Lori Foster - A Perfect Storm

Spencer stared at her. Good God, they still had those? “You’re serious?”

“Sure.” Carrying two plates to the table, Arizona said, “I mean, no one looking for me would have thought to find me there, right?”

“I can’t imagine finding any young lady there.” But Arizona? In a structured routine meant to stuff societal rules down her throat? “What was it like?”

“Just an education, and a few classes on things like—” She swept her hand over the table. “Etiquette. Not that this setting really counts, but you get my drift.”

“You went along with that?”

“Why not? The idea was sort of twofold. I figured I could learn how to blend in, and though he didn’t say it, Jackson figured he’d have me locked down and out of trouble.” She shook her head with some fond memory. “Jackson can be a real card.”

Jackson had his sympathy. Teasing, Spencer asked, “Were you getting into trouble even then?”

She paused, made a face. “I think mostly he wanted me out of his apartment because I came on to him.”

Flattened, Spencer stood there, mute.

Arizona glanced at him. “Dumb, huh?”

“I never…” He shook himself. “You…?”

“Snap out of it, Spence. Sheesh, I didn’t expect you to get all tongue-tied over sex.”

“Sex?” Had she slept with Jackson then? A red haze gathered in his vision. That son of a—

“Keep up, will you?” She rolled her eyes. “I offered, Jackson refused, and then he was different. Maybe uncomfortable. How should I know?”

“He refused?”

Sighing, a little dreamy, Arizona said softly, “Yeah, he did.”

Suddenly he understood. “You thought to repay him, didn’t you?”

“No. Well…maybe.” She made a face. “Something like that, I guess. But Jackson had this heart-to-heart with me, and he was…kind.”

So kind that he’d packed her off to a stuffy school where she wouldn’t fit in? “Yeah, he’s a prince.”

“I know.” Still wearing that small smile, she said, “I suggested going to a school, but I didn’t expect that school. I just wanted to not be dumb, you know? But we talked about it, and I liked the idea.” She flashed him a look. “I had no idea it’d cost so much, though.”

“Jackson paid for it all?”

“Yeah. Insane, huh?” Going back to the cabinets for tableware, she said, “The way that guy blows money—”

“Think of it as an investment in your future.” If he hadn’t met Jackson, if he didn’t know him as an honorable man in love with a different woman, Spencer might have been a little jealous. Not that he had the right. Not that he even wanted to think along those lines.

But knowing that Arizona had once offered herself to the other man, he couldn’t deny the twinge of resentment. Jackson had done the right thing in turning her down.

And when the time came, he would do the right thing, too. He would do what was best for her.

“That’s almost exactly what Jackson said.”

After stirring the steamed vegetables one more time, Spencer put them in a bowl and carried them to the table. He dropped a potato and one chop on Arizona’s plate, then his own.

He had a lot more questions, but he also wanted to feed her. “What would you like to drink?”

“Milk would be good.”

Why that surprised him, he couldn’t say. “Milk it is.” As he filled her glass, he asked, “So you liked the school?”

“It was okay.” She wrinkled her nose. “Except that they tattled a lot. Their loyalty was to Jackson. I mean, he paid, so that makes sense. But still, I couldn’t even dodge out for a day or two without them telling him.”

Keeping himself in check, Spencer asked, “Why did you dodge out?”

“I get restless.” She eyed her food with significance.

He joined her at the table with a glass of iced tea. “Go ahead. Dig in.”

She surprised him again by showing impeccable manners. She put her napkin in her lap, cut a small piece of her pork chop, chewed quietly.

He took great pleasure in watching her. “Good?”

“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?”