Biding His Thyme: 4 (9 page)

“You gonna tell Brother Rick on me,” Jake
taunted, probably unwisely.

“You’re here on a trial basis,” Brother
John said.

“That’s true, so you’d better be nice to me
or I’ll decide to move to the South Island group.”

Brother John rose to his feet and left without
another word.

“You shouldn’t tangle with him,” one of the
elderly men said. “The boy has a mean streak.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Jake said. “I
shouldn’t have baited him. I’ll apologize to him in the morning.”

“Won’t do any good,” the elderly man said,
fingers tugging on his white beard. “The boy holds his grudges. He’s been that
way since he was a toddler.”

“Have you lived here for a long time? Would
you recommend Children of Nature as a good home?”

The elderly man glanced over his shoulder,
leaned a fraction closer. “This used to be a good place to live. Things changed
after Brother Rick took charge.”

“In what way?”

“We used to all be equals, but now the men
run everything and make the decisions. Some of the women are no better than
slaves. They do the cooking, the cleaning and bear children.” The elderly man
paused, his brow knitting in a fierce frown. “Then there’s this gathering
business. It’s not right the way they treat the women.”

“Did you attend the last gathering? From
what I heard most of the men enjoyed it.”

“They enjoyed the sex and the alcohol.” The
man snorted. “Their behavior was disgusting. They acted like animals.”

“You were there.”

“Aye, I was there. I was no better than the
others. The next morning I woke up with one of the young girls and was
disgusted with myself. Young man, don’t partake of the food or drinks supplied
on the night. I’m sure it was drugged. That’s the only explanation I have. I
didn’t touch the alcohol some of them drank. The young girl wouldn’t have slept
with me willingly. Not an old coot like me.”

“I thought the men and women under
twenty-five weren’t required to attend.”

“That’s the official line, but their
attendance is looked upon favorably. The youngsters who attended have received
material rewards—better tasks and new, more private quarters.”

“Where does Brother Rick sleep?”

“He commandeered the old farm house after
Brother Samuel died.”

Jake nodded. “Does anyone share it with
him?”

His three friends share the house, and
occasionally they have female company.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“No, not really. They share it around.
Brother Rick keeps that part of his life private. If any of the women gossip
they’re cast aside. One of the sisters used to be a favorite. She mentioned his
new furniture and the wide-screen television up at the house and hasn’t been
invited back.”

Jake’s brows rose. “He has a TV?”

“Among other mod-cons,” the elderly man
said drily.

“Interesting.” He needed to get into the
house to see for himself as soon as Brother Rick left the compound again.

The women arrived bearing supper, and two
young women served tea and hot chocolate plus shortbread biscuits.

Jake took a cup of hot chocolate and
biscuit with a polite smile.

An hour later the men started to drift off
to the sleeping quarters. Jake decided he might as well retire too because
Sorrel intended to do another delivery early in the morning.

Jake went through his bedtime preparations
and kicked off his sandals. One by one the men stretched out on their single
beds and the lights flicked off. Jake shouldered off his robe, hanging it on
the wall peg near his bed. He stretched out, searching his plan for flaws. The
quicker he caught out Brother Rick, the sooner he could leave this wacky place.

The walking left him physically tired, but
he felt better than he had since his last mission ended abruptly in an injury.
A wide yawn took him, and he closed his eyes, slipping easily into sleep.

* * * * *

Sorrel took Jake’s advice to heart and,
after removing the junk off her mother’s old chair, managed to shove it under
the doorknob. As he said, it wouldn’t hold out a determined man, but she’d
receive a warning of anyone trying to enter.

That done, she checked the windows. She’d
allowed them to collect dust on purpose, a suggestion from her mother when
they’d first started working on the cream together.

“The less the others knew about their
private business, the better,” her mother had declared. “There’s such a thing
as too much sharing.”

When she was positive no one was spying on
her, she retrieved the cream from the hidey hole her mother had shown her under
the floorboards. This was a new batch she’d made earlier in the day, and she
was looking forward to the testing.

