Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 74668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
His hands clenched on my hips, and he sighed before giving me a chaste kiss on the lips and stepped away.
“Be good,” he ordered, giving me a look.
I held up my hands, which inevitably still had the same beer in it that I’d had for the last twenty minutes.
He raised his brow, but didn’t comment at my gesture, instead turning to Jonah and gesturing towards his cruiser. “Go wait inside while I go grab my stuff.”
With that, he disappeared into the front of the house.
I felt wetness on my hand and looked down to find Peter’s wet nose stuck against it.
I smiled and scratched him under his chin.
“Let’s go back to our spot, buddy.”
Chapter 21
Sometimes I open my mouth and my mother comes out.
-Memphis to her dad
Memphis
I woke up when a hard body slipped beneath the sheets with me.
Cracking open an eye, I glanced at the clock and grimaced.
“Four forty five in the morning?” I croaked. “What’s the point of going to bed?”
An amused snort sounded from beside me. “Because I’m tired.”
I giggled, rolling over until my face was touching his chest and said tiredly, “That’s a good enough reason, I guess.”
He pulled me into his chest and started running his tongue down my neck with soft, languid licks when a huge, grating crash sounded from somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen.
Nails clicked and clacked on the hardwood floor as both dogs hauled ass towards the sound, and Downy, in his boxer shorts, wasn’t far behind.
I was up and moving, too.
However, not outside to the crash, but to the bed and then underneath, taking my cell phone with it.
I couldn’t tell you why I did what I did next.
Call it instinct. Call it fate. Call it whatever the fuck you want, but I did it. And it saved both Downy’s and my life.
The phone rang so many times that I was scared he wouldn’t pick up, but he did.
“Baby?” My daddy croaked.
He sounded awful, which I guess he would since he’d spent the entire night drinking, and had only gotten to bed around two hours ago.
“Daddy,” I whispered. “Something’s wrong.”
The lethargy in my daddy’s voice was gone. “Tell me.”
I decided not to tell him. Instead I pushed the button for FaceTime and his face lit up the screen.
I was pretty sure he was naked, but luckily I only caught the top half of him.
I could make out my mother’s concerned face over the back of his shoulder.
When I was sure I had his attention, I hit the button that flipped the screen around, and poked just the very edge of the phone out from under the bed, propping it up against the metal bedframe.
I couldn’t hear a thing.
Not the dogs. Not Downy. Nothing.
Just as I was about to relay that to my father, something grabbed me around the wrist and hauled.
***
Stone
I watched, helpless, as my daughter was taken.
Some guy with a hoodie pulled low over his face.
White male. Five feet ten inches. A hundred and ninety pounds.
The phone that’d been, I assumed, sitting to the side of the bed because nothing was jostled as the man in black pants, black Doc Marten work boots, and a black shirt, didn’t touch it when he got Memphis out.
My wife gasped from behind me, seeing Memphis go down before our very eyes.
“No!” Memphis yelled. “Stop! Let me go! Downy!”
The heartbreaking screams of my baby girl reminded me of the ones I’d heard years ago going into the hospital.
***
Ten years ago
Words couldn’t explain.
As a police officer, of twenty years, I’d given my fair share of condolences.
Mothers. Fathers. Grandparents. Foster parents. Adoptive parents. Friends. Acquaintances.
It was never easy.
At all.
But I did it, and I did it because it gave me a sense of belonging.
I loved my job.
Although it was tough and rough, I wouldn’t change my career for anything.
I liked it too much.
What I didn’t like, though, were dog bites.
They were sad and needless.
I’d always told myself that it wouldn’t happen to my kid.
I’d always be there for my baby. She’d never get hurt by a dog. It wasn’t possible.
I didn’t prepare, because I denied it and her invincibility.
She had the protection of my MC. She had the protection of my fellow boys in blue. She had her mama. She was the town princess.
So why in the world did I never question her jumping the fence to the compound? Why didn’t I ever tell her to stop doing it?
Bobo was the club’s dog. He protected the property and kept the compound free of any unwanted visitors.
What I hadn’t planned for, when I’d first caught the call of another dog bite victim, was for it to be my daughter.
I’d planned for it to be any number of people as I listened to the radio.
But when the dispatcher said, little girl, my heart had stopped.
And I know it was awful to think it, but I’d been praying the entire way to the hospital that it was another little girl. Someone else’s baby. God, anyone’s but mine.
The moment I saw my little girl laying on the table in the hospital’s emergency room, I hadn’t really comprehended what I’d seen.
My little girl, with her beautiful, brown hair splayed around her in bloody strands, lay against the white sheet with death in her eyes.
She saw me the moment I walked in the room, causing her eyes to light with an inner fire.
One that told me that now that I was here, she’d be okay. But I’d failed her.
I was supposed to protect my baby, and I hadn’t.
I also made a promise, as I walked up to her hospital bed, with nurses and doctors working around her frantically to clean her wounds, hook her up to the IV, push medications into her body that she’d never even heard of before, and strip her ruined clothes from her body.
A promise that, to the very day I died, I’d keep.
She’d never, ever be without my protection. Never.
***
I came back to myself when my wife’s frantic whisper broke through my thoughts. “Please don’t take her.”