Stay With Me (Hope Valley Book 5)

by Jessica Prince

  “Ah, hell!” the kid barked, struggling uselessly. “Let me go, dickhead!”

  My gaze shot down as Cord gave the kid a shake, not hard enough to hurt him but enough to let the kid know he was definitely outmatched. “Watch your mouth,” he said in a low, scary voice that would’ve scared most anyone, child and adult alike, but not this kid.

  “Screw you, asshole,” the kid fired back, his face twisted with hatred as he glared up at Cord. That was when I noticed the bruises that riddled his face.

  “Did you hit him?” I asked Cord on a shocked whisper.

  His jaw ticked, though I knew it wasn’t with offense at my question but rather with rage at seeing this kid had clearly been beaten up. “Looked like that when I got my hands on him.”

  Before another word could be said, the door to the bar swung open, and two uniformed officers came through.

  Cord

  To say the night had taken a downward turn would have been a severe understatement. The kid I caught after he’d thrown that rock through the window had an attitude that rivaled any the police and Rory had seen before, but the longer I watched him, the longer he postured and remained belligerent, the more I got a sick, twisted feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  Because Rory and the officers might have been unfamiliar with behavior like this, but I wasn’t. I’d seen this kind of thing more times than I could count. Hell, I’d been just like this kid at his age and for years to come.

  The bruises on his face, the dirty, tattered clothes hanging off his too-skinny frame, the insolence he used to mask the fear in his eyes. Oh yeah, I’d seen it all.

  “Why’d you throw the rock through that window, son?”

  “’Cause I wanted to.”

  We’d been at this for what felt like forever. Sitting at one of the tables Rory had set up, the officers, one I knew to be Fred Duncan and another I didn’t know but had seen around before, tried to question the boy while Rory and I stood at the side of the bar watching.

  Every question Duncan or the other cop asked was responded to with a smartass, disrespectful reply. He hadn’t given his name or the name of his parents, hadn’t divulged anything other than he’d vandalized Rory’s bar because he “wanted to.”

  “You realize you’re in a lot of trouble here, right?” Duncan tried. “If Miss Hightower wants to, she can press charges. As it is, your folks are lookin’ to cough up a lotta money to repair the damage you caused tonight.”

  The kid flopped back in his seat and rolled his eyes on a snort. “Yeah. Good luck with that.”

  Leaning over to whisper in my ear, Rory said in a hushed voice, “Something’s not right about this.”

  “What do you mean, honey?”

  Her eyes stayed trained on the kid. “I mean look at him. He’s acting like a punk, but he’s scared. You can see it. He’s terrified.”

  I was surprised she’d been able to see that. Most other people wouldn’t have. This kid was good at hiding his emotions. I only saw it because I knew the signs. Rory was more intuitive than I’d realized.

  “Who’re your folks, son? What’re you doin’ out so late on a school night?” the officer continued.

  “None of your business, pig.”

  “You realize,” Duncan tried, “you don’t tell us your name or where you’re from, we’ll have to call in social services to take you in. We can’t just let you roam the streets.”

  His brown eyes flashed before going cold once again. I watched as his entire frame locked up, and that was when I knew. I knew.

  “Ah, fuck,” I said on a quiet grunt.

  “What?” Rory asked, tearing her eyes from the boy and turning to look at me for the first time since this all started. “What’s wrong?”

  I didn’t answer. Instead, I moved from the bar over to the table where the boy sat between the two officers and pulled out the chair right across from him, sitting down and giving him my eyes.

  “You in a group home or a foster?” I asked, bracing my forearms on the table and leaning in so my full attention was on him. His entire body went stiff and the air around him went wired, but he didn’t say a word. “I did both,” I continued. “Six foster homes. Total shit. Just adults lookin’ to earn some cash without ever havin’ to do anything.” He dropped his eyes to the table, and his little chest began to rise and fall as his breathing became labored. “The group home wasn’t any better.” Still nothing. “Used to get my ass handed to me on a regular basis,” I said quietly, and the kid’s eyes shot to me. “Other kids in the homes who wanted to show they were top dog. Kids at school who thought they were better than the poor, unwanted foster boy.”

