“Do you think she had to become a dominant in prison to get her jollies off?” Another voice whispered.
“No. She’s too small. She’s probably the one that was on the bottom. Isn’t prison a good way to get AIDS and stuff like that?” The other one countered.
My eyes closed and my cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
Yes, it was a good way to get AIDS.
AIDS was high in the male population.
It wasn’t as easy for women to spread it to other women.
That wasn’t to say that women didn’t do things to each other in prison.
Women got just as desperate as men.
I didn’t, though.
I was too busy hiding from guards to worry about the other prisoners. Thank God for Ruthie, or I’d be just another person on a list of women that the guards tried to, and did, hurt.
And the other prisoners liked it that way.
More attention on another inmate meant less on them.
Ruthie and I had been the ‘beautiful ones’ according to the other inmates.
We’d had to become quick, smart and imaginative to protect ourselves against the guards.
I’d like to say they were all perfect gentlemen, but they weren’t.
Far from it.
“I’ll bet she sold her vagina out to the police officers that worked there to get more privileges,” the nasty woman continued.
I was done.
I scooted out of my seat and started to run.
I didn’t realize I was running away from the bathroom, not toward it, until I came to a hallway that led nowhere.
Fuck!
It came to a line of doors off the back hallway.
One was marked as a supply closet.
Another as an office.
The last was unmarked.
Then there was the emergency exit.
Although I didn’t push out of it since it said that an alarm sounded when the door was opened.
Tears welling up my throat, I went to the very end of the darkened hallway and turned my back to the wall before sinking down to my butt, using the wall at my back as leverage so as not to fall over.
Wrapping my hands around my knees, I buried my face into my legs and tried to will myself not to cry.
But it didn’t work.
Tears soaked through my clenched eyelids and my breath started to come out in pants.
I felt, more than heard him.
He dropped down in front of me and placed both hands on my arms.
“I kicked them out,” that deep, sexy voice said to me.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I mumbled into my knees.
“Yeah, I fuckin’ did. I don’t want bitches like that in my restaurant. Fuck that,” the man said eloquently.
I laughed through my tears, sniffling delicately as I raised my head from my knees.
Jesus, the man was really close to me.
“We should stop meeting like this,” I told him, wiping my tears with the back of my sweatshirt.
He grinned, showing off a smile that was brilliant.
The left side tilted up more than the right, making it more of a grin rather than a smile.
But he totally worked it.
“Your friend’s concerned,” he told me.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wood paneling behind me.
“Yeah, I’m sure she is,” I said tiredly.
I was exhausted.
I knew I shouldn’t have come out today.
“Come on,” he said, picking me up by my elbows.
Easily, I might add.
He didn’t even strain.
Then he took both of his hands and wiped my tears off of my face before smoothing them down either side of his thighs.
I blinked.
“Thanks,” I said.
He shrugged. “Anytime.”
Then, with the man’s arm around my shoulders, he led me back into the main part of the restaurant.
And nobody took notice.
Not one single person.
They were all looking down, doing their own thing.
Which was surprising to me.
Normally, when a hysterical woman runs through the restaurant, when she comes back you’d expect them to stare.
But not one single person did.
Bristol smiled sadly at me as I was helped into my seat.
“Food will be out shortly,” he mumbled as he walked away.
I watched him go, impressed with how well those jeans fit his ass.
And still, not one single person looked up.
“Holy shit!” Bristol said, leaning forward and capturing my attention from the man who’d just walked around the bar.
I raised my eyebrow in question. “What?”
She blinked.
“You didn’t hear him?” She asked in surprise.
I shook my head.
“No, why?” I asked.
She bit her lip and leaned forward.
“He ripped the whole fuckin’ bar a new one. Those two ladies that were talking about you ran out of here crying. And he sent one of his men after them to make them pay their bill!” Bristol informed me.
I blinked.
“What’d he say?” I asked.
She smiled.
“That you were a human being, not a ‘fuckin’ circus sideshow’ and that everyone needed to ‘leave the girl the fuck alone and let her live her fuckin’ life.’ It was awesome!” She crowed.
That got a few looks, but they all just as quickly turned back to their plates and their own conversations.
“Wow,” I finally said.
Bristol nodded. “Silas is infamous. He’s like the most badass of all badasses! If you’re going to have anyone stick up for you, and it’s him, it means you’ll have the entire Dixie Warden Motorcycle Club at your back if you ever need it.”
I smiled sadly.
That would be awesome… if I were worth having that.
But I wasn’t, so I wasn’t going to look too much into it.
What was the point?
They didn’t know me.
And they didn’t need to. I was worthless.
“Here’s your food, ladies.”
I looked up to see yet another hot guy passing out food.
He didn’t look like he should be delivering our food.
