I shrugged. “You said you wanted to move out of town.” I paused. “And honestly? I don’t think they’ll do anything. At worst, they’ll report him as missing. I made sure to watch. I didn’t see them ever bother to feed him. It was always the security guards that were on duty for the night. Someone else took him to his appointment the other day, too. Not the owners.”
He ran his hands down Pongo’s jaw, scratching the pooch, causing his lips to flop around.
“This is going to come back and bite me in the ass,” he rumbled, “but it’s the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for me.”
I beamed at him.
His eyes narrowed on me, and I looked down, only just realizing that I was still wearing all the clothes that I’d gone on my adventure with.
“How did you get that shirt?” he asked.
I grinned.
“You dropped it on your run a few days ago.” I paused. “You didn’t call me today.”
He frowned.
“I would have,” he scratched Pongo behind his ears. “But I got a call that got a little…heated.”
“Heated…” I paused. “What the hell does ‘heated’ mean?”
His mouth tipped up into a grin. “Heated means someone got a little feisty when I tried to take their car.”
I took a seat on the corner of the couch and crossed my hands over my chest. “Getting your car taken without your say-so is kind of annoying,” I pointed out. “But it likely shouldn’t get violent. What happened?”
He eyed me for a moment, likely gauging my sincerity in wanting to hear, and shrugged.
“You remember that guy that you fed the meat to a few weeks ago?”
Boy, did I.
I was working at the Taco Shop when Hennessy had come in with a date. That date had ordered a vegan taco with tofu on it while Hennessy had ordered a taco with ground beef. On their refill of their endless tacos, I’d brought the same tacos out, only instead of handing the vegan taco to the man, I’d handed it to Hennessy.
It was less than five minutes later that the man started screaming that ‘There’s cow in me!’ that I realized I’d done something wrong.
Something bad.
I’d felt terrible and didn’t find it the least bit funny like Tate Casey and Baylor had.
Tate Casey and Baylor were best friends, and I heard that they had been for a very long time.
It was no surprise that they found it funny. Only, five minutes into that fight with the vegan and me, Hennessy had stepped in, demanding that the guy calm down.
But I hadn’t realized that I’d been in any danger until Tate Casey had practically thrown the guy out of the Taco Shop when he’d harmed Hennessy.
From then on, any time I saw that vegan—I couldn’t remember his name because everyone in town now called him the ‘sometimes vegan’—I tried to go the other way.
“Yeah, I remember him,” I told him. “How could I not?”
Baylor grinned. “Exactly.” He frowned. “The fucker tried to run me over with Tate’s tow truck.”
“How did he get Tate Casey’s tow truck?”
Baylor rolled his eyes at my use of Tate Casey’s full name. I couldn’t help it, though. Seriously, I loved the name. It rolled off the tongue so easily.
“Well…it went like this…”
***
I was in the kitchen an hour later when an arm slipped around my waist.
Normally, I wouldn’t have had a problem. Normally.
But I’d already been thinking about Sal. I’d already been remembering everything he’d done to me. I’d been doing that a lot lately, thinking about what I could have done differently.
So when that arm snaked around my stomach and pulled me up against a hard chest, I didn’t even think. I reacted.
I pulled the knife out of the bottom of the sink and pushed the hard body away with my ass at the same time as I spun, lifting the knife.
I had it up, ready to strike when the hard arm that’d been around me moved.
The hand that wrapped around my wrist was relentless and unforgiving.
“What the fuck?”
I snapped out of my head so fast that it physically hurt.
I was staring into the hostile eyes of Baylor as he scowled at me.
My eyes lifted and I stared at the knife that I was somehow holding in my hand, and I gasped.
“I’m so sorry!” I breathed, loosening my grip on the knife.
It hit the counter first and then fell further onto the floor with a clatter.
“What the hell was that?” he asked, still not loosening his grip.
“That,” I swallowed my tears, “that was me freaking out.”
He laughed humorlessly. “I can see that.”
Still, he didn’t let me go.
“Something is broken inside of me,” I blurted.
His eyes studied me for long moments before he let me go.
“Everyone’s broken, Lark,” he said. “You just have to find a way to fix yourself. Tape sometimes works.”
I couldn’t even find it in me to smile.
Chapter 14
I always mean what I say. I may not always mean to say it aloud, but I always mean it.
-Baylor’s secret thoughts
Baylor
It was two nights later before I finally saw the carefree Lark again.
It’d taken her two whole days to get out of her head, and I’d been there with her when I wasn’t at work or running.
She’d even gone with me on my run today, only she’d ridden her bike while I’d taken a new route that didn’t take me to Pongo’s old home.
Two days of waiting had ended up with nothing remarkable.
Nobody said anything about a missing dog.
There were no whispers. There were no questions.
It was like nothing had even happened, only my whole life had changed.
