“And?” I asked, frustrated.
“He offered to buy me a car if I agreed to come to dinner with him, his wife and his children,” she said softly.
“His children,” I said. “And what else did he say to you?”
My calm was deceptive.
I was pissed inside.
His fucking children?
We were his fucking children, not them.
And for him to ask that of Ariel, one of his biological children that only got him for a short part of her life rather than Alec’s or my ten plus years, wasn’t very fair.
My sister craved her father’s attention. Needed it like she needed air to breathe.
And he never gave it to her unless he needed something out of it or was feeling incredibly guilty.
Each being a bad thing in my book, because they always led to heartache.
“And that’s why you’re dressed like a hooker ready to head out for the night?” I asked her.
She looked down at her fingernails, which were painted a cheery blue.
“I told him no, and he told me that I was a bad daughter,” she whispered.
I gritted my teeth.
My eyes automatically went to Jack, who had a huge smile on his face while he spoke with Winter quietly.
His eyes were on me, though, and he stayed alert and aware all the while he spoke.
“Ariel, you’re not a bad daughter for protecting yourself.” I turned back to her. “You’re a good person, a hard worker. You volunteer and get good grades. And that’s all because of who you are as a person, and it has nothing to do with him. Momma raised us to be all that we could be, despite having him as our father. He doesn’t even deserve the title of ‘dad.’”
Ariel looked down.
“In the past month that I’ve known Bowe, he’s become one of the best men I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. He’s a better father than our father ever was. He is everything I could’ve hoped for Elise, and more. What he’s doing is above and beyond the call of duty for him, but he has that instinct.” I hesitated, “Our father doesn’t. Our father is the type of man who is led around by his dick. She says jump and he says how high. And that’s not fair to us. We should be able to trust him. Trust that he’d be there for us if we ever need him, and we can’t.”
Ariel’s lip trembled.
“I have to see her every day and I hate it,” Ariel admitted. “It’s so hard, Ang, going to that school every day. Seeing him bring her lunch, bring her presents and not even acknowledging me. He sees me sitting across the room and doesn’t even come over to say hi. It’s like I’m nobody to him.”
I pulled my sister into a hug.
“Honey, you’re not nobody. Not to me. Not to Mom. Not to Alec.” I gently cupped her cheeks in my hands. “And I love you enough that you don’t need him. I’ll be the best father you could ever ask for.”
She snorted.
“Thanks,” she said. “But you can’t walk me down the aisle.”
“Are you saying I’m not man enough to do that?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“No,” she stated.
I chuckled and pulled her into another hug.
“I resent that,” I said.
“I heard through the grapevine that dad’s moving out of the city,” she said, startling me.
“Really?” I asked. “Maybe his wife is going with him.”
“They are.” She smiled then. “She got a job about forty minutes away at the high school in Grand Saline.”
Relief poured through me knowing that my sister wouldn’t have to deal with that vile woman or our father any more.
Or those goody two-shoes kids of theirs.
Thank fuck.
“So this clothing…is it just your terrible attempt to get attention?” I asked hopefully.
Surely, she didn’t think this outfit was cute.
Well, it would be. If it were on a Barbie Doll or something.
On her it looked about ready to burst at the seams.
“I…”
The motors that’d just been idling in the background started to roar, and I turned my head to watch.
“Hurry,” I pulled her to the fence. “Bowe’s racing.”
We both pushed through the crowd just in time to see the girl with the red flag bring it straight down, and then the two cars were off.
The next few seconds were nothing less than nerve wracking.
I felt freakin’ sick to my stomach watching the cars speed down the length of the track. Luckily, I missed nearly half of it due to the patrons standing along the fence, cutting off nearly all of my line of sight.
My heart only started working right again when the checkered flag came down, indicating the end of the race.
“Who won?” I asked.
I hadn’t been able to see the winner because it’d been too far away, but the moment I saw Bowe crawl out of his car, his hands in the air, I knew he’d won.
“Jesus Christ,” I breathed. “This is terrifying.”
“Good race,” Jack said from behind me, making me jump. “Close one.”
I looked at him over my shoulder.
“How do you know it was or wasn’t?” I asked. “I couldn’t see anything.”
Jack looked at me, and it took me a moment to realize why.
He was about a foot taller than everyone in the crowd.
“Gotcha,” I smiled. “Is it okay if I jump this gate and go congratulate him?”
In answer, Jack hefted me up by my waist, as if I didn’t weigh a damn thing, and placed me on the other side of the fence.
I looked at him, then at his wife.
“I weigh about a hundred and I’m-not-telling-you pounds,” I told her. “Your husband just lifted me up like I was a child.”
She grinned.
“You should see what else he can do with those hands.”
I burst out laughing, then turned and made my way to the cars that were still idling at the end of the track.
Other than a few weird looks from who I was sure were track employees, I made it all the way to the back of Bowe’s car before I was stopped.
