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She huffed, and then glanced at him. “Like, all the ways you could strangle me and where to dispose of the body?”
He barely shook his head. “All the ways I could save you.”
* * *
Never,not once, did Lucas imagine Birdie Wellborn standing in his kitchen. At one time he had fantasized about her handcuffed and guided into the back seat of a police cruiser. But anger and retribution eventually morphed into sleepless nights filled with concern.
On bad days, he’d imagine her and her sister staying in a dive hotel, grifting to make money, or worse, turning tricks.
Those were the nights he couldn’t sleep.
No one else in Wayward seemed concerned about her or Maisie’s whereabouts and how they were getting by. Didn’t take long before word got out that Birdie Wellborn had slipped a Molly with a dash of cocaine in his drink when he wasn’t looking and squashed his chances for a college football career.
After their grand escape, Shelby Wellborn could be heard sitting on her front porch on any given Sunday, ranting to anyone who would listen, that her girls were tainted by the devil. When people did venture to inquire if she had heard from her daughters, she rarely missed the opportunity to add how Birdie’s evil ways had polluted poor little Maisie’s God-fearing mind.
To avoid yet another fire-and-brimstone sermon, people stopped asking, but they certainly didn’t stop sharing gossip about the sisters’ whereabouts.
One story was the girls had been on a robbing spree, shaking down gas station employees while they trembled behind plexiglass with their hands in the air, the sisters waving a gun and demanding all their cash.
Another rumor was that they were on their way to Texas to join the rodeo as barrel racers. No one bothering to consider that neither had ever ridden a horse.
But here she was.
Right in front of him after more than fifteen years.
Standing in his kitchen, her bottle-green eyes avoiding contact while covered in muck and with something green that was once slimy, now dried, hanging from her hair.
And yet, he still wanted her.
Even after everything she’d done.
Self-preservation, when it came to this toxic, beguiling woman abandoned him, leaving him stranded while sinking into her mocking eyes.
Why? Why did his life, in one way or another, revolve around this hellion of a girl, now woman, who once gave his, younger, foster brother a lap dance, while undulating like a pro to Def Leppard? It hadn’t escaped him, now or at the time, that she didn’t take her eyes off Lucas the entire dance.
Not that Grant didn’t enjoy himself. Even though her eyes didn’t have his undivided attention, the rest of her body certainly did.
The beautiful girl, now woman, he loved to hate.
He had dated other beautiful women. Penelope was attractive. Some would say beautiful. But she didn’t make him want to lose himself in her body, consequences be damned. Lick her from head to toe…
Well, hold on, maybe after Birdie jumped in a hot shower…
He cleared his throat, nodding toward the stairwell behind him. “You can go on upstairs. Bathroom’s to the left. I’ll bring your bag up.”
Sashaying up to him, despite smelling like a garbage container left in the sun all day, she leaned toward him and whispered, “When I get out of the shower…”
He swallowed, as she hesitated, looking down in the vicinity of his belt and he went instantly hard.
Her eyes back up to his, she said, “When I’m done showering, am I going to find the Chief of Police waiting for me in your living room with a set of handcuffs?”
He turned his head to the side with a smirk. “Only if you try to tranq me.”
She bounced back with a saucy grin. “Fair enough,” she said, skimming the stairs. An admirable feat considering her skyscraper heels. “When my daughter gets here, let her know her worst nightmare is in the guest bedroom and about to lay down the law.”
“Never thought I’d see the day when Birdie Wellborn became someone’s moral authority,” he said, as he watched her cute little ass reach the top of the stairs.
She turned and gave him one of her signature smiles, the one that used to make him scream into his pillow at night and then fuck it.
