4

Dolly

“You’ll get your purse back,” Tex assured me as he led me down the darkest hallway I’d ever been in.

Who painted their walls black? It was like the path to the pits of hell. Or at least what I imagined it would be like. Hopefully, I never found out.

When he stopped at a red door, I was sure this was bad. Nothing good could come from behind a door that color. I tensed as he shoved it open and waited for the worst. What the worst was, I couldn’t be positive, but it seemed…foreboding. The use of that word from my Word of the Day app on my phone gave me a slight moment of pleasure. The scent of fresh bread met my nose, and following Tex into the room no longer seemed frightening. Hell did not have fresh-baked bread. That I was almost positive about.

The sound of female voices, laughter, and the end of the dark walls brought me farther into the new room—or rooms. It was an open layout with sofas, pool tables, a large flat screen, and a bar to the right while the left had a kitchen with a big wraparound bar with eleven stools. More men in vests were scattered about, as were women.

“Well, who do we have here?” a friendly voice asked.

I turned my attention to a woman setting a loaf of bread out on the counter with oven mitts on her hands. Her dark blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She was older than me, but couldn’t be more than thirty. I felt relief at the sight of her, seeing as the other two females I’d seen on the sofas were barely dressed. This one had on a cropped Led Zeppelin T-shirt and a pair of cutoff jeans.

“Nina, this is Dolly, Pepper’s best friend. Dolly, this is Nina. She’s the angel around here we all love and adore,” Tex said, causing Nina to roll her eyes.

“They adore my cooking—that’s all,” she corrected him. “It’s nice to meet you, Dolly. It’s been a hot minute since Pepper has stopped by for a visit. Is she here too? I need to pop some of my apple pie in the oven if she is. That girl loves it.”

I shook my head, but Tex spoke before I could.

“Pep isn’t here. Just Dolly. She was somewhere she needn’t be, and Micah picked her up and brought her back here for a bit.”

I narrowed my eyes at Tex. Who was he to decide where I should and should not be? He wasn’t my momma or Jesus. He had no right to place any judgment on me.

Nina took a slice of the fresh bread and slid it across the counter. “Why don’t you stick some food in that mouth of yours and let the woman talk for herself?” she suggested to Tex.

He shrugged and walked over to snatch up the bread.

Nina turned her attention back to me. “Come on and have a seat. I’ll get you some of my honey butter and a slice of bread. You can tell me all about it. Micah doesn’t make it his mission to save females. I’m intrigued.”

No kidding. He hadn’t saved me. He’d ruined my day.

I pulled out the stool across from her and sat down. “I wouldn’t call it saving. They all seem to have their opinion on that, and I have mine,” I told her and added a smile so it didn’t sound like I was a bitch.

She chuckled. “You don’t say,” she replied, then winked at me before slicing a piece of bread, then placing it on a plate to slide over to me. “I’ll go get that butter,” she added, then headed toward the massive refrigerator.

“Hey, Tex. Come out back and look at this machine that Brick brought in this morning,” a man called from the door on the other side of the large living area.

Tex turned his gaze back to mine. “You’re good here with Nina, yeah?”

“She’s fine,” Nina replied as if that was a ridiculous question.

Tex smirked, then turned and headed to the open door. “She’s here with Micah,” Tex announced as he walked through the room. “Remember that and stay clear.”

The other men looked my way, then nodded in understanding as they went back to whatever they had been doing.

“Micah brought a woman here?” one of the half-naked women asked.

“Leave it, Tracy,” a man warned her.

When the door closed behind Tex, I was relieved he was gone. I didn’t want to deal with any of these men. They all seemed to think what Micah had said was right. They were wrong! All of them.

“Fucking hell, Nina! Why do you torture me like this?” a female asked, then groaned loudly.

I shifted on my stool to see who it was and realized someone new had entered the room through the red door.

A stunning brunette with nothing but a pair of sparkly panties that might have been meant to be shorts and a matching blue bra walked in stilettos toward the counter. Her gaze swung to mine, and she paused, scanning over my body before coming back to my face. “Who are you here with?”

The blunt question took me by surprise, and I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out. I wasn’t sure how to explain my situation to the woman staring at me.

“She’s a guest. Dolly is Pepper’s best friend,” Nina informed her. “Dolly, this is Amethyst. Ignore her rudeness. She is starving herself today to keep her stomach flat, and that makes her ornery.”

“Pepper is here?” Amethyst asked, sounding as if she was happy at the thought of seeing my best friend.

“No, she isn’t here. Dolly came with Micah.”

Amethyst’s head snapped back around quickly to look at me. This time, her eyes widened, and she was assessing me closer than before. I felt nervous under her sudden, intense interest.

