I whipped around to face him. “My problem?”
He blinked. “That’s what I just asked, wasn’t it?”
I moved into his space. “My problem, mister,” I punctuated that word with a poke to his chest, leaning forward so my nose was level with his chin. Sure, I had to stand on my tippy toes, and I had to lean slightly on my finger that was poking into his chest for balance, but it was the threat that counted. “Is that you need to stop throwing your weight around. I’m not your pet project. I can’t be fixed by you babying me all the damn time.”
He blinked, brows furrowing in confusion. “Pet project?”
I nodded, poking him again. “Yeah, your pet project. The poor little girl that can’t take care of herself. The poor little woman who was raped in front of East fucking Texas. I don’t need you. I don’t need your pity, either.”
Okay, I was being harsh, I knew. I didn’t know his side of it, but what his parents had said earlier had made sense. Too much sense, in fact. A man like Miller couldn’t like me.
Not plain Mercy Diane Shepherd. The girl that had no curves, boobs, or bounties of any kind. I was plain Mercy. The girl who was raped. The girl who had more in common with a man than a woman.
I was the woman who burned if I was out in the sun too long, and could eat fifty donuts and have nothing to show for it but being more attractive to mosquitoes. I was the woman who walked in front of a crew of construction workers in my sexiest get-up, and never got a single freakin’ whistle.
His eyes caught on mine and he cornered me against the wall.
“Is this about what you saw yesterday?” He asked, taking his hand and running it down the side of my neck, then further down my side to settle on my hip.
“What I saw yesterday? Do you mean what I heard?” I asked in confusion.
He shook his head. “What do you mean what you heard? I was talking about what you saw when I beat the shit out of Faris.”
I blinked. “Uhh, no. I was talking about what I heard your parents say this morning.”
Confusion clouded his features. “I don’t remember hearing my parents say anything that upset you. In fact, I haven’t even seen my parents today. What did you hear that made you leave and disappear for hours? Which, might I add, scared the shit out of me.”
Since he looked so genuinely confused, I took pity on him.
Lips thinning in trepidation, I explained what I’d heard his mother and father talking about when I’d gone to breakfast that morning.
“I’m going to fucking kill them,” he said, pushing away from my body and throwing the door open.
I ran and jumped on his back, wrapping my arms around his throat.
It didn’t stop him in the slightest. He kept walking as if an extra hundred and ten pounds hadn’t just been added to his weight.
He didn’t have far to go, however.
In fact, once he made it out of the police station, he walked five doors down, and threw the door open to a blacked out door with plate glass windows surrounding the doorframe.
The first thing to hit me was the smell of alcohol and old wood.
The second thing was the way the low red lights made Miller look like he was a super alien. A super, pissed off, muscular alien bent on revenge, ready to conquer earth to avenge the honor of his woman.
Okay, I was over exaggerating, but I was also panicking.
His parents were sitting at the bar, his father on serving side and his mother on a stool at the very end.
“We need to talk,” Miller growled to the two.
I immediately let go of Miller’s neck, but he caught me with both hands firmly planted on my ass, keeping me in place as he walked closer and closer to his stunned parents.
I ducked my head, and prayed that it’d be over soon.***Miller
“Honey,” my mother said as she glanced across the room at Mercy, who happened to be playing with the jukebox, pointing out which songs she liked to Foster and Trance. “I never meant what I said to be hurtful. I was just curious.”
I put both of my hands to my forehead, and rubbed vigorously with the heels of my hands. “If I’m happy, you should be happy for me. None of your opinions matter here. She’s mine and I’m hers. Nothing you can say or do will change that.”
My mother looked down at her hands. “That was never my intention with my concern for you. I was upset that it came on so sudden. There was never any other reason for it other than hearing that she was pregnant, which made me curious. I’m happy for you. I’m happy for her. She seems like a very nice young lady.”
I sighed. “I know, mom. Just…give her a chance. And you probably should go apologize.”
“Nobody has time for that, son. We have to be at the reunion in less than an hour,” my father tried to intervene.
“No, Micah. It’s okay. I’ll go talk to her, and you can go get dressed with your brothers,” my mother said, standing and making her way to Mercy.
Once she got there, she sent Trance and Foster to us before sequestering Mercy into the very corner of my father’s bar.
“Your mother made us shirts,” Foster said once he got to within speaking distance.
I grimaced. “What do they say, dad?”
My father didn’t bother to hold back his disgust. “Just don’t read it, and you won’t know how bad it is.”
My eyes studied Mercy’s face, making sure my mom wasn’t saying anything that upset her before I headed to the back room of the bar where my mom was storing our shirts.
The first thing I saw when I arrived in there was neon yellow.
The second thing I saw was the saying and I nearly turned around and left.