Barbara Phinney - Desperate Rescue

Wariness prickled the hairs on his neck. “What do you mean?”

“There’s something you should know.”

Kaylee wished she could wipe away the alarm growing in Eli’s expression. But he deserved to know the truth. Something she hadn’t told a soul and had barely begun to acknowledge herself.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She gnawed on her lower lip. “Going back there…I mean, it’s not going to be easy. You have no idea…” She couldn’t form the right words.

Eli reached across the console and took her hand. His palm felt warm and comforting on her cold skin and she wished she could cling to him.

No. He was a stranger, a brother of the man who’d killed her sister. As much as he, right this minute, offered warmth and comfort, she knew she’d have to be crazy to be swayed by his charisma. One forceful Nash was enough for any lifetime.

“Talk to me, Kaylee. Tell me what’s going on.” His voice turned smooth, soothing her raw nerves. She liked the way he said her name.

“Noah convinced everyone I was a prophetess,” she whispered. “And, yes, he threatened me with terrible things to get me to say what he wanted. But it wasn’t completely like that, not toward the end.”

“I don’t understand—”

She pulled back her hand, unable to focus on her thoughts while he held it. A tendril of her hair had worked loose. When it dropped against her cheek, she hastily tucked it over her ear and was glad for the distraction. “At first, some of the women asked Noah to kick me out because I was so adamant about being there against my will and they were tired of listening to me. But Noah refused. He was insane and power-hungry. To him, I must have represented the secular world and he wanted to be able to control it. I think he also must have thought that if he managed to tame me, it would send a message of dominance to the rest of his cult.”

Eli’s blue eyes snared hers. Deep within them she saw uneasiness. “How did he manage to convince you to stay?”

“His threats grew. At first I refused to listen to them, because they were vague and full of innuendos. Then they got specific that one day. And later, his threats against Trisha became too real. One day, she got hurt outside. A board fell on her from the top of the woodshed. Noah looked at me and I knew he’d staged it to show me he meant business. So I shut up. I was scared.”

She paused, wondering why she was rehashing all the pain with this man, Noah Nash’s brother, of all people. But then, a second later, the rest poured out of her as if a plug had been pulled from a sink full of bitter, dirty water. “The months of semistarvation, of cold, browbeating captivity. There came a point where I just did what he said, period. I’d been taken to the lowest point in my life.”

She struggled in vain against the tears and the humiliation that she’d just let loose with all her fears and pain. “Before I escaped, though, I’d actually started to believe what I was prophesizing.” Shame added to the burn in her cheeks.

Through a swim of tears, she spied Eli climbing out of the car and walking around the front. He opened her door and tugged her to standing. Beyond, the gas attendant chose that moment to step out of the store.

Eli ignored him to pull her close. For a brief, delicious moment, she felt important, cared for. For that time, she didn’t care who he was. He was what she wanted. Strong arms wrapped around her, protecting her. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

“It’s all right.”

“Noah had started to make sense. The way he was interpreting things that had happened around us, the past and even what the Bible said. He’d started to really sound right.”

Eli tightened his grip on her.

She cried for a while longer. “I don’t want to go back there. I know what happened to me. I had started to believe some of the things he was saying. Then one day, Trisha left me alone in the kitchen. The back door was there and the yard was empty. I made this split-second decision to escape. I…I think it was just as possible that I would have stayed there. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to risk getting trapped again.”

He stiffened but held her tight. She felt his shoulders drop slightly. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I won’t let anyone hurt you or take you.”

“What about Phoebe? What if Noah hurts her to get even?”

His mouth thinned and he tightened his jaw. “We just have to trust that she won’t end up like your sister. That’s all we can do.”

“The day after I escaped, Trisha was found dead in that motel close to the border. It could happen—”

“Kaylee, I wish I could change the past, but I can’t. You have to move forward.”

Run. Leave. Go away. The urge to flee surged over her like a tidal wave. Leave now while you still have a chance to prevent what could happen.

She peeled free of his arms, giving him a push to put a few feet between them. “Easy for you to say!”

“Kaylee, wait!”

She stilled, but couldn’t lift her gaze to his.

“Look at me,” he said, the tone strong, full of command and confidence, yet strangely gentle.

She wound her gaze up his frame. Again, she saw only compassion in his eyes as he spoke. “I need you. Phoebe needs you. If she stays there, what’ll happen to her? Or the other women in the group?”

She bit her lip and with her index fingers, wiped a few errant tears from under her eyes. While she was at The Farm, one of the women got married, with Noah officiating, of course, and she became pregnant. The baby was stillborn and they nearly lost the mother, too, because she had no prenatal care. Tiny Phoebe wouldn’t survive if she got sick.

A knot formed in her throat as the attendant asked them if he could fill the tank. After Eli nodded, they moved away. “But what I did in there…What I said, and…and what I started to believe—”

“Don’t think about that.”

Her lips thinned as she formed a grim expression. Did he think she could just drop a thought like it was an unwanted bread crust or scrap of trash? He had no idea of the lies she’d been forced to say.

And yet, a voice within her asked, can you disappoint Eli? Or risk Phoebe?

Phoebe was Noah’s most ardent follower, a voice inside reminded her. Think of the blow it would be to the group.

Kaylee swallowed. But Phoebe didn’t have to be there, she argued internally.

Eli walked around the car, stopping only to thrust a few bills out at the attendant. “Let’s go.”

“I’m no good to you. Take me home.”

After the young man left, he said, “We don’t have time. We need to get to the compound. They go shopping on Wednesdays, remember?”

She blinked. “Yes, but how did you know that?”

“Remember, I have a very good investigator. He knows Noah nearly as well as I do.”

She frowned. “Knowing your brother doesn’t mean you know the cult’s schedule.”

Their gazes locked across the roof of the car. The hairs on her neck danced. Panic threatened again.

“Trust me, Kaylee. I’ve done my homework.”

She narrowed her eyes. Finally, he went on, “Only the trustworthy women and one man to help were allowed to leave the compound. Noah used to tell everyone it was for safety and spiritual reasons. Should the end come, only being in the compound would save them, like being in the ark when the rains came.”

He knew so much. “But you don’t know if Phoebe is going to be one of those that leave. Yes, Noah would trust her, but she could just as easily stay.”

“That’s where faith comes in. Let’s go.” He climbed into the car before she could reply.

They drove past a small picnic site, turned and then bumped over a culvert onto the next side road, heading east. She peered up at the low hanging branches that scraped the roof. The car dipped into a long rut, splashing mud over the bracken ferns that clawed their way onto the path. Like a drowning victim clinging to a lifeline, she gripped her knapsack.