Redeemed: Book Two of the Love Seekers Series

by Maria Vickers

  “I could ask the same thing,” he growled when he jumped into his own seat.

  “You were the one flirting when you were supposed to meet me outside.” I didn’t care that I sounded jealous.

  “I came outside several times since 6:55 to look for you and didn’t see you. Where the fuck did you park?” His voice sounded calm, almost too calm.

  “Over there, under that tree.”

  “Why the fuck did you park out there? You should have parked closer to the entrance. There is a lot more light, more people, and you are less likely to run into any creeps that could be lurking about.”

  “I’m sorry, but last time I checked, you weren’t my father.”

  “Thank fuck for that!”

  “Jealous? Don’t you want to be my daddy?” I pretended to pout. This sounded like the beginning of a previous argument between us.

  Shoving his key in the ignition, he cranked the shaft and the engine roared to life. I almost thought he wasn’t going to answer me, but after he pulled out of his space, he threw the car into drive and sat there as he addressed me. “It means, Sweetheart, that I don’t fuck my daughters and I wouldn’t want one like you!”

  I sucked in a breath as if he punched me in the gut. “How dare you? I’ll have you know, I’ve had better lays than you. You aren’t even memorable, and having you as part of my family could be considered cruel and unusual punishment, which is against the law.”

  “Oh, I dare. In fact, remember that you were the one that called this meeting, and if you act like the spoiled little rich bitch, like you so often do, I’ll drop you off at the nearest street corner and you can deal with getting back to your car or home your own goddamn self.”

  Groaning in frustration, I threw myself against the seat and sat silently. I didn’t know where we were going, and at this point, I didn’t care. I had other things to worry about, like the fact that his domineering attitude made me wet and throbbing with desire.

  I tried to ignore him, tried to ignore the spicy scent of his cologne entering my nose every time I breathed in. But Chad, even without the cologne or the t-shirt that hugged his body like a second skin, was a man that demanded attention—even when he wasn’t asking for it, such as this moment. Passing under the streetlights, his hair looked more golden then normal, giving him a glowing halo. I couldn’t. Instead of focusing on him, I tried to keep my eyes averted. As hard as I tried to pretend we weren’t occupying the same small space, the air crackled around us

  Even though I couldn’t simply ignore him, I refused to be the first to speak. My plan would have worked, except I noticed that he was leaving the nicer part of town and heading someplace I dared not venture after dark unless I was with others. Thankfully, Chad’s sheer size would scare off most people. At six foot, he was almost a foot taller than me. With his muscled bulk and the fierce scowl adorning his face, I had a feeling that anyone we saw would run the other way out of fear.

  “Where are we going?” I questioned, my tone surly and imperious.

  “A place,” he remarked. Short and clipped, nothing else given.

  “What place?”

  Without taking his eyes off the road, he smirked and said, “Well, Sweetheart, that’s for me to know and you to find out.”

  “Chad—”

  “No, not tonight. Tonight you invited me out and we are going where I want to go and I don’t give a shit what you want. If you object, I’ll let you out right here.”

  The car began to slow down, and I glanced around. Two homeless bums were sitting on the slant under the bridge about five feet away, and when they noticed Chad pulling over, they stood up and started to walk toward us. At a standstill, they would easily be knocking on the window in a matter of seconds. “You win. We’ll go where you want,” I rushed.

  “You sure you don’t want to get out right now?”

  “NO!” I screamed without intending too. Being out there with the bums scared me.

  Frowning, he nodded as he pushed down on the accelerator. The expression on his face showed his confusion, but I wouldn’t tell him anything. I had to depend on him right now because of work issues, however, my past was my past, and confiding in him was not a requirement. Soon he would be part of my past as well.

  Those memories, that past, I pushed it down inside me and locked the box again.

  ****

  Chad

  Something haunted Rayne. I mean I knew she hated the people she considered beneath her, but her reaction to getting out, the way she stared at the homeless men who were walking our way, bordered on panic and fear. That expression of horror, the way her eyes widened and her breathing came out in short pants, that wasn’t hate. That was pure unadulterated terror.

