Nobody really did.
But they all acted like they were my mother instead of my friends half the time.
I gestured for him to leave, which he did moments later, leaving me in my house alone for the first time in a while.
Monster walked over to the couch where Linnie had left her blanket, dropped his head directly on top of it, and made the saddest doggy whine I’d ever heard.
“I know, boy,” I said as I took the seat beside him and patted his head. “I know.”
Then I read the letter and was fairly sure that I’d never be the same.
Liner,
It’s my hope that you’re reading this, and its not in a trashcan hundreds of miles away from where you are.
I just wanted you to know that, from the moment you gave me that cupcake, I was in love with you.
Nobody ever did anything nice for me just because…but you did. You showed me kindness when all I ever felt was pain. You showed me what it was like to live, and for that, I’ll forever be grateful. I’ll forever remember that, for just a few days, I lived. I didn’t exist.
I’ll never have another man. I’ll never feel what you showed me I could feel again.
But, I have something better than that. A great memory that won’t ever allow me to forget you.
With all my love,
Theodora
When I was through reading the letter, I calmly walked to the front door, slipped into my boots, and then went to work.
There, at least I was needed.
There, at least I wouldn’t have an infinite amount of time to think about how badly I’d screwed up.
There, maybe I’d forget.
I was wrong, though.
The office was still swamped. Reports of power outages still came through. Trucks were dispatched. I was busy. Dad was gone.
But I still didn’t stop thinking about her.
And I had a feeling it would be something that continued to be there—a hollow feeling somewhere in the vicinity of my heart—for the rest of my life.
Chapter 17
You gotta let me nap. I’m gonna get cranky.
-Theo’s secret thoughts
Theo
1 month later
I was sad.
Which was stupid, because I now had everything I wanted.
I had a new life.
I had a new job.
I had my baby under my roof.
There was seriously nothing else in the world that I wanted more than what I had…at least that was before I’d met Liner.
Now I wanted more. I wanted him.
I wanted him in my life. I wanted him in my bed. I wanted him under my skin.
But I’d never have him.
“Momma, why are you looking so sad?” Linnie asked softly, bringing my attention from the eggs I was scrambling for her to her bright blue eyes that looked so much like mine.
“I miss Liner,” I admitted, not one to tell a lie when the truth worked just as well. “I’m sad that he’s not here with us.”
She tilted her head and stared at me with eyes that were too old to belong to a five-year-old.
“Then tell him to come back,” she ordered.
I smiled. “It’s not that simple, sweet pea. He can’t come…he has to work.”
She pursed her lips. “He doesn’t always have to work.”
I thought about her comment, then I realized that she was right. He didn’t always have to work.
Placing the whisk and the bowl of half-beaten eggs aside, I walked to the little breakfast nook that was in the corner of the kitchen, then leaned my hip against the wall on the opposite side of where Linnie was coloring her Valentine’s page she’d asked me to print off the printer this morning.
“Do you remember why I told you that you had to go by your middle name now?” I asked.
Linnie paused, then nodded her head.
“You told me I go by Hazel because you don’t want your sister or your brother to find me,” she repeated word for word.
My girl had a memory exactly like mine—the ability to remember everything. It was a gift and a curse. A gift for Linnie, I was hoping, and a curse for me. Because, by some great twist of fate, nothing bad had ever happened to my Linnie like it had to me. And I’d fight tooth and nail for it to stay that way.
“The reason Liner can’t come see us is because I don’t want my sister or your uncle Andy to find you,” I said. “Or your grandfather.”
Linnie was already nodding her head. “Because they’re bad.”
I nodded my head.
“Why are they bad?” she pushed.
She’d been doing that lately, asking more questions and accepting less. Not that I could blame her. Her life had completely and totally changed, and if I was being honest, I didn’t really know her all that well. It was quite possible that this was how she was always meant to be. Nosey and full of questions, and I’d just never seen that side of her before. Maybe she was just now finally coming out of her shell where I was concerned and letting her curiosity flow free now that she trusted me more.
I thought about lying to her, and then I realized that Linnie was a smart kid.
She may be five, but she was also highly intelligent, and I could form my explanation in a way that she’d understand but not know all the details.
“My family…” I hesitated, trying to think of the right words that wouldn’t give her nightmares at night about bad people coming for her. “My sister and brother hurt me.” I swallowed. “They hurt me a lot, and my father—your grandfather—let them.” Linnie blinked. “They would’ve hurt you, too, but Uncle Tyson stopped them.”
“Uncle Andy and Aunt Tara,” Linnie said. “Uncle Andy is mean, and Aunt Tara feels like she can see the back of my head through my eyeballs.”
I would’ve laughed had she not been speaking the truth.
My phone dinged, and I glanced at it sitting on the counter next to the eggs I’d been about to cook, then back at my daughter.
