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“Why, Davis Allen just loves Raeg,” Summer stated with wide-eyed sweetness as she shot him a warning look. “He’s saying all the time how his chief of staff is just a political natural.”
And it wasn’t a compliment. Though only Raeg and Falcon likely knew it. Because didn’t her god-daddy just think a political natural was an asshole to the core and too damned hateful to even discuss the weather with?
She smiled at Raeg, an innocent smile as she clasped her hands behind her back and tilted her head to bat her lashes at him ingenuously.
He didn’t appear overly impressed with her though, now did he?
“If she comes up missing, it’s because I’ve fed her to the alligators,” Raeg grunted, though his expression was anything but teasing.
“Her brothers threaten that daily.” Her daddy chuckled before turning back to her and centering his attention on her.
Uh oh, there was that look in his eyes again. That was definitely her cue.
“I’ll just go help Momma…” she said, trying to escape.
“You just wait a minute.” Cal caught her shoulder gently as she was about to pass him, leveling a firm look down at her. “You have something to show me, little girl?” her daddy asked her then, frowning down at her from his six-foot height, his expression stern.
“Something to show you?” She shook her head, confused. “I don’t think so.”
And she wasn’t a forgetful sort of person either.
His dark blue eyes narrowed on her. “Turn around, little girl. Your brother told me about that bullet you took in the shoulder. I wondered why you stopped wearing those dresses with those tiny straps last year.”
He pushed her around, gently but firmly, as she restrained a groan of defeat.
She was killing Caleb, she decided.
Killing him. Her momma was going to lose a son right fast.
It was with gentle fingers that her daddy lowered the wide strap of her dress just enough to find the scar that marred her shoulder, his calloused thumb brushing over it.
“I have an appointment in a few months with a plastic surgeon,” she mumbled. “He’ll just make it all go away, Daddy. I promise. We won’t even know it was there.”
He wasn’t happy. She could feel it.
“Only animals shoot little girls in the back.” He pushed the strap back in place. “Get in the house, girl. Your momma’s waitin’ for you.”
She went. Too quickly. She knew that tone of voice, and it was not one she ever argued with.
The minute she saw Caleb, she was going to kick him. A killing was just too good for him. He damned certain wouldn’t suffer enough.
* * *
Raeg watched her go, a little bemused by the fact that she did everything but ask her father how high when he told her to jump. She didn’t even obey Davis Allen like that, and from what he’d seen, the senator was like a close and favored uncle to her.
She called him “god-daddy.” And though she respected him, she damned sure didn’t obey him.
“Surprises you, does it?” Cal asked him gruffly, lowering himself into the rocking chair on the back porch Summer had led them around to from the front of the house.
“Excuse me?” Raeg turned to the other man, watching from the corner of his eye as Falcon took a seat on the thickly padded porch swing, eyeing it like a damned kid who’d never seen one before as Summer’s father returned to his rocker.
“That she gets, when I tell her to get.” The older man frowned up at him. “And sit down, dammit, don’t make me squint up at ya.”
Looking around and ignoring Falcon’s amusement, he chose a chair across from Cal, so he wouldn’t have to squint or turn his head.
God forbid he put the old man out. “I stopped questioning Summer’s actions a long time ago,” he answered as he sat down, ignoring Falcon’s frown. “It’s nice to see she listens to someone though.” And that was a damned lie. It actually irked the hell out of him that she obeyed anyone without question as she’d just obeyed her father.
He hated it that she would bow and scrape to a man who had allowed himself to slip so deep into a drunken stupor that his child had been beaten so severely she’d thought she was going to die, and he wouldn’t wake up. Beaten because she’d fought back when a nameless, faceless monster had tried to rape her.
