Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63469 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63469 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
“No,” I soothed her, pivoting and heading for the door. “I got the guitar. It’s fine. Kevin has it. Where’s the amp?”
Her face went from catastrophic to filled with light and hope in a second, even though still awash in tears. “You saved my guitar?”
“Of course I saved your goddamn guitar,” I groused, scowling. “Where’s the case?”
She pointed. “Right there by the door.”
“And your amp?”
“At work. I never bring it home.”
I grunted.
Kevin was right outside on the porch, and when I opened the screen, I dumped Josie into his arms and grabbed the case in time to see Mr. Barnes, red-faced and sweaty, closing in on me with a baseball bat.
“Rethink your course, old man,” I warned. “I will feed you that fuckin’ bat along with every one of yer teeth.”
“You—”
“You think I don’t see them bruises on her neck and face? Her right eye’s about swoll shut and her lip’s bleedin’.”
“Stop saying she!” he thundered. “That’s a boy! He was born a boy, and he’ll die a boy, and—”
I cut off his rant. “She sings like an angel, you know. Gonna be big someday, and y’all are gonna be terrible sorry when everyone knows what you did here.”
“At least he looks like a boy now!”
“No, sir.” I shook my head. “She looks like a baby bird that you done crushed under your boot.”
“You—”
“I’ma say this once,” I began, drawing myself up as big as I could. “I don’t never wanna see none of y’all up at the Bronc. If I do, I’ll have you arrested for trespassin’.”
“And where will he live? Who will pay for him to go to school and live and—”
“Like you give a fuck,” I shouted at him. “Her stuff is all over the front lawn! You weren’t bringin’ her back in your home anyway. I don’t—”
“All his clothes are in his room!” he bellowed at me. “All his sinful, disgusting things that go against God are out of my house where they belong. No child of mine will whore themselves out for money to live, so who the hell—”
“How Josie lives or pays her way ain’t your concern no more,” I apprised him and turned, kicking the screen door down as I left. I didn’t just kick it hard so it smacked the wall outside; I kicked it down, on the ground, so I had to walk over it on my way out of the house. Once I was outside, I scanned the yard.
I found a makeup bag, a broken blow-dryer—not that she’d need one for a while, unfortunately—and lots of thongs, panties, and bras. I gathered it all up and was striding through the now empty yard moments later.
Everyone screamed at once.
“No!” Josie’s fractured voice rose above the others.
I looked back over my shoulder and saw Mr. Barnes on the porch with his rifle. Wheeling to face him, I ran through every scenario I could imagine, but all of them came back to the same conclusion: I was dead. He could shoot me and claim self-defense because I was in his yard and had been in his home. My people would watch me bleed to death, and that would be their last memory of our time together. Or…I could play the last card I had.
“You know Rand Holloway?”
He squinted at me. “Everyone in Hillman knows Rand Holloway, you ignorant—”
I put my hand over my heart. “Glenn Holloway.”
It was fun to watch the color drain from his face. My cousin Rand—well, half brother—was the kind of man nobody wanted to cross. Not only was Rand himself frightening, but his ranch was like a small town now, and some of the men who worked for him, Mac Gentry most notoriously, had dangerous reputations. Even the police were no better deterrent than the men who called the Red Diamond Ranch home.
I saw the rifle shake, which was my cue to leave. I spun on my heel and walked to the side door of the pickup.
Shawnee unzipped a duffel bag, and I dropped all the underwear in. I saw Josie was dressed—Bailey, who was the mama bear at work, had sent extra clothes with us from Josie’s locker—and when I got in the truck, I took off my Stetson and shoved it down onto her head, low over her eyes.
“We’re fixin’ to stop by Caffrey’s and pick you up a hat for work tomorrow.”
She was in my lap then, sobbing into the side of my neck, and I figured we were never getting out of there if I just didn’t leave her where she was.
After I took a breath and my heart started pumping again, we drove away fast.
Back at work thirty minutes later, Kevin used the clippers we had in the office and evened out what was left of Josie’s hair, shaving it all to the same one inch off her scalp. On the way to the Bronc, we’d stopped and picked up three long scarves for her to tie around her head, a cowboy hat for work, a purple cap, and a pale-blue Army hat with silver stars on it. We also bought neon-blue hair dye, so what fuzz there was, it would at least be an interesting color.