By a woman.
“Sorry, honey,” the woman stopped me with a hand on my chest. “The winner’s mine.”
I laughed in her face.
“Yeah,” I agreed, slapping her hand away from my chest. “I’ll be sure to tell my man that you thought so.”
Her eyes narrowed and her hand lifted.
That was when I saw she still had the flag in her hand.
“Don’t,” I told her. “It’s really not worth it. My brother taught me to fight and I really don’t want to hurt you.”
That was partially true.
He did teach me to fight. Defensively.
My brother was a big guy, and he’d been picking on me since I was old enough to walk.
I’d learned out of necessity how to fight.
With my mom gone a lot to work, when we were barely old enough to realize what was going on, and leaving my brother in charge, I learned quite a few lessons.
One, you didn’t fuck around with someone bigger than you. Especially someone who you knew could take you.
Two, it helped to be faster than your competition.
Three, if you couldn’t win, run.
Four, play dirty.
Simple as that.
The difference here, though, was that I was sure I could win.
The woman was about my height, but she was wearing at least five inch heels that would likely trip her up if I pushed her.
Her hair was down around her face, something I could easily grab a hold of if I needed to.
And she was about as skinny as my left thigh.
Needless to say, I looked like a behemoth next to her.
My round ass and thick thighs—which usually didn’t look too bad—looked terrible compared to her.
“The winner has to take a picture with me,” she smiled. “Track rules.”
; “I’ll shove that flag up your ass before you get to take a picture with him,” I stated. “You can always try to pose with him, I guess, but I’m going to go ahead and tell you now that the picture likely won’t be the one you are planning on.”
“Angie!” Bowe called. “Come here.”
I smiled at the woman like I’d won the damn race myself and hustled over to Bowe.
The minute I was within reaching distance, he grabbed hold of my hand and yanked me to him, pressing his lips against mine without a second to spare.
“God, you taste good,” he growled.
“I had a cherry snow cone,” I told him. “And then half of a coconut one when Winter didn’t want hers anymore.”
He grinned down at me.
“Yum,” he moaned, taking another taste, this time letting his tongue trail directly against my lips.
I shivered and was just about to lean more fully into him when a throat cleared next to us.
“You could at least look like you’re sorry,” an amused voice said.
I turned, and then my eyes widened.
“You raced your boss?” I whispered to him. “Isn’t that like against the rules or something?”
Bowe snorted.
“I’ll try to remember that for next time,” Bowe replied with amusement before turning to Chief Alan. “You raced pretty good, but I expected you to give it the last little boost right there at the end, what happened?”
The Chief held up a bolt of some sort, and then smiled wryly.
“I’ll be needing a good mechanic,” he told him. “Broke the shifter clean in half.”
Bowe started to chuckle, and my mouth got away from me.
“It’s those guns of yours,” I pointed to his biceps. “And why do you get to have a beard and Bowe doesn’t?”
Chief Alan’s eyes lit with amusement.
“I’ve done forty years as a firefighter, Little Lady,” he said as he opened his door. “I’ve earned the right to have a beard.”
With that comment, he dropped into the car and started to putter away.
“If his shifter is broken,” I started. “How do you think he’s driving it?”
Bowe’s face showed his amusement.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
***
I looked at Jack and pursed my lips.
“I filed the restraining order, but apparently, it’s up to the judge to rule on it, so we will just have to wait to see what that the judgment is in the next couple of days,” I explained.
Jack nodded his head.
“I’ve looked into him, and although he does have records showing his arrests, nearly all but one have been dismissed,” he nodded.
“All but one?” Bowe asked, leaning back in his chair across from Jack.
The movement had him pulling me closer into his side almost subconsciously, and I found myself accommodating him without thinking about it.
“Petty theft,” Winter said before shoving a whole chip in her mouth. “When he was seventeen.”
“What’d he steal?” Bowe asked, picking his own chip up.
We were waiting for our food at my favorite Mexican restaurant, Cancun Dave’s, and Jack and Winter were telling us all that they’d been able to find out about one Troy Matthews.
What’d I’d heard so far was making me sick.
How I could have ever found this man attractive, let alone sleep with him, was beyond me.
“A car,” Jack smiled.
“What’s that smile for?” Bowe asked. “And what the fuck? That’s not petty.”
“Exactly what we were thinking,” Winter agreed, taking a sip of her margarita. “That’s why we continued to look into it.”
Bowe waited for them to explain, patiently.
Me, I was a ball of nerves.
While they were shoving chips into their face, I was barely able to hold my tea down.
I was literally going to die of annoyance if they didn’t start explaining shit instead of eating fucking chips.
Jack, knowing I was getting annoyed, had mercy on me and started to expound on his musings.
“So the man he stole this car from was a judge,” he said. “The more we looked into it, the less we found. All that we could find is one single account of what had happened, directly from the judge’s hand. He filed it, and then nothing was ever followed up on again.”
