Chapter 7

I don’t make milkshakes because I don’t want anybody in my goddamn yard.

-Text from Coke to Cora

Coke

It was the smile on her face that clearly revealed how much her father meant to her that made me miss my own girl.

My own girl that hadn’t called me in well over a week now.

Making a mental note to call her the moment I got home, I pulled down a side road that would lead us to the nearest gas station.

“Need fuel, and then we’ll head to the feed store,” I explained as I pulled up to the pump.

When I got out, she stopped me. “Aren’t you going to shut the truck off?”

I shook my head. “I’m pumping diesel. It’s not combustible and volatile like gasoline is,” I explained. “But, anyway, I think that’s just a myth that it’ll blow up. Plausible, yes. But not really all that possible.”

Her lips twitched.

“Well, then.” She grinned and reached for the door handle of her door. “I guess I’ll just take your word for it. Do you want a candy bar?”

I shook my head. “No, thank you.”

She rolled her eyes and got out, heading inside while I filled up.

I watched her walk away and narrowed my eyes when I saw some man standing off to the side, smoking his cigarette as he pumped gas.

Now that motherfucker was dumb. Before I could walk over there and explain how much of an imbecile he was, he hung the gas nozzle up and twisted the knob of the gas tank, with the fuckin’ hand that had the goddamn lit cigarette.

My heart was racing as I backed away from the gas pump, sensing my impending doom.

But nothing happened.

Thank God.

When he had the cap in place, he got into the car and flicked the butt of the cigarette on the ground.

Once he pulled out of the parking lot, I walked over to the stall where his car had just been occupying and stepped onto the still lit cigarette butt with the toe of my work boots.

Once it was out as much as it could be, I walked back over to my truck just in time for the nozzle to click, signaling its fullness.

Hanging the nozzle back up, I reached into the cab of my truck and got a squirt of hand sanitizer before slamming the door closed and heading inside.

Once inside, I scanned the store for the wayward woman, finding her in the back of the store near the soft drink cases.

A man was talking to her, leaning way too close for both her comfort and mine.

She kept backing away, and each time she put distance between her and the man, he’d close it once again, taking more space than she’d managed to put between them.

I arrived at her side and gave the man a hard look that clearly communicated that he needed to back the fuck up—which he did. Immediately.

“Brandon,” I said coolly. “How’s the new job going?”

I knew how the new job was going—not good. He’d been fired within the first week of working at the garbage company since he’d failed to pick up about ten homeowners’ trash that first day because the bags had been covered in ‘questionable’ things.

He’d recently been one of my own employees, and it made me want to snicker knowing that he’d already been fired. Though had the man who’d called about his employment status taken my advice—that he wasn’t hirable—then they wouldn’t have wasted their time on him like I did.

Brandon had a problem with authority.

I was used to seeing that.

In my days as a drill sergeant, I’d come across quite a few boys who had problems with authority. They got over it once I was done with them. However, the real world and the military world were completely different.

Things like screaming in a kid’s face—which Brandon needed desperately—was frowned upon in real life.

So was making him do push-ups or run until his limbs felt numb.

“It’s going good,” Brandon lied.

I barely kept myself from rolling my eyes.

The man was full of shit.

Lying to me was one of Brandon’s favorite past times when he worked for me—so was the time he’d decided to have a go with my daughter and refused to take no as an answer.

I slipped my arm around Cora’s shoulders and brought her into the protective circle of my arms and said, “You okay?”

She nodded and leaned her head against my chest—as if we’d done the same move every single day—instead of for the first time. “I’m okay. This man was just telling me the benefits of eating at the Taco Shop.”

I chuckled. “We’ve just come from there, Brandon. But thank you for singing their praises. Have a good day, man.”

Brandon looked like he’d rather punch me in the throat than follow any orders—even if they were nice ones.

The moment he made the decision to be smart and walked away, Cora breathed a sigh of relief.

“That man—kid—whatever he is…he’s too big and scary to be cornering women,” Cora said softly.

I agreed, which I shared with her.

“He tried to do the same thing to my Frankie a few months back, and Frankie whacked him before I fired him,” I explained, recalling the time fondly. But not because of Brandon’s obvious rudeness, but at the fact that my daughter had shown me she could protect herself.

“My dad taught me to do the same thing,” Cora admitted. “There was this one time in high school that a senior tried to pull the same stuff on me. When I told him no, he didn’t want to take that for an answer, so I had to show him I really meant it.”

I started to laugh based on the look that crossed over her face.

“That look,” I wheezed. “Your eyes narrowed, and your hands clenched. Please tell me you didn’t squeeze his balls like tiny little grapes.”

She opened her mouth to deny it but stopped herself.

“Well…” she hesitated. “I didn’t squeeze them—it was more like I tried to yank them off his body.”

I groaned.

“Get whatever you were gonna get,” I said, wiping at my eyes. “Then we can go get your incubators.”

“Incubators?” she hesitated. “Why do I need more than one?”

I gave me a raised brow. “Mostly because you have eighteen eggs. My guess, they’ll have an incubator that’ll fit twelve. Hell, you may even need three.”

She groaned. “This is turning out to be an expensive endeavor. Geez, but I only wanted chickens!”

“You should’ve listened to your father.”

She flipped me off, then went to grab two Snickers bars.