Hell, we weren’t even touching.
He was at least a foot and a half in front of me.
“Sure, Dad,” I grumbled as I sidled out farther into the hallway. “Me standing next to a man makes me a slut.”
“You’re sixteen and a little bitch, aren’t you?” Dad crossed his arms over his chest.
I felt Trick stiffen behind me.
“Seventeen,” I corrected him. “My birthday is today, remember?”
“Seventeen,” Trick practically hissed from behind me.
“And he’s what, twenty-one?” my dad pushed. “That’s statutory rape, motherfucker.”
I growled in frustration. “Age of consent in Texas is seventeen. And we weren’t doing anything. We were standing next to each other. That was it.”
I looked over my shoulder at Trick, hoping to see understanding.
There wasn’t any.
He was staring at me in shock.
Shit.
That made me feel kind of bad.
Maybe I should’ve told him I wasn’t eighteen yet.
But a girl that had led the life I had? I was way older than my years.
That was for sure.
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed.
Then I was walking toward my father.
When I got there, he grabbed my wrist in a punishing grip and tugged me inside his office.
CHAPTER 2
I am looking for a married woman, betrayed or disappointed, with a desire for revenge, who wants to sell her husband’s Harley for cheap.
-Trick’s secret thoughts
TRICK
Seventeen.
Seven. Fucking. Teen.
What in the holy hell?
That girl did not look seventeen.
Young, yes. But not seventeen.
She was in a bar, drinking for Christ’s sake!
Holy hell.
I’d almost fucked up royally.
I’d spent the entire night next to her, talking to her, looking at her, listening to her. She hadn’t ever once indicated that she was underage.
Though, just sayin’, but in Texas, legal age of consent was seventeen. If I had done anything, it wouldn’t have been illegal. As she’d said.
But still. Seventeen.
I was twenty-one.
That was four years difference.
And at our age—more accurately, her age—that many years was a big deal.
I walked back up to the bar and ordered another beer, mind reeling.
Seriously, out of everything that had happened, that could’ve been disastrous.
“See you’ve met the fruit of my loins,” the bartender said as he brought me another beer. “He’s something special, right?”
I grimaced. “Your granddaughter seems to really dislike him.”
“That’s because he’s an asshole,” the man said. “Name’s Jugg. If you need another beer, holler.”
Jugg.
What an odd name.
Then again, Swayze was an odd name, too.
But I liked it.
A lot.
Too bad she was goddamned seventeen!
I drank my beer and had just gotten it down to about a quarter of the way filled when something urged me to stand up.
I frowned when I looked around, spotting Shawn at the opposite end of the bar practically mauling the blonde next to him.
Jugg was at the end of the bar, too. He was serving a new woman that’d just sat down. There was a man beside her, and they both looked very concerned.
Everything else in the room seemed normal, but my sense of danger had been finely tuned when I was in Iraq.
I knew when it was around, and my senses were screaming that I needed to get up and move.
I did, walking toward the back room.
I wasn’t sure what propelled me in that direction, but I knew as I got closer, that the danger had somehow included Swayze.
I wasn’t sure how, but it was a gut feeling that I never, ever would’ve ignored.
Sidling up to the closed door, I closed my eyes and listened.
There was no talking.
No nothing.
Just as I was about to walk away, about to pull myself not only out of the hallway, but out of the freakin’ building altogether, I heard it.
A rough sounding, meaty thump.
It was one of those sounds that I could always, always pick out in a group of sounds.
Flesh hitting flesh.
Something sick entered my soul then.
I hadn’t seen anybody enter or exit the hallway since I’d retaken my seat.
There were only two options here.
Either Swayze was beating the shit out of her dad, or her dad was beating the shit out of her.
The song playing went off, and the bar went momentarily silent.
That was when I heard the whimpering.
Without conscious thought, I opened the door and pushed inside.
What I saw had me calling out for Shawn and hoping that he would hear me.
I moved before I even realized what I was doing.
All it took was one glance at the person on the floor for my heart to react before my brain.
It was the curly blonde hair stained with bright red that was my trigger.
Boom.
CHAPTER 3
I’m not always a bitch. Sometimes I’m asleep.
-Swayze’s secret thoughts
SWAYZE
Six months later
Former Marine Patrick Moore Wheat pleads not guilty to manslaughter.
Wheat was just getting off leave when he ruthlessly beat a man to death in his own bar.
More to come on Channel Six news when we come back.
I quickly turned off the television, sick to my stomach all over again.
I stood up stiffly, still to this day, six months later, sore from the beating that my father had inflicted on me.
“You ready, baby?” my stepfather asked, looking at me from the carport door.
I swallowed hard and walked toward him, my conservative outfit making me feel dumb as hell.
My mother said that it looked nice, though, so I kept it on despite my discomfort.
“Ready,” I replied softly, no longer able to say anything above a husky whisper thanks to the damage to my vocal cords that my father had inflicted when he’d punched me in the throat.
“It’ll be okay,” my mother assured me. “You’ll see.”
When we arrived at the courtroom thirty minutes later, my heart lurched in my chest at the sight of him.
God, even in the orange jumpsuit he was wearing, he still looked beautiful.
His jaw was clean shaven, but that was the only thing left about the man that I’d met in the bar that day.
It was my fault he was in jail right now.
About to be in prison.
Because he’d all but given up on all the bullshit that had been laid at his feet since his arrest.
The moment that he’d been taken in, it had started.
Apparently, my father had been mixed up with some people that had wanted him where he was. And they’d taken offense when they’d lost their mule. Their mule that had hidden some drugs and couldn’t be asked where they’d been hidden.
And, to let their ire be known, they’d bribed, blackmailed, or downright threatened every single person that might be able to help Patrick out.
Everyone but my stepfather and mother.
They, thank God, believed him and stepped in to help.
Only, it wouldn’t help when the men and women on the jury, as well as the judge, had all been brought to the dark side.