Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
CORD
“Idon’t give a flying crap what the rules are,” Rory fumed. “I’m telling you how it’s gonna be, and how it’s gonna be is that boy in there is coming back to the ranch with me.”
In the past hour and a half, everything had gone into a tailspin.
On the way to the police station, Rory put in a call to her dad to tell him about the window.
She filled him in on everything that had occurred, and, proving themselves to be the kind of parents who’d raise such a spirited, loyal woman, Bill and Becky climbed into his truck and booked it down to the station to have their daughter’s back.
Sitting in a conference room, his belly full and his body exhausted, the boy had finally spilled everything.
His name was Zach Caruthers. He was twelve years old.
He’d been born in the system when his mom bailed from the hospital shortly after bringing him into this world.
He’d bounced around from home to home until he was settled a few years ago with a family who’d been decent enough.
However, when the wife turned up pregnant, they decided they didn’t have it in them to do the foster gig anymore and sent Zach back to a group home.
After that, he’d been placed with this last family.
He was one of six foster kids in that house, and to say the couple had no business being foster parents was putting it mildly.
They were the kind of people who took in kids for the monthly checks and free labor.
As sad as it was, those kinds of foster parents were a dime a dozen.
Lazy, worthless adults who’d rather sit on their ass and collect money from the government than get out and actually work a job.
The kids weren’t special to them. They didn’t do it out of the kindness of their hearts.
They were in it for the money, plain and simple.
Hayes and Trick had taken over when it became clear this was a much bigger problem than simple vandalism, questioning Zach calmly and carefully in the conference room while Rory and I looked on.
The more Zach spoke, the more Rory’s fury expanded until it finally stretched so wide that it filled the entire room.
I ultimately had to pull her out, sensing the emotions rolling off her were making Zach tense as hell.
That led us to now. Zach was currently passed out on the couch in the conference room, sleeping like the dead, while Bill, Becky, and I stood back, watching Rory lay into the child welfare officer in charge of Zach and her boss while Hayes and Trick tried their best to keep the situation from escalating.
“Miss Hightower, it doesn’t work that way.”
Rory turned her furious eyes to the man who was speaking on the welfare officer’s behalf in an attempt to defend his employee.
“Then make it work that way,” she bit out.
“You aren’t certified,” the welfare officer said snidely.
I’d known plenty of people like her during my time in the system as well.
This type of work took a special kind of person.
It was exhausting, most of the time heartbreaking, and no matter how many children you managed to save, there were still countless others in need of help. It was never ending.
I didn’t know if this woman had once had the fire to do the job, but if she did, it had burned out long ago.
And what was worse, she was one of those types who got defensive when her shoddy work came into question, rightfully so or not.
So when they arrived half an hour ago to this nightmare, instead of her heart going out to this poor, abused kid, she immediately jumped into saving her own ass.
Something that did not sit well with Rory.
Rory skewered her with a look vicious enough to send a shiver up my spine.
“I’m not talking to you,” she hissed. “It’s clear from what that child in there has been through that you are either incredibly incompetent or incredibly lazy.
I personally don’t care which it is, because I have no respect for either, so while I speak with your boss, I suggest you keep your mouth shut. ”
She didn’t shut her mouth. In fact, it fell open even wider in affront. “Why, I never—”
“Clearly, you’ve never done your job!” Rory shot back. “Because if you had, that boy wouldn’t be in there with bruises covering his face, and he wouldn’t have been rifling through dumpsters for food! Something no human being, let alone a child, should ever have to do!”
“Spirit,” Bill whispered from beside me, and I turned to see him looking on at his daughter, arms crossed over his chest and pride making his eyes spark.
He wasn’t wrong about that.
The longer I watched her, the tighter my chest grew until it became hard to breathe.
Her initial declaration that she was taking Zach home with her rocked me so goddamn hard, if I hadn’t been leaning against the railing of the bullpen in the middle of the police station, I would’ve gone down on my ass.
I hadn’t been expecting that. I knew all too well how these things went down.
Zach’s claims would be investigated, sure, but he’d be forced into a group home where he’d either stay for good or until he could be placed with another family.
That was just how these things worked. So hearing Rory’s passionate decree that this time would be different moved something in me I hadn’t even known existed.
And the longer she raged on the kid’s behalf, the harder it became to keep from rushing to her and slamming my mouth down on hers.
I’d known for years that I cared about her, that I wanted her, that she was special to me.
But tonight, everything had changed. The moment I came walking back into the Tap Room only to have her lay into me, the fear stark in her eyes at the thought that something could happen to me, I felt that monumental shift.
And watching her now, so passionate and wild, taking the back of a young boy she didn’t even know, I finally realized the whole truth.
I was falling for her. A lightning-speed plummet that would take me to the ground in a bone-jarring crash I wasn’t sure I’d survive.
She was beautiful and strong and fierce. She was kind and loyal. She was the sexiest woman I’d ever laid eyes on always, but when she got like this, that ramped up to unimaginable levels.
“Miss Hightower,” the welfare officer’s boss tried, “if we could all just keep calm and—”
“Calm ended the moment Zach informed us he received those bruises because he forgot to take clothes out of a dryer,” she fired back.
“Calm flew out the window when he told us how those sorry excuses for human beings put locks on their cabinets and fridge in order to starve him as punishment!” She whipped her furious gaze back to the welfare officer.
“Did you manage to add that to your report during your visits?”
“I was never witness to such things during my visits,” the woman said, lifting her chin haughtily. “Everything has always been above board. The Caswells are a decent family with no complaints on record.”
