His norm, although he looked down on Wrong Way’s sexual escapades, held a similar pattern. In North Carolina, a pretty senorita who made the best homemade tortas that rivaled his mothers, was a monthly stop.
A pretty redhead in Roanoke expected a visit from him every other month. He left a little something on the nightstand for her, but his last visit six months ago had left a bad taste in his mouth. He hadn’t been back since.
Rolling to his back, he looked up at the ceiling, realizing with a bit of chagrin that it had also been six months since he’d last seen the senorita.
“Shit,” he groaned, closing his eyes and silently willing sleep to consume him.
THE GIRLS HAD SHOWERED and were snuggled in bed under the coverlet. Karli held onto the unicorn, which took up entirely too much space in the bed. Willow ran a tub of water for herself, thankful for the lavender bath salts as well as a scented bath bomb which turned the bathwater a lovely shade of purple. Stripping down, she slipped into the water. Sinking her body low into the water until it reached the tip of her chin, she finally permitted herself a chance to sigh.
Willow also gave herself permission to cry. The past 48 hours were nearly more than she could handle. Initially, she assumed Kindred was taking Karli as a punishment from Hymn, to make her more compliant to his desires. Then she found out that Hymn wasn’t on the compound but at his retreat, which meant he was breaking in a new wife, and it was clear he knew nothing of Kindred’s doing. There was no way to get a message to him that Karli had been taken.
It was a coup d'état. Kindred wanted to seize power of the facility, which also meant he’d be coming for Dusty Rose. Next month she would turn 15. The age of consent in Kentucky was 16, but a year here or there didn’t matter to men like that. If Kindred was willing to send Karli out at a price, there was no limit to the evil in his heart.
Her concern was more for Hymn. She took his daughters. He would come for her and the girls. This time, he wouldn’t be so lenient with her, letting Willow live in her own camper. He would place her in rotation with the other women who displeased him.
“Not ever again, Proderick. Never again,” she said, grabbing a sponge and soaping it to wash her body.
Willow and the girls had found an escape and safety. The lock on the door was a nice touch, but she wasn’t lowering her guard anytime soon with Raphael Hoyt. He did smell all kinds of wonderful she admitted, giggling to herself.
“Six years without a man and Bigfoot could get it,” she said, chuckling to herself. “Naw, that’s not true. Bigfoot’s little brother, yeah, he could have some of this.”
Her mind went to many of the men who would come to the compound on Friday nights. Hymn made a point of keeping her out of sight, although Kindred made it known every Saturday evening that requests had been made for dark meat.
“I wouldn’t mind a slice myself,” he would say, licking his lips.
Willow shivered in the tub. The water had also grown cold and it was time to get out. Pulling the plug, she stood, watching the purple swirl go down the drain. She couldn’t let this opportunity get away from her and the girls. Hymn had emptied her bank accounts and run up the limits on her credit cards. He’d taken all of the identifications she had plus no one was looking for her or Flower. This is where she was and where she would make her stand.
“I didn’t read him incorrectly,” she said with pride, reaching for a towel. “He’s lonely. He allowed the girls to call him Daddy without flinching too much. He let me take the ring and wear it as his wife. This house and everything in it are almost a mimeograph of the setup of my own home. Well, the one I know the bank has repossessed. We belong here. We belong with him.”
She only needed to find a way to show Mr. Hoyt her thought process. Besides, she wouldn’t mind waking up next to him on any morning. Willow had never considered herself to have a type, and Raphael Hoyt wasn’t anywhere in the realm of possible types of men she’d been interested in previously.
“Maybe you’re just horny as hell and grateful, which is why he’s turning you on,” she chastised herself. “If I get a chance to lick him, I’m keeping that man. Just to make sure, I’m going to take really good care of Raphael Hoyt, and he’s not going to want us to leave. Ever.”
Willow Rayne was known for being a stubborn woman. When the lady made up her mind about a matter, it would take a tidal monsoon to sway the thought process. In her estimation, Raphael Hoyt needed her and the girls as much as they needed him. Plus, he would get a woman who literally held Good Housekeeping Awards. The man couldn’t ask for a better wife.
“Technically, he didn’t ask you, Willow, but he put a ring on it, so there’s that,” she said, pulling a tee she found in a drawer over her head. The girls were all over the bed and she would have preferred to sleep on the couch versus wrestle with them all night, but he was right; safety came in numbers. Willow wouldn’t take her eyes off the girls ever again.
USUALLY ON SUNDAY MORNINGS, Raphael enjoyed sleeping in and rising around noon. The black shop was covered in scratches which needed to be buffed out before he left to go on the road again. People may not pay much attention to a tall white guy in a suit, but they would notice a tall white guy in a suit getting out of a black SUV covered in deep scratches. He couldn’t take that risk. There was a second vehicle in the garage, but the scoot’um-a-bug belonged to his mother.
“If they stay much longer, and Willow’s identifications come through, it would be an ideal car for her and the girls,” he said, thinking of the yellow, vintage Mercedes 300T station wagon. The old car was purchased new in 1985 and still only had about 285,000 miles on the odometer. Carlotta Hoyt loved the yellow car that had been a gift from her husband Fernando. Raphael maintained it out of loyalty, as he did with many of the items around the home that would get a second life courtesy of Willow and the girls.
A growling stomach changed his mind about sleeping in, plus there was work to get done. By Wednesday, he expected to be off to work if not already on a job. The country was filling up with assholes and business was good. May had barely left the middle of the month and already he’d taken down seven targets.
Raphael made quick work of his morning routine. He dressed and headed down the stairs fully expecting the girls to still be sleeping, but they were awake. Dusty Rose spotted him first. Her red hair was pulled into a ponytail with a purple ribbon. In front of her were the bins of patterns. She looked up at him with a warm smile.
“Morning, Daddy,” she said, getting to her feet to give him a morning hug. He bent to accept her thin arms around his neck and the peck on the cheek.
“You’re busy this morning,” he replied.
“Yes, I must organize the patterns into sizes and styles and what we can tweak to maybe mimic today’s fashions. I must say, most of these patterns are timeless and will go with any decade,” Dusty Rose said as a matter of fact.
“Is that so?”
“Oh yeah. Your Mother was a genius. I can’t wait to make my first pair of peddle- pushers,” Dusty Rose said, going back to the floor.
Raphael had no idea what peddle-pushers were, but they seemed to make Dusty Rose happy, so he was okay with it. His eyes then went to Karli, who was back on the couch in the same two piece sweat suit he’d purchased at the roadside stand. They were going to need things, he noted as he said good morning, distracting her from the book she’d halfway finished reading.