“Not only tough,” Tyler observed, “but original, too. What’s next? ‘This town ain’t big enough for both of us’?”
Davie ducked his head at that, like he was expecting a blow.
And that made Tyler want to tear Roy’s head off, right there in the restaurant. He’d end up as an overnight guest of the sheriff’s if he did, a prospect he didn’t relish after the last experience five years before, but the temptation was fierce just the same.
Roy grunted, shook his head once, like a man plagued by a swarm of flies, and then turned and lumbered out.
“He’ll get you, Tyler,” Davie said pragmatically. “He’ll get me, too. He’s like that.”
“I know what he’s like,” Tyler said, watching Roy disappear.
When he was gone, Doreen came out of hiding. She looked sheepish and scared as hell. Davie didn’t have to go home—Tyler would hand-deliver the kid to the child-protection people before he’d see that happen—but she did.
“You go back and wait in the employees’ lounge,” she told Davie, showing a faint semblance of the old Doreen, the one who’d lived wild and free. “Roy won’t be able to get at you there.”
Davie hesitated, nodded and left the table, then the restaurant.
Tyler gestured for Doreen to sit down. Both of them could have wished for a more private place to hold the forthcoming conversation, but it wasn’t to be, and Tyler, for one, was resigned to that.
Doreen slid into the booth, hunching in the same way Davie had.
Tyler sat down across from her. Drew a deep breath.
“Things are pretty bad, I guess,” he said, when Doreen didn’t speak.
She nodded. “Worse than bad.”
“Is he mine?” The words were out before Tyler had a chance to think them over. Not that thinking would have changed anything, but he might have been more diplomatic.
For a few moments, Doreen pretended not to understand. Tyler simply stared her down.
“No,” she finally said. “Davie isn’t yours. I wish he was, though. God, how I wish he was.”
Tyler felt a combination of relief and disappointment, and he still wasn’t fully convinced that Doreen was telling the truth. “How old is Davie?” he asked quietly.
“Thirteen,” Doreen admitted, after some lip-biting and some hand-wringing.
“The math works,” Tyler said.
Doreen gave a rueful little laugh. Raised and lowered her stooped shoulders. “Yeah,” she said. “For a lot of guys, Ty. Not just you. Davie belongs to a trucker who stopped by Skivvie’s one summer night, crying in his beer because his wife didn’t understand him. I cheered him up. And Davie looks just like him.”
“Okay,” Tyler said. “So why do you let the boyfriend bounce Davie off walls?”
Tears filled Doreen’s eyes. “I’ve been fighting things all my life,” she said. “One day, I just ran out of fight.”
“Tough break for Davie,” Tyler said evenly.
“You think I don’t hate myself for that? For all of it?” Doreen straightened her spine a little—though not enough, unfortunately. “I never expected to end up like this. I could have had an abortion—Davie’s father offered to pay for one—but I had this crazy idea that I’d find a good man someday. Davie and I and the prince.” She laughed again. “What a fairy tale.”
“Let me take Davie home with me. Just for a while. Until you can get things under control.”
Doreen stared at him, clearly amazed. “Why? Why would you do that?”
“Because I was a kid once, with a crazy father,” Tyler said, as surprised to say what he did as Doreen probably was to hear him admit it. He’d been in denial about Jake Creed all his life, even written songs about him, for Christ’s sake. “What you’re doing now isn’t working, Doreen. Time to try something different.”
“You don’t understand,” Doreen whispered, in a teary rush of words and breath. “Davie’s a handful. He has problems, Tyler. And Roy—well, you don’t know what Roy’s like. He’ll lay for you. He’ll never forget the run-in you and him had tonight. If he has to wait the rest of his life, he’ll find a way to pay you back, and when he does, it won’t be pretty.”
“I can handle Roy,” Tyler said. “Seems to me, the more immediate concern is what he might do to you, or to Davie. Let me drive you someplace, Doreen. Right now, tonight. There are shelters, or you could stay at Cassie’s place—”
Doreen’s face turned to stone. “I know what those ‘shelters’ are like. My mother and I were in and out of them when I was a little girl. Church women, looking down their noses at us. Secondhand clothes. It was like being in prison, and all it did was make my dad even meaner, once he caught up with us. And he always caught up with us.”
“That was then, Doreen, and this is now.”
“Take Davie home with you,” Doreen said, stiff now, and flushed with shame and fury and frustration and God only knew what else. “You’ll want to give him back soon enough.”
“Maybe,” Tyler agreed. But he was remembering all those times when Cassie had stood toe-to-toe with Jake Creed and refused to let him drag his youngest son home by the hair. What would have happened to him if it hadn’t been for Cassie and, to a lesser degree, for Logan and Dylan?
Payback time.
There was a kid in trouble, and he couldn’t ignore that.
Doreen looked at her watch. A little of her favorite tattoo showed on her upper arm—a phoenix, rising majestically from the ashes. “Do what you want,” she said. “Play hero. You’ll be sorry, Tyler. You will be sorry. And that’s the last warning you’re going to get from me.”
Tyler reached for a napkin, gestured for Doreen to hand over the pen she used for taking down food and drink orders. Scrawled his cell number on it.
“Call if you need help,” he said.
Doreen eyed the number with contempt, but she took it in the end. Stuffed it into her apron pocket in a wad.
Tyler watched her go. Settled up for the coffee. Made his way through the casino to the employees’ lounge. He’d gone to high school with the security guard posted in the hallway, and hung out with Jim Huntinghorse when he was still managing the place, so nobody got in his way.
Davie sat hunkered down in a chair in the corner, alone in the room, clutching the library book in both hands.
“Time to ride,” Tyler said.
“What if he’s out there?” Davie asked. “What if Roy’s out there?”
“I couldn’t get that lucky,” Tyler told him, with a grin.
But Roy wasn’t waiting in the parking lot. Davie was surprised; Tyler wasn’t. Roy would strike back, but not when there was a chance of getting his ass kicked in a public parking lot. He was the come-from-behind type. He’d use a tire iron, or maybe even a gun.
Serious business. But Tyler had had a lot of practice at watching his back. A lifetime of it, in fact.
And being a Creed, he didn’t have sense enough to be scared.
So he and Davie made a quick stop at Wal-Mart, for a sleeping bag and a cot, the usual personal grooming necessities and a change of clothes for Davie.
“You don’t actually expect me to wear these, do you?” Davie protested, once they were back in Kristy’s Blazer, headed for Cassie’s