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

who works at the hardware store. I can't. I won't. He's got one wife already. So Holden decided I should marry him instead."

"Bloody hell," Mick murmured, scooting his chair back from the table.

Ed was there now, kneeling in front of the girl. "Liberty, take a breath. One deep breath. Good," he added when she did. "Are you hurt at all?" She shook her head. "Has anyone touched you inappropriately?" Again, a negative answer. He gave Neva a sharp nod.

Candy moved to sit in the chair Ed had vacated. Neva looked to her for advice, but the other woman's wide-eyed bewilderment and resulting shrug wasn't a bit of help. Ed being here wasn't a problem. He'd often done physical exams on the girls who came to the Barn, and was as involved with Neva's network as was Candy.

But having Mick here . . . Neva had never felt so conflicted. She trusted him even while questioning whether she was basing that confidence on a false sense of who she wanted him to be. But she had to deal with the problem at hand, to get Liberty settled, to do something with Holden's car before the sheriff started pounding on her door.

At the moment, facing down Mick Savin seemed the lesser of two evils, and so she forged ahead. "Liberty, you need to slow down and start at the beginning. Tell us what happened after you left with Holden yesterday."

"Wait." Ed got to his feet, stared down at Neva. "Is this the time or the place?"

And Neva couldn't help it. She looked over at Mick. His eyes glittered dangerously, a silvery gray beneath a frown that would have intimidated her had she not spent the last eighteen hours absorbing all she could of him.

"I can go. I can stay." He paused, a delay that allowed her to take a deep breath, to focus. And then he said the only thing that she'd ever wanted him to say. The thing she needed to hear more than anything else. "I can help."

It was the right decision to bring him in. She knew it was. She reluctantly dragged her gaze from his. "Candy, can you and Ed get rid of the car? Mick doesn't know the area and doesn't need to be driving."

"Sure," Candy said, already on her feet. "Lib, did you leave the keys inside?"

Liberty nodded. "I'm sorry. I probably ruined the car. I suck at driving."

Ed dropped a hand to the teen's shoulder and squeezed. "Forget about the car. We'll take care of it. You let Neva take care of you."

Ed and Candy left the kitchen, and moments later both the BMW and Ed's truck headed down the drive. Neva offered Liberty a hand, helped the teen to her feet and toward the door, then looked back at Mick.

He pushed out of his chair when he realized she was waiting, lifted a brow along with one corner of his mouth as if he realized the gig was up. "Where are we going?"

Neva returned his look. "Where do you think?"

"Then what?"

"Then we make her disappear."

Ten

Walking behind the two women on the way from Neva's house to the barn, Mick remained silent as Liberty Mitchell told her story. It was a story that should've been hard to believe. A charismatic leader herding his congregation of lemmings toward the edge of a religious cliff, assuring them the rapture of spiritual enlightenment once they took that Olympic-sized leap of faith and went down.

The healthier they left the church financially, the more enlightened their afterlife. The more wives the men took with them, the more rapture bestowed on all parties to the marriages. Thing was, it wasn't hard to believe at all when one looked at the legacies left by Jim Jones, David Koresh, or Marshall Applewhite and the Heaven's Gate cult.

Mick added Pastor Straight from this so-called church in Earnestine Township to the list. Bringing innocent girls into the mix and using them as pawns. Bloody bunch of perverted bastards made him sick. And he couldn't figure why the hell the lawyer protecting this sex racket dressed like he worked on Wall Street and drove a car that could put the girl he proposed to marry through a year or more of a good state school.

Something was very fucking wrong with this picture. Mick started to interrupt the conversation ahead and ferret out what he could about Wagner, but both Neva's and Liberty's voices had lowered, shutting him out. He dropped back a bit to let them have the private time. FM dropped back, as well. It wasn't a problem. He wasn't here to get involved. He was only here should Neva need help.

That was it. That was all. He wasn't here because he couldn't bring himself to leave when she was in danger. He wasn't here because walking away meant never seeing her again. He wasn't here because leaving seemed so very wrong. On all counts. Every way he turned. Oh, yeah. Bloody well screwed he was, wasn't he? And he would have to deal with it. But later, once he saw for himself the truth of what went on at Neva's Big Brown Barn.

They'd reached the side patio and the door she'd ushered him through when she'd put him to work this morning. Leaving the dog outside, Mick followed behind Liberty as Neva led them both through the structure's first floor maze to the same corner where earlier he'd packed boxes for shipping. Once there, she headed for the wall of cubbyholes, hesitated as she made some sort of decision, then turned around and faced him?

"Wait here a second, sweetie," she said to Liberty before taking hold of his good arm and guiding him several steps back into the labyrinth so that they stood out of Liberty's sight and earshot between shelves of supplies. "Look." Neva stopped, twisted her hands together at her waist.

He looked. At her show of nerves. At the way her freckles stood out on her pale skin.