1
Old hag in need of live-in helper to abuse. Nothing kinky.
Uma read the ad again.
Jesus. Was she really going to do this?
Yes. Yes, she was. She’d come all the way back to Virginia for the hope its free clinic offered, and if this was the only job she could get while she was in town, she should consider herself lucky to have found it.Especially, she thought with a wry smile,since it’s one for which I’m so qualified.
The smile fell almost immediately. Everything was moving so fast. Not even in town for a day, and here she was, standing on a stranger’s front porch. The house, thankfully, wasn’t even close to the haunted manor she’d imagined. Then again, who knew what waited behind that chipped red door?
Taking a big, bolstering breath, Uma slipped the newspaper clipping back into her pocket and knocked.
There was a lightthunkon the other side, followed by what sounded like footsteps, a scuffling, and then nothing. She waited, trying to hear more over the drone of a nearby lawn mower, and thought of all the reasons this was a horrible idea.
Abuse?Abuse?How could she possibly take this job in the shape she was in?
But as usual, the desperate reality of her situation pushed all arguments aside. Food, shelter, money. There was no arguing with necessity, even if this place felt off.
And the situation was perfect. No one could find her here. In theory. She was pretty sure her new employer wouldn’t be phoning up any references or doing a background check. The woman must be desperate too. She’d practically hired Uma over the phone, for goodness’ sake.
Someone should have answered by now.
Uma knocked again. Hard, her hand starting to tremble.
Something moved in her peripheral vision, startling Uma into a gasp. The curtain in the front window?
The cloth twitched a second time. The woman was watching. Making Uma wait out here, overdressed in the unseasonable heat, sweat gathering along her hairline. Okay, fine. She could see how it made sense to check out a stranger before letting her in. She’d give the lady a few more minutes to finish her perusal. If only she could get some air. Just a little air in this stifling heat.
When there was no response to her third knock, Uma panicked. According to the oversize watch on her arm, three minutes had passed. Three minutes spent standing on a porch, enduring the scrutiny of a self-proclaimedabuserwho represented her only chance at a job. Not the auspicious beginning she had hoped for.
It was all so familiar too. Maybe not the exact circumstances, but the feelings she lived with on a daily basis—insecurity, worry, fear clawing at her chest, crowding her throat so each inhale was a struggle. Before they could overwhelm her, she shoved them away and walked down the rickety porch stairs and around to the side of the house, where she could gather herself unseen beneath the first-floor windows. She needed tobreathe.
Uma took a shaky breath in, then out, another in, before biting into the meaty pad of her thumb. The ritual was safe, easy to sink back into, the shape of her teeth already worn into her hand.Just a little while, she thought.Until I sort myself out, and then…Then she had no idea what. She had nowhere to go, nothing left to aspire to.
One step at a time. That was her life now. No planning, no future.
She was vaguely aware that the lawn mower drew near, no longer background noise, buzzing close and echoing the beat of her heart. She’d have to push off this wall sooner or later, but the warm clapboard was solid against her back, and along with the sharp smell of freshly clipped grass, it kept her right here, present, in her body. A few more breaths and she’d move. Time to decide whether she’d head up to the house to give it another try or cut her losses and take off, find something else.
Yeah, right.
The problem was she wouldn’t be cutting her losses by leaving—she’d be compounding them. How on earth could she go back on the road with the gas gauge onEand ten bucks to her name?
Strike that. After this morning’s breakfast, she had only $6.54.
Uma sank down onto her haunches, the ground squelching under her heels, and squeezed her eyes shut so hard that black dots floated behind the lids.
She had nothing left—no home, no job, no way of making money, no skills but one…and Joey had destroyed any chance of pursuing her true livelihood when he’d smashed her cameras. Doing that, he’d destroyedher. Six months later, she was still trapped.
If she let herself feel it, there’d be no shortage of pain, inside and out. As usual, her wrist under the watch was raw, and her skin itched everywhere. It must be psychosomatic. It couldn’t still itch after all this time, could it?
Visualizing his marks on her skin was enough to make her hyperventilate again. And the tightness was there, that constriction that had left her constantly out of breath these past several months. She’d thought the miles would clear the airways, but they hadn’t.
And now she was back. Back in Virginia. Shallow breaths succeeded one another, pinching her nostrils and rasping noisily through her throat. Joey was close. Two hours away by car. Way too close for comfort. She swore she could feel him looking for her, closing in on her.
Something cold and wet swiped Uma’s hand, snapping her back to the present. She opened her eyes with a start, only to come face-to-face with adog. A black one with a tan face, floppy ears, and pretty brown eyes rimmed in black, like eyeliner. It smiled at her.
It was something else, that dog, with that sweet look on its face. Like it gave a crap. Weird. The expression was so basically human, it pulled back the tunnel vision and let some light seep in. The dog nudged her chest, hard, and pushed its way into her arms in a big, warm tackle-hug. Uma had no choice but to hug back.
