Page 52 of Stolen By the Billionaire
Blaze nodded and closed his eyes as if surrendering the point. “I grew up in Minneapolis. I’ve eaten a lot of Midwestern food.”
“I thought you grew up in a boarding school with Logan?”
“That wasn’t until we were thirteen. I was born in the Twin Cities.”
“Huh, so Logan knew the right age to run away.”
Blaze crossed his burly arms over his chest, and his eyelids dropped. “He was a few months early. Evidently, he ran to the house of a friend of his from school and knocked on the kid’s window in the middle of the night, scaring the poor guy to death. The kid’s parents let him call his grandfather in New York the next morning, and Stanley Bell sent him a plane ticket from Cedar Rapids to JFK for that afternoon. He stayed with his grandfather until school started in the fall.”
Sarah nodded but didn’t add anything.
Blaze squinted at her like her silence was the wrong answer. “Right. Did your parents ever find out what happened to Logan, or did they just assume he was dead in the cornfield?”
Oh, Sarah’s kidnapper was getting snippy with her. Nice. “I don’t know. I never asked them because I was seven, and I can’t ask them now because they’re dead.”
Blaze looked down, but he didn’t look sorry.
Somewhere in the distance outside the house, thunder rumbled. That was a good opportunity for a subject change.
She said, “Sounds like a storm is coming. Do you need to unplug your computer or anything? I always do that.”
Blaze shook his head, but the movement was tight like his neck was stiff. “This house is equipped with military-grade surge protectors. Nothing short of an EMP will damage the electronics in this place.”
“Well, okay, I guess.”
“I’ll show you to your bedroom.”
Sarah gestured at her clothes, which were her only possessions after Blaze had stolen her phone from her back at the farm. “You have a washing machine or something? If I’m staying here, I’ll need to do laundry every day. I’m not accustomed to wearing dirty clothes.”
At that, Blaze’s shoulders lowered. “I’ll find a long tee shirt of mine for you to wear and put your clothes in the washer for tomorrow. I have some travel kits with a toothbrush and such for unexpected guests.”
“Is that what we’re going to do, wash my same clothes every day? I wish you’d let me grab some clothes when you kidnapped me.”
Blaze lowered one eyebrow. “If you’d seen reason instead of arguing with me the whole time, we would have had a few minutes for you to pack a suitcase before the hitmen showed up to murder you.”
“I didn’t want to go with you! I’m still worried as heck about my animals and my farm, plus I’m going to get flamed on SnipSnap for not showing up for my readings. I don’t know where Charlie and HowNow went or if they’re okay.”
And with the thought of her horse and cow, Sarah’s eyes burned, and not just from the branding-iron-hot enchilada she’d eaten.
She looked down at the remnants of her supper on her plate—some shredded cabbage and a few smears of red sauce—and bit her lip to control her breathing because her throat was closing.
Maybe if she got him to call someone to ask about her stock, she could get a message through that she was being held hostage.
Maybe they could even triangulate the location of her cell phone from the towers and rescue her from this sealed-up house and its ex-SEAL psycho.
She asked, “Is there any way I could check on my animals, just to make sure they’re safe?”
Blaze leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a minute.
“I just need to know they’re okay,” she ventured. “They probably went to Abigail Yoder’s or the Meeks’s farm. I could just call them to check real quick.”
“I’m thinking,” Blaze said.
Sarah bit her lip as he thought. Maybe she could smell the oil burning on the gears, or maybe that was the burnt meat of her own mouth.
Blaze’s biceps and shoulders rounded under his skin and khaki shirt as he crossed his arms. Even the thick column of his neck looked strong. His shirt must have been soft because the fabric clung to his body, settling onto the stacked bricks of his abs on his torso and clinging to his tight waist.
The black ink of the tattoos trailing past his elbows to his forearms looked like vine tendrils.
