“The cruiser is about thirty seconds out,” the operator said.
I heard the sirens and saw the moment Kelley realized that he wasn’t going to get me out of the car.
He sneered at me. “Next time, bitch.”
I felt my stomach sink as he ran away, down the road and into the woods that led back to the hospital.
My heart was pounding, and I felt bile start to leech up my throat.
“A cruiser is behind you,” the operator said, sounding shaken herself.
I looked up to find James, my uncle, hurrying toward me.
Why he was there and not in Kilgore, I didn’t know. I also didn’t care.
I bailed out of the car and threw myself at him.
He caught me, wrapped his arms around me, and took me to his cruiser in the next heartbeat.
“I heard the call over the radio,” he said. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, even though I was shaking like a leaf. “Yes. He ran that way.”
I pointed, and James looked in the direction I pointed. “Was he alone?”
I nodded. “He was in the middle of the street there. I passed him, pulled over here, and called 911. I don’t know when he got up, but apparently, I wasn’t paying that good of attention because the next thing I know the man in the road is gone and Kelley is slamming a bat into my glass.”
The bat in question was actually a black piece of pipe that was laying on the ground next to my car.
“He didn’t have gloves on or anything,” I told him. “That should have his prints on it.”
James gestured for me to put my feet inside the cruiser, and I did. “Stay here.”
Then he slammed the door on me and started reaching for his mic on his collar.
I heard his voice over the radio in the car and shivered as he told the operator to call a K-9 unit and also call my father.
Ten minutes later, not only was my father there, but half of my pseudo uncles as well as Bayou.
How Bayou had gotten there, I didn’t know, but I was thankful that he was.
Because eight minutes later, when Hoax rolled up on his bike looking like he’d ridden like a bat out of hell to get there, I knew Bayou needed to help get Hoax under control.
“Did you find him yet?” Hoax growled, marching up with his hands clenched.
I disentangled myself from my dad’s arms and went to Hoax.
The moment I was close enough, he pulled me into his arms.
“Are you okay?”
His whispered words into my hair had me releasing a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Yes. I’m fine. Scared, but fine…I’m also hungry as hell.”
He squeezed me just a little bit tighter. “I’ll go buy you anything you want after you tell me what happened.”
“Here,” Jack, who’d somehow arrived without me being aware, said. “This is the call.”
What the hell were they all doing here?
Then I got to listen to the replay of what had just happened, only this time without the terror coursing through my veins, and a cool, calm head to really understand exactly what had almost just happened.
“I think he threatened to rape her at least eight times,” Downy, a family friend, said. “Threatened to beat the hell out of her six. There’s more, but I think we got him on enough counts to bring him in and keep him there for a while.”
“I fuckin’ hope so,” Dad said through clenched teeth.
Hoax stayed quiet throughout the replaying of the call, as well as the discussion of what would happen next.
It was only as everyone was dispersing, and my car had been loaded up onto a wrecker, that Hoax guided me to my dad’s truck. “You’ll need to ride with your pop.”
At first, I didn’t realize the implications of that statement.
It was only as he let me go, placed a kiss on my forehead, and watched us leave that I realized something was wrong.
“He’s not following us,” I said carefully, looking in my mirror.
“No,” Dad said. “I expect not.”
“What do you think he’s going to do?”
Dad stayed silent until we got to the house, and when my mom saw me, she immediately started forward to hug me. “I’m going to kill him with my bare hands.”
“You’ll have to get in line,” Dad mumbled. “And, if there’s anything left when Hoax gets done with him, it’ll be a miracle.”
Mom ordered me to take a seat on the couch, and Dad followed me, making sure that I did as I was told.
“You two hang out here, and I’ll get dinner. I don’t have any chicken, but I made lasagna.”
My stomach growled at the mention of her lasagna. “That’s good enough.”
She winked and walked to the kitchen.
My father pulled me down and then threw his arm around my shoulders, pulling me in tight.
“Why were James, Downy, and Jack there?” I whispered into his chest.
“Area SWAT meeting,” he murmured. “Bear Bottom hosted this month.”
That made sense. Now.
Then? Not so much.
“I’m going to offer him a job,” my father said, startling me.
His chest rumbled underneath my cheek, and I shifted on the couch to look up at him in confusion.
“What?” I asked.
“When he’s done doing the Delta thing and realizes what he has at home—and he will—I’m going to see if he wants to slowly start taking over the business.”
I blinked in surprise. “You’re going to do what?”
He chuckled. “I’m getting old, girl. I’m not the spring chicken that I was when I started this place. And I have grandbabies on the way. As much as I’d like to admit that I’m still capable of doing all the things I once did, I’m not. It’s time for the next generation to start taking over.”
I shook my head.
This program my father and his buddies had created was amazing.
They helped abused women—and even a few men—establish new lives. They gave them the tools and the means to disappear, reappearing in a new place with a new ‘face’ to live a different life as someone else—free from the abusive situations they’d escaped from.
My father had built Free from the ground up. To hear him acknowledging that he was ready to step down struck a chord inside of me.