“Why?” I blurted.
Jack grinned. “Exactly. Why?”
Winter dipped a chip into the queso we were all sharing.
“We tried to dig some more, and we haven’t found out anything more yet. But we will. Everyone’s secrets are out there, it’s just a matter of how deep we have to dig for them,” Winter explained. “We’ll find it.”
“And when we do, you’ll be the first to know,” Jack tipped his half empty bottle of beer at me. “Now, let’s talk about this car of yours.”
Bowe’s only reaction was to laugh.
“I’m not fucking selling it, so drop it.”
Winter snorted.
“Told you.”
Chapter 18
Don’t be a twatsicle.
-Things not to say to your boss
Bowe
“I’m not sure this is the best idea,” Angie looked at the building where we would be taking Elise to for the first time.
The daycare was state of the art.
All background checks that she’d made Jack run came out clean, and there was literally no reason at all that she couldn’t do this.
“Angie,” I hesitated. “She’ll be fine. She’s an awesome baby. All the kids will love her. The teachers loved her the moment you brought her in for a visit. It’s literally five seconds away from the fire station, if they need anything, and ten away from the hospital. You have absolutely nothing to worry about.”
She looked into my eyes, closed them in defeat, and then nodded.
“Let’s do this before I run out of courage.” She started to stomp up the front steps.
I laughed, skirting around the large pole that was at the curb, and caught up to her easily.
She started to tap in the numbers on the keypad, and then held the door for me.
I took it and made a face at Elise, causing her to giggle.
“I saw that,” she grumbled.
“Saw what?” I asked innocently.
She snorted and pushed past the gate, making her way all the way to the very back hall where the nursery was located.
The school was set up in an L, and the older classes started in the front. As you made your way back, you passed the four-year-old room, the threes, the twos, the eighteen months, the twelve months, and then finally came to the nursery.
If you went even further, it would lead to the playground where they had a large jungle gym and a place for all the kids to play, even the younger ones.
“I’m going to cry,” she whispered from in front of me. “Do you think you can take her from here?”
I reached for Elise, and she leaned into my hands, making my heart happy.
“I’ll be back,” I said as she hovered in the doorway.
The moment I was in the room, I looked at Elise, who looked directly back at me.
“Please, whatever you do, don’t cry. If you cry, she’s going to cry with you, and you’ll never have a day of freedom. You’ll never go to prom, and you’ll likely never have a boyfriend until you’re forty,” I told her as if she could understand every word I had to say.
She blinked, and then grinned, drool leaking out of her mouth as she did.
“I’ll take her if you want me to,” a young girl asked.
I turned to find Elise’s teacher holding her hands out for Elise.
I blew a raspberry on Elise’s neck, causing her to giggle uncontrollably, and then handed her over while she was still laughing.
“We’ll be back around four to get her,” I told the woman.
“My name’s Sarah. I have your numbers here if you’d like me to text you a coupl
e of times throughout the day. Pictures or updates on how she’s doing.” She patted Elise’s back, waiting for an answer.
An answer that she already knew.
“That’d be great,” I grinned. “Thank you.”
Sarah winked, turned and took Elise’s attention elsewhere, allowing us both to leave without a single peep from her.
“That was surprisingly easier than I thought it would be,” Angie observed.
I nodded my head in agreement.
“And she didn’t cry.”
Angie’s smile was small, but it was there.
“No, she sure didn’t.”
***
Rain was making visibility practically zero, and by the time we pulled on scene, I was breathing heavily.
The thunder overhead was breathtaking. Each time a boom sounded, every man in the truck with me tensed.
Each rumble was worse than the one before, causing every single man surrounding me to have a look of annoyance on his face.
Firefighters, though, didn’t have a choice whether to go out and work in the rain. Rain caused us to be busy, and that likely wasn’t going to stop for the next six hours left on shift.
My eyes took in the accident in about twenty seconds.
Two vehicles.
Both damaged severely. One had a smashed front driver’s side quarter panel, while the other was damaged from the front of the driver’s side all the way to the back.
Possibly a roll over if I had to guess.
Debris littered the road around the two cars, and people were milling about under umbrellas looking at the damage.
“I’m so freakin’ tired of running calls in the pouring rain,” Tai muttered from the seat beside me.
I looked over at him. “It could be…”
“Don’t you dare say what I think you’re about to say,” Drew shot me a withering look.
I grinned, “Yes, Daddy.”
He flipped me off.
Drew was by far the oldest of our crew, but he wasn’t the least bit out of shape.
If Drew decided to call me on my words, he’d definitely give me a run for my money if I chose to pursue it.
“All right, boys,” PD called from his front seat position. “Let’s get this shit done.”
He bailed out of the truck, donning his helmet almost the moment his feet touched the ground.
Put Out (Kilgore Fire Book 5) Page 14
