Page 12 of Viper's Desire
I want her to know me. The real me. “My real name is Tanner. I want you to know.”
“Tanner,” she says my name, dragging out the syllables.
A tightness in my chest evaporates to something warm that spreads to every limb.
“Go,” I tell her.
“Tanner—”
“Go, Eden.”
She turns and walks toward her father with her head down and her shoulders curled in.
I don’t wait for her to look back. She won’t.
I’m not a good man. But I’d be good to her.
He’s caged her. I’d let her loose.
A dangerous life at my side beats a safe one cowering under a man like that.
CHAPTER 5
EDEN
My father doesn’t saya single thing on the drive home, and he remains silent after we go into the house.
That’s how I know his wrath is coming.
He waits until we sit down for lunch. Then he sets his Bible on the table and turns to me.
“Who was the man I saw you with in the parking lot?”
I place my napkin on my lap. “Just a member of the congregation. He’s new. I was welcoming him.”
“Lying is a sin, Eden.” His eyes narrow.
He’s disappointed in me. But he’s always disappointed in me, so this is nothing new.
I remain quiet because he isn’t finished speaking.
“I’ve heard gossip that you’ve been seen with a member of the Hellborn Kings at college. I thought it was gossip, because no daughter of mine would do such a thing.” He sets both hands on the table. “Then a man with a snake tattoo on his neck sits in the last pew this morning and looks at my daughter like he’s got a claim on her.”
My mother stops eating.
I could lie. But I’m tired of hiding who I am, and from the life I really want.
“He’s a nice man,” I say to my father.
My father pushes back from the table. “Do you have any idea what those men are? They run guns. They own a strip club and a bar where men go to forget they have families. They hurt people, Eden.”
“I found him hurt, Dad.” I twist my napkin in my lap, needing something to do with my hands. “I’m training to be a nurse. I stopped, and I helped him. Tell me which part of that you’d preach against on a Sunday.”
“Don’t you turn scripture on me.”
“Why not? You turn it on me every meal.” The thing I’ve stayed quiet about at this table for twenty-two years comes pouring out now that I’ve started. “You’ve read me the story of the Good Samaritan since I was a little girl. A man is bleeding in the road, and everybody decent walks past him. I’m the one who stopped. You ought to be proud. Instead, you’re telling me I should have stepped over him.”
“That is not the same, and you know it.”