Sorrel organized her bedding and switched
off the lights, plunging her workshop into darkness. The familiar scents of her
dried herbs and flowers made the pitch black friendly and free of creeping
ghosts to play on her mind.

She’d enjoyed today, working alongside Jake
and Sister Bernadette. It made her feel…normal. It gave her a glimpse of life
on the outside, working at a job during the day and returning to her own home
in the evening. Her mother’s stories of her years before the compound, the
parties, the days of work. Going shopping. A sigh escaped. It was difficult to
imagine spending an afternoon wandering aimlessly through one shop after
another.

She dropped to her pallet, hesitating. No,
she needed to fully test the cream. The chair would give her enough warning to
dress. With years of practice, she tugged her robe over her head. She unfastened
the bulky padding from around her waist and set it aside. Then she unwrapped
the linen strip binding her breasts and her baggy cotton panties. Naked, she
stretched, enjoying the caress of fresh air across her skin, the prickle of her
breasts as they reacted to the cooler temperature.

Anticipation stirred both mind and body as
she reached for the cream.

Masturbation is a sin
. The words echoed in the back of her mind, and she smirked into the
darkness. Her mother had refuted the horrified words of the elderly sister in
private to Sorrel.

“It’s the best way to learn your body. How
can you tell a lover what you want if you don’t know yourself?” her mother,
ever practical, had asked her.

She’d made sure Sorrel knew about sex, but
even so her one time at age eighteen had been a disappointment. Listening to
her mother, she’d made sure she picked a day when she was less likely to
conceive, but the bumbling Brother Gabriel had been so excited he’d come
prematurely after one clumsy, painful thrust.

In hindsight, she’d been lucky. Brother
Gabriel, who had later died after falling out of a tree, had told the other
boys she was terrible in bed. Her mother had spun this into a good thing.

“You’ll have more options if you don’t get
pregnant. I love you, Sorrel, and I don’t regret having you, but if I hadn’t
become pregnant, I’d have done things differently. Children of Nature was the
only way I could see of keeping you and staying safe.”

And she and her mother had planned a way
for Sorrel to leave if she wanted. It had been a secret her mother hadn’t even
shared with her lover, Brother Samuel.

Sorrel reached for the tub of cream and
removed the lid. She dipped her finger inside and sniffed to savor the
different notes of the bouquet. The initial floral scent deepened to musky and
mysterious as it absorbed her body heat. Slowly, she traced a circle around one
nipple. Awareness surged through her, a delicate creep toward pleasure, but she
wasn’t sure if it was the cream or residual feelings she’d experienced from
getting close and sexy with Jake.

The instant a vision of Jake bloomed in her
mind, hot pleasure spilled through her. She returned to teasing her nipples,
her thumb skating against the side of one breast. Using the cream as a
counterpoint to the friction of her work-roughened fingers, she continued to
stroke until her nipples were hard nubs, signaling lustful messages to her
pussy. She swallowed, her mind full of Jake, his rare yet enticing smile and
the hard pressure of his hands on her body when he’d kissed her.

She collected another smidgeon of cream on
her forefinger and delved between her legs. Heat unfurled inside her and tiny
tingles coalesced into something more, better. Soon her fingers moved in long,
luxurious strokes down her slit and skated her clitoris.

A gasp escaped as Jake’s visage played
across the insides of her closed eyes. She could practically feel his presence,
smell his hot, male scent. Her eyes flicked open, almost expecting to see him
in person, but no—it was her imagination working overtime.

Her fingers dipped and delved, running her
fingers over slippery folds and now and then the hard nub of her clit. With an
intense burst of heat, the sensations spiraled downward in a familiar low
pressure signifying an impending climax.

“Jake,” she whispered.

Her hips arched upward, pushing her finger
into greater contact with her clit. The clawing tension rushed into a ball of
heat, teetered on an almost painful pulse then exploded. Sorrel bit down on her
bottom lip, to keep her cry of pleasure contained, continuing to gently
stimulate the bundle of nerves until the spasms tailed off.

“Well,” she whispered into the darkness.
“Nothing wrong with that batch of cream.”

A sound—out of place—made her stiffen. She
groped for her clothes, tying the stuffing around her waist and yanking the
robe over her head. She shoved the cream out of sight.