“Uncle Andy and Aunt Tara would like very much to hurt me—and you—again. And I don’t want that to happen. Neither does Liner. So we’re hiding,” I explained. “Somewhere where hopefully they will never find us again.”
She looked down at the toast I’d given her to help tide her over until the eggs were finished.
I was proud to say that not only had I gained weight, but so had my daughter. She was by no means chunky—nor was I—but we were definitely a whole lot healthier and less gaunt looking.
On my end—it was because I was actually eating.
Linnie’s, I had a feeling, was likely due to the fact that she was just plain growing. And like a weed at that.
The clothes that had been provided for Linnie based on her size when we were with Liner were now almost an inch too short, and within the next day or two I’d have to find some time after work and before school ended to go get some, or I’d have to take her with me.
Either way it went, she needed new clothes.
And I was happy because, for once, I could afford them. Oh, and buy them.
I’d never been able to dress my baby girl, and now that I was, I was going a little overboard.
“I still miss Liner,” she whispered. “I wish he could’ve moved with us.”
“I know, baby. Me, too,” I said softly. “We’ll make do.”
Because that was what I’d have to do. Make do with what I had.
It was enough.
At least that was what I kept telling myself for the next three months until making do was no longer good enough.
Chapter 18
My hobbies include trying to close my office door before someone realizes I’m at work.
-Liner’s secret thoughts
Liner
One month later
I looked out my window to, yet again, find Tara standing outside the rental house.
Yanking the blinds back closed before sh
e could see me staring out at her, I waited for the inevitable.
It wasn’t long in coming.
Mrs. Wheeler called five minutes later.
“She’s back,” Mrs. Wheeler snarled. “Why is she standing in my yard like a weirdo?”
“Because she is a weirdo,” I answered. “Did you call the cops?”
“Yes,” she answered. “For the fifth time.”
This had happened a whole lot more than five times, but the Wheelers had only been home a week, and in that week, Tara had been there every single day.
At first, Tara had just started out as sitting in her car, looking. Then it’d turned into her standing outside her car.
Each day, she got closer and closer, until now she was standing in their front yard, staring at their front door, as if waiting for Theo to come out.
She wouldn’t be…but for some reason her brain just couldn’t compute that they weren’t there.
Maybe I should suggest she let Tara inside to see that there’s nobody there.
I immediately dismissed that thought, though.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Wheeler,” I apologized. “I wish that I could do something more than call the cops when she came.”
Mrs. Wheeler made a sound in her throat. “We’re thinking about going back out again anyway. Maybe she’ll be gone by the time we get back.”
One could only hope.
But I secretly wished they’d stay, and push Tara some more, hopefully get her arrested one of these times and force them to keep her for a while.
And maybe a miracle would happen such as they declare her clinically insane and put her into a mental hospital that she’d never come back out of.
“It’s okay, Liner,” Mrs. Wheeler sighed. “She’s not harming anybody just yet.”
Famous last words.
“Bye, Mrs. Wheeler,” I said and hung up.
I didn’t bother to call Castiel or Wade like I would’ve normally done. I had a feeling that one or both had already been informed of the shit swirling in my neighborhood, and one would already be on their way.
Instead I walked to the kitchen and sifted through my mail that I’d allowed to pile up.
It was a bunch of bills that I had on auto-draft, a shit ton of magazines, and quite a few little random pieces of mail. Such as the one from Publisher’s Clearing House that said I had a chance at winning a million dollars.
It all went directly into the trash but the one and only bill that didn’t get auto-drafted. My electric bill.
Due to some glitch in the system, it wouldn’t allow me to put the payment onto auto-pay because of some stupid reason, and I fought the damn thing tooth and nail each month.
A knock at my door a few minutes into the Gun magazine I’d dropped into the trash then immediately pulled back out had me reluctantly walking to the front entry.
I wasn’t surprised to see Wade standing there.
I was surprised, however, to see that Tara was already gone.
“Hey,” I said. “You got rid of her fast.”
Wade shook his head. “She wasn’t here when I pulled up. Mrs. Wheeler said that they spoke, and Tara decided to leave.”
I shook my head and wished that it was always that simple.
Mrs. Wheeler was a very nice person, though, and each time she was there she tried to convince Tara to leave.
“She say if Tara said anything?” I asked curiously.
Wade shrugged. “One of these days I want to bust her for something other than trespassing.”
I wanted that for Tara, too.
“Maybe next time she’ll do it at night and Mrs. Wheeler will shoot her,” I offered.
Wade snorted. “Anyway, I gotta go. Just wanted to let you know.”
I nodded my head and watched him walk down the path that led to his cruiser.
As I did, I wondered if this newfound seeing Tara everyday thing would continue.
Turns out, I needn’t have worried. Tara didn’t show back up on Mrs. Wheeler’s property.
She showed back up on mine.
***
I was lying in bed, contemplating getting back up and just heading into work a couple hours early seeing as I couldn’t think about anything but Theo when I heard it.