  His body started to shake, and I heard Rory pull in a pained breath, but I pushed on, looking nowhere but at him. “But the worst was when my foster parents would get drunk outta their minds, or got pissed because I didn’t clean the kitchen the way they wanted or I wasn’t quick enough taking out the trash or they just felt like bein’ assholes and usin’ their fists on a boy who had no means of escaping.”

  “Or you forgot to take the clothes outta the dryer and they got wrinkled,” the boy said on a whisper so low I had to strain to hear, but I did, and it made that sour feeling in my gut turn to acid.

  “Those were the worst because there was absolutely nothing I could do about it,” I continued in a low voice. I wanted to ask questions. I wanted to know who it was who’d hurt this kid, but I needed to gain some trust before I could go there, and the only way I knew how to do that was to let him know I’d been in his shoes. “Not havin’ anyone to protect you, to take care of you, you learn fast to take care of yourself.” At that, his head came up, his brown eyes hard but swimming with tears he was battling to keep back. “You learn to hit back. Or you learn to hit first.”

  “They put a lock on the fridge,” he admitted. “And the cabinets. That’s part of the punishment. They beat the shit outta us, and then they lock up the food.” He turned his eyes to Rory, and I looked in her direction just in time to see her own tears spilling from her eyes. “She locked the dumpster,” the boy said, pulling my attention back to him. “And I heard her talkin’ to the old lady at the diner. Got her a lock for hers too.”

  Fucking shit. This kid had been starved to the point that he’d gone dumpster diving for his meals. Then Rory locked up the dumpsters, thinking it was animals getting in.

  “Shit,” Duncan hissed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “We’re gonna have to take him in.”

  “What?” Rory shot away from the bar and closed the distance to the table. “Why? He’s just a kid, and it’s just a stupid broken window. I’m not pressing charges.”

  The other officer looked at her with sympathy as he said, “We now have a report of abuse, as well as physical evidence written all over the boy’s face. This has to be reported.”

  I looked from the boy whose head was lowered once again, all his earlier bravado gone, to Rory, a fierce determination filling her eyes.

  “Fine. You have to take him in, then me and Cord are coming with you. But we’re not leaving until I get this boy fed.”

  I saw the kid’s head shoot up, surprised eyes swinging toward Rory.

  “Miss Hightower—”

  “No arguments,” she clipped with her chin held high. “He hasn’t been fed in I don’t know how long, and I’m making him something to eat.” She looked at the boy. “Real food.” Then she turned on her boots, her ass swaying delectably as she stormed off into the kitchen in a huff. And no one dared to say a word against her.

  Fifteen minutes later, she brought out the biggest burger I’d ever seen with a side of seasoned fries piled so high they spilled out onto the table when she placed the plate in front of the kid.

  He ate every single bite.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cord

  “I don’t give a flying crap what the rules are,” Rory fumed. “I’m telling you how it’s gonna be, and how it’s gonna be is that boy in there is coming back to the ranch with me.”r />
  In the past hour and a half, everything had gone into a tailspin. On the way to the police station, Rory put in a call to her dad to tell him about the window. She filled him in on everything that had occurred, and, proving themselves to be the kind of parents who’d raise such a spirited, loyal woman, Bill and Becky climbed into his truck and booked it down to the station to have their daughter’s back.

  Sitting in a conference room, his belly full and his body exhausted, the boy had finally spilled everything. His name was Zach Caruthers. He was twelve years old. He’d been born in the system when his mom bailed from the hospital shortly after bringing him into this world. He’d bounced around from home to home until he was settled a few years ago with a family who’d been decent enough. However, when the wife turned up pregnant, they decided they didn’t have it in them to do the foster gig anymore and sent Zach back to a group home.

