Creed (Unfinished Hero #2)(8)

Daddy didn’t listen when I said I’d rather go fishing.

Going fishing, he told me, wasn’t for pretty little girls either.

But I liked the lake. I liked water. I liked boats.

I liked all that a whole lot better than ballet.

Daddy didn’t care.

Maybe Bootsie and I could walk to the lake. Maybe we could even walk to the ocean. I’d been to the ocean once and I liked it. The sounds were good, the waves hitting the shore. I liked the sand under my feet, hard, tingly but still soft and fluffy. The sun felt better at the beach but that was because there was a breeze. It was hot and cool. I liked having both. Not hot and still. I didn’t like that.

Bootsie and me could walk to the beach. We could walk all the way to the ocean. Just go on and on and on. Maybe we’d find someone nice who’d give us food. If it took a long time, we’d find berries. I found wild strawberries all the time when summer was new, sometimes I could even find raspberries when it was old. We’d find nice people and berries and walk to the beach. Just keep going until all we could see was water forever and ever.

Bootsie would like the beach.

Then again, Bootsie liked anywhere just as long as it had me.

This was what I was thinking when my feet went out from under me. I heard and was terrified by the cry I let out and the sounds of Bootsie barking as I went down. I tried to stop, threw my arms out but I just rolled, my body banging against stuff, my coat catching on things, the sting of the snow hitting the skin of my face as I just kept going.

I landed and it hurt because I landed against a tree.

“Ouch,” I whispered, hearing Bootsie’s barking come toward me.

We were far away. We’d never walked this far. I’d never noticed that ridge.

We’d walked too far.

Still, I worried Daddy would hear my cry and Bootsie’s barking.

The tumble made my body feel funny. Tight but tingly. Still, I turned my head to see Bootsie jumping through the snow down the slope I’d fallen over, yapping the whole way.

She needed to be quiet.

Before I could say anything to her, tell her to be quiet, I felt something under my arms then I wasn’t lying in the snow anymore.

I was up on my feet and being turned.

This scared me so much I didn’t move, didn’t speak. Just looked at the heavy plaid shirt in front of me, knowing Daddy would find me. Knowing whoever caught me would call him. Knowing, when they did, Daddy would be mad.

“Quiet, dog,” I heard a firm, low, boy’s voice say and my head tipped back.

Then I didn’t move or speak for another reason.

This was because, right in front of me, his hands still on my sides, was Tucker Creed.

Tucker Creed.

The cutest boy in town.

Chapter Three

Pretty Cat

Present day…

I opened my eyes and felt it.

Shit.

Fuck.

Shit.

Someone was in the room with me and that someone was not Gun.

I rolled quickly over the bed, angling my h*ps so I didn’t roll right over Gun as my hand went to the weapon still holstered on my belt at the small of my back.

I fell over the side of the bed, getting my feet under me and coming up in a crouch immediately, hands up, arms resting on the bed, gun pointed across the room.

I saw him and froze solid.

No f**king way.

No f**king way.

Jesus, I was dreaming.

Fuck, I had to be dreaming.

His eyes on me, he was unarmed, his back to the wall, one knee bent, the sole of his boot also to the wall, arms crossed on his chest, he held my gaze steady, direct, intense and whispered, “Sylvie.”

At the sound of my name coming from his lips, raw washed through me, a feeling I last felt drunk on my couch in Charlene’s arms on my birthday last year.

A feeling I’d felt time and again before I learned how not to feel it anymore.

A feeling that threatened to shred me now.

A feeling that with lots of practice I buried.

“Tucker Creed?” I asked.

His arms came uncrossed only so he could lift his hands in the air which I was guessing was his confirmation that he was, indeed, Tucker Creed. My first love, my protector, my savior.

My betrayer.

He crossed his arms again and requested, “You wanna stop aiming your weapon at me?”

Actually, no. I didn’t. I wanted to keep aiming my gun at him and I might also want to pull the trigger.

I was not wrong last night. That was him in the Expedition.

And I knew it was him watching me at the hotel. It was also his eyes I felt for the last month.

I knew it.

I f**king knew it.

And I didn’t get it.

Even though I preferred to aim my gun at him, I still stood. As I did I reached behind me to re-holster my gun at the same time keeping my eyes on him and asking, “What the f**k?”

He looked to the bed then back to me before he shared, “Pretty cat.”

I looked to the bed to see Gun sitting on her ass, tail sweeping the covers, curious eyes on Tucker Creed. It was the first time since I got her that I lamented my choice of cat over Rottweiler.

I looked back to Creed and when I did it hit me that this f**king ass**le had accepted all I had to give him, everything that was me, he took it then took off and left me to the wolves and pretty much the first thing he said to me was I had a pretty cat.