He got within feet when she whirled and lifted the knife, not to brandish it at him, to point it at him.
“Don’t you get near me,” she snapped, jerking the knife at him on the word “you”. Then she turned back to the carrot she was annihilating and kept chopping. “You could have killed me.”
“I’m aware of that, little one,” he replied, forcing his voice to be soft.
Her shoulders tensed but she kept chopping. “I pray to God whoever has my meds gets here in time.”
“They’ll get here,” he said firmly.
“I would say I’d never forgive you for this but if this hadn’t ended the way I hope,” she whirled on the word “hope” and narrowed her gaze at him, “it will, I wouldn’t be around long enough to forgive.”
Her declaration rattled him even further but he didn’t let it show.
“Stop chopping and put down the knife,” Callum ordered gently and she instantly adhered to his command. Slamming the knife down on the counter and picking up the cutting board, she dumped the carrot on top of the salad leaves already in a bowl.
She did this clumsy in her anger and carrots went everywhere.
She ignored the raining carrots, slammed the cutting board back down and reached for a cucumber.
He advanced, positioning himself behind her and caught her wrists, both of them, and wrapped her arms around her belly along with his own as he leaned down so his mouth was at her ear.
Her entire frame, from head-to-toe, tensed at his touch.
He ignored it and murmured, “I’m sorry I worried you, baby doll.”
As a child she was, in his sharp recollection, a living doll. He’d never forgotten her, not a single feature, not a moment.
He had been pleased that morning to hear she hadn’t forgotten him either and more pleased that their meeting had clearly had as profound an effect on her as it had on him. It gave him another sliver of hope that she understood their connection on some level and she might, soon, embrace it (heartily).
On that thought, he pulled her deeper into his body.
She was silent through this.
“Sonia,” he called.
“I’ll accept your apology the minute your man walks through that door.”
“Fair enough,” he agreed.
“Now, take your hands off me,” she demanded.
“No,” he replied.
She went even stiffer.
Callum ignored it again.
“My people are affectionate, Sonia. We touch. We hug. We cuddle.” Amongst other, more pleasurable things he decided it sensible not to share at that moment. “You’re going to need to get used to this.”
“Well, I don’t have any people therefore I’m not used to cuddling, touching and hugging. Especially guys I’ve known for a few hours. Now, take your hands off me!” she snapped.
His response was to pull her closer.
Her response was to go even stiffer.
He decided to change the subject and said, “If you think I’m eating salad for lunch –”
“I’m making you grilled cheese sandwiches. You can have cheese for every meal for all I care. I’m having salad…” His arms got tight at this defiance but she talked right through it. “I had food enough for two meals at breakfast but I’ll need something light before dinner and you are just going to have to force feed me if you want it any different.”
Callum grinned into her hair.
Finally, he was beginning to enjoy this.
Therefore, he agreed, “All right, Sonia.”
“Now, please, would you take your hands off me?”
He rubbed his temple against her hair then slid his lips around the curve of her ear.
He liked her smell. It was human but it was far from unpleasant.
As his lips rounded the curve of her ear, he felt a short tremor shudder through her rigid body before she jerked solid.
Yes, definitely beginning to enjoy this.
He moved his lips to the skin behind her ear and repeated, “All right, Sonia.”
Then he let her go and watched her start to decimate the cucumber while he walked back to his laptop.
He found, twenty minutes later, she made excellent grilled cheese sandwiches.
And, he had to admit, the salad wasn’t bad either.
Chapter Six
King
Sonia was standing in the kitchen boiling the kettle for a cup of her favorite herbal tea, telling herself she wasn’t grateful to Callum for making certain it was stocked. But she was grateful. She drank that tea all the time. She didn’t know what she’d do without it.
This was after an afternoon spent gazing in the fire and plotting her escape.
She did this while listening to him talk on the phone seventeen times. She’d counted. There was nothing better to do, except plot her escape, of course.
Either he was a really good actor, this was a more elaborate pretence than she imagined or he did, indeed, have “men”. At least three of them that she could count. One named Ryon, one named Caleb and one named Calder and all of them reported in frequently on a variety of what sounded like war-like subjects that included Callum giving a variety of leader-of-the-gang-like orders.
He also spent a good deal of time on his computer.
Luckily, the rest of the time he left her alone so she could plot her escape.
And plot she did.
She didn’t have any shoes but she did have a bunch of socks and he had several pairs of boots.
Okay, so his feet were large like his hands.
But if she put enough socks on, maybe she could keep his boots on her feet long enough for her to get away.
And get away she was going to do. It had been thirty-one years since she wandered this forest with her father but when she was a kid she wandered with him all the time and she had a good memory. Her father loved being out of doors, especially at night, and he took Sonia with him.
The animals weren’t only unafraid of her. Her father, too, had that particular gift. They saw wildlife in the moonlight with their night vision (her father had that too) and she remembered, quite keenly, that those times were magical.
She also remembered a cave not too far away that her father had shown her.
Not only shelter but she would imagine that Callum would guess she’d seek assistance, not shelter herself in a cave until the coast was clear.
She could take a blanket, wrap up some food and she would go, hang out there until the weather cleared and then move out, find someone and report her kidnapping.
If it kept snowing, her footprints would be covered in minutes.
Further, she had better hearing, eyesight and smell than Callum. She’d be able to sense him if he came after her.