldn’t put her back down there.
“Are you leaving?” Gabby appeared in the doorway; a towel wrapped around her torso. It was the first time in days that I hadn’t been given a full view of her naked body.
“The dog that was here the other day isn’t getting better. I have to go to the clinic.” I finished tying my boot.
“Oh.” She stood there, holding the towel around her.
“You’re coming with me.” I decided it a split second before I said it. Opening the bottom drawer of my dresser, I pulled out a soft lavender summer dress that had been left behind by an old flame. The girls I trained were never given clothing, and I never saw a need to keep anything for them. I’d only kept the dress because I’d meant to mail it to Sandra when she settled in New York, but I’d forgotten the dress and her immediately after she’d left.
I tossed the dress onto the bed.
“Put that on, we have to hurry.”
“I need shoes, David.” She picked up the dress.
Sandra hadn’t left any of those, but I had a pair of tennis shoes I’d never worn. I grabbed them from the closet anddropped them at her feet. “They’re probably too big, but it’s all I have. Now hurry.”
I left her in the bedroom while I gathered my wallet and the keys to my truck. Gabby met me in the living room, my shoes clomping against the floor as she walked through the kitchen.
I remembered the dress when Sandra wore it. It had been too tight on her, stretching the cotton material over her breasts and hips. But Gabby was slimmer, more petite, the dress fit perfectly. I’d had the woman naked this entire time, but with the soft cotton clinging to her skin, the skirt swishing around her knees as she walked, she stole my breath away.
“Let’s go,” I said, diverting my gaze and gesturing for her to go out the front door.
One of my shoes fell off as she climbed down the front porch steps. I grabbed the shoe and urged her toward the truck. “We’ll get you something else,” I muttered as I shut the cabin door when she was settled in the seat.
“You want to go shoe shopping?” she asked with a light tone as I maneuvered my truck down the gravel road toward the main strip.
“Yeah, that would be great. Take a barefoot woman into a shoe store in this tiny ass town, I’m sure no one would notice.”
“Then I guess I’ll go barefoot into the animal hospital?” She pushed off the other shoe and tucked her feet beneath her in her seat.
“I’ll figure something out.”
“Can I ask you something?” she asked, turning to face me.
“What?”
“Why do you do this? I mean, what do you get out of it.”
“Being a vet?”
“No. Your other job.”
“Money,” I answered abruptly. “A lot of money.”
“Don’t you make good money with owning an animal hospital?” she asked, sounding genuinely curious.
“I don’t own it,” I corrected her. “Yet.”
“Is that why you do this? With women like me? You want to own the hospital? You couldn’t just sell your property? You have a lot of it, I bet you could get a good amount for it.”
I glanced over at her. “That land is all I have left of my family. It’s been in our family for three generations. I’m not giving it up.”
“So you’d rather just sell women into sick slavery?”
I gripped the steering wheel tighter. “I don’t mistreat the girls that come to me.”
“Do you know what happens to them when they leave?”
