Chapter 17

“Wait up, will you?” Tiny called out breathlessly.

Preacher picked up his pace, weaving in and around campsites without looking where he was going and barreled straight into a young couple holding hands, forcing them apart. Muttering apologies, he made a quick right and ended up clipping a leather-clad man on the arm. He plowed through another few campsites before finally finding the dirt path that would lead him to the swimming hole.

“Five fuckin’ minutes,” he hissed under his breath. Five minutes was all it had taken for The Judge to start in on him. He hadn’t seen the man in months—he could have at least said hello before laying into him. But no. The Judge was all business, all the fucking time. Nothing else ever seemed to matter.

Jesus Christ. Why had he come here? Had he really missed any of this? Shaking his head, he let out a derisive snort. The Judge would never be capable of seeing anything other than his own obscured judgment.

“Preacher, man! I said, wait the fuck up!”

Fists clenched, jaw locked, Preacher forced himself to stop. Seconds later Tiny reached him, sweat dripping down his forehead and both his cheeks. Leaning forward, hands on his knees, Tiny wheezed through his next several breaths.

Preacher glared down at him. “You need to mind your own business.”

Still bent over, Tiny nodded jerkily. “Yeah…brother,” he rasped. “I know…it. Just couldn’t…let you...run off…again.”

Preacher instantly felt bad. He hadn’t been thinking clearly when he’d taken off, hadn’t given much thought to how his sudden disappearance would affect the others. Looking at his friend now, he realized how incredibly selfish he’d been.

But then again… if memory served him correctly, everyone had seemed to think his release from prison had been just another goddamn Tuesday, and business as usual. Tiny included.

Straightening, Tiny placed his hand on Preacher’s shoulder. “You know The Judge won’t ever admit to it, but he’s been worried sick about you. He’s been makin’ calls, checkin’ in with everyone, tryin’ to find you.”

Rolling his eyes, Preacher turned away and stared off across the park. He didn’t doubt The Judge had been looking for him, but he doubted his reasons. If The Judge had been worried, it was only worry for his club and Preacher’s role in it.

Moving off the pathway, Preacher dropped down beside a cluster of trees. The jagged backdrop of the Appalachians loomed in the distance. The sun was barely visible now, a quickly fading haze of oranges and reds.

Tiny sat down beside him, breathing hard and smelling strongly of body odor.

“You fuckin’ stink.”

“Yeah? You look like a caveman with that beard.”

“Man, you’re as wet as they are.” Preacher gestured to Tiny’s T-shirt, soaked through at the collar with sweat, before jerking his chin toward a group of bikini-clad young women heading down the path. Hair wet, wrapped in towels, they’d clearly been swimming.

“Not as wet as they’re gonna be once I get my hands on ‘em.”

Preacher started to laugh, and so did Tiny. And shit, even with Tiny stinking to high heaven, Preacher realized how much he really had missed his friend.

“Get a couple a’ drinks in ‘em and we’ll be in like Flynn,” Tiny suggested, waggling his eyebrows.

Preacher spared the group of women another quick, dismissive glance. Shrugging, he turned back to the sunset and lit a cigarette. Minutes passed in silence.

“He really was worried,” Tiny said eventually.

Preacher didn’t answer him.

“You stupid or something?” Tiny asked irritably. “He blamed himself the entire time you were locked up! And then you come home and you ain’t actin’ right! Next, you up and take off in the middle of the night and nobody knows where the fuck you are! And now you’ve showed up here outta nowhere? Man, you can’t blame him for wonderin’ what the fuck you’re gonna do next. Hell, brother, I’m wonderin’ the same damn thing and I can guarantee you so is everyone else.”

Sighing, Preacher flicked his cigarette away. He didn’t want to talk about this shit, not with Tiny, not with anyone. He didn’t like the way it made him feel—guilty and pissed off, and angry with everyone, himself most of all.

His frustration mounting, feeling suddenly uncomfortably warm, he shrugged out of the pack on his back and started removing layers. Once he felt cooler and less like punching someone in the face, he glanced down at the bag in front of him and froze.

Shit.

He’d been so pissed off, he’d left Debbie alone with his family. She was probably cursing him to hell and back.

“You gonna tell me where you been all this time?”

 Preacher glanced at Tiny and shrugged. “Nowhere. Just… on the road.”

“Doin’ what?”

“Nothin’.”

“Okay, fine. Who’s the broad?”

“Just some chick.”

“She ain’t exactly your type.”

“I don’t have a fuckin’ type,” Preacher muttered, despite knowing full well that he most definitely had a type. And Debbie was so far removed from the loud, flashy women Preacher had always preferred. But even as he pictured them—the well-built blondes he’d once thought he’d never get enough of—his thoughts immediately veered back to Debbie.

