Her heart raced, her trembling fingers picking at one another because she knew exactly who he was calling.
“Hey, Travis,” he said. “The new girl here doesn’t think farming is her cup of tea. She’d like you to come get her.”
For the first time, he smiled somewhat, hooked a thumb in his jeans pocket, scuffed the ground twice, then nodded and said, “Will do.” He hung up. “He’s on his way,” he told her, and try though she did to tell herself she was getting exactly what she wanted, she was not relieved. “I can’t have you walking around. So, sit right there until he gets here. Got it?”
She nodded vigorously. “Got it. Thank you.”
Bobby left the little building, leaving an armed man waiting just outside the door while he and the others headed back to the fields. She craned her head, trying to see around the partially open door, to see if it was more than just the one man, but she stopped when he looked at her. Attempting a shaky smile, she waved three fingers at him.
His jaw clenched, but then he started toward her. He didn’t enter the building. When he reached the door, looking at her with hard eyes, he said, “You’ve just made the stupidest decision of your life. You’ve no idea.”
She was starting to get one. Huddled on top of the stool, she dropped her eyes to her tightly clasped hands and kept them in her lap from then on. There were stores in town. Someone in this dust-bowl of a town had to be hiring, and she would find them. She was determined; every bit as determined as she was scared.
She told herself all of that and more, practicing exactly what she would say to Travis when he finally arrived to pick her up. This was going to be a long ride home as it was, and she really didn’t want a repeat of last night’s unpleasantness. God, she didn’t even want to get in the car with him, but her only alternative—to walk however many miles it was back to town—she was pretty sure was twice as long as she could manage. What if she got lost? What if she got hurt? What if she got thirsty and died, would anyone even look for her?
This was remote desert country with few natural springs and plenty of hazards. It would be a two-day trek back to town at least, and that was only if by some magic she did manage to backtrack every turn the bus had taken correctly.
She ran the excuses through her head, practicing all that and more as she waited for Travis to arrive. She was firmly in survival mode now. She would say or do anything she had to once he got here; she just wasn’t about to work with illegal plants.
That was reasonable, right?
Right, she nervously told herself.
It felt like forever and yet way too soon when she finally heard the telltale crunch of tires on gravel, slowly pulling up to the outside of the building she was in. Her heart stopped. She stopped breathing, although it took until the growing ache in her lungs reached its zenith before she realized it. She made herself breathe as a car door opened and closed.
Travis had arrived.
It might not be him, she told herself as her anxiety ramped. What the hell had she been thinking to just sit here and wait for him? She looked quickly around her, but there was no back door, and although the floor was dirt, there were no pre-dug holes leading under any of the walls.
She should have dug her own.
She jumped when Travis hauled the door open far enough to enter. She grabbed herself, her hands clutching at her own shirt.
“Why am I not surprised,” he said flatly, stepping inside.
She blew out a deep breath, trying to expel her nerves. Her anxiety tickled up her spine, tangling in her stomach and making her feel cold inside in a way she knew frightfully well. She felt the same thing every time a fight broke out in the prison, or every time a gang of women had walked up to her, wanting something, all the way back to that very moment in the courtroom when the judge had banged his gavel after her sentencing and she’d known her life would never again be the same. This was another of those moments. Something was going to happen here. She could feel the frozen lump of certainty in her chest and in that instant, she wished she’d shut her mouth and just gone to work in the field with the others.
Too late now.
“Day one on the job and you’re already quitting,” Travis noted, beckoning the man who’d stood guard over her into the building with them. He closed the door, and Travis locked it. He faced her, taking his sunglasses off.
She’d been wrong. Being able to see his eyes did not make standing in front of him any easier. He was a cold man, and though he smiled, that smile wasn’t comforting. It looked cruel.
She stood up, hands clasped tight. “I don’t want any trouble,” she stammered. “I just…”
He held up his hand. “Shh, shh, shh.”
If anything, that scared her more.
“I’ll go all over town,” she rushed to promise. “I’ll put applications everywhere. I’ll find another job, I swear, Mr. Travis. I-I will—”
Laughing softly and shaking his head, Travis leaned down, bringing his face directly in front of hers. “You don’t need another job, Tabby darlin’. I already found you this one, and by God, you will work it.”
She shook. “O-okay. Right.” She capitulated. “Right.”
“You will follow every order given to you,” he told her, still smiling.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Travis.”
