AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She deserved to go for them. Except Fred stood in her way, and he knew it.
Guilt for holding his baby girl back was sharp—but she was alive. That was what mattered. Losing her or her sisters would destroy him. Even if they hated him for life, keeping them alive had been the only real goal he had had since that day.
“I hate him and that stupid Tyler guy,” Dorie said angrily. His youngest was a real sweetheart, quiet and shy. But she had a bit of a temper when riled.
“I’m not too fond of them myself,” Fred said, holding open his arms. Dorie would hug him, even if she was angry. She’d always been his most affectionate child. His baby girl. “But Bruce Tyler is a wanted man now. Morris Preston has been arrested. He sent a gunman after Bruce’s daughter, and Bruce turned on him.”
“Is she okay?” Dahlia asked in her whisper. She always whispered when she was afraid. “That girl.”
“From what I have heard, she is. She was shot, as were a few other women that day.” Right there in the middle of Masterson’s main street. Fred fought the anger as he imagined it. Those girls who had been harmed were near the same age as his own girls. Young, innocent, vulnerable to the monsters of the world. He wasn’t stupid—those girls had been shot to send a message to Bruce Tyler. Preston was like that. He’d stab his own best friend in the back if it made him more money. Or kept him inpower.Fred just hoped those poor girls couldheal,put their lives back together somehow. “But they all survived. The authorities are looking for Bruce now. They’ll find him eventually.”
“So you want to go back,” Devaney said. “To this place you were both born. Where these things happened? Is that what you are saying?”
“No. That’s not going to happen. Not until we know that all of Morris Preston’s tentacles are cut off. Bruce is still out there. And that man has dozens of relatives. Damned Tylers, nothing but hotheaded troublemakers, the lot of them. No good ever came out of the Tyler lines—mark my words on that, girls. Brawlers and drunks—they’d work their ranches during the week and drink away their pay on Sunday. Boozing and going from girl to girl every chance they could. When we left there were a good fifteen to twenty more Tyler boys in the county. Growing up just as wild as the ones who came before. There were a good nine or ten in my own generation, cousins, second cousins. Damned Tylers everywhere, filling that county and half the one next. Too damned many of them to count. All the ones in that line—redheaded andmeanbastards, every one of them. And the cops in that town are dirty. They were then, and I don’t see it changing now.” Fred stood. He towered over his daughters and his wife. His family. He’d kill for any of them in a heartbeat. “But we thought you four deserved to knowwhywe have had to live the way we have. And that things might be different going forward.”
He didn’t have to keep them so ruthlessly close now. They would like that, he thought. Especially his Dylan. She needed room to spread her wings—he had always known that. Always.
Fred wanted that for his daughter, so damned much.
He stopped next to his daughter and leaned down. He scooped her up close. “I love you, Dylan Brown. And I love Devaney Brown, Dahlia Brown, and Dorothy Brown. Forever. Everything I have done has been for my girls and their mother. Everything I do always will. Don’t ever forget that. I love you more than anything.”
“There’s more,” the woman who had held his heart from the moment he had first seen her said. “Girls…”
“What?” Dylan asked. Fred put her back on her small feet. His Dylan barely hit one hundred pounds—something she was still so touchy about to this day. Hell, she’d only weighed two pounds and thirteen ounces at birth. She’d always been his tiny one.
This…this was going to be the hardest part. The worst betrayal of them all. He had always known that. From the day Dylan was born.
Then Fred told them.
About the ones they had left behind.
And watched their faces as their world shattered.
11
The dog wasbig and goofy. But he was friendly. No denying that. Sean had had a big doofus yellow dog just like that when he’d been a young teenager. He had adored that dog. Still missed him whenever he remembered.
That dog had gotten him through a seriously difficult time in his life.
This one was of a similar breed—mixed, all the way—and just as goofy. There was a smear of blood on his paw, like he’d gotten himself into trouble. There was also an address on his collar, but GPS showed that the dog was quite a distance from his home. Far too far for Sean to run him home, and stick to his own schedule.
And with the way the big guy was limping and looking at Sean with soulful brown eyes…
No, he couldn’t in good conscience, leave the dog there alongside the highway, even though he had a schedule he needed to keep. Sean had almost hit the big guy himself. “Come on, buddy. Let’s take you to town. I’m sure this place has a vet clinic that can help you find your way home.”
Sean would normally just drive him back to his owners, and probably give them a bit of a lecture on watching their pet a little closer, but he just had too much to do today.
He wanted to head back to Idaho next. Check on LaDonna, see how the discussion with her daughters had gone after he’d left. She’d texted him the night before that Fred was finally going to tell the girls the truth. Sean hurt for those girls. So damned much.
It wouldn’t have been easy, for any of them. Not with the knowledge that they’dlostso much in twenty-three years. Their whole worlds had been destroyed—before the girls had even been born. That would never be right.
If he was going to have time to stop in Idaho with the Browns, he had to get the lead out. He’d taken too long with that new family in Nebraska. They were still in panic mode. That family would be for a long time.
He hurt for that family, but he’d been hurting for the Browns for so much longer.
Sean was going to swing into Masterson. See what he could find out about Morris Preston’s arrest, and what the town buzz was. See if it would ever be safe for the Browns to return home to where they belonged.
Those girls deserved to know where they belonged. To know who had come before.
