Under Locke (74 page)

"Don't," I insisted. "Just don't."

"He's a Widow, Rissy!" my dad yelled, completely oblivious to the fact we were standing outside of a cheap motel with dozens of other people.

That's where he was going with this?

"He's mine," I enunciated slowly. "And my business stopped being your business when you left."

I couldn't have slapped him any harder. And my inner jerk couldn't have been more pleased by the stripe of pain and humiliation that blazed across his face.

"Yeah," I taunted him. "Exactly."

Where had all of this ugliness bubbled up from?

"I didn't think..." he stammered. "They came after you?"

I didn't even bother with an answer, settling for a brisk nod.

My dad lifted both of his hands up, running them over the short trimmed hair on his head. "Jesus." He shook his head. "I never thought—"

Dex's body heat seared my back as he stepped forward, into me. He braced his hands on the doorframe, caging me. "You never cared. Don't mistake bein' a dick for bein' an idiot."

He bristled, his mouth poised to argue or talk shit back to the younger man.

Them arguing wasn't the point. It wasn't necessary. "It doesn't matter anymore. I need to know if you have the money."

The face he made wasn't a good sign. "Rissy."

"Yes or no?"

My father blew out a breath that made his lips flutter. "Not all of it."

I guess that could be worse, unless he considered twenty bucks to be a significant chunk. "How much?"

"Fuck." His lips fluttered again. "You wanna come in and talk about this?"

Dex and I answered at the same time. "No." Especially not when that woman was still in there. Gross.

"You got five minutes to meet us downstairs," Dex said. "Gimme your keys."

My father took a step back, frowning fiercely. "Excuse me?"

"Your keys. Give 'em to me."

"Why the fuck would I do that?"

Maybe he didn't know, but I did. I held my hand out. "We can't risk you leaving."

"I'm not leaving," he argued and for a split second I felt rude agreeing with Dex's request.

This wasn't anyone else's battle but mine. I held out my hand and waited. He didn't hand them over immediately. My father's face made a dozen expressions until he finally turned around and went into the room. Whispers stacked on top of each other before he returned, dropping a set of keys into my palm.

"Five minutes," Dex spoke from behind me as I eyed the woman in the room moving around.

The woman dressed in my father's clothes. The woman that looked like my mom if I closed my eyes, squinted, and made my vision blurry.

I
sighed. All I could focus on right then, was how disappointed I was in this man I
used to call
my dad.

~ * ~ *

Awkward wouldn't even begin to describe the atmosphere in Luther's truck, or the tension across the table at the pizza parlor.

Tense also wouldn't be an appropriate adjective.

"Rissy—," he'd started to say about a dozen times before Dex shut him down.

"Don't," my dark-haired man snarled.

I didn't make an effort to assure Dex that it was fine, that I wanted to talk to my father, because honestly, I didn't.

"Rissy," he'd start again on deaf ears.

My mom. My poor, beautiful, sweet mom had been in love with this man. She'd thought the world of him even after he abandoned her with two small kids. She loved him even though he never called, never helped financially, never did a single damn thing.

Rage boiled beneath my veins.

If I'd known everything that I knew now...

That I was related to a self-centered man-whore...

I reached out to grab Dex's hand, threading my fingers over the top of his. The look he gave me was tight. He was seething beneath his skin and I had no idea what directly fueled him, but it wasn't like he didn't have a dozen possible sources.

Dex wasn't my father. Not in any way, shape or form.
And I loved him.

“I owe ‘em twenty but I got eighteen on hand.”

Okay, that wasn’t so horrific. A two thousand dollar difference wasn’t as bad as I’d been expecting. Then again, I wasn’t expecting him to owe people twenty friggin’ thousand dollars either. Holy crap.

How much money did I have in my savings account? I tried to do the math in my head.

Twelve hundred for sure, maybe fifteen hundred...

Fingers gripped my forearm. Dex made a grunting noise in his throat that caught my attention more than his grasp. "Don't even think about it," he warned in a stern voice.

How the heck did he know what I was thinking? "What?"

"We aren't usin' your money." He squeezed my arm. "We talked about this, Ris. We'll figure it out, right?"

That's exactly what we'd agreed on. I nodded at him, ignoring the inquisitive look on my father's face as
he
watched us.

Dex tilted his face back over to him, eyes narrowed. "You like that, big man? Your daughter offerin' to pay for your shit?
Her
cleanin' up your mess? Seems to be somethin' you're used to. Leavin' your shit layin' around for other people to clean up."

