Wife Number Seven (The Compound, #1)(8)

“I’m the project manager on the prophet’s new home.” He gestured a block away to the unfinished home behind us. “I saw you walk by and, well . . . I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but I have to.”

He extended his hand, a folded envelope clutched between his calloused fingers. “Would you please give this to Rebecca?”

“I don’t think—” I shook my head and glanced around me, my heart racing in my chest.

“Please. I beg of you,” he said, his voice cracking. He swallowed hard and his eyes glistened.

My heart broke for him. The love he felt for Rebecca radiated from every pore of his body. Quickly, I snatched the envelope from his hand and crammed it into my purse, then walked away as if nothing had happened.

“Thank you,” he said in an anguished whimper from behind me. “Thank you.”

? ? ?

I couldn’t get Burt out of my head. So much so that I walked right past the store that Leandra had sent me to. I was in a daze; the anguish in his face haunted me. The obvious nights without sleep, the heartache that was plain in his eyes. I couldn’t imagine how that felt, but I wanted to feel it. As strange as it might sound, even heartache sounded like a better alternative to the indifference I experienced each and every day.

So lost in my thoughts of Burt and Rebecca, I didn’t notice the footsteps that dogged me, and probably had for several blocks. Unlike earlier, I didn’t feel that sense of dread and self-preservation that one feels when they’re being followed, when they’re being stalked.

Until it was too late.

A man looped his arm through the strap of my purse and gave a hard yank, trying to pull it from me.

I was being robbed.

I’d heard of this, of people stealing from others in the outside world, but had never experienced it. We didn’t steal. We shared, we gave, we accepted. But we never stole.

The placement of my hand inside the pocket of my dress was my saving grace. When the man pulled on my bag, he was unable to break free and run. Instead, the shock of the jarring pain to my wrist as he attempted to yank the purse from me was all it took to shock my system, making me fully aware of what was happening to me. So I dug in my feet and pulled back.

When the bag didn’t give, the man turned back and glared. His blue eyes bored into me and I lost my breath. I knew those eyes. I hadn’t seen them in so long, but I knew them.

“Porter?” My chin dropped as I said his name.

His eyes widened in shock, but his grip on the bag didn’t lessen. Instead, he tugged harder and swept me off my feet. I landed hard on the warm sidewalk, still clenching the purse’s strap in my hands.

“Let go,” he hissed through his clenched teeth, his nostrils flaring. It was then that I noticed how different he looked. He was not the boy I remembered.

Porter Hammond had been one of the most handsome young men in the compound. He was several years older than me, and I wasn’t supposed to admire him. After all, in our church, we were raised to view the opposite sex as villains, as snakes, as those we couldn’t possibly trust.

Until we were assigned to marry them. Then we were magically expected to get over it.

But Porter—there was always something about him. Something that drew me to the light in his eyes, the dimple in his pale cheek, and the warmth in his smile.

That smile had been permanently etched in my brain since I was ten years old . . .

? ? ?

When I was ten, Porter was a teenager and was one of the most talented boys when it came to construction. From a very young age, the boys in our community were sent to work with their fathers at various sites—both on and off the compound. Porter was especially talented at driving the forklift. And he was on said forklift on the day his smile became permanently etched in my brain.

My sister Winnie and I were walking down a dirt road in the compound. In my dress pocket, I carried a small doll I’d made out of cloth, my hand clutching it tightly as we walked. One year prior, the prophet had ordered all our toys to be removed and destroyed, claiming that God had revealed toys to be destructive to our maturing brains. When my parents took my baby dolls away, I’d sobbed, ignoring my mother’s stone-faced instructions to “keep sweet” and present a brave face despite my misery.

In perhaps my first act of defiance, I’d hidden remnants of fabric from my mother’s sewing box. Each night, I twisted and cut and twirled the fabric to create a small doll. She was my new baby and I’d never let anyone hurt or destroy her.

On that day, Winnie and I were walking past a group of boys working hard to build an addition to one of the prophet’s homes. Porter was driving the forklift while other boys walked, carrying two-by-fours on their shoulders.

“We should go the other way,” Winnie said, pointing away from the boys. But I was curious and wanted to observe them, even if only for a minute or two as we walked past their work site.

The boy on the forklift called out, “Hey, girls.”

“Don’t say anything,” Winnie whispered. “He’s a snake.”

Deep down I didn’t believe her, or my parents, or the prophet. He was just a boy. A boy with a beautiful smile who was looking right at me. He didn’t look like a snake or a predator, just a friendly boy. An innocent, friendly boy.

Without thinking, I released the doll inside my pocket and I waved. As I did, Porter’s gaze darted to the ground and instinctively, I looked down too.