Larger Than Life by Alison Kent (bill gates books recommendations .TXT) 📗

down, coaxed FM to do the same, and smiled as she thought back to Mick's explanation for the dog's name. Then she sobered. What was a man like Mick Savin doing with a dog?

"You can't take in everyone that needs help," the other woman called, walking back up, her skirt swinging as she pushed the dolly. Once she reached Neva's side, Candy stopped, and together they began stacking the boxes. "What you do is too important. I know that better than anyone."

Neva nodded, started to speak, to tell her friend everything, then found that she couldn't. Candy didn't know that Neva feared she'd taken in too many girls already, that she'd overlooked details, that she'd hit snags that someone outside of the network had pulled, unraveling the five years of work she and Candy had done here.

Three of the missing girls Neva had harbored, whom she'd then sent on their way to safety, to a real life, a normal life, had vanished like so much blue smoke. And she had no idea what had happened. None of her queries had met with success. None of her contacts had panned out.

Once the girls moved into the deeper web of the network, her responsibility for them ended. That didn't mean her conscience ceased to work. Or that she felt nothing for their situation. How could she have failed so miserably, so completely, thinking she was a messiah, that she'd been called . . .

Candy interrupted Neva's musings to go on. "Besides, you can't mislead news crews indefinitely. One of these days, you're going to be found out. We're going to be found out. Rumors don't stay rumors when they're really the truth. If Liberty Mitchell discovers that truth, I don't see her keeping her big yap shut."

Knowing she couldn't argue with any of what Candy said, Neva grabbed the last box, balanced it on top of the chest-high stack, and slammed the tailgate shut, dusting off her hands on her thighs. "She doesn't know anything yet, and I don't expect her to be here long. Something's going on with her, but I haven't figured out what."

"She came here because of the rumors, Neva. She thought she'd be getting some kind of free ride to another life."

"Well, as long as that sort of stupid rumor keeps circulating," Neva said, laughing lightly as she crouched face-tolace with FM, "we should be safe. A free ride is the last th ing any of the girls truly escaping Earnestine are looking for. They're so grateful to get out of there that they're willing to pay with their lives."

"And they can thank you and the South Texas College of Law that they don't have to."

Candy was right. Neva knew it. But she was still bothered beyond belief at having lost touch with any of the girls after they left her care. And speaking of care .. . "You really think we can trust Liberty with the dog?"

"I'm telling you. Turning the dog over to her is perfect."

"Where is she now?"

Candy nodded toward the front of the Barn and the showroom. "Supposedly Windexing the display cases."

Neva got back to her feet. "Pooch here has a schedule for his medicine, and his stitches can't get wet. Ed included a bottle of shampoo that I'm sure is going to cost me a small fortune."

"He's sending you the bill?"

"Are you kidding? Anything to remind me that I insisted we work better as friends."

Candy snorted. "With friends like that. .. sticking you with a bill instead of writing it off as charity."

"Hey, you know what they say about a man scorned."

"Yeah. That he'll never believe his dick was too small."

Sputtering, Neva headed for the cab and the bag of supplies she'd left there. "Sad, isn't it. They really don't get that size does matter."

"Something Ed, being a vet and all, should understand," Candy teased.

"Here." Neva shoved the bag of dog supplies at Candy, trying not to picture Mick Savin or wonder about his anatomy claims. "Make sure our Miss Liberty follows the instructions."

"Yes, boss," Candy said with a wink, cocking back the dolly stacked with the boxes and whistling for the dog. "One doggie bath coming up."

Neva watched Candy go, pushing the hand truck of supplies toward the Barn. Beside her, walking slowly, FM worked to shake off the effects of the sedative. Smiling to herself, Neva climbed back into the cab, turned the key, put the truck in gear, and headed for the house.

Candy always put the truth of the matter into perspective. Size did matter. Whether the size of a man's genitalia or the size of the rumors circulating about what went on at the Big Brown Barn. Thankfully, Liberty had shown up begging for a job when there were no other girls in residence. Not that there ever were many.

In fact, Neva often thought the fewer the better. Fewer girls meant less chance for exposure, less chance for the scuttlebutt about the Barn to grow an investigatory head of truth. But fewer girls could also mean contacting her was becoming more difficult. Or that the underground network keeping the word out was falling apart. Those were her biggest fears because they meant that somewhere she'd failed.

She was done with failure, whether court-documented or self-perceived. The girls in Earnestine Township who wanted to escape from a medieval mindset of arranged marriages foisted on them at a very young age for the gain of their parents, or because of warped practices made acceptable by the cloak of religion . . . those girls deserved that chance.

No female of any age should be forced into a man's bed no matter the circumstances. Neva had seen it happen too often. And she'd be damned if she was going to sit back and watch it happen to anyone else. Not when the opportunity to prevent it had dropped like a gift into her lap the day six years ago when she'd been assigned Candy Roman as a client by the court.

A client who'd been