All Chained Up (Devil's Rock #1)(16)

“No one else was exactly jumping to volunteer,” she explained. Again.

“Well, go figure.” Her sister cocked her head and rolled her eyes.

“Laurel,” Caleb chided, clearly disapproving of her sarcastic tone. He sent Briar a sympathetic look as he took a long pull on his beer.

Her brother-in-law was a saint. A truly gentle man who loved her sister and worked hard, putting in long hours of overtime to provide well for Laurel and the kids. Everything he did, he did for them. In looking for a life partner, Laurel’s goal had been simple. Find the polar opposite of their father. She had succeeded in that.

“What?” Laurel blinked her big eyes. “Am I not supposed to say anything when my baby sister puts herself in a dangerous situation?”

Caleb sent Briar a look that said: Score one for big sister.

Briar bit back the thought breezing through her mind. You had no problem leaving me alone with Dad. You got out as fast as you could. Of course, she wouldn’t say that. Laurel had left home and married Caleb as soon as she graduated. Briar had been fourteen. She had four more years of Mom and Dad without Laurel for company. The fighting. The tears. The slaps she wasn’t supposed to hear. No, she couldn’t blame Laurel for getting out of that house as soon as she could. If the situation had been reversed, she would have probably done the same.

“Laurel, it’s one day a week.” Briar wasn’t about to tell her she had gone twice last week. “And I’m in the infirmary. With a guard and cameras and a panic button. It’s not like I’m walking the cell blocks.”

Laurel snorted and rubbed circles over the baby’s back, clearly unconvinced.

“And the inmates we see are usually sick, you know,” Briar added. “They just want relief. They’re not inclined to bite the hand offering to help them.”

Laurel shook her head, her short red curls tossing around her. “I don’t like it.”

“Have you talked to Mom?” Briar asked, deciding to change the subject before she became truly annoyed.

Laurel stood, propping the baby on her hip. “Not lately. But we’re supposed to have lunch next week. I’m going in to get the potato salad.”

She disappeared inside the house, sliding the glass door shut behind her.

“That’s one way to get her to stop talking,” Caleb said as he placed burgers in a square tin.

She smiled at him. “Never fails. Bring up Mom.”

“Or your father.”

Briar’s smile slipped. Even she didn’t talk about him. She maintained a superficial relationship with her mother. Phone calls. Texts. Occasionally they met for a meal. Not Dad. Never Dad. If she was lucky, she wouldn’t have to see him ever again.

“Laurel is worried about you, Briar. And she’s questioning your motives for working at the prison. I can’t say I haven’t been wondering myself.”

Briar stared at him for a long moment. “Like what? That I’m attracted to violent men? I’m drawn to them and want to be around them?” Her stomach turned at the notion. Laurel hadn’t been around in those last years. When her father drank more. When he hit more. Laurel had no idea how bad it really got.

Shaking her head, she stared at her adorable niece and nephew as they clambered up the faux rock wall of the play set and slid down the slide with happy squeals. A pang punched her in the chest.

Laurel had built a beautiful life with Caleb and her children. She’d turned her back on the past. Moved on. Forgotten it—or simply refused to look at it anymore. When was Briar going to do the same? Why wasn’t it as easy for her?

“I’m not attracted to violent men, Caleb.” Far from it. Whenever she was in that prison, she could hardly breathe.

Her brother-in-law shrugged, and that irritated the hell out of her.

“I’m not.” I’m not like my mother. “I’m not going there for kicks.”

For some reason, Knox Callaghan’s face flashed across her mind. He put her on edge. Something about him. The tension she felt coiled tightly inside him, just beneath the surface. He was a storm waiting to break. She just hoped she was nowhere near him when that happened.

“So,” Laurel proclaimed as she returned, baby and a giant bowl of potato salad in tow. “Did Caleb tell you about his boss’s nephew?” She waggled her eyebrows. “He’s a partner at a big accounting firm. Single, of course. Balding but attractive. He’s got that Bruce Willis thing going for him. He’s very open to being set up. He’s just coming out of a bad relationship.”

“Isn’t Bruce Willis like sixty now?”

Caleb snorted back a laugh as he set the burgers down on the table. Laurel glared at both of them. “I didn’t say he was Bruce Willis. And I meant Bruce Willis like in his Die Hard days.”

Briar grinned and took a sip of her iced tea. Laurel plopped the baby in Briar’s lap and started fixing the kids’ burgers. “C’mon. When was the last time you went on a date with a nice guy?”

Briar couldn’t remember.

“Say yes,” she commanded in that bossy way of hers.

“Maybe,” she hedged.

“I’ll give him your number.”

“Laurel,” she warned.

“What? Is it so wrong I want you to meet a nice guy? Have you dated anyone seriously since college? Since Beau?”