Lark had committed a crime for me, and I’d let her.
She’d been so caught up in her head that I hadn’t even had the nerve to ask her why she’d done it.
Sure, she’d said that she wanted me to be happy, but it wasn’t every day that someone committed a crime for me. I needed to know more.
Was she feeling the same thing I was feeling? Or was that just me?
The door to her bedroom slammed, and my eyes came up to meet hers.
“Where are you going?” I asked the woman who was slowly starting to own my heart.
Lark smoothed her hands down her pants in a nervous gesture.
She grinned at me. “I heard that there’s an HOA meeting, and I’m going.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”
She shrugged. “I decided a few days ago that I was going to start finding me. And that’s going to start with me standing up for myself.”
“You’re going to go up there and try to get him kicked off the board?”
She nodded.
I grinned and stood up, polishing off the beer that I’d just popped open before offering her my hand. “Let’s do it.”
Five minutes later, we arrived at the swimming pool/banquet hall that all of the people in the neighborhood could use thanks to fees they paid each month to keep the pool clean and the banquet hall stocked.
I frowned when I saw the sheer amount of people in the parking lot.
Backing my bike up into a spot that was clearly not meant to be used as a parking space seeing as there was a dumpster at the back of it, I turned off the engine and stared.
“What the hell?” I asked. “There have to be at least a hundred people here.”
Lark snickered. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the last few days.”
I looked at her over my shoulder and said, “Yeah?”
She nodded and swung her leg over, using her hands on my shoulders to be sure that she stayed steady. “Yes.”
I rolled my eyes and swung my legs off as well.
“And what have you been thinking about?” I pushed, tugging at her ponytail.
She threw a smile my way and then started to remove her helmet.
“Well,” she bit her lip. “I’m tired of being walked all over.”
My brows rose. “And who does that?”
She opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it again.
“I don’t want to say,” she admitted, and I was proud that she’d given me the truth instead of a pretty lie. “But suffice it to say, I’m changing my old ways, and I’ve decided to start that by dealing with Harold.”
“Okay,” I said. “And how are you going to do that?”
She placed the helmet on the seat and crossed her arms over her chest.
My eyes automatically went down to see the soft swells, and my mouth watered.
Over the last two days, we hadn’t made love again. I didn’t want to push her, and since it seemed like something was going on with her, I’d thought it best to leave shit alone and let her work it out on her own.
Which was how I liked to deal with my problems as well.
So I’d done that but stayed close to her side, ensuring I’d be there if she ever wanted to talk.
But apparently, she hadn’t, because a few seconds later, she let me know just how much she hadn’t shared.
“I’ve talked to almost everyone in our neighborhood, and I’ve found quite a few who are just as fed up with Harold’s antics as we are.”
I would’ve been hurt that she hadn’t shared something that big, but she was proud of herself. I could see it in her eyes that were shining with excitement.
I blinked. “Okay.”
Her smile was fierce.
“I asked them to come to the homeowner's association meeting tonight so we can bring up our…problems with him,” she finally settled on.
I nodded my head. “And?”
“And I’m going to demand that they do something, or else.”
“Or else what?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know yet, but this is getting ridiculous. Did you know that your brother was fined for a noise complaint because he’d taken your infant nephew outside early in the morning instead of letting him wake up the girls? And it hadn’t been a neighbor that’d submitted the complaint, it’d been Harold who was walking by as he gave our neighbor another fine for forgetting to put up his trash can.”
I’d heard about that, yes.
In fact, I’d heard about a lot of problems in the neighborhood, but I’d decided that they needed to fight him just like I did.
Travis hadn’t paid the fine, either. And he hadn’t been worried about it.
Apparently, his wife had been.
“Hannah said that she took a complaint up with Harold, and Harold told her that he caught you and me having sex.”
I blinked.
“What?”
She nodded.
“Why wouldn’t you have told me this when you found out?”
“You got home when I was in the shower, and since you didn’t come in there, I hadn’t had a chance to tell you what I’d learned until now.”
“Have you ever heard of a phone?” I started to raise my voice.
“Have you ever heard of answering the phone?” she countered.
I immediately deflated. “Shit.”
She nodded.
“And what does him seeing us have sex have to do with a fine?” I finally asked.
I hated that he’d seen…but I honestly thought it was kind of hot, too.
Harold would never have Lark. Harold would never have anybody that even came close to Lark.
Harold was a greedy, petulant fucker who would rather spend time writing stupid tickets than spending time finding someone who might put up with him.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with anything,” she admitted. “I’m just upset that he told her that he saw us instead of keeping his trap shut. Why would Hannah, your sister-in-law, want to know anything that had to do with her brother-in-law’s sex life?”
That was something I agreed with her on.
“We don’t, and she doesn’t,” came an amused reply from the darkness beyond where we were standing. “Maybe you should learn how to close a door?”
