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CHAPTER SIX

ALANNA

Cy parks right behind my car and turns the truck off. On the way here, neither of us spoke to the other. I took the time to figure out exactly what I was going to say. It wasn’t easy for me since I knew what was going to happen in the end.

He’ll end up looking at me in disdain, and I knew I’d hate it. It would just prove I still carry the stick of my childhood on my skin.

I don’t wait for him to come to my side of the truck before opening and hopping down. It’s not easy with how high he has it. It doesn’t help that when I hop down, I start sliding. If Cy didn’t get to me, I’d have fallen on my ass.

“Should’ve waited on me, Short Stuff.” Cy grunts, a hint of humor in his voice.

“Maybe if you didn’t have such an overly large truck, I wouldn’t be falling when getting out of it,” I snap and shove away from him.

Of course, he doesn’t let me get away from him. Instead, he wraps his arm around my shoulders and guides me to the front door. I don’t bother going for my keys, considering he’s already got his out. I should’ve made sure to get that key back from him a while ago, but I hadn’t.

Cy unlocks the door and ushers me inside, closing us in the warmth of my small house.

“Do you want some hot cocoa?” I blurt out as he lets me go, and I step deeper into my house, heading for the kitchen. The one thing I’ve always allowed myself to indulge in is hot beverages. I love hot coffee and hot tea, but my go-to is always hot cocoa. Add a bit of whipped cream on top with some shaved pieces of chocolate . . . yum.

“No.”

I guess he’s not into drinking hot cocoa when it’s cold out.

“Okay.” I shrug and quickly make one for myself, the whole time feeling him watching every move I make. Finally, when I have my cocoa in hand, I move to the couch, tug my boots off, and cross my legs in front of me. I take a breath and lift my gaze to his. “You want to talk. Fine, I’ll talk. You might as well have a seat. It’s not a short story.”

Without a word, Cy sits on the opposite end of the couch, one leg cocked, and he leans his back against the arm of the couch. Not once while he does this does he take his eyes off me. It’s almost like he’s calculating something in his head about me, and I don’t know what it is he’s coming up with.

I take a sip from my cocoa, then another, finally leaning toward the coffee table to set it on a coaster.

I don’t bother looking at him when I start talking. There’s no other way to start it.

“Charlotte isn’t my sister, she’s my daughter. I got pregnant when I was seventeen. She was born not long after I turned eighteen. My mother found out, and when I refused to tell her who the father was, she said her and my dad would raise her as theirs.” My stomach tightens into a million knots.

“Who is her father?” Cy asks, a chill in his tone.

I take a breath, curl my arms around myself protectively, and utter the words I feared saying the most. “My father.”

The air itself seems to thicken with such tension that it becomes harder to breathe by the second.

Rather than wait for him to ask for an explanation, I keep going. “When I was ten, he started coming in my room. Nothing happened at first . . .” I tell him everything that he did. Not in exact detail, but about the touch, the secret of it, him taking it further and further. Finishing with him having sex with me. I didn’t tell him it was nearly every night unless my mom was home. Sometimes, even then.

“My brothers didn’t know it was happening. I never told them. They only found out something had been happening when they overheard our dad talking on the phone to someone. He was planning on selling Charlotte after she was born.”

The little bit of air free of tension evaporates under the explosion of Cy’s temper.

“You can’t be fuckin’ serious. The fucker molested you, raped you for years, got you pregnant, and was going to sell that innocent little girl!” Cy jumps off the couch and starts pacing. Stopping long enough to grind out, “Finish it, Alanna.”

Taking a breath, I tighten my arms around my legs and focus on my hot cocoa. “Both my brothers gave me money and told me to go. To get out of there. I had Charlotte just days later. Both my parents showed up at the hospital. Mom lost her mind on me, and Dad just watched me closely. A nurse ended up having them removed from my room and the hospital altogether. That same day, the nurse loaded me down with everything I’d need for Charlotte. Even told me to come to this town.”

“The nurse told you to come here?”

I slowly nod. I have no reason to lie about that. I still remember the nurse, she’d been sweet and caring. I wasn’t even from the area. I didn’t know anything about my surroundings. I’d been driving when I’d gone into labor. She’d been the nurse on duty that night and held my hand through it all. I remember her telling me a story nearly close to my own, but different in so many ways. Her name had been Jordan, and I was grateful to her at the time. I don’t know why she helped me the way she did, however, her advice led me here.

“Jordan had told me that she preferred to have taken me somewhere herself to see that I was protected but suggested I come here. That there was a school I could attend.”

Cy stops pacing and twists to face me, brows furrowed. “Jordan?”

“Yeah, that’s the name of the nurse who helped me,” I tell him, not understanding his sudden change.

“Where did you have Charlotte?”

“In Virginia,” I answer, completely unsure of why he’s asking this.

“Fuck me,” he remarks and pulls out his cell. A couple seconds later, he lifts it to his ear. “Badger, yeah, got a question for you.”

What in the world? Why is he calling a guy named Badger.

“Need you to ask Jordan if she helped a woman named Alanna . . .” He stops speaking and seems to start listening. “I wanna know what made her send Alanna here rather than take her in at the clubhouse there.”

Moments later, he grumbles something I don’t understand but sounds like a bunch of curse words. “Right,” he clips out. “Thanks, brother, talk to you later.”

“What was that about?” I whisper.

“Small fuckin’ world we live in, baby,” Cy states harshly.

“Okay,” I draw out.

“Jordan’s an ol’ lady to a brother of mine. He’s a member but at a different charter. Our Franklin Charter. During the time when Charlotte was born, things weren’t exactly good around there, that’s why she sent you here. Evidently, she told you to come to us and not just the town.”

I don’t remember that, but I have a good excuse for being mentally distraught. Everything at that time was happening so quickly I couldn’t catch my breath.

“Alanna,” Cy calls, his voice going gentle as he demands, “look at me.”

I don’t look at him. I can’t.

“There’s a reason I live low-key. I don’t make waves. I stay the way I am because I don’t want them to find Charlotte. I don’t want them to take her from me.”

“No one is going to take her from you, Short Stuff,” Cy says with such certainty I nearly believe him.

I want to, but I can’t.

“Baby, look at me.” This time, when he gives his order, his voice isn’t just soothing, but he’s closed the distance between us, his fingers coming into view as he reaches to grip my chin.

With no other choice, I meet his gaze.

“You’ve been through hell all your fuckin’ life, Alanna. Don’t know any woman who can survive what you have.”

“They’re plenty of women out there who have survived what I have and much worse,” I tell him.

“True, but instead of doing something about your baby when you found out, you had her, kept her, and even knowing how she came about, you chose to love her with all you have to give.”

I do love Charlotte. I’ve loved her since the moment she’d been placed in my arms. Honestly, since the first time I heard her heartbeat. She’s not responsible for what I endured. She’s just a beautiful little girl I was blessed to have.

“Know you’ve given me a lot, baby, and I’m grateful for it. Now I know what I’m working with, but I know there’s more to it.”

“You’re grateful?” What in the world is he grateful for?

“Yeah, I’m grateful you’ve told me this, and I didn’t have to go looking into you. I never wanted to have to do a dive into your history.”

Well, I can appreciate him not doing that, but me telling him isn’t something he should be grateful for. I told him so he’d be appalled and finally leave me be.