The Virgin and the Beast (Stud Ranch 1)

Technology. A communication device.

I look over my shoulder like this has all been some elaborate test to see what I’ll do once given my first chance at contacting the outside world.

But no, of course there’s no one there.

Then I remember the cameras he had watching me the first days I was here. Has he set up cameras in here? Are they recording me even as I hesitate holding the receiver, looking around like an idiot?

While Holy Hellfire suffers out in the pasture.

My hand immediately lunches for the number keypad. Still, I stop where my finger hovers over the star button.

This could be your chance. Xavier is distracted by the horse. You could call someone. Tell them about what’s happened.

But who would I call?

Most of my friends back in New York were more of acquaintances than close friends. And even if I could call someone, the thought of going back to that life…

I frown. Wasn’t it just this morning that I was thinking how much more fulfilled and happy I am here with Xavier than I was back in New York?

But God, maybe that’s just Stockholm Syndrome talking. That’s a real thing. I read a whole New Yorker article about it once.

I look back down at the phone.

The only person I would have called would be my dad.

Dad.

I blink. God, what am I even thinking? Xavier shows me a picture of him with a paper every week, looking hale and hearty, but Xavier’s unspoken threat to him still stands. If I try to get away, then Xavier will… Xavier will what? Let Dad be killed?

God, would Xavier really do that? Is he capable of…?

No, I shake my head. He kept his promise. He’s been sending pictures of me to Dad, too. I never know when he’ll snap them. Sometimes I catch him with his camera phone out, other times I’m completely unaware until I ask to see what he sent Dad that day. In every picture I look happy, carefree even. Riding Sugar, a wide smile on my face. My brow knit in concentration as I stand over the stove, trying out a new recipe. Glancing up at Xavier.

In response, Dad looks less stressed out in the pictures I

get in return. I know he must be confused and worried still but at least he knows I’m healthy and not being abused. That I’m even… happy?

I’ve just let myself get so caught up in all of— I press my hand to my forehead. How can I even start to justify any of this? Is it a betrayal of Dad to actually be happy? To forget what brought me here?

But then my stomach squeezes. Because the image of Xavier’s devastated face as he crouched over Holy Hellfire flashes in front of my eyes.

And damn it all to hell, I press the number for the vet.

***

Doing the rounds with all the horses takes about an hour on my own. My arms are killing me from hauling the feed around by myself.

I hurry back to the house and only have about five minutes to spare before I see the truck kicking up dust as it drives up the dirt road toward the ranch.

I jog outside. The sun is fully up now, but it’s still insanely early. I can’t believe how people out here—wherever here is, all keep such insane hours. When the vet answered my call earlier, he sounded bright eyed and bushy tailed and not as if I was waking him from a dead sleep. Even though it was only 5:45 in the morning.

As the truck pulls to a stop, a large blue 4x4 that’s maybe a decade or so old, I glance down at the license plates.

Well, look at that. Unless the doc is randomly sporting out-of-state plates, I’ve been holed up in the state of Wyoming for the past almost two months.

I think I expected him to be an old country doctor, maybe pushing sixty or something. Anything but the tall, blond, mid-to-late-thirties man who steps down from the cab of the truck with a large medical bag in tow, eyes interested as he looks me up and down.

“Howdy,” he says. “I’m Tom. Tom Dawkins. You the one who called about Hellfire?”