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Online schooling. She still had a curfew.
And for not staying out of trouble—her probation officer’s words—her monthly payments were being increased, and she had to complete two hundred more hours of community service. And if she failed to meet those requirements by the time her probation was supposed to end, then her probation would either be extended, or she would face jail time.
West took in all of his words with a look of defeat crossing her features before she smothered it. I barely contained my rage at the situation. Something was fucking wrong with her entire situation. Her probation was too fucking long, and the stipulations they were adding to it were absolute bullshit.
I stepped out onto my porch after getting West settled into bed comfortably. Jessie was already sitting in one of the rockers with a beer in his hand. His jaw was clenched, and he was glaring out over the pond. Unlike me, Jessie had told West’s probation officer exactly what he thought of her new stipulations, and he’d almost gotten the cops called on him.
That had been the moment that I’d forced him to go outside and chill the fuck out. West needed him here with her, not behind bars.
“This whole fucking town has it in for her,” Jessie snarled, shaking his head once I took a seat in one of the rocking chairs. “How is she the one getting fucking punished when it’s clear as fucking day that she laid down and took that fucking beating? I know West can take care of herself. Fuck, I’ve seen her in action. She’s a goddamn fighter. She took that beating so she wouldn’t violate her probation, but she got fucked over anyway.”
“There’s something shady with the entire judicial system in this town,” I grumbled in agreement.
Jessie stood up abruptly, running one of his hands through his hair. “I wish I could get her the fuck out of this goddamn town, Lincoln. I’ve watched her suffer for so fucking long—for fucking years.”
I sighed, running a hand over my face. It wasn’t as easy as that though. Otherwise, I’d have long since left with her. “Jessie, you know what will happen if you take her out of this shit hole of a town. You’ll both go to jail,” I reminded him.
Jessie swung his angry eyes over to me, a coldness I’d never seen in him before staring me down. As his best friend, I’d never been on the receiving end of this side of him. But I was quickly beginning to realize that West would always come before anyone and anything for him.
“I’m willing to risk it all for her, Lincoln. Can you say the fucking same?” he demanded.
I stood to my feet, narrowing my eyes at him in a warning to fucking tread carefully. I cared a hell of a lot about West, but it wouldn’t do her or me any fucking good to get locked up.
“The fuck is that supposed to mean, Jessie?” I snarled.
Jessie shrugged. “Take it however you want to, Lincoln. Just remember that at the end of each day, I’m the one person she can rely on to be there for her. And just know that if it means making her happy, I’ll break any goddamn law that I have to.”
Jessie
After I’d said what I had to Lincoln, I stormed off the porch and down to my car, slinging open the door and sliding behind the wheel. I flexed my hands around the steering wheel for a moment before I slammed my car into first, driving out of his yard.
Lincoln hadn’t been there like I had. I’d been there for West since she was fifteen. I was there when she got dragged into the back of the police car with tears streaming down her face. I was the last person to hug her and promise her that everything would be okay, that I would be waiting for her when she got out. I visited her every week without fucking fail, and I wrote to her, and I called her every time she was allowed phone calls.
In two years, I had watched her blossom from a little fifteen-year-old girl with anger issues into a beautiful young woman who could look the world head-on as it exploded around her. She was fierce and strong.
And I was madly in fucking love with her.
But right now, I knew I wasn’t what she needed. Right now, she needed someone tender and caring—someone who could be her gentleness in the midst of this whole fucking shit storm that was her life right now.
I wasn’t that kind of man. I was brutal and harsh. I was there to remind her that she was strong. I was there to remind her to get angry and give back as good as she got.
And she knew that. She could always rely on me to remind her of who the fuck she was.