  Something had happened to her and I didn’t have a clue what it could be. First her dream and now this…none of it made any kind of sense. But if she wanted to sweep it under the rug and pretend she didn’t almost have one of the biggest panic attacks I had ever seen, then so be it. It was her business and therefore, not mine.

  When I pulled into the Recovery Room’s parking lot and turned off the engine, I saw the shocked expression on her face. Gone was the scared little girl, instead she gaped at the building with a stunned expression. “What are we doing here?” she asked. Her voice still sounded small and meek after her scare.

  “This is where I decided to come for dinner,” I stated, thinking it should have been obvious.

  “They don’t have good food. I don’t think I would even call it decent.”

  Now it was my turn to be shocked. “You know about this place?” After my last trip here, my imagination tried to picture her here in the midst of the uncouth regulars hundreds of times, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t see it.

  “Well yeah. One of my friends liked to come here sometimes during college. She said it was the best place to pick up a bad boy.” Rayne’s eyes turned to me, dropping to my lap and skimming over my body as they moved upwards to my face. “I would say she was probably right if you frequent this joint.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” I got out of the car and took a step toward the entrance. If she wanted to come inside, she better not expect me to open her car door for her. I had counted to 100 twice during our car ride and almost kicked her out for merely breathing. And the way she demanded to know where we were going like she was the empress of the world, she was lucky I hadn’t physically removed her from my vehicle.

  “It wasn’t meant as one,” she grumbled as she followed suit, climbing out of the car and slamming the door shut. My new car. She needed to learn some respect for other people’s belongings.

  “Sweetheart, I’d watch it if I were you.”

  “What?”

  “Play nice and I can be a gentleman. Be a bitch, and you’ll meet the biggest asshole in America.” I left her standing there and walked into the bar, the door closing behind me. It only took a couple of beats before I heard the door scrape open again. It needed some oil, but like everything else in this place, it was worn without being rundown.

  “Chad, I see you came back,” Kit-Kat yelled over the murmurs and music. A couple of people turned around to see who she called out to, but others ignored the overenthusiastic bartender and carried on with their business.

  “Kit-Kat.” I nodded in greeting. Behind me, I could hear Rayne’s grumbles, and I pictured her mashing her teeth together. I grinned widely in response just to piss her off. Walking up to the bar, I took a seat. “How’s it going tonight? Is Buzz in?”

  “I’m here,” a man whose arms were tatted up, with a receding hairline of white stringy hair that fell in down to his shoulders, said as he walked out of the back. “Been a while.”

  “It hasn’t been that long,” I argued good naturedly, but then I noticed he was looking at Rayne and not me. Excuse me?

  “Hey Buzz,” Rayne grinned and stuck out her hand for him to shake.

  I stood there flabbergasted. The thorn in my side knew Buzz. “Am I missing something?”


  She shrugged and said, “I told you I’d been here before,” as if that explained everything.

  “Yes, but while Buzz remembers his regulars, you made it sound like it wasn’t an all the time thing.”

  “It wasn’t. I think I’ve only been in here three or four times and that was only in college.” Her cheeks turned pink, telling me a story existed.

  Scratching the back of his head, Buzz appeared to be deep in thought when he explained, “The last time she was in here, Charlie tried to hit on her and her friend. You know how drunk he gets sometimes. Another guy who was here on vacation took exception and decked Charlie, but instead of hitting Charlie, he hit your friend here. Since she is a lot shorter, he only grazed her head. It was enough to send her falling backwards though. The police were called, people were taken to jail, and Rayne here had to wait until her brother could come and pick her up. I think he was on vacation here or something.”

  “Leave. He’s in the Navy and was here visiting family at the time,” Rayne corrected him.

  “Little Rayne Sampson got in a bar fight and I never knew about it?” I chortled.