It was impossible not to hear the grinding of Curt Taylor's teeth, or miss the way he leaned across the greasy table. "You don't know shit about me—"

"I know enough."

"You don't know
a damn thing
—"

"You think I don't know everythin' there is to know about you? I know what I need to, and lemme tell you, I'm not impressed. You're a grade A pussy, Taylor, and you're a fuckin' moron," Dex rolled the words out of his mouth.

Oh hell. They were talking so loud people at the tables surrounding us started to turn around. I palmed the inside of Dex's thigh to try and calm him down. Not that it was an easy task to begin with when he was pissed off.

He was defending me though, not picking a fight just for the heck of it.

"What are we going to do?" I asked them both.

The sperm donor reclined back in the booth, crossing his arms over his chest. The resemblance between him and Sonny was shocking. The eyes, the build, the freaking attitude. "I can come up with the other
two
but it'll take a little while," he explained in a low voice.

It was too much to ask for that he'd be embarrassed by the situation, much less have him admit that he was guilty of being a Grade A Jackass.

Dex snickered, slipping his hand over mine. "Not t
wo
. Twenty-
one
."

I think we both turned to look at him like he was crazy.

All Dex did was raise a lazy, defiant eyebrow. "You forgettin' about the money you owed the Reapers?"

"Goddamn," my dad muttered, scrubbing his hands over his hair again.

Hadn't he told me just days before that that had been sorted out? Wait,
w
hat the hell had he meant by sorting things out? And what the hell had I been thinking assuming that the debt had magically disappeared? Like that kind of crap actually happened.

"
Twenty-one
?" he choked out.

Dex tapped his fingers on the counter, his fingers kneading my thigh. "There's somethin' called interest, ya know." He tipped his chin up. "But don't worry about th
at
right now. You and me can work out a payment plan once my girl is off the choppin' block."

Payment plan?

Say what?

I wanted to ask him for clarification but this wasn't the time, at least not while the sperm donor sat three feet from us. He could see the question on my face.
You paid it off?

Curt opened his mouth like he wanted to say something else. He mouthed, my girl, but said nothing. He rubbed his hands over his scalp again, exasperated. "I can make back the money in a few days if I drop by Mississippi and Louisiana, and hit up the casinos."

I looked at Dex, and he looked at me, and I didn't even think twice about dropping my forehead to the table and banging it on there a couple of times.

What had I said before? About how you can't change people's natures?

It was right then that the buzzer on the table went off, signaling that our food was ready. Dex smoothed a hand over my thigh before sliding out of the booth with the contraption in hand.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my dad reach across the table, fingers outstretched. "Rissy," he whispered.

I watched him, watched those long fingers try and make a trek toward me but I stayed still.

"Talk to me."

I flicked my eyes up to his. There was no effort on my half to forget the memories I had of him as a kid. The memories that had kept me from bulldozing him into being a complete asshole but now... nothing. I felt nothing toward him. "We're talking."

He ground his teeth again. "Without the asshole."

Oh. Hell. No. "I love that asshole. He stays."

The expression he made gave the impression that I'd slapped him. He was outraged. "You're kidding me."

"I'm not."

"I never wanted that for you," he hissed. "Don't you get that? You think me and
Delia
moved all the way out here for no reason? We didn't want you around the MC, and especially not fuckin' around with one of them."

Anger prickled my neck. Resentment. Bitterness. "Things don't always work out the way you want them to." I coul
d ha
ve explained to him the line of events that led me to Austin but I wasn't going to. I was happy there, and I didn't regret my move for a second. And this man didn't deserve an explanation.

It wasn't like he'd explained anything to me. Ever.

"You don't get it..."

"There's nothing to get," I cut him off, sharply.

"Your mom—"

The more he mentioned her, the angr
ier
I got because it made me think of the woman in his hotel room, and the little boy in Denver. "Don't bring her up."

His light colored eyes flashed. Indecision and who knows what else tore through him. "She was the love of my life."

Now, he was just asking for Dex to kick his ass. Better yet, I'd kick his ass. My hands clenched into fists in my lap. "Is that why you left? Because you loved her so much? You loved her so much you cheated on her and had a kid with someone else?"

He rocked back in his seat. "You don't get it," he repeated.

"No, I do get it. I get that you loved her in your own messed up way, but what were me and Will? Collateral damage? Accidents?" My chin tipped up on its own as my jaw clenched. "Nothing, right? We were nothing to you?"