He looked like he should be on the cover of a fireman calendar.
“Thanks Kettle,” Bristol said, pushing her food in front of her. “You’re not usually doing this. Are y’all short today?”
Kettle, was that really his name?
He answered to it, though.
“Yeah, Silas fired one of the men today because he said something he didn’t like,” Kettle said.
So the man’s name was Silas.
I liked it.
Kettle didn’t go into details, but for some reason I just knew that the man had been fired for saying something about me.
Fuck.
“Thanks,” I said, smiling at my plates that were placed in front of me.
I didn’t look at the man, though.
I could feel his eyes on me, studying me, and I knew that I wasn’t ready to be inspected so deeply yet.
Tears were still clinging to my lashes, and I just knew that Kettle would see right through me.
Especially if what I guessed was true about him being another member of The Dixie Wardens.
Although he wasn’t wearing the vest, but with his a firefighter shirt with blue tactical pants, I just knew he had to be a part of them.
My suspicion was confirmed moments later when he left.
“He’s a part of The Dixie Wardens, too?” I asked, popping a piece of fried okra into my mouth.
Bristol nodded as she delicately cut her grilled chicken into tiny, bite-sized pieces.
Awkwardly, I wielded my knife and fork, cutting into the chic
ken fried steak in front of me with a hacking motion.
See, we didn’t have food like this in prison. Which meant I hadn’t had to use a knife in eight years.
Knives of any kind, plastic or metal, were not allowed in prisons.
Nor was metal anything.
If it could be used as or turned into a weapon, it wasn’t allowed.
Plastic cutlery, mainly sporks, were all we were allowed to use, no matter what we were having.
And, God, was the food awful.
I moaned when I took my first bite of the chicken fried steak.
It tasted like heaven, breaded and fried.
And the gravy was delicious.
Then again, it could’ve been just above subpar, and I’d still think it was heaven.
Anything was heaven compared to what I had to stomach for eight long years.
It was nothing less than what I deserved, though.
“You suck,” Bristol said, eyeing my food with a longing eye.
I offered her a bite.
She shook her head.
“No, I’m trying to get all my baby weight off,” she said, gesturing to her stomach.
I rolled my eyes.
“Bristol, you have no baby weight. You have boobs. And you’re using those,” I informed her.
“Yeah, I like your boobs. Let’s just forget about losing weight,” my brother said as he dropped down into the seat beside me placing one arm around my shoulder and snatched a fry.
I leveled a glare in his direction.
“Don’t eat my food. Order your own,” I said haughtily.
He laughed and stole another fry.
So I stabbed him with my fork.
“Oww!” He yelled, cradling his hand to his chest and moving away from me.
“I said, don’t eat my food,” I reminded him none too gently.
He narrowed his eyes.
I shrugged, not caring.
He didn’t understand.
Nobody did.
Not unless you’d had to do time.
You didn’t realize how precious the freedom to eat what you wanted was.
They really had no clue.
And hopefully never would.
“Can I get you something, Berry?” That sexy voice rumbled from my side.
I looked up when I popped a fried pickle into my mouth, crunching down on it in time for Silas’ eyes to move to me.
The pickle crunched under my teeth, and I moaned.
So good!
His eyes flared, and he looked away to address my brother once again.
My face flamed as I thought about the show I’d just inadvertently put on.
Shit, Sawyer! Could you be any more embarrassing?
The reprimand stayed on my mind as I polished off the rest of my fries as Dallas ordered his food.
“I can’t believe you didn’t wait for me,” he said once Silas was gone.
I kept my eyes on his retreating form until he disappeared into the kitchen to place Dallas’ order, and I smiled.
“What are you smiling at?” Dallas asked, putting his arm around me again.
I laid my head on his shoulder as I relished the touch.
God, it felt nice to have human touch.
Wanted human touch, anyway.
“I like him,” I mumbled, gesturing to Silas, who’d come out of the kitchen to stand at the bar.
Dallas squeezed my shoulder. “Yeah, he’s pretty cool.”
I pulled out of his arms when Danni, their daughter, started to cry.
“Past her lunchtime, baby,” Dallas said to Bristol.
Bristol pulled Danni out of her car seat and handed her over to Dallas with a bottle she pulled from the diaper bag at her side.
I smiled as I watched my brother cradle the small girl in his arms and place the bottle up to her crying lips.
“You’re so cute holding her,” I said, smiling at him even wider.
He winked. “I’m cute all the time. Being a daddy just makes me even better.”
I rolled my eyes.
The arrogance!
“Sure, whatever you say,” I said, dipping a piece of steak into the gravy and smothering it.
Not intentionally, though.
My eyes were on the man behind the bar.
I watched Silas move.