  She smiled sweetly—never a good thing. “That’s because I told Bryan if he told anyone about that night, I would use a nail gun on his balls before I cut them off.”

  I laughed. “See, that’s just wrong. Threatening to punish your own brother’s junk. I didn’t know you had that sort of kink in you.” I took a drink of the beer Buzz had moment’s ago set in front of me. “I’ll give you points for creativity and style though.”

  “Will you stop making everything dirty?”

  “What makes you think I make everything into something dirty? You were the one talking about handling your brother’s balls.”

  “Shut up.”

  Buzz chuckled as he shook his head. “You two drink up. First round is on me.”

  “Thanks, Buzz.”

  “Welcome. Katy said you wanted to talk to me about something.”

  Katy? I never could remember her name. I really thought it was Catherine. “Uh, yeah. I got it figured out though,” I answered, hoping my lie came across as believable.

  “Well, I’ll be back in few minutes to check on you.”

  “Hey Buzz. Can we get some of your special nachos?”

  “Sure, kid. I’ll bring them out in a bit.” With that, he disappeared from where he came.

  Leaning over the bar, thrusting her chest out at me, Kit-Kat placed her hand on my shoulder. “I missed you. Nice of you to come back.”

  I had to stop myself from physically shrinking away from her. “I’m back. This is Rayne Sampson, my date.”

  Kit-Kat never removed her hand, if anything, she dropped it lower to rest on my chest. “Are you the girl he’s dating?”

  Shit! I silently pleaded with Rayne to keep up the ruse as she gave me the stink eye and took a pull of her own beer.

  “Well, we’re here together, so what does that tell you?” Rayne glared across the bar at the woman who continued to casually touch me. “Do you touch all of your customer’s like that, regardless if they’re attached or not?”

  Kit-Kat pulled her hand back, but she didn’t stop leaning over the bar. “She has claws.”

  “I have more than that, and if you want to continue in this manner, I have mace and I can talk to Buzz.”

  “Like my dad would do anything about it.”

  “Dad? Wow. Too bad you don’t have the same class he does.”

  Narrowing her eyes, Kit-Kat seethed, but seemed to collect herself quickly. “Between you and me, honey, you are one in a long line.”

  “Between you and me…honey,” Rayne sneered, her dislike for the other woman palpable in our small space, “I probably know more than you do about him and his extracurricular activities. You can’t shock me.”

  “Oh, I bet I can. Chad here was my first and we were supposed to get married.”

  Rayne choked on the gulp of beer she drank and her wide eyes flew to me silently asking me if it was true or not. Rolling my own eyes, I twisted my head so that Kit-Kat received my scorching gaze. “That’s not true. You thought because I slept with you and took your virginity that I would be willing to marry you. You even tried to tell me you were pregnant, but you were busted when your mom did laundry while you were telling me, and she complained about you bleeding so much while on your period and that you ruined another pair of panties. Then you said you would tell your father, but you never did.” If Kit-Kat wanted to play, I had enough firepower to sink her battleship.

  Kit-Kat slinked away from me, sliding back to her side of the bar. I saw both surprise and contempt on her overly made up face, but I could also see the pain. Funny. When Rayne was hurting, the urge to soothe her punched me in the gut—not that I gave into it often—but with Kit-Kat, I only felt revulsion. Her body still leaned against the bar slightly toward me, but she had quit making the bar her bed by lying on it. “Really?” she hissed.

  I matched her glare for glare. “I could say the same thing.”

  “And once again your man whore ways come back to bite you in the ass,” Rayne mumbled.

  Whipping my head around, I gaped. I couldn’t believe she would bring up something like that right now. “Remember what I said,” I warned her.

  “I remember a lot of things.”

  The sound of laughter pulled us from our staring—more like glowering—match. Kit-Kat’s head was thrown back as she gripped her stomach and laughed hard and loud. The more her laughter rang out, the more irritated I got. “What’s so funny?” I growled through clenched teeth.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.” She guffawed. Wiping a finger under one of her eyes, it came away with a black line on it, which she rubbed on her jeans. “Sounds to me like there might be trouble in paradise. If that’s the case, you might be better comin’ back to me.”

