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“What happened?” I ask again. “Are you in danger?”
She sucks in a long breath and then looks up at me. “Can we go inside?”
“Of course,” I tell her as I jump into action. I hurry back to my truck and turn the engine off.
“Do you have any bags?” I ask as she lingers by her car.
“Just one,” she says before opening the passenger door and pulling out a plastic bag full of stuff. “It’s all I have left.”
I have a million questions for her, but first, I have to get her inside. I open the front door and let her go in.
“Can I use the bathroom?” she asks in a soft voice.
“Of course. Over here.”
She closes the door and I burst into action, racing around my house in a flurry, cleaning faster than anyone has ever cleaned before. Dirty dishes get shoved into the dishwasher, unwashed clothes get thrown into my closet, empty bottles get tossed into the recycling bin, and overflowing ashtrays get launched outside into the back. The place looks better by the time she comes out. Not great, but decent.
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?” I ask when she makes her way into the kitchen, nervously rubbing her slender thighs.
I yank the fridge open and curse under my breath when I see beer, beer, and more beer. There’s not much in the way of food. I have a few frozen elk steaks in the freezer in the basement, but I’m not about to offer her that.
“I’d love a beer,” she says with a tired sigh. “If you have one.”
“That I have,” I say, thankful to give her what she needs. I pull out a beer, open it, and hand it to her.
“Thanks, Jack,” she whispers as she takes it. Her finger grazes mine and my whole body shivers.
I watch her soft pink lips wrap around the opening of the bottle. I swallow hard as my heart thumps harder at the beautiful sight.
This is Derek’s daughter, I have to remind myself. I tear my eyes away from her as self-loathing washes over me. If anyone on the planet is off-limits, it’s her.
“Come,” I say, ushering her to the sofas. “Sit.”
She sits on one and I sit on the other, keeping the coffee table between us. I don’t quite trust myself right now.
I give her a moment, letting her have a few sips as she gets her thoughts together.
“I’m sorry to barge in on you like this,” she says as she looks at the beer bottle in her hands.
“Not at all,” I quickly tell her. “You’re always welcome here, Ruby.”
She smiles sadly at me. “Thank you. I remember what you told me… at my dad’s funeral. I had nowhere else to go, so…”
A fresh wave of tears hits her beautiful blue eyes. I squeeze my hand into a fist as I struggle to keep my ass planted on the couch. My whole body is screaming at me to go to her, but my conscience—what little of it is left—is telling me not to fucking move.
“Tell me what happened,” I whisper in a firm voice. “Tell me everything.”
My body stiffens and my blood runs cold as she tells me how she witnessed a murder and then ran from the killer. I’m breathing heavily with rage filling every cell in my body as she tells me how she slept behind a dumpster, how she was robbed, how they took everything from her.
I want to burn down the world to keep her safe. I want to find every last one of those fucking punks and show them the meaning of hell.
I’m struggling to keep it together by the time she’s finished.
“I just need a place to stay for a few days,” she says, “while I figure out what to do.”
She’s never leaving.
“Of course. As long as you need.”
Those shiny blue eyes fill with gratitude as she watches me. “Thank you, Jack.”
“I’m glad you came to me, Ruby. I didn’t know you were living all alone in the city.” It makes me all tight and shaky to know she’s been on her own, surrounded by all those freaks, perverts, and animals. The thought of her so vulnerable in a human circus like that… Fuck, I don’t even want to think about it.
“How come you’re not living with your mother?”
Her eyes dart up to mine. “You don’t know?”
My body gets so heavy it feels like I’m being pulled into the couch. “Know what?”
“Mom…” She takes a deep breath as my chest tightens. “Mom committed suicide.”
“What…? When?”
“About three years ago.”
The heaviness turns to numbness. Angela is dead?
She always looked so happy whenever she was on Derek’s arm. I was the best man at their wedding. I thought they were the luckiest two people in the world whenever I saw how they looked at one another.
The sadness is crippling. Why is this world so fucking cruel? My eyes get all hot and watery, my throat scratchy as it hits.