“Micah?” she asked, her voice an octave higher.

“Not like that. Christ, Pepper would kill him,” Nina replied with a shake of her head. “He brought her here, and I was trying to find out why when you walked in and started hammering her with your nosy questions.”

Amethyst didn’t even glance back at Nina. She kept her eyes leveled on me. “Are you in some kind of trouble?” she asked me.

I started to say no, but stopped. Because that wasn’t the truth. I was gonna be in a pile of hot shit with my momma when she found out about this.

“Not exactly,” I replied carefully. “But I will be if Micah doesn’t let me leave soon.”

My momma could be calling my phone right now, and I wouldn’t know it.

“Let the girl eat her bread while it’s hot,” Nina urged.

I glanced down at the buttered bread in front of me. If I ate that, it would go straight to my hips, but if I was going to die soon and possibly end up in hell, then it might be worth it.

“I’m just curious as to what Micah was thinking, bringing her here. He doesn’t typically do the hero thing. And if he was saving her, then why’d he drop her off with you and bolt, leaving her with this bunch of horny bastards?” She waved a hand around the room.”

Nina lifted a shoulder. “He knows I won’t let anyone touch her. Besides, Tex warned them.”

Amethyst didn’t seem as convinced. She leaned closer to the bread and inhaled deeply. “Dammit, I think smelling it made me gain a pound. Fuck, that must taste like heaven. Take a bite and let me watch you eat it.”

Was she serious right now? I stared at her as she watched me with envy and hope in her eyes.

“Get your bottle of water and a stick of celery out of the fridge and go. You’re freaking the girl out,” Nina scolded her.

Amethyst sighed and gave my bread one last longing look before walking past me and into the kitchen. “Fine. But I want the details on why Micah brought her here. Nothing interesting has gone on here in months. It’s getting boring.”

Nina rolled her eyes heavenward, then leaned a narrow hip against the counter and picked up a mug to take a sip. “How long have you and Pepper been friends?” she asked me.

The memory of the day I had met Pepper brought a smile to my lips. She’d been a force to be reckoned with in the second grade, and I’d been the new girl in class, afraid of my own shadow.

“Since the first day of second grade,” I replied. “Daddy got a job at a factory right outside of Miami because Momma wanted him home more. He’d been gone all the time before, working as a trucker.”

“Where did you live originally?” she asked me.

“Biloxi, Mississippi. It’s where my momma was born, and she threatens to move back all the time. But I ain’t going, and she knows that. So, she stays in Stuart to be close to me. Having an only child made her a touch overprotective.” I didn’t add any more of my details about that. The truth was much darker.

“I’d think you would have dropped that thick accent of yours by now,” Amethyst said. “I would have never guessed you’d lived around here since you were in second grade. You sound like you’re fresh out of Mississippi.”

Nina scowled. “Didn’t I send you on your way?”

She pressed her plump lips into a pout, then strutted toward the door. I was completely envious of her legs. They were so long. Why had God decided that I was to be a stump? He did unfair things like that all the time. Made me question wasting all my words, praying to him. It sounded like a pointless ritual. He was gonna do what he wanted anyway. I doubted me begging him otherwise would change a dang thing.

“Oh! Speak of the devil,” Amethyst said in a singsong voice.

I glanced back at her to see Micah walking through the red door.

His eyes landed on mine, and he smirked. “Take that bread with you, Tink, and come with me. I got some questions I need answered before I call my sister.”

“Tink? Well, ain’t that sweeter ’n pie?” Amethyst told him with a fake Southern twang.

“Fuck off,” he replied, not glancing her way. “You’ve got a job. Go do it.”

“I was waiting on Dylan. Are you done with her?” Amethyst shot back at him.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

When he reached me, he leaned against the bar and gave Nina a sexy grin that had once stolen my breath. Perhaps it still did things to me now, but I would like to pretend it didn’t affect me at all. Not in the least.

“Can I have a slice of bread, beautiful?” he asked her.

Nina sighed and put her mug down on the counter, then picked up a knife. “Yes. But only if you promise to be on your best behavior with this one. I like her.”

He nodded. “You can trust that,” he assured her. “Pep would kill me otherwise.”

She handed him a slice of buttered deliciousness on a napkin. “You aren’t known for respecting things like that,” she told him.

“When it comes to my sister, I am,” he replied, taking the bread. “Thank you.”

She gave him a nod, then turned her attention back to me. “Take yours with you. And don’t be a stranger.”

I returned her smile and stood up, taking my uneaten slice. “Thank you.”

Micah nodded his head toward the red door. “Let’s take it to the library.”

Library? Who around here read, and what kind of books did they read?