Forged in Desire (The Protectors #1)(77)
He shifted positions in bed to hold her while they slept, but he should have known that for her it wasn’t the end of the story. She wiggled out of his arms and sat up to loom over him. “But the two of you are friends now.”
“Yes. Stonewall, Quasar and I are the very best of friends.”
“What happened to turn that around?”
Seeing he wouldn’t be getting any sleep for a while, he propped himself up on his pillow and pulled her to him. “It’s not what, Margo, but who. Sheppard Granger happened. He arrived at prison one day and changed everything. Don’t ask me how he did it because I don’t really know. All the inmates thought they were badasses, except when they were around him. He was much older and carried himself in a different way. It was easy to tell he was someplace he didn’t belong and way out of his element, but he had decided since he was there he would make something positive out of it. He started these programs for us. Most of them were educational in nature. And more than once Shep stepped in to help fight for better living conditions and educational opportunities. He was a born leader.”
Striker paused a moment before adding, “Shep became our liaison with the warden. Keeping peace when needed and telling us when we were wrong, teaching us how to pick our battles. Over time he became a father figure to not only the three of us but to a lot of the other younger convicts as well. I think we reminded him of his own sons.”
Striker remembered how at first they’d all tried resisting Shep’s overtures, no matter how positive they were. “Somehow he understood each and every one of us. Made us believe that no matter what crime we’d committed, there was a life waiting for us beyond that barbed-wire fence. That we didn’t have to wait to make something of ourselves until after we served our time, but we could do it while incarcerated. I got an associate degree while in prison and finished up with my bachelor degree at Hampton University when I got out.”
She lifted a brow. “You have a bachelor’s degree from Hampton University?”
“And an MBA from the University of Virginia.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “That’s remarkable.”
He shook his head and chuckled, pressing his nose to hers. “Why don’t you go ahead and ask why I’m not working at a job that uses my degree? Don’t try to pretend you’re not curious.”
She snuggled closer to him when he tightened his arms around her. “Okay, I admit that I’m curious.”
He could understand. “I own a pretty good chunk of stock in several companies...including Roland’s firm. The three of us—me, Stonewall and Quasar—own quite a number of shares. But we’re satisfied with being silent partners and letting Roland run things.”
He waited for her to ask something about Roland, whether or not he had a past in prison, and when she didn’t, he figured she hadn’t thought that much about it yet.
“So that’s why you have such a close friendship with the Granger family?”
“Yes. I owe Shep my life. He convinced me that retaliating by killing Stonewall wasn’t the anwer. He helped me get on the right track to get out of prison and made sure I kept my head on straight to stay out. What he’s done for us could never be repaid. I don’t know any man who was more highly respected, and it was well-earned and deserved respect. He would have done anything for us, and usually he did.”
Striker was proud that, last year, when Shep’s sons’ lives were in danger, he had been in a position to pay some of that debt back. He, Quasar and Stonewall had stepped up as protectors for Shep’s sons. Not that he was going to tell Margo how he’d saved Caden Granger’s life, risking his own. He’d done what any of them would have, and he didn’t need Margo making a big deal out of it.
“Thanks for sharing all of that with me, Striker.”
He looked down at her. For some reason, sharing it with her had felt right. “No problem.”
“I guess we’ll go to sleep now.”
He saw the look in her eyes. “Do you really want to?”
She shook her head. “Not really. What about you?”
“No. I could claim it’s my time to ask you some questions, since you’ve been drilling me with yours for close to an hour.”
Margo chuckled as she snuggled closer to him. “Are you sure that’s what you want to use this time for? To ask me questions?”
Striker drew in a deep breath, deciding, no, that wasn’t how he wanted to spend his time. At least not now.
*
LIZ TILLMAN TIGHTENED her coat around her and then glanced at her watch. The man was supposed to meet her at ten. She didn’t like coming to this area of town at night, but she was determined to teach Frazier and that bitch of a niece a lesson.
She quickly walked into the café, taking a seat at a vacant booth. She used to frequent places like this but that was in the old days. And definitely not since she had moved up in the world after deciding she wanted to go places. She had worked hard to overcome her past, and when she had met Frazier she’d known he would be her ticket to the life she’d always wanted.
She didn’t appreciate all her hard work going down the drain because of one person. As far as she was concerned, Margo Connelly had coming what Liz had planned.
“Faye Matthews?”
She glanced up and was about to tell the big bruiser of a man standing at her table that he had mistaken her for someone else, when she quickly remembered that the name Faye Matthews was her alias. She plastered a smile. “Yes, I’m Faye.”