It meant that he believed in Hoax, and he liked him. That he trusted him with something so utterly important meant that Hoax was always going to be ‘in’ with him.
“What convinced you that you could trust him with this?” I whispered.
“I’ve been tossing the idea around for a while,” he admitted. “Janie has started taking on a lot more duties than she used to. Kayla has slowly started taking over some as well. Their husbands have offered us quite a bit of help over the last year and knowing that Hoax and Carl are looking for jobs—something that’ll keep them closer to home and their lives—was just the conviction that I needed to make the call. But, seeing him when he heard about you? That you were almost hurt? Yeah, he absolutely lost his shit. That was all for you, too.”
I licked my lips. “He’s not doing anything stupid, is he?”
Dad wrapped his arm back around my shoulder and pulled me into his chest. “Don’t worry about what he’s doing. The less you know, the better.”
He was right.
Eight hours later, when I was called in to give my statement as well as bail Hoax out of jail for the assault of Kelley, I was able to say that I truly had no idea what had been going on.
Which worked out, because as Hoax walked toward me, I broke down into tears and ran toward him. Apparently, he’d used my distraught, pregnant hormones as well as my worry that he’d try it again, and this time succeed as a reason for doing the things he’d done—i.e., beating the shit out of Kelley—and I’d played directly into his hand.
Hoax and I walked out of the police station hand in hand.
The mo
ment we arrived at my dad’s truck that I’d borrowed, I came to a stop and glared. “Swear to Christ, you owe me at least ten nugget meals or I’m going to never let you forget this.”
He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, pulled me in until his mouth was inches from my own, and dropped a kiss onto my nose. “I’ll buy you whatever the fuck you want, whenever you want it.”
“Anything?” I teased.
His grin got bigger. “Anything.”
A burger from Whataburger, a nugget pack from McDonald’s, an Icee from the gas station, and a dozen donut holes from the Donut Palace later, we were sitting in the main hub of Free while my father offered him a job.
He accepted it…and so did Carl.
Who, might I add, had knuckles that matched Hoax’s.
I had a feeling that the two were going to be trouble.
Epilogue
Why are contractions not called birthquakes?
-Pru’s secret thoughts
Pru
Three months and three weeks later
“Come on,” Carl said as he wiggled his new vest at Hoax. “Tell ‘em it looks good on me. Go on, admit it.”
Hoax rolled his eyes. “All right, Carl. You look good in the Bear Bottom Guardians cut. Now, you should probably start calling it what it is or your wife is going to gut you.”
“I’m beyond wanting to gut him,” his wife, Tinnsleigh, said. “But if I kill him, I’ll have to pay for my toes on my own, and I’m not willing to do that just yet.”
We all looked at her toes. “I really like the sparkly blue.”
“I do, too,” Conleigh said, wiggling her own toes that matched Tinnsleigh’s.
“I’m partial to the pink,” Izzy said, wiggling her feet for the men to see.
I looked at my bright orange with pink sparkles and grinned. “You’re trying to say that you don’t like mine?”
“Yours are…festive,” Carl said. “Are you celebrating Halloween ten months early?”
Hoax snorted. “Pru likes orange.”
That was true. I did.
But the red and green I’d wanted to get was spoken for by both of my sisters, and I didn’t want to get them exactly like theirs.
I liked being different.
“The toes thing was a good idea,” Piper yawned. “Though, I think we probably should’ve scheduled it better. You were almost late for your own induction.”
That was true, too.
But, that also had a lot to do with the fact that McDonald’s had jipped me a ten-piece nugget meal and we’d had to go back.
Hoax had offered to share his with me, but I’d refused.
The nuggets were my last meal for the next foreseeable future. I wouldn’t be eating again until our babies were born, and I wanted to make my last meal a good one.
Well, a tasty one. Good wasn’t really the correct word.
“I wasn’t late. I was on time,” I told her. “Nobody said I had to be fifteen minutes early to an induction.”
Honestly, I was scared.
I didn’t want to have to have a C-section, which was a higher possibility seeing as they were inducing me at thirty-eight weeks.
I’d wanted it to all be a natural process, but when both of our babies started to get big, the doctor had shown concern not for them, but for me.
Which was how we ended up going into the hospital for an induction when the last thing I wanted to do was to be induced.
In fact, I was just finishing up my last chicken nugget when the nurse came in with the meds that would start the process.
Hoax, seeing my panic, walked toward me.
“It’ll be okay, baby.”
He was right.
Eighteen hours later, two cleaned up and pissed off babies in his arms, he was smiling.
I was, too.
We’d done it.
“So what are their names?” my mom asked.
I looked at my two boys, both exact replicas of their father. Same eyes. Same mouth. Same nose and same cheeks. Hell, they even had his big feet.
“Well,” I hesitated, looking over at my now-husband. “The one in Hoax’s right arm is Samuel Jay, after Dad. And the one in his left arm is Dean Alias, after Hoax’s father.”
