A Perfect Storm

“Mmm. Delicious.” Her bright gaze went over him. “Sex, cooking, kicking as—er, butt. Is there anything you aren’t good at?”

“Good catch.” She’d almost cursed—and then she would have owed him that kiss. Refusing to acknowledge his disappointment, Spencer forked up a big bite of buttered baked potato. “Don’t take Marla’s word on the sex. As for kicking butt, I can hold my own, but I’ve gotten my fair share of bruises.”

“And modest, too.” She finished another bite. “Why shouldn’t I take Marla’s word?”

“You said it yourself, she has me in her sights. Wouldn’t do her much good to insult me, now, would it?”

“I guess not. But it was more than that. She made it sound like you were something special. Something more than—”

“So…” Finding it prudent to interrupt, Spencer asked, “What did you mean by blending in?”

She stalled, then her slender shoulder rolled. “What did I know of polite society? Even before I got caught up with the traffickers, my family was not what you’d call normal.”

“What would you call them?” he asked gently.

“Hmm. Well, my momma was mostly okay, I guess, except that she drank too often, and she put up with daddy and his cronies. And I can’t tell you much about my dad since I can’t curse.” She grinned. “Let’s just say he wouldn’t win any awards for father of the year.”

“That leaves open a whole lot of possibilities.”

“Yeah, well, figure the worst, and that was my father.” She lifted her glass of milk in salute.

The worst was…awful. But then, he’d already guessed as much.

She didn’t give him time to sympathize. “After the traffickers had me, well, you know how it goes. You get the bare minimum of everything.”

Minimum care, shelter…and food. His heart hurt. “No milk?”

“Not unless a customer gave it to me. And then I always figured it might be drugged or something. There was no real contact with the outside world except during a deal, so I had no way of staying up on current affairs. In other words, I was dumber than a rock, uneducated, uncouth… Even you noticed the way I talk, right?”

Guilt swamped him. The last thing she needed from him was criticism. “I know you choose to be coarse, honey. It’s not that you don’t know any other way.”

“Because Jackson sent me to that school. End of story.”

But it wasn’t and he knew it. “You are far from dumb.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Because she had her last bite of food in her mouth, she just nodded.

He wanted to ask her if she’d finished the school, if she’d gotten a degree, but he feared the answer. When the opportunity presented itself, he’d ask Jackson. “All done?”

She sat back in her seat with a sigh. “That was great. Thanks. I can’t remember the last time anyone cooked for me. Maybe Jackson, but that would have been before the school.”

“Your mother cooked?”

She laughed but cut it off real quick. “Not really, no.”

Pushing his plate aside and crossing his arms on the table, Spencer asked the question burning in his mind. “How did the traffickers get you?”

“You really want to hear this?”

More than anything, he wanted her to trust him. He had to think that confiding in someone else would help ease the pain she carried inside. “If you don’t mind telling me.”

“It’s not like it’s a secret. Well, I mean it is, to most people. But not to anyone who already knows me and what I do, and that I was…”

Spencer waited for her to wind down.

Bravado in place, she smirked at him. “My daddy traded me to them for drugs.”

Leveled by a dozen different emotions, most prominently rage and pity, Spencer swallowed twice. “How old were you?”

“Seventeen.” She chewed her bottom lip, lost in thought. “The older I got, the more his buddies noticed. I heard a few lewd suggestions, stuff said sort of as a joke—but not really, know what I mean?”

“Yes.” Bastards.

“I sort of grew into my looks. Pretty soon, they weren’t joking anymore.”

Jesus. He knew how it worked; human trafficking wouldn’t be profitable without buyers. But still, with it so personal, fury left him sick at heart. “Your father knew them?” Knew what they’d do with her? It couldn’t get more personal than that.

“Yeah, he knew. I think he admired them for forcing girls into prostitution.” Her lip curled. “The sick pricks.”

“What about your mother?”

Arizona shrugged. “She let him get away with a lot, including using some of the other girls, even though she knew their situation. But I guess selling me off was too much for her.” She looked down at her fork. “Unfortunately, when she tried to stop them, they killed her.”

Jesus. And that meant her father would have been a loose end. Already knowing the answer, Spencer asked, “They killed your father, too?” Had she seen it all?

“They did, and I was glad.”

So she’d had no one—not that her folks had been much to count on anyway. He had to focus on the fact that she’d eventually escaped. “How’d you get away?”

“After more than a month, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew if I ran they’d try to kill me, but…” She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “I was pretty much dead anyway, you know?”

He had nothing to say to that.

“We were at a truck stop, about to make a transaction, but when I saw a female trucker in an idling semi, I figured that might be my only chance.”

“You asked her for help?”

“Get real. I didn’t have time for pleasantries.” Her lips tilted in a half smile. “That poor woman. I ran over and jumped in her cab. My heart was pumping so fast and I was nearly hysterical. I locked the passenger door, and then I screamed right into her face—drive, drive, drive. Luckily for me…she did.”

CHAPTER FOUR

NO MATTER HOW SHE MADE LIGHT of it, the horror of the situation appalled Spencer. “I can imagine what she thought.”

“Yeah.” Arizona gave a soft laugh. “At first, she figured I was robbing her or something, and she looked ready to jump out of her skin. But then Jerry—”