I flipped my brother off. “Fuck you.”
Travis laughed, and Hannah hit him in the chest.
“I hope we can get this settled today,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to come to one of these meetings, but it never coincided with a day off for me.”
Hannah was a nurse who now worked with my brother—and me—at Hail Auto Recovery during the week. On the weekends, she picked up a few shifts at the local hospital to keep up her skills.
But since she loved working with Travis—which I had no fucking clue why—she stayed even though she was overqualified for what she was doing.
Whatever, though. To each their own.
“I’m glad you could make it,” Lark said bashfully. “I think we could use as much support as we can get.”
I agreed with that.
Harold was well known in our community. Despite being the elected president of the homeowner's association, he was also the town banker and on the volunteer fire department.
He was well known, and that didn’t always sit well with me.
It was also why I’d never gone to court with the man. He knew fucking everyone.
“What time does this thing start?” Travis asked. “Mom has the kids. I’d love to go out to eat after this if y’all are up to it.”
I looked over at Lark, who shrugged. “Seems okay to me.”
I snorted at her obvious lie.
She’d much rather get a shit ton of Chinese food and eat it on the floor of her living room than go out to eat with anyone—let alone me, my brother and his wife.
“Let’s do this.”
With that, we went inside, stopping only long enough to let Harold walk ahead of us through the doors.
***
I walked out of that homeowner’s association meeting knowing that this was about to go bad.
The look in Harold’s eyes when he saw that he’d been kicked off the HOA board was priceless…at least until he’d turned those eyes on Lark.
I saw the promise there. The certainty that he was going to fire back.
I just had to prepare her and myself for what he was about to do because whatever it was, wasn’t going to be good. It was going to be bad. Very, very bad.
And that bad came later that night when the cops came up to Lark’s door, showed her a warrant for her arrest, and took her away in handcuffs.
And, helpless to do anything at all, I turned to see Harold standing beside his golf cart, a huge fucking grin on his fat face.
I narrowed my eyes.
“You’re going to pay for this.”
Harold’s grin didn’t falter. “As long as she does, too, I don’t care.”
Chapter 15
Here’s a tissue. There’s bullshit spewing from your lips.
-Lark’s secret thoughts
Lark
I was getting fingerprinted.
I. Was. Getting. Fingerprinted.
I was also freaking way the fuck out.
I’d been fingerprinted before.
It’d take Sal an hour, max, for this to show up in his system.
He had a program on me and had since the very beginning.
It didn’t matter that the men of Free had wiped the system clean of me and any mention of me. Sal was just as smart with computers. The man could do almost anything, and finding a match on his wife’s fingerprints was a cakewalk to him.
See, what I didn’t know when I met Sal the first time, was that it was me who didn’t know anything about him, but not the other way around.
Sal knew everything about me from the day he’d seen me walk out of my college dorm room. He’d followed me for weeks, watching…waiting.
The
n, the day I graduated college, he’d made his move.
Only I hadn’t realized he’d made a move. I’d just thought he was a blood donor.
Turns out, Sal had never donated blood before in his life.
He’d come to the donation center to ask me on the date, but I had no doubt in my mind that had I said no to his offer of a date, he’d have gotten me to go out with him some other way.
“Other hand.”
I started at the snapped demand and turned my gaze up to the woman taking my fingerprints.
“Turn around.”
I did, stepping off of the platform completely like I’d seen the woman ahead of me do.
“Hands up.”
I did as I was told and moved my hands until they were over my head. Then, with methodical slowness, the woman ran her hands over my body as she searched me for anything that may be harmful to myself or others.
When she didn’t find anything, she gestured to the guard that was about five feet away.
“Rule, please take her to her new accommodations.”
Rule, the guard, grinned.
“It’ll be my pleasure.”
I shivered at the eagerness in his voice. I couldn’t tell if he was happy that he was asked to take care of me or excited to see a fresh face around here.
Whatever his reason for being happy, I did not want to be around him. It was more than obvious he was a bully, and I wasn’t sure that I had the power to stand up to him.
His eyes were a little too curious, and I had no doubt in my mind that had this been a dark alley, this man would’ve done a whole lot worse than the leer he shot me.
“Please keep your hands to yourself until we reach the room you’ll be sleeping in.”
I bit my lip and kept my hands folded in front of me while I searched my surroundings.
There wasn’t anyone in the hallways, and I couldn’t say that I was upset about that.
I didn’t want to talk to anyone or see anyone for that matter.
This was all quite embarrassing, and I was ready to be out of here forty-five minutes ago.
“Dinner is in ten minutes. That’ll be served in the common room.” The guard pointed to a room that was on my left. It had bars on the walls. Bars on the two windows I could see, and there were already women crowding around the room, waiting.
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