Jake dismounts the horse, and I ease back in the seat, which is still warm from his body.
“I’m going to check some traps, so I’ll walk home,” he says.
I look down, meeting his eyes as I take the reins now.
“Start breakfast when you get back to the house,” he tells me. “After you unsaddle the horse, of course.”
I narrow my eyes without thinking. Cook?
I have no problem helping out, but why that?
I look away. “I’ll pitch in, but I’m not staying in the kitchen.” I’m not sure if I have a problem with cooking or because that’s where he wants me.
Put the girl at the stove, because of course she doesn’t know how to ride a horse or shoot, right?
“Do you know how to tend crops instead?” he asks.
I straighten my spine, already knowing what he’s getting at.
“Weed, water, fertilize?” he goes on. “Aerate the land? Plant? Do you know how to prepare to store some of those crops to feed the horses and livestock over the winter months?”
I still don’t look at him.
“Milk cows?” he continues, enjoying himself. “Train horses? Operate a chainsaw? Skin a deer?”
Yeah, okay.
“Can fruits and vegetables? Drive a tractor? Build a motorcycle from scratch?”
I lock my jaw, but I don’t answer.
“So cooking breakfast, it is,” he chirps. “We all do our part, Tiernan. If you want to eat.”
I’ll do my part and then some, but he could ask instead of give orders.
I turn my head toward him again. “You’re not my father, you know? I came here of my own free will, and I can leave whenever I want.”
But instead of walking away or ignoring me, a hint of mischief hits his eyes, and he smiles.
“Maybe,” he taunts. “Or maybe I’ll decide that you’d benefit from some time here and that you can’t leave, after all.”
My heart quickens.
“At least until I see you laugh,” he adds. “Or yell or scream or cry or fight or joke, and all in more than nods and one-word answers.”
I stare at him, and I feel my eyes burn with anger.
He cocks an eyebrow. “Maybe I’ll decide to honor your parents’ wishes and keep you until you’re of age.”
“I’ll be ‘of age’ in ten weeks.”
“We’ll be snowed in in eight.” And he laughs, backing away from me.
I feel the ghost of a snarl on my lips.
“Burn the bacon, Tiernan,” he instructs as he walks away. “We like it that way.”
Tiernan
I sling the saddle over the bench in the barn, not caring if that’s where I’m supposed to put it or not.
He won’t keep me here if I don’t want to stay, will he?
Whether or not he intends to, actually scares me less than knowing he can. I came here thinking I was a guest and him having power it wouldn’t even occur to him to use.
Well, it did, I guess. Maybe he thinks he can get rent out of me.
Or maybe he thinks me being a woman makes me a good cook? I’m not.
I exit the stable and head for the house, taking a shortcut through the attached shop and walking toward the door that will take me right into the kitchen.
I shake my head at myself. I can’t go home.
And I don’t want to go back to Brynmor. God, the idea of seeing anyone I know… I close my eyes. Or smelling that house.
I can’t face it. The stark white walls. Sitting in classrooms crowded with people I don’t know how to talk to.
My stomach turns, and I stop, leaning my forehead into something hanging from the ceiling in the shop. I wrap my arm around a punching bag and close my eyes.
I can’t go home.
I grip the leather, clenching it in my fist, and everything—my new reality—starts sinking in.
It doesn’t matter where I go—how I change my surroundings or run from all the places and people I don’t want to see. I’m still me. Running, leaving, hiding…
There’s no escape.
As liquid heat spreads down my arm I fist my palm and hit the bag, my hand barely denting the leather. I do it again and again, my pathetic little punches growing harder, because I’m fucked up and tired and confused… I don’t know how to feel better.
I suck in air through my teeth, finally rearing back and swinging my fist into the bag. The chains creak as it tries to swing, but I still have my other arm wrapped around it.
Maybe I’ll decide to honor your parents’ wishes and keep you until you’re of age.