AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her eyes narrowed, her jaw clenched. Damn Nadine Grace and Dayle Mackay. She wasn’t going to be run out of town. She wouldn’t be defeated like that. They had won this round, and those pictures would probably be on the Internet within hours. But that didn’t mean they had beaten her.
Her hands clenched on the steering wheel as she drew in a hard, deep breath. Her father had always called her his little rogue. He would smile fondly when she dressed in her
“good girl” clothes as he called them, and his eyes would always twinkle as though he knew something she didn’t.
“You’re as wild as the wind,” he would tell her, and she had always denied it.
But now, she could feel that part of herself burning beneath the surface of the “good girl. ” The dreams of teaching had always held her back. A teacher had to be circumspect. She had to be careful. But Caitlyn Rogue Walker was no longer a teacher.
She no longer had to worry about being circumspect. She didn’t have to worry about protecting a job she didn’t have.
She flipped on the car’s turn signal and took the road that headed to the little bar outside of town. It had begun there—somehow, her drink had been spiked there that night—and if her father knew what had happened, he would burn it to the ground.
Unfortunately, she had loved being in that damned bar.
She had sat in the corner, watched, devoured the atmosphere and had longed to be something more than a “good girl” while she had been there.
There was an apartment overhead. The manager, Jonesy, was a good friend of her father’s, as were the bouncers that worked there. She only had to walk in, announce who she was, and take over ownership.
Had her father somehow sensed her dreams would go awry here more than he had told her? Because he had offered her the bar. Told her that when she got tired of playing the political games that filled the educational system that she could always run the bar. And his eyes had been filled with knowledge, as though he had known the wildness inside his daughter would eventually be drawn free.
Her reputation had been destroyed because of whatever had happened there the one night she hadn’t been cautious enough. Now it was time to remake that reputation.
Rogue was young, but she was pragmatic. She was bitter now, and she knew that bitterness would fester until Nadine Grace and Dayle Mackay had paid for what they had done. But she wasn’t going to let it destroy her. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of destroying her.
She smiled in anticipation, in anger. Nadine Grace and Dayle Mackay had no idea what they had done. They had destroyed Caitlyn Walker, but nothing or no one could destroy the Rogue she intended to become.
One week later
Sheriff Ezekiel Mayes eased from his current lover’s bed and moved through the bedroom to the shower. The widow he was currently seeing slept on, oblivious to his absence as he showered and dressed.
It would be the last night he spent with her, he knew. Zeke insisted on privacy in his relationships. He didn’t publicly date; he didn’t claim any woman. There was no room in his life, his heart, or his secrets for such a woman. And she was steadily pushing for more. He knew if he didn’t break it off now, then it would only become a mess he didn’t want to face.
He didn’t want ties. He didn’t want the complications that came from claiming any woman as his own. He didn’t want the danger he knew a woman of his could face. He was walking a thin line and he knew it; he wouldn’t make his balance more precarious by taking a lover that could become a weakness. Calvin Walker’s daughter was definitely a weakness, simply because of her affiliation with the Walkers and others’
hatred for them. The job he had set for himself demanded a fragile balance at the moment. Maintaining that balance would be impossible if he gave in to the needs clawing at his gut right now for one innocent little schoolteacher.
As he moved from the bathroom Mina rolled over and blinked back at him sleepily.
Slumberous, dark eyes flickered over him as a pout pursed her full, sensual lips.
“It’s not even dawn yet,” she muttered, obviously less than pleased to find him leaving.
She should have expected it. He always left before dawn.
“I need to get into the office early,” he told her. And he did, but it could have waited.
Mina Harlow was a generous, warm lover, but she wanted a relationship, and Zeke wasn’t ready to complicate his life to that extent. He hid enough of himself the way it was, he wasn’t interested in hiding it on a regular basis.
“Whatever. ” She stretched beneath the blankets before eyeing him with a glimmer of amusement. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. That little schoolteacher that looks at you with stars in her eyes, Miss Walker. The school board fired her last week. ”
He didn’t want to hear this particular piece of gossip again. He sure as hell didn’t want to hear the satisfaction in Mina’s tone at the fact that the little schoolteacher had been hurt. Mina was gloating over it, simply because Caitlyn hadn’t hid her interest in him.
This was bullshit. Catty, snide, and hurtful. He’d thought better of Mina at one time.
“I don’t like gossip, Mina,” he reminded her.
She gave a soft little laugh. “Come on, Zeke, it’s all over town and now it’s hit the Internet. Pictures of her in the cutest little three-some with another couple. Who would have guessed she had it in her. ”
