His Little Runaway (3 page)

Now she started to wonder what her face looked like, and her hair. She must look beyond awful, and she realized that with the Vaseline on her face she must have ruined his pillowcase. She propped herself up on her elbow to look, and saw that Wes had put a soft towel down under her cheek, where she could see a little bit of gory mess.

“Oh,” she said.

Wes must have followed her look, since he said, “I hope the towel wasn’t uncomfortable.”

Ashley searched her mind for any memory of the sleep she’d just had, but found an utter blank. “Nope,” she said.

“Alright, then. I’ve got breakfast almost ready. When you get dressed, come on into the kitchen.”

For the first time Ashley realized then that instead of the smells of Tall Oaks she could make out the heavenly scent of real bacon.

“Can I call my parents first?”

“Nope,” Wes replied. “I need to be sure you’re steady on your feet, and for that I need to get some food into you.

What was it about the way he spoke to her, with such decision, that seemed to make her trust him? When one was a juvenile offender, men often addressed you as if they were in charge of you—because of course they were. Most recently, the warden had done that. Ashley should be used to—if not resisting the will of big men who ordered her around—at least maintaining her Westchester pride. Why did she feel like contradicting Wes would be different? Like she
wanted
to contradict him, but not so that she wouldn’t have to obey him; rather, so that he would make it clear to her that he would give her breakfast,
now
, whether she liked it or not?

“Okay,” she said, and started to climb out of bed.

“Bathroom’s next door,” he informed her, once she was on her feet and he could look her up and down. To her annoyance, Ashley blushed, thinking again about her panties—about Wes touching them and her currently not having them on, under the t-shirt. “Don’t take a shower, though. You can do that after breakfast. I need to take a look at your wounds and clean them before you get in the shower.”

“Okay,” Ashley said again, still wondering what would happen if she refused one of his suggestions—his orders, really. Was it because she had been in Tall Oaks for so many months, and somehow now she craved the authority from which she had escaped? Or… was it something about Wes the Navy SEAL? He didn’t give his orders the way the guards did. The guards ordered you around for their convenience, but Wes seemed to be telling Ashley what to do for, well, Ashley’s own good.

And why did
that
thought—for her own good—send a little shiver up her spine as the door closed behind Wes’ enormous, flannel-covered back, where his impossibly broad shoulders seemed to ripple with muscles even beneath the thick fabric? He seemed a cross between a warrior and a lumberjack. Ashley had had boyfriends in Pelham, one of them serious enough that she had had to tell him to knock it off when he tried to put his hand up her shirt, but somehow she had never been able to take them seriously as, well, sex objects. Really, with the exception of a couple of teachers, the guards, and the creepy warden, she had never spent any time at all with adult men who weren’t family members.

Most important, it seemed to her right now as she stripped off the t-shirt and caught the rather embarrassing sight of her trim, naked body in the mirror over Wes’ dresser, she had never been in the presence of a man who exuded the kind of authority Wes did: authority that seemed to come both from his life as a SEAL and, more deeply, from an essential goodness and kindness in his nature.

He wanted to take care of her. That scared Ashley a little, because for the first time in her life the feeling of enjoying being taken care of came along with a feeling of, well, sexiness. But she couldn’t deny that it also excited her despite the butterflies in her tummy and her heart beating a little faster.

All of this about Wes just made for a distraction, though, she thought ruefully as she put her clothes back on. She would call her parents, and they would take her off Wes’ hands. She would probably have to go back to another facility, but she knew her father wouldn’t doubt her story. He had moved heaven and earth to get her tried as a juvenile after her little red convertible had slammed into the police car and injured the officer. She felt like she could bear to go back, as long as it was in a place where the warden didn’t abuse the inmates.

As she washed her face in the bathroom, she resolved to bring back the Westchester pride. Breakfast, then calling her parents, and then a few hours wait for them to arrive. This part would be over, and she would thank Wes and try to forget the way she felt when he told her what to do.

As soon as she sat down at the little kitchen table, Wes put a mug of coffee in front of her, and then a plate of bacon, eggs, and toast. She started in greedily on the food, while he sat across the table sipping his own coffee, just watching her.

