I pushed myself up to sitting as gently as possible but my ribs still groaned in agony. Shane saw the wince I hadn’t been able to hide and quickly moved to help me reposition. “Sorry about that,” I said once I was resting back on a mound of pillows against the headboard. “But that five mile walk was a real bitch.”
“Where’s your car?”
“Left it back at the house, along with pretty much everything else.”
Her big, warm eyes filled with sadness as a tear broke free and slid down her cheek. I couldn’t stand to see my girl cry. It always killed, even when they were what she referred to as rage tears. So I looked to her uncle and said, “You can’t call the police. Please. I’ll be okay in no time.”
His face was hard as marble as he spoke to Shane and Caroline, all the while, keeping his focus squarely on me. “You two step out for a minute. I need to talk to Jensen in private.”
“No way!” Shane barked. “I’m not leaving him.”
He turned to look at his niece, his expression growing soft, but he didn’t waver. “You can come back in a few minutes, but right now me and him need to talk man to man. Go on now, darlin’.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, but being the good, respectful girl she was, she did as told. “I’ll be right outside,” she promised me before leaning in to brush a tender kiss to my temple. Then she and her aunt headed out the door, pulling it closed behind them and leaving Scooter and me alone.
He didn’t hesitate or pull any punches when he asked, “Your old man do this to you? That why you don’t want to cops involved?” I didn’t say a word, I didn’t even move. I simply kept my gaze pinned to him and let him read the answer in my eyes. “Fuckin’ thought so,” he snarled. “I’m guessin’ from the looks of you, this isn’t the first time, either.” Again, he surmised the answer from my blank expression. “Christ,” he bit. Blowing out a harsh breath, he reached up to drag a hand over his salt and pepper hair. “Why didn’t you fight back, son?”
He was the only man in my life to ever call me son. I’d never even gotten that from my own father. But hearing it from this rough, road-hardened man meant more to me than he’d ever know, because he didn’t just say it. He made me feel it.
“I’m eighteen, Scooter. You think, after he did something like this, if I fought back, he wouldn’t have found a way to twist that shit to the cops so I’d go down?”
“That fuckin’ motherfucker,” he snarled, his tight frame vibrating with rage. “He needs to pay for this. What asshole beats the hell outta his own kid?”
The kind who never loved his own kid in the first place, I thought. “It’s done. I don’t give a shit about making him pay. All that matters to me is that I don’t have to go back. Please, Scooter,” I pleaded. “Just let this be done. I don’t want this to drag out any longer than it already has.”
He dropped his head, giving it a weary shake, and for a minute I thought he wasn’t going to let it go. Finally, he looked back at me and said, “I’ll give you that play, but only this one time. You hear me? And we’re takin’ pictures of this shit.” He waved his hand to encompass my battered body. “That way, we need it for later, we’ll have ammunition against the bastard.”
“Deal. And when I’m feeling better, I’ll start looking for my own place.”
He gave me a stern look that I could only assume was the kind a father would give to a child he was scolding. It was the first time in my life I’d ever gotten a look like that. “You think for one goddamn second Caroline’s gonna let you stay anywhere but here, you got somethin’ wrong with your head. You’re one of us, son, and we take care of our own.
“You can stay here as long as you need, but there’ll be rules. The biggest one bein’ you don’t touch my niece under my roof. I’m no fool, I know what goes on in the head of an eighteen-year-old-man, especially when he’s got himself a beauty like my Shaney. And I know tryin to stop it from happening will have the same effect as puttin’ a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. But it won’t happen in my home. You get me? And you knock her up before she’s of legal age, I’ll kill you.”
I’d never had a family until I met Shane, and with her came her aunt and uncle. I was a part of something for the first time in my life. I actually belonged somewhere. I respected the hell out of his man and his wife, and there was no way in hell I’d do anything to mess that up. “Yes sir.”
He released another sigh. “All right then. You rest up now. I’ll send Shane back in.”
He stood and moved to the door, but before he could pull it open, I spoke up. “Scooter.” He turned to look at me over his shoulder, and I suddenly felt my throat tighten up like someone was squeezing. “Thank you,” I managed to croak past the ball of emotion that had formed there. “For everything. I won’t disrespect you. You have my word.”
He nodded and pulled in a deep inhale. “And you have my word that shit like this’ll never happen again. Now rest, son.”
Sure enough, Shane entered less than five seconds after Scooter exited, rushing back to the bed and sitting down beside me. “Everything okay?”
I gave her a smile, or at least tried, seeing as the cut on my lip burned like fire when I tried. “It’s all good, sunshine.”
She worried her bottom lip between her pearly white teeth before asking, “How do you feel?”
I let out a little chuckle. “Like I got the shit beat outta me, but I’ll be fine.”
That glassiness returned to her eyes, and she sniffled to beat the tears back. “What happened, Jens?”
I gave her the short version, trying to keep the worst of the ugliness from infecting her, but when she pushed to know what started the fight, I knew I didn’t have a choice. My girl was too damn smart. I couldn’t keep anything from her, so as much as I hated it, I ended up telling her the full story.
By the time I finished, tears were spilling from her eyes at a steady rate. “So, this is all my fault,” she said in a small, broken voice.
“No,” I insisted. Despite the pain, I sat up straight, reaching out to take her chin in my hand and guide her eyes to mine. “This wasn’t your fault.”
She tried pulling her face away, but I wouldn’t let her. “Of course it is,” she cried. “Look at you! He did this because he thinks I’m not good enough and you refused to break up with me. You should have just—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” I said on a growl. “Me leaving you is never gonna happen, so don’t even suggest it. It had nothing to do with whether or not you’re good enough. Your family could have money coming out of your asses and it still wouldn’t have mattered. He knew you made me happy, and he wanted to take that away. You matter to me. That’s why he wanted me to end it.”
She pulled in a long, slow breath and blinked away the tears. “I hate him,” she whispered a minute later. “I’ve never even met him and I hate him. He’s the reason you get into all those fights, isn’t he?”
I closed my eyes and leaned back against the headboard. I hated that she’d seen that side of me, but I couldn’t fucking stand that she now knew why I was the way I was. “It’s fucked up,” I grunted.