The way the muscles in his shoulders shifted with even the tiniest of tasks.
Such as wiping down the bar in front of him with a white rag.
Or when he poured a beer from the tap.
I licked my lips, and he looked up just in time to catch me staring at him.
He winked and went back to pouring his beer, but my heart was frozen in my lungs at being caught.
Shit.
That wink, though, that was sexy as hell.
Oh, man.
I needed to get a life.
“So what happened to you last night? I went to the garage apartment, but the lights were out,” Dallas said casually.
Too casually.
“I went to bed,” I lied.
What I really did was get into the bathtub full of water that was so hot that my skin still burned from the heat and attempted to boil away my memories.
It didn’t work.
I sat in that water for two and a half hours while I stared at my toes lit only by candlelight.
I thought about that night.
Then all the subsequent nights since.
And wished I’d never said yes to going out.
“Oh,” Dallas said, looking down at Danni.
I could tell he thought I was lying, but I didn’t care.
I wasn’t fit company last night.
And he didn’t need to see me like that.
Hell, I didn’t want to see me like that.
“What time do you have to go into work tonight?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
“Six. I work C-shift this week,” he answered, looking up when his food was brought out.
I popped the last fried pickle in my mouth and held my hands out for my niece.
Just as she farted, and then filled her diaper with lord knew what.
“Uhhh,” I said, hesitating.
Bristol and Dallas started laughing.
“Oh, no,” Dallas said when I started to take my hands away. “You wanted her, you have to take her as she comes.”
Dallas got up and ushered me out of the booth.
I rolled my eyes, scooted out of the booth and stood. I took her and the diaper bag that Bristol held out to me.
I took it, looping it over my shoulder and walked with the now smiling little girl to the bathroom.
Where I realized they didn’t have any baby changing stations.
I looked at the non-existent sink area where there was no room to change a kid, let alone set anything down.
“Family establishment my ass,” I mumbled, pulling the door to the bathroom open and walking straight to the bar.
I knew the moment Silas realized I was making my way towards him because his body that was relaxed, stiffened.
Then he turned in my direction, crossing his arms over the top of the bar and watching me come.
“Need something?” He asked, taking in the baby and the diaper bag.
I nodded.
“You have no diaper changing station.”
It was meant to come out as a question, but instead sounded more like an accusation.
He blinked.
“Huh,” he said, turning and making his way around the bar.
I watched him come until he stood in front of me.
“You can use my bathroom. It has a big sink area,” he said, gesturing with his hand for me to follow.
I did, right into the same hallway that I’d found myself in from earlier.
I could smell him over certain other things, and it was wonderful.
Like pine needles and leather… the latter might be
explained by the leather vest he had on.
A picture of a creepy woman was on the back, with Dixie Wardens over the top of the figure, and Benton under the bottom of it.
I wondered if he was really as important as everyone was making him out to be.
I doubted it.
A man that was supposed to be important wouldn’t be serving people food at a bar.
He hired people to do that.
Not to mention he didn’t mingle with the masses.
“Bathroom’s through there,” he said, gesturing to another closed door.
Danni made a cooing noise when she saw the lights above her eyes, and I nearly did too.
They were pretty cool.
He had a chandelier in his office.
Sure, the chandelier was made of beer and whiskey bottles, but it was still pretty awesome.
“Nice,” I said, gesturing to the light with my head.
He grinned.
“Made it myself,” he said as a way of thank you.
I smiled, but refrained from asking, ‘did you drink it all yourself, too?’
He was waiting for the question, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
Walking to the bathroom, I shut the door so he didn’t see anything unsightly and laid Danni down on the cleanest bathroom counter I’d ever seen.
The bathroom matched the office.
It was pretty straight-forward.
Black granite. White tiles. White toilet.
There was a shower, though.
Something I wouldn’t expect in a restaurant office, but whatever.
“Oh, yuck.” I said, as I unsnapped the onesie Danni was wearing.
Shit had crawled out the top of her diaper and started to mingle with her shoulder blades.
Thank God I’d been holding her with a blanket underneath or I’d have it all over me, too.
“Hey!” I called. “Do you mind if I, ah, borrow your shower for a minute?” I called.
“Have at it. Since I’m in here I’m going to do a little paperwork,” came his mumbled reply.
Well, he probably didn’t mumble, but the door was shut, so it was inevitable.
I got the shower turned on, then thought, ‘fuck it.’
I rinsed her off, onesie and all.
Setting her down carefully in the bottom of the tub, I unhooked the showerhead and started to spray her off.
“Wow, kid. What did you eat?” I asked.
She smiled and giggled as I used the man soap on the ledge to wash her down thoroughly.
And I knew immediately where the smell of pine came from.
Counter To My Intelligence (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC Book 7) Page 5
