Page 137 of Daddy's Trust
“The worst thing is that everybody knew. Everyone in our town knew that our dad had been sleeping around. Dotty’s mother was always humiliated, and Monroe’s mother always had to live with the fact of what she’d done. And my mother, well, she never went anywhere, so I’m not sure how that affected her. But she had her own demons.”
“Christ, baby. I’m so sorry.”
“Mom was so paranoid about everything. She would go on and on about how I was going to come to a bad end by going to school. That someone would kidnap me. That they’d follow me home and hurt her. That I’d bring germs home from school that would kill her. I never had very many friends. I was always the weird kid, the one with dirty clothes and unkempt hair. But then I made this one friend. I snuck out of my bedroom to go to her house. It was the first time I’d been invited to a friend’s house. But I slipped as I was climbing back into my bedroom window and broke my arm. My mom decided that I had fallen in with bad influences and pulled me out of school. I was utterly miserable and couldn’t go anywhere. I thought I was going to die in that house until my father actually stepped in and insisted that shesend me to school. I think Dotty put pressure on him because he’d never cared before or since.”
“Fucking bastard should have done more.”
She nodded.
“In high school most of the kids left me alone because of my sisters. Everyone was scared of Dotty or they loved Monroe. But when Dotty went to college, I only had Monroe. She was away at a cheerleading competition when I got paired up with the most popular boy in school.”
She paused for a moment, thinking back. Did she want to tell him this? Not really. But she probably should so he knew part of the reason why she was the way she was.
“This boy was really nice. He talked to me. He made me smile. But he was just my partner in the project, nothing more. Some of the girls didn’t see it that way. His girlfriend thought I was flirting with him. They followed me as I walked home from my part-time job one evening and surrounded me. Taunted me. There was a large group of them that even included some boys. They started shoving me. I fell and they threw things at me, kicked me.”
“Those fucking bastards,” he snarled as he drew her out of the bed and onto his lap.
“Yeah, I don’t know what they would have done if somebody hadn’t come along and stopped them. This woman with a baby in a stroller rushed up to them. She was so fierce. She yelled at them, and took a video on her phone. Then she called the police as they ran off.”
“Please tell me the cops did something about them.”
“Well, they were all minors. There wasn’t much they could do. They all got warnings. One of them even got sent away to boarding school by her parents.”
“That wasn’t enough. I’m going to need their names.”
“Their names? Why would you need their names?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about that part. Just make sure you get me the names.”
“Oh, do you want to go after them?” she said. “Don’t worry, Dotty’s already done that. She’s made sure their lives are utterly miserable. One ended up cheating on her husband and Dotty made sure she lost everything in the divorce. Another one got arrested for driving under the influence and since she had also hit someone and drove off, she’s in jail. Dotty also found stuff to ruin the rest of them. So now they’re all in jail or broke and living at home or on the streets. Trust me, none of those people have anything. Nothing worth living for, anyway.”
“Good for Dotty, but I’d like to make sure.”
She shivered at the ominous note in his voice although she did like that he felt so protective of her.
“What happened after that?”
“I withdrew into myself. As soon as I was old enough, I moved out to live with Dotty. I enrolled in community college, and did a few courses. I discovered that I was really good at organizing stuff, people, everything like that. Dotty would have hired me on as her assistant since she had graduated from law school by that time. But that would have been too full on for me, so I started to offer my services online as a virtual assistant to authors.”
“A virtual assistant to authors, is that a thing?” he asked.
“That’s what pays my bills. I have several authors that I assist. And everything can be done online, so I don’t ever have to see or talk to anyone. Monroe moved in with us as well after she finished college. Dotty had moved to Las Vegas at that stage. She got a really good-paying job at a law firm. And that’s basically everything.”
“Until now,” he said.
“Yes, until Monroe married someone who seems to be a ghost that likes to trash hotel rooms, write scary messages, and send men after us.”
She could feel her breathing growing faster as panic filled her.
“Right, but luckily you found me,” he told her. “I don’t know that I believe in fate, but there are things at play, things that happen that change the course of our lives forever. Sometimes there are two pathways, and you’ve just got to hope you pick the right one. This time, you chose to get into a truck that belonged to me, which means our lives are now entwined, which is why I’m here to take care of you.”
“Any woman would be lucky to be your Little,” she told him. “You must have them lining up outside the door.”
He grinned at her. “Oh, yeah. There’s a line of them. They follow me around. I call them my fan club.”
“Cash’s fan club,” she said.
“I prefer to call them the Savage Salivators.”