“You did not name your kids after Sam and Dean off of Supernatural,” Piper interjected, her cup halfway to her lips.
I blinked, then looked at Hoax.
He shrugged. “Already signed those birth certificates, baby.”
I closed my eyes and winced. “Shit.”
***
Six months later
I walked around the store, starting to get worried, when I finally spotted my tall, handsome man in the baby section of all places.
The one place that he’d never be caught dead in the middle of Target.
Yet, there he was.
I frowned and moved forward quickly, my buggy taking out a rack of half-priced clothes on my way.
“Shit,” I muttered, bending down to pick up what I’d just knocked off.
Throwing a cute little camo onesie in my cart along with the seven hundred other things I didn’t need, I finally maneuvered my way through the racks of clothes until I got to Hoax.
Hoax was on the phone, his head bowed, and he was gesturing wildly with his hands.
Definitely not holding our boys who were supposed to be with him.
“Listen to me,” Hoax growled quietly. “I can’t come meet right now. I’m watching my kids. But I can be there tomorrow afternoon. Usual place.”
Hoax and Carl had officially started with Free. They’d fallen into the assignments like they were always meant to be there, and honestly, I had a feeling that the rest of their team might one day follow.
Their skills were a valuable asset to the organization, and a lot of women had become a whole lot safer thanks to their dedication.
Hoax looked up at me just as I rounded the corner of the little display area that Target had set up as a ‘look what your nursery can look like’ kind of thing. That was when I saw Dean in the swing that Hoax was gently rocking with his hand, and Sam was on the ground, in the middle of a scruffy blue rug, with a toy in his hands that still had the packaging attached.
I rolled my eyes.
Hoax winked.
Picking Sam up off the floor, I placed him back into his carrier that was in the cart and gestured at Hoax.
He wrapped up his call and stood up, making my mouth water.
“Free?” I asked, letting my eyes lazily trail down his lean, muscular body.
I’d put on even more weight since he’d gotten out of the Army, and honestly, it was a little disheartening to stand next to him with an extra thirty pounds of baby weight that I had a feeling would never come off.
Yet, his eyes heated at the sight of me, and his mouth turned up into a small leer. “I like that.”
I looked down at the outfit that I’d tried on wanting to get his opinion on. At some point during my four outfit changes, he’d wandered away, which was how I’d ended up searching for him.
I looked down at my clothes and pursed my lips. “You don’t think it’s too tight?”
“Oh, there you are,” my mother said, coming up behind us. “Daddy’s waiting outside. I’ll take them. Y’all have a good date night!”
Then she was gone, taking both kids like a whirlwind.
I looked at Hoax, who was looking at my boobs. “Hoax?”
He finally brought his eyes up to mine. “You have anything else you want to try on?”
I nodded. “Another shirt and a pair of pants.”
He grabbed the cart and led me to the dressing rooms. Instead of waiting outside like I’d expected, he followed me in.
It wasn’t until I was all the way inside, and he was slamming me up against the wall, that I realized where this was going.
“Hoax,” I said warningly.
His hands were everywhere all at once, and sudde
nly the pants I was trying on were no longer needed.
“Hoax,” I tried again.
He continued to ignore me, one hand going to the button of his jeans while the other attacked the zipper.
I swallowed hard, no longer worried about my weight gain.
Instead, I was worried about how the hell I was supposed to stay quiet in a dressing room in the middle of the lady’s section that was dead center in the middle of Target.
Fortunately, as Hoax lifted me up as if I was light as a feather and sat down on the stool, following shortly by me on his cock, he was able to keep me quiet with his mouth.
And I forgot all about my weight, the fact that we were in a public place, and the reservations that we had in an hour’s time.
All I could think about was him. How he felt inside me, and how I was the luckiest girl in the world.
***
“What was that call about?” I asked again, remembering my earlier question once I’d straightened my clothes.
“That was Bayou telling me that Kelley has asked for a meeting with his lawyer,” Hoax grunted. “Apparently, he thinks he’s being mistreated in the pen, and wants a judge to move him.”
My brows rose. “Is he being mistreated?”
I mean, I didn’t give a crap if he was, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Hoax had continued to make his life a living hell.
Hoax blinked innocently. “Would I do that?”
“Yes,” I said with laughter in my voice. “Yes, you would.”
After the car bashing incident, and subsequent ass-kicking, Kelley had been shown the inside of a jail cell and hadn’t come out since. He got eight years in prison for what he’d done, and it was our hope that he wouldn’t come back.
Though, I had a feeling that Kelley wouldn’t be making it out of his jail cell. Not alive, anyway.
Hoax’s hands skimmed up my ass and came to a stop on my lower back. “I love you, Pru.”
I licked my lips and tilted my mouth, offering it to him.
He took the offering and groaned into my mouth.
“I love you, too, Hoax.”
Arm in arm, we walked out of the dressing rooms, and then we went on to enjoy our child-free night.
At least until my dad called us an hour before bed to tell us that his namesake had decided to projectile vomit all over his bed.
My Bad- Lani Lynn Vale Page 21
