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Her favorite thing about living with the Kings was that it had given her the opportunity to be soft. They’d let her have chickens. A kitten. She had finally been able to rest. She wasn’t existing in a state of hypervigilance trying to deal with her father’s temper, with the unpredictability of the kind of life he had thrust her into.
Danger whispered along every nerve ending of her body, the hair on her arm standing on end. But she didn’t run. She was holding a peach, anyway. She couldn’t run away while holding a peach.
“Penny,” he said.
Of course he must know who she was, because he was staring at her. There was nothing strange about that. Except it did feel strange. Singular.
“Jude,” she said, because once he had acknowledged her, she couldn’t do anything less for him. She...
She felt stunned by his presence. Overawed by him.
And yet, there was an ache there. A familiarity.
“It’s been a long time,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “It has. I... What have you been up to?”
He lifted the basket in his hand. “Buying beer.”
“Every day? For the last seven years?”
He chuckled. “No, I guess not. I just moved back. I have a mechanic shop. Got my own place. Little ranch.”
“Really?”
That made her happy. It made her feel good. Good to know that he had gotten out. That the tattoos on his arms weren’t simply telling the story that he had joined up and become one of those same men that had worked with the Kings. Running drugs and all manner of other things like engaging in money laundering or illegal gambling.
They were part of the rough-and-tumble action in Huckleberry County.
Small towns like Pyrite Falls could be idyllic, but small towns also had a lot of poverty. And with poverty often came desperation. She knew because she had lived it.
In that desperation, people sometimes did terrible things. Particularly when they were exploited by those who had more than they did.
Elias King had been a great exploiter. He had the means to wrap desperate men around his finger, and he had done it without a shred of guilt. And while she really did blame her father for his own actions, she also felt...some pity.
Because life was difficult. And it had been especially difficult for those who lived in the trailer park nestled up against the side of the mountain, and the trailer park had been better than a lot of the houses scattered at the hillside. A community of people who had been doing their best in a very hard situation. If you were lucky, you could get hired on as a ranch hand at Four Corners, the biggest ranching outfit in the state, a collective run by four families, including the Kings.
But then, that was the problem with Elias King. He would promise something like that, and then do a bait and switch.
Of course, when the next generation had taken over Four Corners, everything had changed. As soon as Denver had been in charge of King’s Crest, the King family quadrant of the ranch, he had put an end to any shady activity that had been happening there. And he had set about making restitution for what his father had taken from the community. She admired Denver for that. He had given so many people a new life. She wondered if he had helped Jude.
“Did Denver King...”
His lip curled. “I’ve never had anything to do with the Kings.”
She looked down, her cheeks feeling warm. “I have. Substantially. They have nothing to do with their father. They’re nothing like him. I only wondered because Denver has done his best to make amends—”
“I didn’t take his offer,” said Jude. “I refuse to take a chance on trusting a King.”
“I’ve been living with them. For most of this time. Well, I went to college.”
“No kidding. Listen, Penny. I’m glad. I’m glad that you took what they had to offer. I’m glad that it benefitted you. I had to make my own path. It’s no commentary on you. You got out. Stayed out.”
“It seems that you got out too.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Sure. But I’m back, aren’t I?”
“When did you move back?”
