Chapter 13

If she doesn’t text you when she’s drunk, you aren’t the one.

-Words to live by

Cora

I don’t know what I was expecting when I sent my father away, but it definitely wasn’t a panic attack.

The moment the door closed behind him, and I saw him get into his truck, I contemplated calling him back.

I did not want to stay by myself.

Why had I put on such a brave face? Why did I act like today hadn’t been a big deal?

Because it was. To me, it was.

I’d been torn away from my comfort zone. I’d been taken. I’d been held against my will.

Sure, I’d been able to get myself out. And yes, I’d never been in any real danger.

My father had explained to me that after arriving, a few of his buddies had inquired about the hotel, and two of the women who were apparently regulars and in the room right next to mine throughout the day told them that all was quiet. Meaning I wasn’t being beaten.

Apparently, according to the women, the walls were extremely thin. That when they brought guys back to the rooms, that they could hear everything that went on with a few of the other girls that also used this establishment for their business.

Meaning, they were prostitutes and brought their Johns back to the hotel rooms, where no one cared what kind of noise they did or didn’t make.

The women had also been very informative about the three men that they’d seen in the two rooms that they were occupying. Two of those men, after getting me settled in my temporary prison, had then partaken in some of the women’s services, which had been, apparently, what they’d been doing while they left me to my own devices for a few hours.

My father had explained that he’d been worried if he went in and got me, that the three men would kill themselves trying to run a fool’s mission. Which they damn well had almost done.

Seriously, they’d been taken out by a door, a wall, and a screwdriver.

Screwdriver guy, apparently, was a-okay.

The trajectory of the shaft hadn’t harmed any major organs and apparently the screwdriver hadn’t been anywhere near the artery—despite my saying it was.

Not to say he didn’t hurt or suffer from a lot of blood loss.

But the guy was obviously running low on brain cells, so I hadn’t worried that he would call my bluff.

The other two were in police custody. That’d been where my father and his friends had gone—to find out more information.

The three had been plenty chatty after the cuffs had been produced and hadn’t stopped talking since they’d left in the police cruiser.

“Cora?”

I jumped and whirled all at once, startled to find Coke in my house.

Then I was reminded about how sore I was now that all the adrenaline in my body had finally receded. My legs hurt. My hands. My freakin’ fingernails. Everything that could hurt, did hurt.

“I-I thought you went home?” I asked, my hand going over my heart as if it would help me calm it down.

The man had scared the daylights out of me.

Coke shrugged. “I did…for a minute. I checked in with Castiel and Frankie. They’re both good and convinced me not to come tonight.” He looked around the room. “When I saw they were all gone, I decided to come back.”

My brows rose.

“Do you want me to stay over here, or do you want to come stay at my place?” he asked, sounding as if I was doing him the favor—when that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“I don’t have an extra bed…or a couch,” I admitted.

Meaning he couldn’t stay over here, even though I desperately wanted him to.

I did not want to be alone. Not tonight, anyway.

Today had been filled with hours upon hours of sitting and waiting while my father and his friends moved around me. Janie had come over at one point and had started pulling information off of her handy dandy computer, relaying it to her father and mine.

If there was anything that Frank Withers, Jason Weeble, and Cory Carmichael didn’t want us to know—well that was just too damn bad. Because Janie and my father’s friend, my honorary ‘uncle’ Jack, found fucking everything there ever was to know about the three of them.

They also knew shit about anyone closely associated with them—wives, girlfriends, children, parents. You name it, they knew about them.

“I don’t have an extra bed, either. I do have a recliner…it’s in my bedroom, though,” Coke spoke, pulling me out of my inner musings. “If that’s okay, you can come on over.”

I opened my mouth to decline, but the opposite came out without me planning for it to.

“Okay,” I paused. “I’ll take the recliner.”

He snorted. “Honey, I’m not that nice of a guy. The bed was never an option for you.”

I snickered. “You have a couch…”

“A couch that has a thousand and one lumps in it,” he gave me a piercing look. “I know from first-hand experience that it sucks. Let me just say that over the eight hundred million times Beatrice forced me to sleep on it, I’ve come to realize it’s not fit for a goddamn child—let alone a grown adult.”

“Then why do you have it?” I countered.

He shrugged. “Sentimental value. It was there for me through the years when she was not…and Beatrice got all the fuckin’ good shit in the divorce.”

I snickered. “She really shafted you, didn’t she?”

He nodded. “She did. You have no idea how much.”

I walked into my room and came back out a few minutes later with a few of my essentials, trying not to let the relief I felt that I wasn’t staying by myself tonight show. I’d get actual clothing tomorrow.

I, apparently, had failed.

“What?” I questioned.

“You don’t have to look so eager to leave. You know, you could’ve told your father that you wanted to go with him.”

I shot him a wary look.

“What, you thought your little act was fooling everyone?”

I nodded. I had.

Earlier, I’d thought I’d been doing a bang-up job of appearing as if I was keeping it all together.

And, obviously, I’d done at least a decent job of it, otherwise my dad wouldn’t have left.

Granted, he said he’d be back tomorrow to fix up a few of ‘holes’ he discovered in my security system.

Not that I was complaining about that.

I couldn’t explain why I needed them to leave.

I just did.

But I wasn’t ready to be completely alone…just mostly.

“I’m sorry for not talking to you over the last couple days,” I blurted suddenly. “I was just so…”

“Hurt,” he finished for me.

I nodded.

“I wasn’t sure that Janie would let you off the hook if I came myself. She doesn’t see me as a good fit for you,” he admitted.

“What do you mean?” I asked, curious now.

I would not admit to him that he was more my style than anyone I’d ever met—and he definitely didn’t need to know that my feelings had extended past friendship and were now solidly into infatuation.

I was more than capable of hiding those feelings from him.

“I’m old, woman,” he answered. “I’ve got a kid that’s closer to you in age than I am, and honestly? Sometimes when I’m around her, I think that she can see right through me. Can see what I don’t have to give.”

It broke my heart that he saw himself that way.

“Coke,” I said softly. “Janie’s no one to judge who a person dates. She’s dating someone just as older than you are.”

“So, tell me why you acted okay when you weren’t,” he ordered, changing the subject.

I sighed, letting him.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I was a difficult child and I hated being that way for them…it’s just easier for them to think that I’m normal—for me to put on that happy face—rather than letting them know that I still struggle sometimes.”

“You think that your dad would care that you were scared?” he asked.

I shrugged. “No. But then he’d feel obligated to stay here and take care of me. And…I don’t want him to feel like he has to do that anymore. He did enough of that when I was younger. I’m telling you… I wasn’t an easy kid to raise.”

“Cora…”

“Take me to your house,” I ordered. “Oh! My eggs...”

I turned to go back, but he caught me around the waist with one of his long, muscular arms, curling me into his body tight.

“We’ll leave them here. I’ll come check on them tomorrow morning…okay?”

I agreed reluctantly. “I only have two more weeks left.”

He grunted. “Just wait until the last week. You’ll be checking the incubator once a day to make sure there aren’t any new cracks.”

I clapped my hands in excitement. “I can’t freakin’ wait!”