Page 44 of Dancing Struggles


Font Size:  

He sighs again. “Fine, I’ll keep that shit to myself. Unfortunately for you, you’re gonna have to stay here. That fucker was going on about having you locked away forever. Plus, you know, bail.”

Or he wants me to calm down because he knows me.

I’m Mr. Smooth and Cool right now, but I just might go and kill William. Even though I said I won’t.

Lawson lopes off, and I go lay down on the bench opposite to Larry.

Thinking time isn’t bad, because a lot was said and not said before the punch. Why does the man seem to believe Sarah owns the property now? Because she’s living there? Or maybe he made a mistake or someone, somewhere got their wires crossed? I don’t know but it’ll become clear if I didn’t already make it that way for him when I mentioned Dakota.

Thank fuck the will and ownership of the land is ironclad but I wouldn’t put it past this lot to start poking about and looking for loopholes and back doors. And I’ve done everything I’ve had to do to make sure there are none of those to get through.

Sarah would be a great one if she’d been given the land. Is that it? Do they think the owner has to live on the land? Forat least some of the time. I make a mental note to go over everything, to see if I missed something.

I doubt it but diving deep into documents is part of my job and something I enjoy. And I highly doubt I missed anything when it comes to the Downs will.

I’ve heard of weird deals like that, and wills are gold mines of oddities. If there’s anything, I’ll find it. I might need to dig up Dakota’s grandfather’s will to see if there’s anything mentioned in it, or her father’s.

This is complete bullshit, and with the stunt that Billy King pulled in my office, it just tells me he’s as desperate for the property as Alpine.

And why the actual fuck isn’t she divorced from this piece of slime?

Sarah doesn’t strike me as the type to leave things like that, and she’s not into him either.

The only reason I know she’d have married him so young is his tastes and she’s got to be maybe mid- to late-twenties now. In his book, that’s about sixty.

He didn’t even look at her like he cared, just like a child who didn’t want anyone else to have the toy he no longer wanted.

Shit. It’s all weird.

I don’t know how long my mind takes all this in circles, but it seems forever and not long enough. Because William keeps returning, along with images of what he might have done to her when she was a teen. And worse, what he let others do to her.

Do I give a fuck about what consenting adults do? No, I do not. But a teen bride isn’t an adult, and looking at Sarah, I can’t see her being into what this sick fuck is into.

It isn’t kink. It’s creepy control and manipulation.

“Conley?”

I look over with dark amusement at Lawson. He’s got his sheriff’s hat on, and his swagger attitude that tells me this is going to be a story for him to live off for a while.

“Yes, Sheriff?”

He gives me a severe look, ruined only by the humor in his eyes. “You’re a free man. Someone, it seems, cares about you, enough to buy your ticket to freedom. Don’t leave town and so on. You know the drill.”

He opens the door, and I come over. Our gazes meet. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me,” he says, then adds quietly, “our conversation earlier? Lips sealed. But if I see him so much as put a foot wrong, I might have to shoot first.”

“I’ll give you the bullets.”

He sticks his thumbs in his utility belt. “I care about her, not just because Dakota does, but she’s good people, ya know?”

“Why does that sound like a lecture?”

“Dakota’s got that Downs blood. That reserve. But not with Sarah, and from what she’s said, they hit it off right away. That means something.”

“Got you, Dad.”

I pat him on the arm and head out, my step faltering because there she is, beautiful and looking like this is the last place she wants to be. Our eyes meet, and the vulnerability I see is a punch to the heart.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
Articles you may like