Page 45 of My Cowboy Salvation
Grabbing a beer, I stand in front of the fridge door and down the whole thing. It tastes good, but feels better a few minutes later, the edge I’ve been carrying all day easing a bit. I drink the second and third beers at a more leisurely rate as I stare into the fire out back and wonder how I could have fucked up my life so much.
Parker isn’t answering any of my calls.
Dylan and I are barely speaking to each other.
And I’m no closer to finding what I need to neutralize the threat that Simon Beaufort poses than I was when this all started.
Patience. That’s what I need. Getting up, I head inside, double-checking the alarm before climbing the stairs. I stop outside Dylan’s room, and the short distance between the two of us feels more like miles than the few feet it is. I only hesitate for a moment before turning the handle and peering inside.
The room is dark, but I can make out the form lying on the bed, the blankets drawn around her.
She’s sleeping. Or pretending to.
Quietly, I shut the door and go to my own room. Best to leave things as they are for the time being. I can lecture her on her recklessness in the morning.
* * *
Dylan
Since climbinginto the dark sedan parked down the street from Logan’s, sleep has eluded me, leaving me to either stare into the darkness outside or keep my eyes closed to avoid interacting with the quiet, dangerous man seated next to me. A man who feels coiled as tight as a snake that could attack at any moment.
There’s no way I can allow my guard down to allow sleep.
This is my life now. Fear. Terror. The careful dance of pacifying a psychopath without drawing anger or dissatisfaction. I thought for a brief time this was behind me. That under Logan’s protection, I would be safe.
But that was naïve of me. Simon was never going to let me go.
It’s close to six in the morning, according to the clock on the dash ahead of us, when the driver stops to get gas. “I’m getting coffee. Need anything?” Simon asks.
I shake my head and watch him walk inside. He has no reason to lock me up. He knows I have nowhere to run without causing deadly repercussions.
A few minutes later, he’s back with two cups in his hands. “It’s coffee,” he says, holding one out to me.
I consider rejecting it, but I have a horrible headache, and it’s becoming harder and harder to stay alert when my brain is in a fog of fatigue. I take it without comment, wrapping my hands around it as the driver pulls the car back out onto the interstate.
We pass a sign that says we’re about twenty miles from Bend, Oregon, which I estimate is probably the halfway point to our destination. I sip my coffee, wondering what my new life will be like when we get back. Will I be a prisoner in his house for the rest of my life? Or will he keep a short leash on me, permitting me some freedom?
Then there’s the matter of what will happen when Logan inevitably arrives, thinking he’s saving me. How am I going to convince him that staying with Simon is what I want rather than what I need to do to ensure his and Parker’s safety? I’m hoping the short note I left him, tucked under the pillows that I set up to look like my sleeping form, will be convincing enough for him to stay away.
After all, I complicate his life. I already complicated his relationship with his son. If I’m gone, he’ll have a better chance of picking up the pieces with Parker. Still, something tells me he won’t stay away that easily, so I’ll have to work up a way to be convincing.
About ten minutes have passed since our gas stop, when I notice my vision of the road in front of us has started to blur, and the fog I hoped the caffeine would lift only seems to be settling, thick and dense, in my brain.
I turn to find Simon watching me carefully, too carefully, and I’m suddenly on alert. I stare down at my half-drunk coffee and back to him, trying to understand. “Did-did you drug m-my coffee?” I ask, or at least I make a valiant attempt at saying, as my tongue is heavy and fuzzy, and everything looks like I’m staring through a tunnel.
“It’s probably better for what I have in mind for you next.”
Red flags are waving in my mind, and the quiet resignation I felt moments before is swept away and replaced with abject terror. “Wh-what are you doing?”
He smiles at me like he’s humoring a child. “You didn’t really think I was just going to forgive and forget everything you’ve put me through the past few months, did you? Filing a protective order against me? Forcing the private moments of our relationship out in the open like that? That alone earned you a pretty stiff penalty I was working up to. But running away? Stabbing me? Then making me search for you again at no small expense only to find you giving yourself to some classless, hick cop like a piece of trash. You let him defile you, Dylan. Taint you. I’m afraid that no amount of penance or punishment will remove that stain from you, chérie.”
“Why can’t you just let me go?” I whisper, trying to head off the darkness overtaking me.
“Because you will always belong to me. Alive or dead.”
I always knew staying with Simon would one day be the end of me. That the punishment he enjoyed meting out would bring me death, intentionally or not. But I took that risk when I slipped away from Logan’s last night because I knew it was the only way to keep Logan and Parker safe.
And that was more important than my safety. Even my life.