Rescued: COMPLETE (9 page)

Both of the blonde women opened their mouths to protest.

“No,” he said, simply “I don’t want to hear it.”

The both fell silent.

“If either of you wants to take this to the courts and open a full investigation into the lives of all parties, fine by me,” he said, “but if you don’t, there’s not a lot you can do, legally. I’m going to give her to one of you, write a police report, and move on with my life. I probably should just put her in foster care, but I am convinced that one of you is the mother.”

Everyone there held still and watched the officer, mistrust on their faces.

“She isn’t an infant,” he continued, “she’s a big girl and she knows where she feels safe. With both of you having such flimsy stories, I listened to her.”

“Good,” Tina and her mother said at once, and glared at each other.

“What’s your name?” he asked, turning to Laura.

“Lauren,” she said, promptly.

Their mother gasped.

“Lauren, do you want to go home with Tina?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“All right, I think we’re done here,” he finished.

The officer stood aside, and Laura walked over to Tina, who dropped to her knees and threw her arms around the little girl, trying not to cry into her long blonde hair. She held her tightly, and Laura returned the hug for a long moment,

Tina’s mother turned on her heel and walked away, getting in her car without another word. Tina watched her go over Laura’s shoulder, feeling a surge of cold triumph.

The officer looked down at the embrace with a small smile on his face.

Kenny stepped up and held out his hand, and the officer shook it.

Tina disentangled herself from her sister, stood, and did the same.

“I’m not an idiot, you know,” the officer said.

“Sir?” Tina asked.

“If you’re twenty-three, so am I,” he said stroking his grey mustache and making a face at her, “You look sixteen.”

“I’m not sixteen,” she said quietly, not sure what to admit.

“If you don’t believe us, why didn’t you side with Tina’s mother?” Stew asked.

The officer huffed out a laugh.

“You heard her. All that crap about this one,” he said, nodding at Tina, “being a whore, and about Jesus leading her here with all of his righteous fury.”

Tina grimaced. That sounded like her mother, all right.

“I’ve seen people look that intense about religion, before,” the officer went on, “and I was afraid if I sent her home with that woman, she’d have ended up drinking the bitter Kool-Aid, or pregnant with some two-bit so-called prophet's baby by age fourteen. Couldn't have that on me.”

Tina smiled at him, a twisted, sad smile.

“I’m just glad she’s coming home with me,” she said, and the officer tipped his hat to her and turned away.

--------------------------

Kenny looked at Laura, sleeping peacefully in the spare bed in Tina’s room over the bar.

“It looks pretty cramped for the two of you in here,” he said softly.

“We do fine,” Tina said.

“I have a spare bedroom, you know, if I move some crap out of it,” he went on, “How would you feel about living with me? You and Laura?”

“You’re asking me to move in?” Tina said quietly, turning in the doorway to stare at him, a small smile on her face.

“Actually, I was asking you to marry me,” he said.

Tina gasped.

“You’re serious?” she asked.

He pulled a ring box out of his pocket and opened it. A very small ring was nestled in foam, a simple pink diamond solitaire.

“Oh!” she said.

“Sorry about the pink, we can change that, but Laura was pretty convinced that you’d like it,” he said, grinning at her.

Tina laughed out loud, and then reached in the box and took the ring off, slipping it onto her finger.

“It’s perfect,” she said, “I love it. I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said.

They stood still in the doorway for another minute, both of them watching Laura continue to sleep in her rightful bed.

“I’ll take care of Logan for you,” Kenny said, abruptly shifting gears, “He won’t do anything like that to you again.”

“No,” Tina said firmly.

She looked up at him, anger showing through the joy that still lit her face.

“Leave him to me.”

The End

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Cover image Copyright Marcus Ranum, 2014, used under a Creative Commons Attribution and share-alike License:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0