Someone forced the door, and the chair
skidded across the floor with the anguished groan of wood meeting stone.

“Let him go.”

The panicked words flooded his dream. Urgent,
they made him hesitate instead of finishing off the enemy threatening his life.
A second pair of hands gripped his shoulders painfully tight, digging into his
muscles.

Jake cursed a blue streak and came awake
swinging. His fist connected with someone’s jaw. His gaze flitted left and
right, assessing the danger, assessing the enemy. Greg stood over by the door,
his ever-present grin lighting up his face. Joy suffused Jake at seeing his
friend, then as he watched, Greg started to fade. All the fight went out of
Jake as he woke fully. He slumped, his hands relaxing.

Another one of those fuckin’ dreams.

“He tried to kill me,” a voice trembling
with fear said.

The fog cleared from Jake’s mind, the
crispness of the real world overriding the dreamlike one. The light flicked on,
illuminating the room. Jake straightened even as he realized he was bending
over the bed of the brother who slept next to him.

Fuck.

“Sorry, man. I thought…I’m sorry.” Jake
backed away until the back of his thighs struck his own bed, hands raised in a
gesture of surrender. He dropped to the mattress hard enough to make the bed
frame clunk in protest.

“He tried to choke me,” the brother
repeated.

“Where did you get all those scars?”
another asked.

Double fuck. Realizing he’d have to give
some sort of explanation, he focused on his bare feet. “I was in an accident.”

“Motor vehicle?”

Jake grabbed his robe, fighting to control
the shudders attempting to take over his body. “A hit and run.” A tame
explanation, but one these men who knew nothing of the horrors of war would
accept. God, he had to get out of here before he lost it totally.

“Need fresh air,” he managed, pushing past
the men loitering near his bed. He left them muttering between themselves, the
man he’d almost choked complaining loudly about assault.

His eyes adjusted to the night gloom
outside. Overhead stars twinkled in a determined fashion, not cowed by the scud
of clouds across the sky.

Hell, he hadn’t had the dream for over a
week. He thought he’d done with the past, accepted it wasn’t his fault Greg
died, even though Greg’s fiancée and Greg’s brothers thought otherwise.

He walked to the boundary of the compound,
even remembering to limp in case someone was spying on him. Behind him the
light went out as everyone returned to bed now that the excitement was over.
Jake continued walking through the dark, his mind in turmoil. Finally, he
ceased his restless motion, letting out a pained groan. “God, Greg.” He covered
his face with his hands. “Why do you have to hang around with me?”

A crash and a feminine scream jerked him
from his pity party. He was running in the direction of Sorrel’s workshop
before the thought even registered. Another crash traveled to him plus the
screech of a pissed female.

A figure burst from the workshop before
Jake reached it. He or she—Jake couldn’t tell—wore dark clothes rather than a
white robe, and they disappeared into the night. Jake considered chasing them
and disregarded the thought because of his cover.

“Sorrel. Sorrel? Where are you, damn it?”
Jake scanned the workshop and headed over to the area where he knew she slept.

“Jake?” Sorrel’s voice quivered from behind
the door.

“It’s me, sweetheart.” He switched on the
light, his gaze going straight to Sorrel. Her face was pale, apart from a red
splotch on her left cheek. “What happened?”

“Someone wanted to get into my workshop.
Thank goodness I listened to you and put a chair against the door. The sound
woke me.”

Jake eyed her cheek again. “They hit you.”

“He started to mess up my supplies,
sweeping my stock onto the floor. I tried to stop him, and he punched me.”

“He?”

“I think it was a man. He’d concealed his
face, but why would one of the women want to destroy my workshop? The women
like my products, and those who work at the store love getting away from the
work grind here at the compound.”

“Maybe one of the women is jealous because
she wants to work at the store.”

“No.” Sorrel shook her head, remaining
behind her workstation. “They take turns. Everyone who wants to work there ends
up with a stint at the store.”

“What’s going on here?” Brother Rick stood
at the door, glancing from Sorrel to Jake.

