Thorn: Carter Kids #2 (7 page)

Lucky chuckled. “Thought so.” Swinging his legs off the top bunk, he jumped down and sat down beside me. “Brunettes make you lose your head,” he went on to say, offering me a smoke first and then a light when I accepted. “Reds break your bed.” He inhaled a deep drag of his cigarette before exhaling a large cloud of smoke. “But blondes? Blondes land your ass in a place like this.” Lucky shook his head. “Blondes steal your soul, Messina.”

I grunted in response, taking a deep drag. “You get fucked over by a blonde or something, Lucky?” Flicking my ash on the floor, I rubbed my boot on it, smudging it away.

“Something like that,” he responded, eyes darkening, as he stared straight ahead.

“SAY THAT AGAIN?” I ASKED
Hope – begged. “Please, just say it again, and tell me you’re not joking.”

“George Dennis is dead, Teegs,” she repeated. “He had a stroke last month and didn’t pull through. Apparently Dad forgot to
mention
it. You know, with all the baby preparations and all,” she shuddered.

I sank down on the bed with a thud and just sat there for a moment, taking it all in.

My first thought was Noah.

“Thank god,” I finally whispered, when my voice found me. Relief flooded my body, dominant, pungent and incredibly welcoming.

He was safe now.

He was free from their clutches.

The big bad wolf was dead.

Looking up at my best friend, I noticed the tears shining in her eyes and realized that this was affecting her too. Noah was her uncle after all, and she cared about him.

“He’s free now,” I managed to choke out, wrapping my arms around my stomach. “They can’t control him anymore.”

“I know,” she replied, sitting down on the bed next to me. “And so are you.”

“What do you mean so am I?” I asked, twisting my face to gape at her.

“Haven’t you been worried about them, you know, coming after you?” she asked, squirming uncomfortably.

“No,” I gasped, jumping off the bed to pace the bedroom floor. “But I am now!”

“It’s fine, Teegs,” she coaxed, climbing to her feet to follow after me. “The ring of fire is gone. Problem solved.” Grabbing my shoulders, she forced me to stand still and look at her. “No one is going to come looking for you,” she said. “George is dead, Teegs,
dead
; as in vamoose, poof, no more. It’s over.”

“But his son isn’t dead.” Fear clawed at my gut as I thought about Noah’s evil stepbrother chasing us down that night, causing us to crash. He was a bad man – worse than his father ever was.

Oh god, I didn’t want to think about J.D Dennis being out there – anywhere on this planet was too close for comfort. I didn’t want to believe it, but what if he
was
waiting for us. Waiting to seek his revenge. Was I living on borrowed time?

Clutching her arms tightly, I whispered, “J.D wasn’t arrested that night, Hope. What if he’s out there somewhere…waiting?”

“He is not going to ever come looking for you,” Hope assured me. “My father has one of the best private investigators in the country out hunting that prick down,” she added, “and that’s not to mention the police and his own enemies.”

“He does?” I never knew that. “Wow, I’m liking your dad a little more now, Hope.”

“You are nothing to J.D,” she told me, wrapping her arm around my shoulders. “Just a kid. Another blonde. That’s all.”

“Gee, thanks,” I muttered.

Laughing, Hope led us over to the bed before sitting down. “What I mean is J.D would
never
risk coming out of hiding just to get revenge on Noah. It would be insanity of the highest order,” she added after a pause.

“Do you really believe that?” I asked quietly, sinking down beside her.

“Absolutely.” Hope nodded. “My guess is J.D is somewhere far away, skulking and hiding from the cops and the gangs he messed around with.”

“Yeah…” I whispered, letting her words sink in. “I guess you’re right.”

“I’m always right,” she shot back with a grin. “Besides, do you honestly think Gonzalez and his men are going to go down without their pound of flesh? Hell, no! They will chase that little turd to the ends of the earth.”

“Oh my fucking god,” I groaned, as Gonzalez’s face entered my mind. “I totally forgot about yellow teeth.” Gonzalez had escaped arrest that night, but from what I had heard, George sold out several members of Gonzalez’s men to save his own ass.

“Before you get your panties in a twist, Gonzalez never had an issue with Noah,” Hope declared. “There’s no beef there, so you have nothing to be worried about.”

Hope was right about that. In that weird gangster way, Gonzalez had always been sort of fond of Noah. Me, not so much, but he always had a soft spot for Noah.

“Noah’s fine,” she continued to say. “You are fine. Everyone is fucking fine. I promise.” Jumping to her feet, she stretched and said, “Now stop freaking out because I’m getting a little antsy just watching you. Let’s go get something to eat. I’m freaking starving.”

“Fine,” I replied, standing up and following her out of room. But I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that J.D wasn’t finished with us.

Not by a long shot.

I HAD ONLY VISITED MY FATHER
a handful of times since mom’s funeral.

The last time I saw him was over a year ago, when Uncle Max took me to visit him in prison before we left for the states. Back then, he was a broken mess, and in some ways I had felt incredibly sorry him; but a huge chunk of me felt it was only fair he still suffered.

After all, he was the one who decided to take the risk and drive under the influence. He was the one who’d taken my mother away from me. I couldn’t get over that part, and a four-year prison sentence wouldn’t bring my mom back.

Sitting here now in the middle of a crowded cafe and looking at the shaken man before me, it was clear that he was still the same.

“I’ve missed you, Teagan,” my father told me, voice slurred. My father had been released from prison last week, and already I regretted accepting his invitation to meet up.

His thinning grey hair was disheveled. His eyes were blood shot, and the stench of alcohol wafting off him was so strong that it was making me feel lightheaded.

I guess it was clear that some things never changed.

“How have you been?” he added, reaching over to take my hand.

“Fine,” I replied coolly, pulling my hand away from his. I didn’t want his touch, and he had no right to expect anything from me. Not after what he did. “You?”

“You know me,” Dad chuckled. “I’m the same as always.”

“Yeah,” I ground out, fiddling with a paper sachet of sugar. “It sure smells that way.”

“I’m quitting,” he told me. “I just…needed a little something to get me through today. Dutch courage.”

“You’re always quitting, Dad,” I shot back, both disappointed and unsurprised. “Until you don’t.”

“That’s not fair,” he muttered, his pale, mottled skin turning an even whiter shade of death. “I’ve been through hell and back.”

“And I haven’t?” Straightening in my chair, I dropped the teaspoon I had been using to stir my coffee and glared at the pathetic creature opposite me. “What do you want from me, Dad?” I asked him coldly. “Why did you want to meet up?”

“I’m going away,” Dad managed to slur before burping loudly. “Back to Galway.”

“And?” I folded my arms across my chest and stared impassively at him. “You’re telling me this because?”

“I thought you would want to come with me?”

“No thanks,” I snorted in disgust. “Is that all?”

“I thought you’d be happy to see me.” Dad shook his head as if he couldn’t quite understand my coldness towards him. “Teagan, I’m your father and I…”

“You haven’t been my father since I was fourteen years old,” I snapped, furious at the audacity of this man. “You
killed
my mother – you almost killed me! You weren’t there for me when I needed a father, and I sure as hell don’t need you now.” Throwing my chair back, I grabbed my bag and stood up. “Have a nice life, Patrick.”

I RAN ALL THE WAY HOME
as fast as I could, desperate to rid my body of the rage churning inside.

What the hell did my father expect me to do?

Drop everything to go home with him and live in an unstable environment again?

Did he honestly think I could forget about what he’d done?