Read Online Out of Control by Mary Connealy - Free Book Online

mind you if it means I have to watch my children die.” She rested her hand on her stomach. The one she still carried was at more risk than Maggie, but neither was safe.
    â€œYou’re the one that’d be killing them if you’re so stupid as to leave me.”
    â€œNo.” Audra grew more determined with every word. “That would be on your head if you let me go alone.”
    â€œYou try and leave, and I’ll stop you.” He twisted her braid until she cried out with pain.
    But the pain just made her angry. “You can’t stop me because you’re never here. I’ll leave as soon as you do. I’ll follow you to town; then your secret will be out. Everyone will know you have a wife, two daughters, and a baby on the way. You have to let go sometime, and when you do I am leaving. Now you take your filthy hands off of me.”
    He released her hair and shoved her against the wall again. “I told you to shut your mouth.”
    She shoved him back and bumped his right arm. He flinched as if the slight blow hurt terribly, though she suspected any hurt he felt was to his pride.
    Wendell’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t raise a fist. He’d been cruel with words and yet he’d never hit her. Right now, judging from the strange, almost glazed fury in his eyes, she was very much afraid he was capable of it. “We can’t go back. Don’t you know why we came out here?”
    â€œYou talked about heading west to California or Oregon. You said we’d start another general store.”
    His voice cackled with cruel laughter, a sound she’d never heard from him before. His eyes seemed unfocused, as if he looked through her to the past. “You really think I paid for that house in Houston and your clothes and food with money earned from a pitiful store?”
    Audra frowned. She had no idea what his income source had to do with anything. “Of course I believe it. How else did we live?”
    â€œGambling.” He spoke the word with grim satisfaction, and his eyes took on the glazed look of a fanatic.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWhy do you think your pa married you off to me?” Wendell had never spoken of gambling. But now his manner was wild, as if he’d forgotten to keep things to himself.
    â€œI knew he owed you money.”
    â€œHe owed me for a gambling debt he couldn’t pay. A big one.” Wendell rubbed his unshaven chin as he eyed her. “I shouldn’t have taken you in trade. I’d’ve been better off with the money—’cept your pa didn’t have any, and a man has weak moments. You were a pretty little thing. Innocent. It appealed to me to have you in my hands.” His hungry gaze made her sick.
    â€œAnd I knew Julia had one foot out the door,” he added. “She was fixing to leave first chance she got, and I needed someone for cover.”
    â€œCover?” That made no sense. None of it did. “What did you gamble on? You ran a store. Isn’t most gambling done in a saloon? With card games?”
    â€œI didn’t have a store in Houston. I had the best little gambling house in town. And a man don’t need a card game to gamble.”
    â€œWhat then?”
    â€œHorse races, cockfights, boxing mills, a throw of the dice.” That cruel laugh escaped again. “Honey, a man gambles on anything and everything, and the back of my saloon was the best place in town to put money down on a race or fight.”
    â€œSaloon?” Audra shook her head. “My father lost money to you gambling?”
    â€œHe did. And I sent men to hunt him down and take what was due. He didn’t have it so they dragged him in. He was on his knees begging me to forgive the debt. He offered his pretty daughter as payment for his sins.” Wendell leaned closer. The stench of him was unbearable. “Every time I come to you in the night, it’s like you’re working that off. You