“Someone tried to vandalize Sorrel’s
workshop.” Damn if he’d call her Bitter. She was the least bitter person he
knew, which was amazing considering the way the people treated her here.

”Where are they?” Brother Rick asked.

“They ran off,” Sorrel said.

“Rubbish,” Brother Rick said. “Clean up
this mess, and I’ll deal with you in the morning. The rest of you can go to
bed.” He glared at Sorrel before striding away toward his quarters.

“Did they damage the stock we made this
afternoon?” Jake asked, his gaze narrowed on Brother Rick’s back. How had he
arrived so quickly? And it was interesting the way he was wearing dark jeans
and a T-shirt.

“He blames me. It could have been him,”
Sorrel said once everyone had left them alone to clean up the mess. “The
intruder was about the same height.”

“It could have been one of his friends,”
Jake said.

“Apart from Brother John, the others aren’t
back from wherever they went.”

Jake started to pick up the spilled herbs
and raw ingredients. Sorrel kneeled beside him, righting the items that had
survived the fall to the stone floor.

“I need Luke to discover where they go when
they leave the compound.” Jake fetched the broom and started to sweep up the
bits of jars and the unusable stock. “How often does he leave the compound?”

“It used to be once a month, but lately
he’s absent more frequently.”

“Someone will have to go and pick them up
from wherever they are.”

Sorrel shook her head. “There are bus
services to Sloan. Or they could hitch a ride with someone. They don’t look as
weird if they’re dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.”

A chuckle escaped Jake. “You admit the
members of the cult are weird.”

Sorrel snorted. “From what I hear there are
loads of weird people in the world. Children of Nature members don’t have
exclusive rights.”

She wasn’t wrong. No doubt gossip about him
trying to throttle someone would spread through the compound as rapidly as
bullets spraying from a machine gun. By tomorrow morning everyone would be
giving the weirdo a wide berth. One thing was sure. He needed to apologize to
the poor brother he’d almost choked, and it would be better if he found
somewhere else to sleep because he was positive Greg hadn’t finished playing
tricks on him yet. The haunting looked set to continue.

* * * * *

The day of the gathering arrived, and
Sorrel wasn’t any closer to learning if Alice Beasley wanted to market her
product. A queasy sensation rested in the pit of her stomach, fighting her
constant hunger for the position of honor. Horrid thoughts of Alice stealing
her product darted into her mind, but no matter how she rethought her actions
she couldn’t have done it any other way—not when she was tied to the compound
by a rigid schedule.

She half expected Brother Rick to stop her
from making her deliveries, and she always made a point of dampening her face
and hair and pinching her cheeks and chin to make herself appear sweaty before
she wheeled her handcart through the gates on her return. Let him think the
walk to and from the town was a punishment. She knew better.

“It’s the gathering tonight,” she said,
glancing up from the pot she was stirring.

Jake worked at her side, competently
filling jars with a hand lotion she’d made from lemons and coconut oil.

“What are you going to do?”

She lifted her chin and met his gaze.
“Brother Rick wants me to break. He wants to make me like one of the other
women—the ones who make those disgusting goo-goo eyes at him.”

Jake paused, a glint of humor lightening
his eyes. “Goo-goo eyes?”

“You know.” A trace of impatience filled
her as she tapped the spoon sharply against the edge of the pot.

“I’m a guy. Any relation to a stink eye?”

She huffed out a sigh and turned to face
him. His interested gaze made her want to squirm, and she sucked in a quick
breath, her breasts straining against their binding. Angry with herself,
because a future wasn’t possible with this man, she squared her shoulders and
blinked while pursing her lips into a sultry pout.

A wide smile broke, and she caught a flash
of white teeth despite his bushy black beard.

“So that’s a goo-goo eye,” he said. “You
look as if you have a smut stuck in there.”

“I need practice,” she said drily. “Not
that I want goo-goo eyes in my repertoire. I’m not going to let Brother Rick
force me into a life at the compound, which is why I’m attending the gathering
with you.” Shock that she’d told him made her freeze, and she held her breath
while she waited for his reply. If he refused…

“Are you sure you want to attend? You’re
not twenty-five yet.”

