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“No, please don’t shoot me. I want my momma… please.” The guy sobbed, a recognizable hiccup escaping that made Fox clench his jaw so hard it began to ache. “My baby sisters are in the car. I’m begging you, please.”
“Did he just say ‘his momma’?” Free chuckled in Fox’s ear.
“For fuck’s sake.” Fox yanked the damn kid by the back of his neck like a lion would do his cub and jerked him to his feet. “Free, turn all the lights on. Motherfucker. It’s Robert Abbott.”
“The one whose shoulder you busted? Hell, he has got a set of bollocks.”
Robby was barely standing, more like crouching with his head bowed, his lanky arms and hands wrapped around his head… as if that would stop a bullet from going through it. “I’m all they got.”
“Look at me,” Fox growled. When Robby continued to cry and cower, he shook him to startle him out of his fear. “It’s Lieutenant Tucker, damnit, look at me.”
Robby slowly turned his flooded eyes up to him, blinking out another wave of tears before he stood to his almost six feet. He yanked his hood off and blinked at Fox, his mouth trembling as he sputtered words that never formed fully. “I… was… the b-broken fence… f-fix.”
“What?” Fox tucked his firearm away as soon as the driveway lights came on, and from the backseat window of the car, he saw multiple little faces turned in his direction. It was then he saw there was a rusty toolbox at Robby’s feet, and Bull’s fence was repaired with two new wood slats as well. “You fixed that.”
“I was just trying to make things right by Bull.” Robby sniffled. “That’s all. Trying to fix my fuckups.”
“I almost shot you, fool,” Fox chided, then pulled out his phone and typed a quick message to Bull to let him know everything was fine.
The front passenger door opened, and a girl about the age of twelve bolted across the road and straight into her brother’s arms. “It was so dark… I thought you’d disappeared.”
“I’m sorry, Haley. When the lights went out, I tried to hurry up, but I lost my wire cutters.” Robby wrapped the girl tightly in his arms and kissed the crown of her head.
Fox suddenly felt like shit for scaring Robby’s sisters. But how was he supposed to know it wasn’t Newt Thompson trying something? “Man. Why’d you wait until almost ten o’clock at night to do this? I’m sure Bull would’ve let you do it at noon or say five, if you’d mentioned it. Why are you sneaking back onto this property again when I specifically told you to never come back?”
“Stop talking to my brother like that.” The girl broke apart from Robby, her cute, pinched face making Fox grinned at her protectiveness. That was until she hauled off and kicked him in the shin with her pointed boot.
“Dangit,” Fox grunted. He tried to rub at the sting but ended up having to duck out of the way when she cocked her tiny fist back and swung at his jaw.
“Haley! What in the world has gotten into you?” Robby tucked his sister behind him. “I’m so sorry… she… she’s never done this.”
“Oh yes I have!” she hollered. “And I’ll do it again if anyone else messes with my brother. You got that!”
“Jesus H., Haley, have you lost your mind? Apologize,” Robby stressed. And Fox realized how careful and gentle he was with his sisters. Fox had seen some people talk to their kids like they would a man in a bar. Robby didn’t even curse as he attempted to scold her.
“Leave her alone.” Fox smirked, cocking his head at the fierce girl. She was a SWAT leader in the making. “She has absolutely nothing to apologize for. She’s protecting her brother.”
“But you’re a police officer. She needs to learn that she can’t—”
“I’m an officer that didn’t identify himself. She didn’t know.” Fox glanced down at the young lady who was still shooting him death rays from her narrowed eyes.
“I just got off work. I need to get home and get them to bed. But tonight was the only free time I had to fix the fence.”
Damn. How many jobs does this kid have to work? Fox supposed quite a few to feed a family that size.
“Where’s your mom?” Fox asked, casting his gaze to the other sets of doe eyes—just like their brother’s—staring back at him.
“She’s a waitress at the Pancake House on Seavy. So, I have to pick them up when I get off, or else they’d be there until two in the morning,” Robby said. “Hales, go back to the car. Minny looks scared.”
“Are you sure?” she asked with her fist balled.
“Yes,” Robby hissed. “Now get.”
She left, but she made sure that Fox knew she meant business before she did.