Tiny snickered. “Brother, you’ve got a type, and she is the exact opposite of it!”

“It ain’t like that,” Preacher snapped. “I’m just helping her out, is all.”

“Is that what you’re callin’ it now?”

“Dumbass, I’m not fuckin’ her.” Preacher punctuated each word with every ounce of irritation he was feeling regarding Debbie. Irritation because all he could seem to think about was how he wasn’t fucking her.

“You’re not fuckin’ her?” Tiny sounded confused.

Preacher glared up at the sky. “I’m not fuckin’ her,” he growled.

“You’re really not fuckin’ her?”

“I’m really not.”

“Are you sure you’re not—”

“I’m not fuckin’ her!” Preacher exploded, grabbing the attention of a passing group of campers. Shooting Preacher a disapproving look, an older woman covered a young girl’s ears and hurried off down the path.

Beside him, Tiny was chuckling. “Man, maybe you should be…”

“She’s sixteen,” Preacher muttered. Almost seventeen, he silent added.

Tiny didn’t appear concerned. “Ain’t sixteen legal… somewhere? Didn’t Fore-Face get hitched at sixteen?”

Fore-Face was the nickname given to a neighborhood girl whose forehead had been abnormally large. They’d all gone to school together, where she’d been picked on mercilessly. It was no wonder she’d spread her legs for the first piece of shit to come calling—a man twice her age.

“Fore-Face got knocked up and her parents made her marry the chump. And just ‘cause the only chicks you can talk into bed are too young to know better don’t make it right.”

“Didn’t realize you’d become such a fuckin’ pillar of righteousness, brother.”

Preacher opened his mouth to snap back, then quickly closed it. Just because he didn’t currently recognize himself or know what the fuck he was doing didn’t mean he should take any of it out on Tiny.

Fiddling with the straps on Debbie’s backpack, Preacher stared off across the park, thinking about… mother-fucking-Debbie. Why was that exactly?

Although very pretty, she was no great beauty.

Not that being beautiful had ever been a requirement Preacher had sought in a woman. He had his preferences in the looks department, but he’d never discriminated. A fuck was a fuck, usually made better if the girl knew what she was doing. If Preacher had enjoyed the fuck, that’s what brought him back for more, not her looks.

Yet Debbie? He hadn’t even fucked her and he was giving her lots of thought—all his goddamn thoughts, even.

Who the fuck are you? he wondered, flicking open the flap on her backpack and peering inside. Digging beneath his own belongings, he found hers. She didn’t have much—some clothing, toiletries, and a composition notebook. Pulling out the notebook, he flipped it open.

Well, shit. She wasn’t half bad. In fact, the sketch he was looking at was really very good. Preacher tilted his head, studying a drawing of a little girl seated on a man’s lap. Staring into the little girl’s doe eyes, he was reminded of Debbie.

Flipping to the next page, Preacher’s brow shot to the top of his forehead. She’d drawn Angel straddling Rocky in the grass, Angel’s back arched, her mouth open… and hot damn, the drawing did more for him than any Playboy spread ever had.

Itching to see what else she’d drawn, Preacher turned the page and… holy fucking shit.

She’d drawn him. Shirtless, stretched across the motel bed, Preacher’s arm was flung over his face, his mouth hanging slightly agape.

Did his arms really look that good? Preacher’s eyes flicked to his bicep and he flexed the muscle. Yep, not bad. Not bad at all.

The detail was incredible. Looking closer, he noticed every fold in the fabric, every scar and freckle on his skin. Where the light had hit him, highlighting him in places, shadowing others.

How long had this taken her? How long had she been staring at him? Most importantly, had she liked what she’d been drawing? Had it turned her on?

“What’s that?” Tiny leaned against him, craning his neck.

Preacher slammed the notebook closed and elbowed Tiny away from him. “None of your goddamn business.”

Shoving the notebook back inside the bag, Preacher quickly packed up his things and shot to his feet.

“I gotta get back,” he muttered and rushed off without waiting for his friend.

• • •

Arriving back at camp, Preacher found the crowd had considerably thinned.

Doc was in the process of building a bonfire, while June and Smokey chatted nearby. Around the picnic table sat Ginny, Joe, and Sylvia on one side, while Debbie and Max sat across from them. Half-eaten plates of food and bottles of beer were scattered across the table.

Someone had brought out the tape deck and Ginny was singing along to Billie Holiday. Eyes half-lidded, her chin resting in her hand, a clove cigarette smoking between her fingers, she swayed gently from side to side.

