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“The hell I can, babe.”

And that was Daughtry King. Not the cop.

She narrowed her eyes. “What do you want from me?”

“I just want to know who you are, what you’re doing here and how I can help.”

He hadn’t expected that third thing to come out of his mouth. It was clear she didn’t either.

“Well, that’s not true. That’s never true. You don’t just want to offer help. No man ever has. You want to know who I am, why I’m here and get a blowjob.”

He nearly laughed. “No offense, but that didn’t occur to me.”

She did look slightly offended. Oh well. She looked like a street urchin. She was bony and pathetic and covered in dirt. The idea that...

Hell. Who was he kidding? She wasn’t wrong. A lot of men would’ve taken in her desperate state and seen fit to make those kinds of demands. Hell.

If he sent her on her way in a van with no starter, looking like a bundle of sticks wrapped in a baggy sweatshirt, he was sending her out to be potentially harmed or taken advantage of in some way.

He couldn’t consign the little stray to the world. He just couldn’t.

“Come with me.”

“I don’t want to be arrested,” she said.

“Do police usually ask if you want to be arrested?”

She squinted. “Wouldn’t know. Like I said. I’m pure as the driven snow.”

Then he did laugh. “Right. Okay. That’s how you want to play it, go ahead and play it that way. Let me put my cards on the table. You need a part for your car, so that you can head down south. You need to earn some money. You can work for me. At the ranch. You got any skills?”

She blinked. “I... Yeah. I got lots of skills. I can hunt and fish and trap. I can fix cars.”

“Can you clean stalls?”

She blinked. “Sounds easy.”

“How about construction?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I’ve done my fair share.”

“Then we’ll have no trouble finding stuff for you to do.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

Because you became my problem, and I can never leave a stray behind.

“What do you meanwhy?” he asked.

“Why are you helping me?”

Because my dad wouldn’t have.

“Because we’ve got plenty of shelter, plenty of food and plenty of work. What you’re doing out here, that’s work. Even if it’s illegal work. Even if you won’t admit to it. If you’re willing to come do legit work for me, then you can do that for a couple of weeks and be on your way.”

Yeah. He could offer her money. But he didn’t want to do that. He wanted to offer her something she could earn herself. Mostly he... he felt cautious about the whole thing. She was a woman alone in the world. She’d clearly been treated badly before. He didn’t feel all that great about turning her loose. Not that he had any control over that. But if she decided to stay... Maybe it would be good for her. Have a couple weeks of meals and not sleep so rough.

“People don’t just help each other,” she said. “They look out for themselves.”