“Based on the statement he made in there, I’d be willin’ to bet if we paid a visit to this decent family—which we’ll be doing as soon as the sun comes up—it wouldn’t take but a few minutes to discover everything is not above board,” Trick cut in, his tone dripping with condemnation for the woman.
“When was the last time you actually went to the Caswells’? ”
She blustered for several seconds, her cheeks growing red before she said, “Zachary is well known to be a problem child. I’ve had difficulty placing him for years due to his poor attitude.”
“He’s a twelve-year-old boy!” Rory cried. “They don’t have any other kind of attitude but poor. That’s just their nature. That doesn’t give two grown people who should know better the right to do what they did. And the fact that you would jump to that as an excuse is downright disgusting.”
“We didn’t ask about his attitude.” Hayes’s tone was harsh. “We asked when your last home visit was.”
“I believe there was one scheduled at the beginning of this month,” the woman’s boss declared. “Isn’t that correct, Miriam?”
“That was just two weeks ago. That child’s been rifling through trash for at least that long lookin’ for food,” Hayes said on a low growl. “So tell me, how is it you missed that in your last visit?”
“I-I didn’t… it was… I have an extremely full caseload!” she cried defensively. “It’s impossible to see all the families I’m in charge of on a regular schedule!”
“Miriam,” her boss seethed through clenched teeth, his anger now at the same level as all of us witnessing this event. “I suggest you stop talking. Now. And after this is done, you and I will be having an altogether different conversation.”
No doubt about it, Miriam was fucked.
“I don’t care what it takes,” Rory broke in. “I’ll take classes, I’ll do training, home visits, whatever it takes to get certified as a foster parent. But Zach is coming home with me. Tonight.”
“Miss Hightower, I’m sorry, but it’s just not that simple.”
She stepped up to the man, going toe to toe with him.
“For two years, that boy and five other children have been living with two people who aren’t fit to raise a hamster.
Your office certified them, sir, and your employee dropped the ball on making sure these people were above board.
And now I have no doubt whatsoever that when the police look in on them in a few hours, not only will those remaining children be stripped from that home, but charges will also be brought for child abuse!
And again, this is because of the incompetence of your office and your employee.
My family is well known in this area. Our bar has been a staple of this community for so long that judges, lawyers, and politicians have passed through our doors countless times, each and every one of them stopping in so frequently that I’ve known them since I was a little girl.
The Hightower name is so respected in these parts that one phone call from my father, mother, or myself would be answered immediately, and action would be taken swiftly. ”
Fuck me, she was magnificent.
Bill’s chuckle pulled my attention from his daughter to find him and his wife both smiling.
“Now, sir, I understand there are rules in place. I’m not telling you to break them. I am explaining to you that they need to be fast-tracked, as in you take yourself back to your offices as soon as this is done and make it happen.”
“Ma’am. It’s rare for a single woman such as yourself to—”
“You’ve managed to let two abusive pieces of waste slip through the cracks for years.
I’m sure you can make concessions for a single woman with a sterling reputation.
I’ve already stated that I will do whatever I have to in order to become certified to foster that boy in there.
But while that’s happening, he’ll be coming home.
With. Me.” She flung her arm out and pointed toward the conference room, and that was when I noticed Zach was no longer asleep.
He was wide awake, standing in the opened doorway, watching the whole scene unfold.
Uncrossing my arms and pushing off the railing that surrounded the bullpen and separated it from the walkway two steps up, I moved in Rory’s direction. “Dollface—” I said quietly, hoping to catch her attention, but she was too far gone.
“He’s been through more than any man, woman, or child should ever have to go through, and I’ll be damned if he’s placed with those people or in some group home.”
I tried again as I closed the distance between us. “Rory, darlin’—”
“You send me a list of the classes I have to take and the training I have to attend, and I’ll do it, starting immediately.”
I placed my hand on the small of her back. “Ror—”
“You want to assign a welfare officer to me for home visits to make sure I’m qualified? Go for it. I’ll pass with flying colors. But I’m telling you right now, it will not”—she flung her arm toward Miriam—“be her.”
Wrapping my arm around her waist, I gave her a squeeze and leaned down to speak into her ear. “Rein it in, baby. We got company.”
At that, she stopped, and every eye in our huddle shot around to where Zach was standing.
The fire in her eyes dimmed as she disengaged from my hold and moved to the railing, placing her hand on it and looking up to him while she asked gently, “Hey, sweetie. You good?”
Zach’s hard gaze bounced all around, taking each and every one of us in, but I could see the wide range of emotion swimming in their depths that he was trying desperately to hide.
He’d heard every word Rory said. But this kid had been so mistreated and mishandled that he didn’t have the first fucking clue how he was supposed to feel, and he couldn’t see that this was the very moment his luck had changed for the better.
“So what’s gonna happen now?” he asked, forcing his tone to be apathetic.
Hayes, Trick, Becky, and Bill all pinned the man from Child Welfare Services with a hard look. Letting out a sigh, he reached around and massaged the back of his neck before answering. “Well, young man, it looks like you’ll be moving in with Miss Hightower here.”
I walked over to Rory and wrapped my arm around her waist, pulling her against my side as she asked Zach, “Is that okay with you?”
He studied the both of us closely, his assessing gaze bouncing down to my hold on her before returning to my face. Then he shrugged and muttered, “Whatever. I’m goin’ back to sleep. Wake me up when this is done.”
Then he turned and moved back toward the conference room like this whole thing was a waste of his time, but not before I caught the way his shoulders sagged in relief and the small grin tugging at his lips.
I knew Rory saw them too, because she let out her own sigh of relief and gave me the rest of her weight. And when I looked down at her gorgeous face, she was smiling at where Zach had been standing like she’d just won the lottery.
Fucking magnificent.