The Judge, thankfully, was nowhere in sight.

As Preacher drew closer to the picnic table, Ginny was the first to notice him. She smiled, and he felt that smile wrap around him like a warm blanket.

A flicker of light turned his attention to Max. His brother had lit a cigarette for Debbie and had used the opportunity to slide himself closer. Max, with his usual dopey-as-shit smile plastered across his face, leaned into Debbie and whispered something in her ear.

Preacher’s eyes narrowed into slits. That stupid little fucker likes her.

Although Max wasn’t quite so little anymore. It was yet another thing that had changed while he’d been locked up. Joe had married Sylvia, and Max had gone from a gangly fourteen-year-old obsessed with pinball and Planet of the Apes to a taller, thicker version of himself, and with a five o’clock shadow.

Max was nearly a man now, and it wouldn’t be all that much longer before The Judge patched him into the club.

Preacher frowned. Man or not, Max should know better than to encroach on his girl.

He paused, his forehead wrinkling. What the hell? Debbie wasn’t his girl. Debbie wasn’t his anything. But as he resumed his trek toward the picnic tables, watching Max continue to try and coax Debbie into conversation, he found himself growing more and more irritated.

So irritated in fact that, when he reached them, he hooked his arm around Max’s neck and forcefully dragged him, flailing and cursing, down the entire length of the bench and deposited him onto the ground. While Max continued to curse, Joe burst into a fit of laughter, pounding the table with his fist.

Preacher took Max’s seat beside Debbie and placed her backpack between them. “Whatever he was sayin’ about me, it ain’t true.”

She attempted a smile, but her eyes were shuttered as she looked up at him, and her bottom lip was wet and swollen as if she’d been chewing nervously on it the entire time he’d been gone.

Dropping an arm over her shoulders, he bowed his head to hers. “You okay?”

She faced him fully, bringing their faces nearly flush, and his gaze dropped again to her mouth. Man, this girl had some seriously great lips. Kissable lips. Lips that begged to be sucked on. Lips that he knew firsthand tasted both salty and sweet. Lips that he wanted to—

“Damon? Earth to Damon?”

Preacher’s eyes snapped to his mother. “What?”

“I was saying that I had Max set up your tent for Debbie—”

“Found a Playboy in it,” Max interrupted, and Preacher could hear the smirk on his little brother’s face. “December issue,” he continued. “Big ole titties and—”

Preacher reached behind him to where Max now sat, grabbed a fistful of his brother’s shirt, and shoved him off the bench. Max hit the ground with a loud “oomph,” and again Joe roared with laughter.

Stubbing out her cigarette, Ginny shot Preacher a look that made him feel like he was twelve years old again. “As I was saying,” she said pointedly, “I had Max set up your tent for Debbie, and you can share with Joe.”

Joe’s laughter abruptly cut off. Horror-stricken, he faced Ginny. “What? Mom, no!”

Preacher, feeling equally horrified, jerked his thumb at Sylvia. “What about Sylvie? Shouldn’t Joe be sleepin’ with his wife?”

Preacher had been forced to share a room with Joe until he’d moved out on his own and knew better than most that Joe snored at a decibel level very few could reach—a horrible combination of braying mule and table saw. Joe also came with his own unbearable stench, a cross between stale beer and dirty socks.

When it came to sharing sleeping space with another man, Preacher would choose anyone over Joe.

Sylvia shot Preacher an annoyed glance. “In case you haven’t noticed, you idiot, I’m pregnant with your nephew. And I’m too big to be sleepin’ on the ground. You put me on the ground and I won’t ever get up again.”

“She’s been sleeping in the camper with us,” Ginny added.

“Nephew?” Preacher asked, glancing at Joe. “It’s a boy?”

“We don’t know.” Joe rolled his eyes. “Just last week she was sayin’ he was a she.”

Sylvia glared. “Well, I have to call it something, don’t I?”

“She’s carrying low.” Ginny gestured to Sylvia’s swollen belly. “My guess is it’s a boy.”

Sylvia beamed. “See! We can call him a he!”

Joe ran a hand through his short dark hair and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, “How ‘bout we call him a life-ruining cock block?”

“Joseph Fox!” Ginny snapped, her eyes wide.

“What did you say?” Sylvia demanded, thrusting a finger at Joe, the nail painted bright red.

“Nothin’,” Joe muttered.

“It wasn’t nothin’!” she shot back. “I heard you!” Sylvia slowly lifted herself off the bench. Standing over Joe, she glared down at him. “You apologize!”

Joe, refusing to look at his wife, only scowled at the tabletop.

