Take Her Home – Part Two…
“You thought you could just take my kid and run away?” Carl shouted at the woman in the booth.
She recoiled and keened in fear as the little girl cowered into the farthest edge of her seat. “Carl, please leave us alone. We just want to leave.”
“I guess you didn’t learn after the last time. Yur mine and yur both coming home with me.”
“I’m not yours, Carl,” she denied, “and we’re leaving.”
Jordan had watched this drama as the three men approached the booth. He could feel the heat rising in his body as he watched them intimidate the woman and her child. He looked at Rose, who said she would call the Sheriff.
“He won’t get here fast enough to help ‘em.” He took a deep breath. “Just passing through and thought I’d get a quiet meal in a small town. What are the odds?”
He slipped off of the stool and loosened his shoulders as he turned to confront them. “The lady asked nicely.”
Carl turned to see who had the nerve to interfere. “This is none of yur business, fuck off.”
Jordan sighed. “You interrupted our nice quiet evening. It’s my business now.”
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He hadn’t stopped advancing, and by that time he was closing the gap between himself and the other two, who were standing between him and Carl. One of them, the skinny, hard wired one, stepped into Jordan and threw a punch. It was a bar-fight overhand right, ill advised against a skilled fighter. Jordan easily deflected the blow and delivered a palm strike to the man’s nose, which exploded in blood. Immediately he took a half step back before launching forward to drive the instep of his right foot into the man’s balls. Seeing his companion on the ground screaming, the larger sidekick grabbed a bottle from the table and stepped forward. Quickly he joined his friend on the floor, unconscious. Seeing that this battle needed his expertise, Carl stepped around his friends to deliver a hard right, intended for Jordan’s head. Once again, the blow missed and Jordan kicked Carl’s knee from the side, dislocating it into a sickening angle. As Carl screamed and buckled, a final kick connected to his head with a thud as his jaw dislocated. They lay there on the floor, two of the three knocked out and the other one still screaming about his testicles, which were almost certainly ruptured.
Looking at the three amigos, clearly out of commission, Jordan noticed the worn outline of Carl’s wallet on the back pocket of his jeans. Leaning down, he pulled the wallet out, took two hundred dollars from inside, and tossed the wallet onto the floor. Handing the bills to Rose, he smiled. “Dinner’s on Carl.”
She smiled and tucked the money into her bra. “Thanks for the tip, tough guy.”
He smiled. “You can call the sheriff now. Sorry for the mess, but I’m thinking this is a good time to be on my way.” Turning to the young mother, who was still in the booth, wide eyed, he nodded. “Ma’am, you girls take care now.”
He was outside and five or six steps toward his car when the voice from behind caused him to stop and turn.
“What are we supposed to do?” She stood there in the evening air with her child peering around her hip. Jordan looked at her in the lights of the parking lot. Curves, definite curves, but nice ones; curves that invited inspection. He mulled over her options, knowing they were few and perilous. Finally he smiled softly and shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m headed east, you’re welcome to ride along for a while if you want.”
She paused, obviously weighing the risk of who she knew and who she didn’t; it wasn’t a lengthy analysis. She quickly grabbed the girl by the hand and walked behind him to his car.
“I’m Lydia and this is Chloe.”
The car beeped as he used the remote to unlock the doors. “Jordan, Jordan Sabina. Nice to meet you. Sorry for the fight, they didn’t leave me much choice.”
She laughed nervously. “It’s okay, ‘bout time he got a piece of what he’s been givin’ me. Thank you.”
He looked at the small bag she was carrying. “That all you’ve got?”
“Packing would have sent a message.”
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He nodded, understandingly, as she put her daughter in the back seat and buckled her in. As she slipped into the front passenger seat, she looked around at the Cadillac sedan, appreciating its luxury. “Nice car!” she commented, as it rumbled to life.
“Thanks,” he chuckled. “I got it from a friend of mine. I earned a bonus working for him and I joked that he could just give me his car. Shocked the hell out of me when he agreed. Said he’d been thinking about getting rid of it for a while because between his wives and daughters he never used it.”
She looked at him oddly. “Wives? As in, more than one?”
“Yeah.” He shook his head. “Him and two wives. It’s kind of crazy but they’re billionaires, so I guess when you’ve got that much money you can do what you want.”
“And his wives don’t mind?”
He grinned. “That he gave me the car?”
She snorted. “No, that he’s married to both of them.”
He chuckled. “I know, right? The thing is, the way they tell it, it was their idea! Long story but both of them were rescued from bad situations and they just decided they’d rather share. Whatever. I’ve never found one woman that wanted to put up with me, much less two.”
They drove for a while. She was quiet, looking out her side window at the passing darkness.
“Where are you headed?” he asked.
“Away. Far away.”
“Is there somewhere I can take you? Do you have family?”