  After that, he’d been placed with this last family. He was one of six foster kids in that house, and to say the couple had no business being foster parents was putting it mildly. They were the kind of people who took in kids for the monthly checks and free labor. As sad as it was, those kinds of foster parents were a dime a dozen. Lazy, worthless adults who’d rather sit on their ass and collect money from the government than get out and actually work a job. The kids weren’t special to them. They didn’t do it out of the kindness of their hearts. They were in it for the money, plain and simple.

  Hayes and Trick had taken over when it became clear this was a much bigger problem than simple vandalism, questioning Zach calmly and carefully in the conference room while Rory and I looked on. The more Zach spoke, the more Rory’s fury expanded until it finally stretched so wide that it filled the entire room. I ultimately had to pull her out, sensing the emotions rolling off her were making Zach tense as hell.

  That led us to now. Zach was currently passed out on the couch in the conference room, sleeping like the dead, while Bill, Becky, and I stood back, watching Rory lay into the child welfare officer in charge of Zach and her boss while Hayes and Trick tried their best to keep the situation from escalating.

  “Miss Hightower, it doesn’t work that way.”

  Rory turned her furious eyes to the man who was speaking on the welfare officer’s behalf in an attempt to defend his employee.

  “Then make it work that way,” she bit out.

  “You aren’t certified,” the welfare officer said snidely. I’d known plenty of people like her during my time in the system as well. This type of work took a special kind of person. It was exhausting, most of the time heartbreaking, and no matter how many children you managed to save, there were still countless others in need of help. It was never ending.

  I didn’t know if this woman had once had the fire to do the job, but if she did, it had burned out long ago. And what was worse, she was one of those types who got defensive when her shoddy work came into question, rightfully so or not. So when they arrived half an hour ago to this nightmare, instead of her heart going out to this poor, abused kid, she immediately jumped into saving her own ass. Something that did not sit well with Rory.

  Rory skewered her with a look vicious enough to send a shiver up my spine. “I’m not talking to you,” she hissed. “It’s clear from what that child in there has been through that you are either incredibly incompetent or incredibly lazy. I personally don’t care which it is, because I have no respect for either, so while I speak with your boss, I suggest you keep your mouth shut.”

  She didn’t shut her mouth. In fact, it fell open even wider in affront. “Why, I never—”

  “Clearly, you’ve never done your job!” Rory shot back. “Because if you had, that boy wouldn’t be in there with bruises covering his face, and he wouldn’t have been rifling through dumpsters for food! Something no human being, let alone a child, should ever have to do!”

  “Spirit,” Bill whispered from beside me, and I turned to see him looking on at his daughter, arms crossed over his chest and pride making his eyes spark.

  He wasn’t wrong about that.

  The longer I watched her, the tighter my chest grew until it became hard to breathe. Her initial declaration that she was taking Zach home with her rocked me so goddamn hard, if I hadn’t been leaning against the railing of the bullpen in the middle of the police station, I would’ve gone down on my ass.

  I hadn’t been expecting that. I knew all too well how these things went down. Zach’s claims would be investigated, sure, but he’d be forced into a group home where he’d either stay for good or until he could be placed with another family. That was just how these things worked. So hearing Rory’s passionate decree that this time would be different moved something in me I hadn’t even known existed.

  And the longer she raged on the kid’s behalf, the harder it became to keep from rushing to her and slamming my mouth down on hers. I’d known for years that I cared about her, that I wanted her, that she was special to me. But tonight, everything had changed. The moment I came walking back into The Tap Room only to have her lay into me, the fear stark in her eyes at the thought that something could happen to me, I felt that monumental shift. And watching her now, so passionate and wild, taking the back of a young boy she didn’t even know, I finally realized the whole truth. I was falling for her. A lightning-speed plummet that would take me to the ground in a bone-jarring crash I wasn’t sure I’d survive.

  She was beautiful and strong and fierce. She was kind and loyal. She was the sexiest woman I’d ever laid eyes on always, but when she got like this, that ramped up to unimaginable levels.

