Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 74875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
-Hennessy’s secret thoughts
Hennessy
This is not good, Hen. Not good. Not good, not good, not good.
If I repeated that to myself over and over again, maybe I could get it through my thick skull.
But I knew that me repeating that over and over wouldn’t do any good.
Not with how I was feeling right then.
Tate Casey. Tate fucking Casey!
He was a bruiser of a man. Tall; over six foot five, if not a little more.
He was tan, muscled, and had a head of dirty blonde hair that looked like he’d just shaved it yesterday.
Oh, and let’s not forget my current weakness.
The beard.
Oh, God. That beard.
It had a hint of red in it, and if there was one thing in this world I had a weakness for, it was a red beard.
Why, I didn’t know.
But I knew that it was one, and I took simple steps to control myself around them.
Wouldn’t be good for the pastor’s daughter to be caught ogling bearded men. Hennessy Harmony Hanes was not a girl that went for the rough ones, especially a redhead.
Why?
Because Momma, God bless her soul, had once had a thing for a redheaded biker before she’d met my daddy, and now Daddy had a vindictive streak against men that looked or acted like him.
And Tate Casey was that man.
His arms were lined with tattoos, and it was clear that even while on the inside, Tate hadn’t missed a workout session.
I wondered if he’d had to lift other men because the weights that they could fit onto one bar likely wouldn’t be enough.
I looked down at my pad of paper that I’d done nothing but draw the man’s freakin’ tattoos on for the last half an hour, and wondered if he’d notice if I took a picture.
That would probably be against some psychologist code somewhere. Which I should probably know, but likely slept through that class.
The man currently staring me down was waiting for me to reply to what he’d just said, but I couldn’t find it in me to tell him what he likely thought I should say.
You should really work on your anger issues was not something that I wanted to say to the man. Not when I felt that what he’d done was justified.
I’d seen that girl’s story in the newspaper. I’d read her accounting on what happened, and what Tate Casey had done to save her from that obvious hell.
I knew, and I didn’t. Freakin’. Care.
My dad, however…well, he sure did.
Violence is not the answer, Hennessy.
He’d said those exact words at the breakfast table the morning I’d read about Tate Casey’s impending incarceration.
Tate worked for Hail Auto Recovery, and had been on a job one night when he’d come upon a gang of young men raping a girl. After beating the guys responsible for the actual rape to death, he’d then gone and taken out five more of the gang members who were just egging them on, before he was caught and detained by police officers.
He hadn’t touched the police officers. He’d surrendered willingly, and had done everything asked of him to cooperate with authorities.
He’d been calm, cool, and collected while also being covered from head to toe with the blood of the men he’d beaten to death.
This was the second session of a mandatory twenty sessions, and he was about as approachable now as he had been the first meeting.
“I’ve heard of the Hail Raisers.” I said, acting like I was considering my notes as I did. “Can you tell me more about them?”
Was that appropriate to ask? I couldn’t tell.
I was winging it here.
Literally, I’d never once been this attracted to one of my patients before.
This was all kinds of screwed up, and if I wasn’t careful, this would cross the line into ‘no-no’ territory.
I couldn’t help it, though.
I needed to know more about this man, and if he didn’t tell me, I’d then have to ask people around town.
They’d, of course, know that he was being seen by me.
Half the town had been present when he’d arrived at my office over an hour ago due to the town’s Summer Fest Parade passing right past our door.
If I said something almost as if in passing, surely everyone else would fill in the blanks without me having to do any asking at all…right?
Shit.
This was bad.
Bad, bad, bad.
“Hail Raisers?” he feigned ignorance.
I nodded.
“The motorcycle club.”
He huffed out a laugh.
“We’re not a ‘club,’” he admonished. “Half the men in The Hails’ employ don’t even own a motorcycle. That was just something that was made up one day by some random Joe, and has stuck. Mostly because this fucking town can’t let go of the past.”
I didn’t correct him or admonish him for the coarse language.
He seemed to like it when he got a rise out of me.
“Okay, then tell me about the men in The Hails’ employ,” I amended.