“What about Max?” Preacher had to raise his voice to be heard over Sylvia. “Why can’t he double with Joe?”

“Hell no!” Max chimed in, “I’m sharin’ with Knuckles! You couldn’t pay me to sleep in that stink-hole!”

No one paid either Max or Preacher any attention. Sylvia had graduated to shouting while Joe looked like he wished a lightning bolt would strike him dead. Ginny had moved to stand between them and was attempting to calm Sylvia down with hand gestures and softly spoken words.

Preacher sighed. Didn’t his mother know by now that her attempts were futile? A bat to the head wouldn’t shut up a Jersey girl—let alone an Italian. The only chance anyone had at peace was walking into traffic.

Eventually Sylvia burst into loud, exaggerated tears and shuffled away. Joe looked momentarily relieved until Ginny snatched his arm and dragged him along after her.

“Is it always like this?” Looking bewildered, Debbie stared after Ginny and Joe as if she didn’t quite know what to make of his family.

“Yup.” It was Max who’d answered. At some point, he’d taken Sylvia’s seat across from Debbie. Leaning forward on his elbows, a cocksure grin on his face, Max said, “Sometimes it’s worse. You should see them when—”

 “Go away,” Preacher interjected. He really, really did not like the way Max was looking at Debbie—like it was his goddamn birthday and she was a present he couldn’t wait to unwrap.

Max faced Preacher, his eyes narrowed into angry slits. “Man, what is your fuckin’ problem?”

“You are. So go away. Right now.”

Eyes flashing, Max shot to his feet and slapped his palms down hard on the table. “You’re just like Dad!” he accused, before storming off.

Preacher watched him go, more perturbed that Max had likened him to their father than anything else.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Debbie remarked.

He snorted. “Nice? Do you have any brothers—or sisters?”

She shook her head. “My dad died when I was really little. I was an only child.”

Preacher was reminded of the drawing in Debbie’s notebook—the man with the little girl on his lap.

“My mom… remarried,” she continued, her words clipped and strained. Then her features tightened. “But they… didn’t have any kids.”

He stayed silent a moment, studying her, waiting to see if she was going to elaborate further. When she didn’t, he replied, “Truth.”

Her eyes shifted, their gazes colliding. Those big, beautiful eyes of hers, boring into his, looked darker than usual. He glanced at her mouth again, her seriously sexy mouth, then down her body, to where the thin material of her T-shirt was pulled tight over her breasts, and then further, all the way down her bare legs and back up again.

Another maddening vision of her dropping her towel and offering him sex crept into his thoughts, only this time, instead of turning her down, he tugged her forward and pulled her onto the bed.

His body hardening, Preacher shoved her backpack off the bench and shifted closer.

“Your mouth is so crazy sexy,” he heard himself saying, reaching for Debbie. He ran his thumb up her finely-carved cheekbone, and when she didn’t jerk away, he continued on, stroking a path down to her chin and across her jaw. He paused beneath her full bottom lip and glanced up.

Her expression was changing—her eyes widening, her lips parting. Her breaths were coming quicker—sharp bursts of air in rapid succession that told Preacher she was either scared or eager. Judging by the way she was looking at him, he’d bet his life on the latter.

Debbie wanted to be kissed again.

And fuck him, he was going to kiss her.

Sixteensixteensixteensixteen.

Preacher covered her mouth with his. His tongue jutted past her lips, roughly tangling with hers. She gripped his arms, and he pulled her closer. One hand went into her hair, the other slid down her back.

She was kissing him like she’d kissed him last night, messy and desperate, and it was spurring him on, firing him up, driving him half mad with wanting.

He wanted more. He wanted her closer—on his lap, her legs wrapped around his middle, grinding herself over his—

“I got special brownies!” There was a loud thump and the picnic table bounced. Startled, Debbie released Preacher and jumped halfway down the bench.

Tiny was sitting across from them, a shit-eating grin stretching his chubby cheeks straight across his face, clutching a brightly-colored tin to his chest.

“Snagged these babies off Marcie.” Tiny gave the tin a loving caress. “You remember Marcie, right? Her old man wrecked a few years back. Get this, Preacher, the woman started her own club! Can you believe it? A club full of fuckin’ chicks!”

Debbie got to her feet. “I, uh, I…” she stammered, refusing to look at Preacher. “I’ll be right back.”

Grabbing her backpack, she shot off across the camp like a bat out of hell. And Preacher watched her go, his erection throbbing in his jeans.

“Something I said?” Tiny asked.

Preacher turned to him, deadpan, and wrenched the tin of brownies from his grasp. “Gimme those,” he growled.