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It took all the courage she had not to jump back and try to run away. Well, that and the fact that she was in handcuffs, anyway.
Then she heard the crowd behind them get all excited.
Dylan turned.
She watched her father as he was led past an elderly lady and another woman with chestnut hair. And those other women who looked vaguely familiar. One kind of looked like the twins. Her sisters, not the hot-guy twins next to the truck’s owner.
“Arthur!” The elderly woman yelled loud enough for everyone to just kind of stop. “Arthur Reginald Talley, you…oh, have I got a few things to say to you!”
Dylan looked at the deputy. “Who is that lady?”
The deputy leaned closer. Her hand tightened on Dylan’s elbow, but it wasn’t to keep her still or anything. It felt almost reassuring, really. Dylan liked her, she decided. Even if she was semi-arresting Dylan.
Maybe. It could be the real deal. And she could be dirty, too. Hard to forget that.
Her parents had told her and her sisters the cops in this place could never be trusted, after all.
“She’s your father’s mother. Your grandmother. She raised Darcey, Dixie, Dusty, and Daisy after they were left on the front porch steps here almost twenty-three years ago.”
Almost twenty-three years ago. “My mom would have been pregnant with me, then. And she justleftthem? I don’t think I’ll ever understand how they could do that. So that’s our grandmother. She’s alive. We have a realgrandmother.I can see we have anuncle.He looks kind of mean, really. Scary.”
“Yes. And you’ll like her. She’s wonderful. So is he. I promise. You don’t have to be afraid of him. He’s a kind man. I promise. Let’s get out of here. We’ll get this figured out. And then your family can ask your questions.”
Dylan looked back at her sisters, deliberately ignoring the complaints coming from the big cowboy behind her. Dude would just have to get over it. But…he was loud. That was rude. She looked at him. “Dude,let it go. Just let it go. Be a man, will you! It is just a truck. I needed it to rescue my baby sister from a pair of maniacs who had already tried to kill us. They wereshootingat me and my baby sisters. They took one of my sisters hostage. I was rescuing my sister! What wouldyoudo if a bad guy tried to kill your baby sister, huh? Bet you never had to think about that in your life. Maybe you have, though. You kinda look like you would be a bad guy, I think. It’s those beady eyes. Sometimes you gotta make decisions. You decided to leave your keys in the truck. I decided…to use your truck to rescue my sister. I’d do it all over again, too. Not repentant at all. I got my sisterbackalive. It did get a little close there at the end, for both of us, I think, though. Getting shot really does kind of hurt, actually. A lot, now that I think about it.”
The dark-haired deputy stopped walking. She stepped in front of Dylan. “Wait? That blood isyours? I thought it was that guy’s.”
“Yeah, it’s mine. Evil dude got me with his first shot.”
Dylan would deal withthosememories later. She just couldn’t deal with them right now. Or she’d fall to pieces completely. She wasn’t going to do that in front of Fletcher Truckboy Tyler. She had her pride, after all.
Then she looked back at her little sisters. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to keep them safe. Ever. Even if she had to go to jail for ten years. She looked at the deputy. “Sorry, I can’t do the whole contrite thing. I’d do it all over again to get Devvie back. No hesitation. She’s my kid sister. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to protect them, you know. There just…isn’t.”
Her sisters came through the crowd. Dorie was helping Devaney, her arm around Devaney’s waist. Worry shot through her. She looked at the deputy. “Devaney really needs to go to the ER now, I think. Not be the sideshow here. Someone needs to take care of Devaney. I don’t know what those jerks who took her actually did to her—and they ran my car off into a ditch before they took her. I don’t know if my sisters were hurt in the wreck or not, either. Airbags do kind of hurt, you know. As I have learned. And she won’t say if she’s really hurting—she won’t want Dahlia and Dorie to worry. It’s kind of the way she is. Devvie and I always take care of Dahlia and Dorie. Someone needs to take care of Devaney. And make sure my younger sisters weren’t hurt in the wreck, too. Well, and our mom will need someone to take care of her, too. She’s really…fragile. Our mom is. I usually take care of all of them, but I sort of can’t right now.”
“We’ll take care of them. I promise. The four of you were in a wreck, those men took one of you hostage, and you were struck by a bullet?”
“Yeah, sounds about right.”
Dylan wouldn’t let herself look at the four sisters she had never gotten a chance to know.
She didn’t know what she thought about them at all.
What was she supposed to say?Sorry our parents left you on a doorstep twenty-three years ago? Thatwas not a conversation she would ever want to have.
70
Fletcher studiedthe people standing around the lobby of the Talley Inn, not really certain what was going on. He did recognize the little truck thief. She’d been wearing overalls.
She was still wearing overalls. She looked all of fifteen in those damned things. Even though…those were real curves under those things. Just…small ones. But he’d heard her words to Sage. Almost twenty-three years ago her mother had been pregnant with her. Kid had to be twenty-two or so, then. Fully an adult. He’d been doing his damnedest to make his ranch pay off when he’d been that age. He’d been amanthen.
She looked young, but she was a full-grown woman.
Old enough to have known better. Hell, all she had had to do was explain to him what was going on and ask for his help. He’d have helped her. Of course, he would have. A maniac wanting to hurt her younger sister—hell, he had lived that. Of course, he would have helped her.
But she had been damned reckless. He’d have been within his rights to shoot at her for stealing his truck. He could have killed her.
There was blood on her arm. Staining the long sleeve of her shirt. Staining the overalls, too. Did she not have a coat?