“Now I don’t mean to pry,” he said, after she had wolfed down her third piece of bacon, “but if there’s a cop around here who’s treating girls wrong I feel like I should know about it. See if I can do anything.”

Ashley looked up from her plate. She hadn’t thought about this part. Could she just say she didn’t want to talk about it? Wouldn’t he suspect she wasn’t telling him something? She sucked her lips into a tight line and reached for the coffee, looking at the plain beige mug and desperately trying to figure out what to say.

“Well,” she said, her mouth running on way ahead of her brain, “he’s planning on moving soon, and…” This was terrible. Something in Ashley had just decided to lie, even though the most rational part of her knew that she should just stop. Not tell Wes the truth, of course, but… not lie. But her mouth kept going. “…and he lives on the other side of that big valley. I don’t even know what the town is called.”

What did that even mean? She had been looking at the table and now she looked up at him. He had a patient look in his eyes, but she saw that he knew. He knew everything.

“Ashley Lewis, you’re in a lot of trouble,” he said.

Ashley felt her face crumple. “Don’t make me go back. Please, Wes. Please. I’m not… I made a terrible mistake and I was in an accident and a cop got hurt, and so they sent me to juvie, but I’m not like… I mean…” As she started to tell the truth, she saw the look in his eyes grow softer. It didn’t lose its sternness completely, but she could tell that he knew Ashley had started to be honest with him.

“I mean I guess I’m a criminal? But… but I wasn’t really trying to run away from Tall Oaks—I just needed to run away from the warden. He… abuses the girls and he was going to abuse me.”

The look on Wes’ face transformed in an instant into an expression of anger so potent that Ashley quailed back, sure that the anger must be directed at her.

“What did he do?” he said, and Ashley saw immediately that his anger hadn’t directed itself at her but rather at the warden.

“He said… he said I had to come to his office and… do stuff. Sex stuff.”

“Did you?” Now the tenderness returned and… well, it almost seemed like he might feel a little
jealous
about her, as if his rage hadn’t arisen just because the warden had wanted to abuse
a
girl, but even more because he had wanted to abuse Ashley.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I ran away. The corporation that’s running the facility reduced the number of guards at night. But… the warden made a friend of mine do the sex stuff.”

Wes exhaled a long breath through his nostrils, looking into Ashley’s eyes. “I don’t think you can call your parents,” he finally said.

“What?”

“Think about it, Ashley. That’s exactly where they’re going to be looking for you. You could tell the story about the warden, but even though your parents and I might believe you, from what I’ve heard about the system they’re going to put you right back there and the whole thing will get covered up. No, I think I need to help you get somewhere else, and I can start trying to get an investigation going. I can find a way to contact your folks myself.”

Ashley felt her jaw drop. “You’d do all that for me?”

Wes smiled. “I guess so. Long story, but I have this thing about helping pretty girls, I guess you could say.”

“But…” Ashley’s mouth had started up again, but now her brain seemed to be cooperating with it. “Couldn’t I stay here with you? Wouldn’t that be less risky?”

“Ashley, I need to go all over the place to get materials and deliver furniture. I can’t be worrying about you back here, so close to where you escaped from.”

“I could come with you. Stay in the truck, or something. Please, Wes. You’re like the first good thing that’s happened to me in eighteen months. Don’t make me leave!”

His brow furrowed as he considered it. Then his eyes darted up and to the right, as if he were searching for inspiration of some kind. Ashley had put her mug down and now held her hands in front of her, clasped in pleading. Finally he looked straight into her eyes.

“Alright, I’m willing. I can stay put for a few weeks at least and get stuff shipped to me, delay my deliveries, that kind of thing, I guess.” Then he raised his hand, though, to stop her cry of joy. “But I need to make something perfectly clear about the way it’s going to have to be between us.”

Chapter Four

Ashley’s face went from elation to confusion. Wes’ courage—a facet of his character that never gave him trouble on the battlefield, or jumping out of a plane—came within a hair’s-breadth of failing in the face of telling Ashley she would feel his firm hand.

Dammit, though, this girl clearly needed what Wes knew he could give her, and he refused to hide her here on any other basis.

“I can tell you’ve got a good heart, Ashley, but I can also tell that even if it was an accident that you ran into the police car, the situation that got you there indicates some trouble.”