  “Miss Hightower,” the welfare officer’s boss tried, “if we could all just keep calm and—”

  “Calm ended the moment Zach informed us he received those bruises because he forgot to take clothes out of a dryer,” she fired back. “Calm flew out the window when he told us how those sorry excuses for human beings put locks on their cabinets and fridge in order to starve him as punishment!” She whipped her furious gaze back to the welfare officer. “Did you manage to add that to your report during your visits?”

  “I was never witness to such things during my visits,” the woman said, lifting her chin haughtily. “Everything has always been above board. The Caswells are a decent family with no complaints on record.”

  “Based on the statement he made in there, I’d be willin’ to bet if we paid a visit to this decent family—which we’ll be doing as soon as the sun comes up—it wouldn’t take but a few minutes to discover everything is not above board,” Trick cut in, his tone dripping with condemnation for the woman. “When was the last time you actually went to the Caswells’?”

  She blustered for several seconds, her cheeks growing red before she said, “Zachary is well known to be a problem child. I’ve had difficulty placing him for years due to his poor attitude.”

  “He’s a twelve-year-old boy!” Rory cried. “They don’t have any other kind of attitude but poor. That’s just their nature. That doesn’t give two grown people who should know better the right to do what they did. And the fact that you would jump to that as an excuse is downright disgusting.”

  “We didn’t ask about his attitude.” Hayes’s tone was harsh. “We asked when your last home visit was.”

  “I believe there was one scheduled at the beginning of this month,” the woman’s boss declared. “Isn’t that correct, Miriam?”

  “That was just two weeks ago. That child’s been rifling through trash for at least that long lookin’ for food,” Hayes said on a low growl. “So tell me, how is it you missed that in your last visit?”

  “I-I didn’t… it was… I have an extremely full caseload!” she cried defensively. “It’s impossible to see all the families I’m in charge of on a regular schedule!”

  “Miriam,” her boss seethed through clenched teeth, his anger now at the same level as all of us witnessing this event. “I suggest you stop talking. Now. And after this is done, you and I will be having an altogether different conversation.�
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  No doubt about it, Miriam was fucked.

  “I don’t care what it takes,” Rory broke in. “I’ll take classes, I’ll do training, home visits, whatever it takes to get certified as a foster parent. But Zach is coming home with me. Tonight.”

  “Miss Hightower, I’m sorry, but it’s just not that simple.”

  She stepped up to the man, going toe to toe with him. “For two years, that boy and five other children have been living with two people who aren’t fit to raise a hamster. Your office certified them, sir, and your employee dropped the ball on making sure these people were above board. And now I have no doubt whatsoever that when the police look in on them in a few hours, not only will those remaining children be stripped from that home, but charges will also be brought for child abuse! And again, this is because of the incompetence of your office and your employee. My family is well known in this area. Our bar has been a staple of this community for so long that judges, lawyers, and politicians have passed through our doors countless times, each and every one of them stopping in so frequently that I’ve known them since I was a little girl. The Hightower name is so respected in these parts that one phone call from my father, mother, or myself would be answered immediately, and action would be taken swiftly.”

  Fuck me, she was magnificent.

  Bill’s chuckle pulled my attention from his daughter to find him and his wife both smiling.

  “Now, sir, I understand there are rules in place. I’m not telling you to break them. I am explaining to you that they need to be fast-tracked, as in you take yourself back to your offices as soon as this is done and make it happen.”

  “Ma’am. It’s rare for a single woman such as yourself to—”

  “You’ve managed to let two abusive pieces of waste slip through the cracks for years. I’m sure you can make concessions for a single woman with a sterling reputation. I’ve already stated that I will do whatever I have to in order to become certified to foster that boy in there. But while that’s happening, he’ll be coming home. With. Me.” She flung her arm out and pointed toward the conference room, and that was when I noticed Zach was no longer asleep. He was wide awake, standing in the opened doorway, watching the whole scene unfold.