  “I don’t think so. I’d rather take my chances with a shark.” I had tried to play nice with Kit-Kat for old time’s sake, but this was bullshit and I was done playing Mr. Nice Guy. She didn’t deserve it. And as for Rayne, I knew better than to expect more of her, but for whatever reason, I thought she might play sweetly. She didn’t, and now I was arguing with two crazy females.

  “I guess this is your done that, been there, don’t want to take another spin attitude,” Rayne commented so softly that I almost hadn’t heard her.

  “I don’t need your holier than thou, sanctimonious attitude,” I snapped at her.

  “Coming from you, that’s funny. You look down your nose at me like you’re some goddamn angel who can do no wrong. You yell at me for Emma and Megan, but don’t stop and think about your own actions. You’re a fucking hypocrite. You want me to change, well what about you? You want me to see it from your point of view, but you won’t take the time to look at things from my perspective. And now you’re sleeping from girl to girl has put you in the middle of whatever the fuck this is, and bit you in the ass. That’s not me. That’s all on you! You don’t need my sanctimonious attitude, well, I don’t need yours either,” Rayne shouted loud enough for the people around us to hear. She looked like a tempest with her chest heaving and her blue eyes wild with anger.

  BANG!

  A plate piled high with meat, cheese, and chips dropped between us on the dark wooden bar top. Placing his hands on the bar, Buzz leaned in and snarled, “If you want to fight, fight, but do it outside and out of my bar.” He glanced at Rayne, “And if he’s crossing the line and causing you trouble, you let me know and I’ll take care of him.” His gaze found me again. “I’ve known you most of your life. You may think I don’t know what happened with my daughter, but I do. You think you’re hot stuff, but let me tell you something kid, you are gonna get old and the women you fool around with will stop coming to see you, they’ll find someone else. You need someone with staying power. And if you want to act a fool, then do it somewhere else.” He spun around and measured a glare at his daughter. “And you, stop causing trouble. He doesn’t want you, never has.
It’s time for you to give up because that ship has sailed.” Pushing past her, he returned to the back and left the three of us alone.

  I should’ve known not everything was okay with the way Kit-Kat’s eyes narrowed on Rayne, but I didn’t know what she would do. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. She grabbed her rag to wipe down the bar and “accidentally” knocked Rayne’s beer onto the nachos making them inedible, and then when Kit-Kat got Rayne a replacement, she dumped the beer into her lap.

  Jumping out of her seat, Rayne’s heated glower transferred from Kit-Kat to myself and back. She was holding her beer drenched pink t-shirt away from her body, probably because of the frigidness of the liquid. Only then did I realize how nicely her light colored jeans hugged her hips and accented her ass. “Rayne—”

  She held up a hand and stopped me. “Don’t. Just don’t. I don’t want to hear it.” Rayne sounded as if she was on the verge of tears, not that I could blame her one iota. I wanted to comfort her, but before I said anything, she continued. “This is your fault. This is your past punishing me.” I could see how red her eyes were turning and noticed they looked wetter than they had moments before. “Take me back to my car. Now.” She gave her quiet order through clenched teeth with an ugly scowl on her face.

  I dropped some cash on the bar top and followed Rayne out of the building. I’m not sure how this was my fault. It’s not like Rayne was completely innocent after provoking both Kit-Kat and me. No, she could be culpable for her part in tonight’s turn of events. And the more I thought about it, the more I believed that. The more I believed it, the more I wanted to set her straight.

  By the time we got to the turn-in for the gym, I was seething with anger, my body shaking with it, and instead of turning right, I drove straight ahead. Before I dropped her off and never heard from her again, we were going to get everything out in the open. We’d say everything we had to say and then never have to see each other again.

  Finito.

  Chapter 24