She shook her head slowly. “No family, no friends, no life. Not sure what I’m going to do. I just got tired of getting hit and didn’t want Chloe to grow up like that.”
“Were you together long?”
She released a breath before answering. “I wouldn’t describe it as together, but six years, ten months, and five days. All of them hell on earth.”
He thought to ask her why she stayed, but something told him that he’d seen the answer. Trying to leave meant more beatings.
“I’m headed to Kansas to see my momma. I haven’t been home for a long time. Then I’m going to Tennessee.”
She was silent for a while, and he let her be. Finally she quietly came back. I never had much of a home. I ran away when I was 16. I thought I had it bad, but it got worse.” Again her silence returned until after a few miles she said, “Tennessee is a long way from Carl or Oklahoma, so that sounds great, that is if you’ll let me ride along.”
“Oklahoma?”
“Yeah. My mom was from the Iowa tribe. Not sure what my dad was, other than gone.”
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The miles were sliding by, and it was late. Adrenaline was keeping Jordan from feeling sleepy and Lydia was fueled by worry. He figured they might as well put a few miles between themselves and the café, but he didn’t want to drive as far as Boise, it had been a long day already.
“So, somehow you ended up married to Carl?”
She snorted again, she tended to do that when something struck her as off the mark. “Not married, no, he bought me and figured that possession gave him the right to make the claim.”
Jordan felt that tightening again, like a blush of heat that rose up through him when he got angry. “He bought you?”
Quietly, almost a whisper, came her answer. “Yes. He bought me from a motorcycle gang that takes girls and sells the ones they don’t keep for their own use. I guess I wasn’t pretty enough to keep. Not sure how that could have been worse, but they didn’t keep me long enough to find out. They knew Carl was looking for a girl and sold me to him.”
He looked at her again, wanting to reassure her that she was good-looking but didn’t want to be creepy. She had been with Carl six years; that meant she was twenty-two or twenty-three years old. He felt her pain and shame, and sensed her vulnerability. She was alone, broke, apparently unskilled, and for the sake of her child, desperate to be free of her abuse. He reached his hand across the center console and put it on top of hers. She had been looking out the window and she flinched at the contact, but didn’t move her hand.
He glanced her way. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. Just try to relax, we’ll figure the rest out when you’re ready.”
“You make it sound so easy,” she said quietly, still staring out her window.
“It is if you want it to be.” He affirmed. “You’re free, nobody’s going to hurt you again, and you have all the time you need to decide what you want to do from here.”
She looked at him, her face a blank mask. “Why do you care?”
He didn’t have an easy answer for that, not one that didn’t expose parts of him that might frighten her. “There are people in this world who do things just because it’s the right thing.”
She snorted again. “I heard about them, just never met one.”
“Well, things will be looking up.”
“I hope so,” she said wistfully, “but I’ve never known it to be the case. Every time I looked up, it was at the underside of some man’s boot.”
She went back to looking out her side window and more miles slid by. Eventually he heard her breathing relax as she fell asleep.
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In Caldwell, Idaho he found a place to park and get some rest. As he took the exit to get gas at the truck stop, she stretched and looked into the back seat. “Chloe is still asleep, that’s good. She’s had a rough couple of days. Sorry I slept, are you okay?”
“Yeah, but I’m going to get gas and we can sleep here tonight. I don’t want to check into a hotel, so we’ll have to sleep in the car. Sorry.”
“No problem. I wasn’t thinking we would find anything as nice as this anyway, so I’m not complaining.”
“Tomorrow we’ll eat over there before heading out.” He motioned to the restaurant attached to the truck stop. “If you need a shower or anything they have them here also, just let me know and I’ll take care of everything.”
She was cautious. “What do you expect in return?”
He knew what she was asking, and it rankled him, but he understood that it came from a place where abuse was all she’d known.
“I expect you to be cynical and suspicious, but it would be nice to have you smile and say thanks. Other than that, I don’t think I’ve given you any reason to think I’m anything other than what you’ve seen. Just a guy who came upon two pretty girls who needed a hand up. You’re free to leave any time you want, but I hope you’ll give yourself a chance and stick around until you can get your feet under you.”
She felt ashamed by her reaction. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just never had anyone do something that didn’t have a price tag attached that cost me more than what I got in return.”
As he pulled into a pump and turned the car off, he turned to her. “Maybe I’ve already been paid and I’m paying them back by helping you. Some deals work like that.”
She thought about what he’d said. “Pretty?”
He smiled. “More than enough.”
Having said his piece, he got out of the car and went inside to pay cash for the gas.
To be continued in part three…
This is from the soon to be published book, "Take Her Home" by V S Campbell.
Come read the other books in the Gary Booker series of novels, available on Amazon! HERE
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Author website: www.vscampbell.com