Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 83970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
My phone rings, halting my playlist and I slow to jog. The number on the screen which usually excites me and makes my heart race irritates me for the first time since I discharged from the Marines.
Chapter 11
Emmalyn
I’m fuming mad all the way across town to the strip center Rose has deemed appropriate for today.
“Where do you want to start?” Rose asks as she puts the mid-sized SUV in park and pulls the keys from the ignition.
She has to know I’m mad. I haven’t said a word since we left the clubhouse. I’m even more pissed because I have absolutely no right to be pissed, and that pisses me off even more. Two days is all it took for that man to get under my skin enough to manipulate my emotions. The smirk on his face when he spotted me in the kitchen told me all I needed to know. He’s well aware of my attraction to him, and he just used it as a weapon against me.
“The bus station,” I say absently and look back at her when she stays silent.
She reaches past me and pulls down the visor, revealing the small, lighted mirror there. “And do what, Emmalyn? Go back to the man who did that to your beautiful face?”
“No,” I whisper softly.
“If you have family and want to go home to them, I’ll take you to the airport and buy you a first class ticket.” She turns my face toward hers gently. “Do you have family you want to go home to?”
I think about my aunt and my cousins. I haven’t heard a word about them in years. “No,” I answer honestly, because what type of family am I for leaving and never getting a hold of them?
“I just wanted to get out of there, Rose.” I look at the long row of various stores. “I don’t have the money to go shopping. You can take me around town so I can fill out applications, though. I need to look for a job.”
“That’s not what Kincaid told me to do.” I look back at her and see sympathy on her face.
“Well,” I say with renewed anger. I don’t finish my thought because my issues with Diego have absolutely nothing to do with Rose. I refuse to take my anger out on her. It’s not fair, and as the receiver of such anger for years, it’s not a position I want to put anyone else in.
“He gave me this.” She holds up a credit card with an American flag on the front. “And he told me not to take no for an answer when you refused to let him pay for everything.”
I huff and look back out the window. “Was that before or after he had that girl all over him?”
“You have to understand,” she begins shifting her weight in her seat so she can face me more. “The club girls are… The clubhouse you came into last night is not what it’s usually like there.”
I snap my head back to her. I knew all of the guys that had come out to the van to get the bags from the back were nowhere to be found when I went to the kitchen after my shower.
“What is it normally like?”
She laughs. “It’s usually a total pussy fest. Half-naked women doing anything and everything to get the guys’ attention.”
“Where were they last night?”
“Kincaid called Doc and told him he only wanted members there when he showed up with you. He didn’t want you walking into that chaos.” She reaches across the console and places a calming hand on my arm. “He didn’t say as much to Doc, but it’s clear he wants to protect you. He wanted to protect you from that.”
“Didn’t last very long did it,” I say bitterly. She stays quiet while I work through it in my head. “That’s how you and Doc got together?” I look at her but can’t see her being that type of woman.
She barks out a laugh, and it continues so long that her reaction brings a smile to my own face. “Fuck no!” She finally manages. “I was never a club girl. Doc and I were married when he went in the service. He was in for a decade before he met up with Kincaid and Shadow.”
“He likes you, Emmalyn.” She looks in the rearview mirror and checks her already perfect makeup. “You have to learn to ignore the club girls. If I’m right,” she turns her eyes to mine a small smile playing on her lips, “and I’m always right, you’ll never have to worry about or wonder where his interests lie from now on.”
“How do you live there and deal with all of that all of the time?”
“You’re mistaken. Doc and I don’t live there. Just like Kincaid, we have our own house. We have a room there to crash in if we stay too late, which doesn’t happen often, but we don’t live there.”