“Trouble?” There was that drawn-up, hard expression again.

“Trouble. I’m not going to hem and haw. You’re a spoiled little rich girl.”

She tossed her head and rolled her eyes, unconsciously confirming exactly the problem Wes had just diagnosed.

“That’s easy for you to say, since you’ve clearly never met any other girls from Westchester. Not to mention that I’ve just spent eighteen months in juvie, and you can’t stay spoiled in there. Maybe I was a little spoiled when I went in, but I learned to do what they told me and take what they gave me.”

Ashley’s green eyes narrowed as she waited for his response. Her defense seemed rehearsed—as if she’d been working on it for months in juvie, trying it out on herself, and hadn’t yet had a chance to deliver it to anyone else.

“No, I’ve never met your friends,” Wes admitted. “I can easily believe they’re five times as spoiled as you are. But that doesn’t mean that you’re
not
spoiled, young lady.”

“Young lady? What the fuck?”

Wes shook his head. “That’s a place to start. You’re going to speak like a lady while you’re here with me.”

“Lady? Young lady? What the actual fuck?”

Well, at least he had succeeded in bringing out her bratty side so fully she wouldn’t be able to deny she had defied him. Also, as he provoked this oppositional behavior, his misgivings about the wisdom of initiating her into a disciplinary dynamic had faded quickly away. Ashley Lewis would have a trip over his knee very soon indeed, and he imagined she wouldn’t be quite so defiant afterward.

He spoke patiently. “We can talk about the disrespectful way you’re addressing me in a few moments. Right now, it’s a distraction.”

Ashley managed to develop a crease in her brow and widen her eyes at the same time at these words. The effect seemed to Wes oddly adorable, but he refused to brook even that distraction, as pleasant as it was, though he filed the realization that he might be falling for her away for later consideration.

“Distraction?”

“Yes. The fundamental issue is that you’re a spoiled brat, and I’m still willing to take you in until we can figure out the best way to handle your situation.”

Her face softened a little. She said, “But…”

He nodded. “But. But I’m not going to take you in without making you change your behavior. Teaching you to make better choices.”

Ashley tossed her head again, and actually snorted this time.

“Like right now. You chose to respond to what I said with disrespect.”

She looked at him, clearly expecting him to go on and thus relieve her of the need to think about what she had just done with the snort and the toss of the head. Wes merely gazed back into her eyes, thinking that really the scrape on her cheek made her look interestingly dangerous—as well as making him want to take care of her.

“Well?” she finally said.

“Are you going to deny that you chose to respond disrespectfully?”

“This is crazy! I mean… for it to be disrespectful… I mean, I’d have to, like…”

She couldn’t untangle it, but at least Wes could see that she had started to try.

“You’d have to admit that the man who took you in and let you lie to him and cleaned your wounds and gave you breakfast deserved your respect. And that’s before we even talk about the agreement we’re about to make, in which you’re going to promise to be respectful, and let me guide you in making good choices.”

Ashley’s jaw hung open. “
Obey
you, you mean?” she whispered incredulously.

“If you want to think of it like that. I prefer to think of it as respecting my judgment. If I ask you to do something you may ask me why, and you may respectfully state your reasons for thinking you should be allowed to make a different choice. But if I tell you that you still have to do it, you will do it.”

“Because you said so?” The crease returned, but now with narrowed eyes. Not quite as adorable, but Wes thought he could get used to it.

“Yes,” he said firmly. “And if you ask me why I’ve told you to do something, and I simply say
Because I said so
, you will do that thing.”

The most important question hung in the air now, palpably, like a moth circling a bare lightbulb. He saw it in Ashley’s eyes, and knew she didn’t think it had to be asked. Consequences in prison were both harsh and, in Wes’ view, entirely unhelpful. Ashley definitely wanted to know what the consequences in Wes’ cabin would be, for failing to respect his judgment, but she clearly felt sure that the answer would simply be that Wes would turn her out of his home. That would be the kind of consequence a prison mindset encouraged: the prison equivalent of throwing Ashley out of his cabin would be isolation, a disciplinary measure that didn’t actually provide any real discipline at all.