A thump-thump.
I sat up in bed, as did Monster, and listened harder. I wasn’t sure if Monster sat up because I did, or because he’d heard what I was thinking I’d imagined.
But then there was another foreign sound. A sound coming from an area that should be quiet.
This time, there wasn’t a thump. There was, however, a shuffle of a foot on the wood of my kitchen.
I strained to hear more but couldn’t.
Monster got off the bed and went to the door, a low, menacing growl leaving his throat the likes of which I’d never heard before.
That was when I realized that I wasn’t imagining things.
Oh, and there was someone in my house that was able to get past my security system…a security system I’d completely forgotten to set.
Son of a bitch.
My feet hit the floor just as I heard the shift of the floorboards that were right outside the kitchen.
Whoever was out there had come in the back door, otherwise I would’ve never heard them. The kitchen had some water damage that I hadn’t quite gotten fixed yet. Everything in there had to be replaced. The floorboards, the joists. It would cost a fortune and I hadn’t wanted to pay the money just yet since I hadn’t decided if I wanted to stay in the house or not.
But I found myself thankful that I hadn’t fixed them seeing as the sound of the intruder entering had alerted me that they were there in the first place.
Then a sudden thought occurred to me.
The doggy cam. The one that my father had jokingly gotten me for Christmas last year.
It was one of those gizmos that allowed you to see your dog and give him a treat while you were away at work—or wherever you happened to be.
I flipped open the app as I reached for my bedside table and the gun that I had tucked into it.
The moment that my hand closed around the butt of the gun, the app started running, and I froze.
That was because Theo was inside my house.
I frowned, my heart starting to beat an unsteady tattoo against my ribs, only to reprimand myself harshly. That wasn’t Theo. That was Tara.
With her hair tucked up into a black cap, and it pulled down low over her eyes, I could only see her face from the cheekbones down.
And at first, it’d fooled me.
But my rational brain and my irrational one were now on the same page, and I was not happy to see that woman in my house.
Though, I had expected it after she’d been watching the house next door where I supposed whatever they’d planted to track her in Linnie’s things was stashed.
Rethinking the gun because I knew that I could handle whatever Tara had to give, I replaced it into the drawer and shut it quietly. Then pulled up the call app on my phone and dialed 911.
“911, what’s your emergency?” came a calm, female voice.
I looked at my closed bedroom door, where Monster was tensing further and further, and knew that she was now making her way to the bedroom.
“Yeah, I have an intruder that just entered my home,” I said softly in order for Tara not to hear me. “You might want to send someone over. I think she has a gun.”
“She?” the operator said.
“Yeah, she.”
“Units are being dispatched. Can you stay on the line?”
Before I could answer her, Monster went crazy and the bedroom door creaked open.
I flicked the light beside me on, illuminating the room and momentarily distracting her enough that she flinched away.
Monster lunged, but before I could do anything, I called him off and told him to heel just as I wrapped my hand around the hand that was aiming the gun at my face.
Tara went…wild.
There was no other way to describe it.
She started kicking and screaming, throwing herself bodily against me and using every available weapon in her arsenal.
I went from being able to control her to protection mode so she didn’t kick me in the balls or scratch out my eyes while also trying to keep the gun aimed up and away.
Then there was Monster, who was super unhappy that I’d called him off.
I’d never in my life seen him act so defensive, and he’d been around a lot of unsavory people in his time with me.
Tara shifted, causing me to squeeze her hand with the gun in order to get her to stop digging her nails into the soft flesh underneath my arm.
“Where is she?!” Tara screeched.
“Where is who?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
“My sister!” she screamed. “I want my sister!”
“Sorry, you crazy bitch,” I said to her. “But I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
It felt good to get on her nerves. It felt even better to have her hiss at me and narrow her eyes in affront.
She practically slammed herself into my body, hitting and kicking, and I wondered how long it would be before officers arrived and I could get her off of my hands.
I could easily subdue her, but it would look better for all involved if the cops walked in and saw her going absolutely ape shit, completely and utterly losing her shit.
I was sure that 911 was still on the line as well, recording the call for future evidence.
Hopefully this would put the crazy chick away for at least a couple of years. If I was lucky, longer.
Then the thought occurred to me, and I realized that this was the perfect opportunity to get rid of her for even longer than just a couple of years.
Allowing her hand to re-aim the gun—which was where she’d been struggling to get it but not accomplishing—I pushed it to the side and waited.
It didn’t take long.
The bullet tore through my bicep, making my stomach tighten and my head to swim.
I didn’t allow it to get the best of me, though.
Monster, my good ol’ dog, grabbed a hold of Tara and started to pull.
I heard her cry out in pain, and I used that to my advantage and rolled, pushing myself on top of her and hating every second.
Snitches Get Stitches (The Bear Bottom Guardians MC Book 8) Page 15