Desperate Rescue Read Online Free PDF Page B

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