She made a scoffing sound at the back of
her throat. “Most of the younger women attend. He’s using the age requirement
to taunt me. Brother Rick isn’t expecting me to turn up, let alone take part. I
can’t wait to see the expression on his face when I walk into the communal
hall.”

Jake turned to her, his face serious.
“Don’t goad him in return, sweetheart. The man is dangerous. You don’t want
your grand gesture to prod him into taking further action at your expense.”

“What do you mean?”

“He could always force you to share his
bed, and there isn’t much you could do to stop him.”

Some of the
oomph
seeped out of her
confidence. Jake was right. Brother Rick held grudges. She’d learned to her
cost already.

“He’s already tried and failed. I presume
it’s part of the reason he hates me.” She turned away to check the slow simmer
of her pot. A quick stir of the creamy contents told her the mixture wasn’t
sticking. “I punctured his ego.”

Jake grasped her forearm and tugged her to
face him. “When?”

The single word was an order, a sharp bark
of sound she imagined worked well in the military world.

“Don’t try to order me around. I get enough
of that from Brother Rick and the other men around here.”

He released her arm and lifted his hands in
a gesture of surrender. “Sorry. Please tell me what happened between you and
Brother Rick.”

“Virginity is prized around here. Some of
the girls choose to be honored and go through an initiation.”

“Jesus,” he muttered. “Why?”

“It’s a sign of our acceptance of the
Children of Nature philosophies and a rite of passage to adulthood.” Each stiff
word held shame. God, she hated living here. Maybe she should’ve left earlier,
run away as a teenager, but she hadn’t wanted to leave her mother.

“Who gets the honor?”

“The leader.”

“But you didn’t lose your virginity to the
last leader. Brother Samuel?”

“No.” Her gaze shot to her sandals and her
shoulders rounded to make her appear smaller, weaker. Submissive.

“Sorrel, don’t do that.” She heard the
scuff of his sandals on the stone floor as he neared her. His fingertips tilted
up her chin until she watched him warily. “You’re my equal. You don’t have to
act like this around me. Is that why you gave yourself to one of the younger
brothers? Please tell me.”

It was the please that did it. A wealth of
emotion burst open inside her, much like a blooming flower. “I hated the
thought of everyone knowing, everyone discussing my ceremony, and that was why
I picked a younger brother when I felt ready. I told you he was so excited it was
over and done in seconds.”

“I’ll kill him,” Jake muttered.

“Too late. He fell out of a tree and broke
his neck.”

Jake shot her a sharp look. “And that’s the
only time you’ve been with a man?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

“What? What do you see?” He was judging
her, making her feel stupid and embarrassed just as the other men did. At this
rate she wouldn’t need to turn on a burner to melt the wax for candles. She’d
manage the job with the heat of her cheeks.

“You’re still practically a virgin.”

Sorrel frowned at him, not understanding.

“You can’t go into the gathering. If anyone
is watching they’ll notice.” He gestured in the direction of her stomach, but
she knew what he meant. She’d run the risk of attracting unwanted attention.

“What else can I do? I was hoping I’d hear
from Alice. Time is running out.”

“I could get you out tonight. I have
friends who’d help you,” Jake said.

She hesitated.

“What?”

“Brother Rick confiscated the few books on
herbs and natural beauty products my mother saved from her prior life,” Sorrel
said. “I want them before I leave.”

“Hell,” Jake said. “Why didn’t you tell me
this earlier?”

“You have your task and I have mine,” she
said simply. “I’ll have to take care while retrieving my stuff, but I need to
be ready to leave the compound as soon as I hear from Alice.”

“Do you know where he keeps them?”

“In his private quarters, I think. That’s
the last place I saw them.”

“I see.”

“Will you stop saying that? Are you going
to help me or not?”

“I’ve already told you I’ll help you,” he
said.

“Good. You’re right about the gathering.
Maybe we should have a trial run this afternoon. From what I’ve seen and heard
about the last gathering, everyone takes one partner or more. They have sex in
the hall where everyone can witness. Then, I’ve heard through the gossip vine
that this time, if they want, they can do it again with another partner or
leave for more privacy.”