Page 8 of Rescued By the Operative

I laugh hard and loud. “Nice try, lady. That schoolmarm outfit is doing nothing to hide that hard ass underneath it.”

She hisses, “What?”

I’m only a little scared when she slowly begins to stalk toward me, full of piss and vinegar.

“You. Ain’t. One. Of. Them,” I taunt.

She looks down the front of her baggy overalls, with its denim, skirted bottom. She forces a joke as she flounces the wide skirt. “You calling me dowdy? This thing has pockets.”

“I’m sure it does. But you can’t distract me from the truth.”

“You are simply mistaken,” she says.

Am I really going to keep pushing? Hell, I’ll do anything to get her to keep looking at me like she wants to kill me. It’s the hardest I’ve gotten in a long time. Maybe in my life.

“So you’re telling me you don’t know the outside world? You’ve never been to the movie theater? Drank coffee? Held hands and kissed with a man?”

She blinks at me slowly.

“Listen. You don’t understand…”

I don’t care if she’s the one with the gun. I’ve got the upper hand now.

“You expect me to believe that you don’t paint your lips to make yourself feel a crumb of sexiness, because every second you spend in this place is stifling your entire existence?”

“Commenting on my lips? That’s just weird and sexist,” she says.

She’s closer now.

Politely, I click off my headlamp, and suddenly we’re plunged into darkness. As dark as the grave.

I regret not seeing her face up close, but I can’t have her blinded by the light. I peel off my work gloves and drop them.

“Sure it is. And you expect me to believe you belong here, being told what to do, waiting for one of these selfish old men to marry you, when you know damn well what it feels like to have a young, strong heathen between your legs?”

Her quick intake of breath keeps me going. I close in on her. She’s so close I could grab her, drag her to me and get her nice and dirty with one hot kiss.

“That’s right, Blondie. You’ve known men who make you feel good. You got that look.”

She’s so close now I can feel her breath as she says, “What look?”

I lean in close, my filthy face an inch from hers. “You got that look of someone who knows her worth.”

Her swallow is audible.

I don’t know who she is, but we both know she’s in danger if it’s found out she’s an imposter. Although, why anyone would want to pretend to belong to a cult is beyond me.

Unless she’s a cop.

“And you’re one of the cowboys they keep talking about,” she says. “The ones who’ve been stealing and kidnapping women from the church.”

Stealing? Kidnapping?

“I don’t do anything illegal,” I bristle, feeling a familiar sense of PTSD from my one brush with the law years and years ago. But that’s all behind me now.

“Well, the elders think otherwise. And they’re offering lots of cash to turn you over to them.”

“You gonna turn me in for a reward?” I ask with a smirk. “You think they’re gonna turn a load of cash over to a woman?