Chapter 2
Two
Why are threesomes only for sex? I want to join into a couple’s argument.
—Constance’s secret thoughts
Constance
“Con Con!”
I looked at my daughter, who actually had some life to her now that we’d moved to Montana and found this mysterious blood donor.
“Why are you calling me that instead of mommy?” I asked her.
She smiled. “Sandy at school calls her mom by her first name.”
“Well, that’s Sandy. Not you,” I pointed out. “Have a good day at school today, okay? Remember, Grandma is going to pick you up.”
Wendy nodded. “Are you sure you have to go?”
I wished I didn’t.
I’d tried to get out of it. I mean, I had a child that still required a hell of a lot of work, whether she was doing better or not. I shouldn’t have to be relying on my parents.
Yet, the woman that I’d called about the federal jury duty hadn’t cared. She’d pretty much pointed out that as long as I wasn’t in imminent danger of giving birth or had a child under one that was still exclusively breastfed, they generally didn’t care about my excuse.
Being the type of person that I was—amenable and straight-laced—I’d decided that it was better not to argue.
“You should’ve just pretended that you never got it,” my dad, who was very anti-government, said. “They can’t prove that you got it. Not without sending it certified mail. And even then, you have to sign for it. You could just not sign for it.”
I sighed. “It’ll be okay. You act like you don’t adore watching Wendy.”
Dad’s eyes looked at my girl. “I mean, she kind of stinks now that she’s started PE again.”
“Grandpa!” Wendy cried out in outrage. “That’s not nice!”
Dad’s eyes twinkled.
Mine did, too.
Mostly because we were both freakin’ ecstatic that she was even able to participate in physical education.
“I’m heading out.” I dropped a kiss onto Wendy’s head, which was, sadly, only a foot under my five-foot-one-inch height.
She was big for her age.
She got that from her father, who’d been really tall. About six-foot-seven.
The size difference between her father and me had been the butt of many jokes, but we’d adored each other.
We’d been best friends since childhood. We were raised together. Went to college together. And we’d lived in the same town since we’d become best friends.
We weren’t in love with each other, though.
After one night of drunken sex, we’d found out that we were expecting.
Mackey and I both had been pretty upbeat about it, and the pregnancy had gone great.
That is until Mackey’s best friend, Errol, had found out that I’d slept with Mackey.
He’d thrown a fucking fit because he’d thought that he was going to be the one to win me. And when his best friend had stolen what he thought was his, he’d beat the absolute shit out of him.
Mackey hadn’t expected it. Hadn’t fought back. Not at first, anyway.
Errol had taken him so much by surprise that he’d dealt a blow to Mackey’s head that had caused a traumatic brain injury that had permanently disabled him.
Mackey never got to meet his baby like he should have.
Even worse, he would spend the rest of his life only able to do the most basic of things.
Wendy knew who her dad was.
Knew that her daddy had an accident before she was born.
However, Mackey would never be anything more than just a person she knew.
Mackey’s parents, upon hearing about the attack, had decided to move him to Nepal where they now lived.
It was very, very rare that we would get to see him now.
And, even worse, he didn’t have the same cognitive ability to understand.
He was like a child and could only do the most basic activities of daily living.
He knew who I was, could respond with a smile. But he couldn’t talk well. Couldn’t walk much at all. Had to have help eating, showering, and taking care of his every basic need.
I missed the hell out of my friend.
And I hated Errol fucking Fuller with the power of a thousand suns.
Even worse, he never saw jail time for what he’d done.
The judge had ruled it an accident.
But I knew better.
Errol was a jealous asshole who thought he could have something I wasn’t willing to give.
And his stupid fucking club had protected him.
“Love you, Mother.”
I tugged lightly on Wendy’s braid and headed out, waving to my mom in the falcon cage as I left.
She waved back, her new favorite love Tots on her gloved arm, and went back to what she was doing.
I slid into my SUV, a new Ford Expedition that had ‘excellent snow and ice capabilities’ according to the salesman.
The drive to Bozeman from Bear Pass was pleasant.
And pretty.
So. Dang. Pretty.
I’d never visited Montana before, though I’d always wanted to.
Alabama had been my home since I was a child, and I’d never thought that I would leave it.
I was wrong, though.
I realized that I’d do just about anything to protect my daughter.
That included moving thousands of miles away to a mountain town that made me slightly nauseous nearly all of the time.
I’d do anything for my girl. Murder. Nausea. Snot.
Nothing was off the table when it came to her.
The drive to Bozeman took about two hours, mostly because I had to drive over several mountain passes to get there.
When I arrived at the courthouse, I had to pay to park—fuckin’ awesome—and headed inside.
Seeing as I had zero idea where to go, I kind of followed a line of people to some more official looking people and listened to make sure I was in the right place.
I was.
“Take a seat, everyone,” someone from the front called.
We all took our seats in the courtroom, and I found myself sitting next to a very muscular Viking-like man who had a scowl on his face.
“Don’t want to be here, either?” I muttered.
He looked down at me with a bored expression and shook his head.
My lips twitched as he immediately turned away.
Not a talker.
Too bad.
I was.
Which sucked for him because it looked like we were going to be here a while.
“So, it’s going to go like this!” the judge called out. “We’re going to ask you questions. You’re going to answer honestly. We’ll see if you’re a match for this jury.”
Then, the questions began.
And I quickly found out that I was definitely not unbiased.
“Fuckin’ awesome,” I grumbled under my breath. “AI data centers are the worst.”
My seat neighbor looked over at me. “Why?”
“I mean, other than they’re large, take up a lot of natural habitat for animals and are invasive?”
He shrugged.
“AI uses up about a bottle of water each time you ask it five to ten prompts or questions,” I said.
“They’re destroying aquiphers literally everywhere.
They’re also taking up massive amounts of power to keep these places running.
And some of the people surrounding these data centers are seeing major increases in power consumption.
Also, they’re freakin’ loud. They disrupt your circadian rhythm like crazy, making it impossible for some people to even sleep.
And don’t even get me started on the electronic waste. ”
The man’s eyes took me in for long seconds after that long diatribe as he said, “Maybe you should pretend like you’re not so passionate about it, get selected, then stick it to them.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it.
“I’m not necessarily ‘passionate’ about it,” I started.
He snorted.
Okay, so maybe I was passionate.
Being a wildlife photographer, as well as having worked in a wildlife rehab facility since I could walk thanks to my parents’ dedication, I was what you could consider an environmentalist.
I didn’t like seeing the depletion of resources in already drought-prone areas.
Nor did I like to see animals displaced. Land destroyed. Oh, and waste.
“Maybe I won’t be as passionate…” I admitted.
His eyes crinkled at the side, but he didn’t comment.
“Who in here knows what an AI data center is?” the lawyer asked.
Everyone and their brother raised their hand.
“Who here has used AI?”
Almost everyone raised their hand.
There were a few stragglers throughout, but it made me sick to see how many people had jumped onto the AI bandwagon.
Not that it was necessarily a bad thing to use it, I guess, but I just wished more people knew about the impact to not only the environment, but also people.
Photographers like me were struggling so dang hard right now trying to compete with fake AI photos.
That didn’t include AI taking over jobs completely.
The man beside me didn’t raise his hand, which made me want to clap him on the back.
I knew that he wouldn’t appreciate me touching him, though.
He looked unapproachable and scary.
Everything that I was not.
I was a bubbly, always happy redhead with blue eyes, freckles, and I was five-foot-one—if you stretched the tape measure.
People gravitated toward me because I was always smiling and approachable.
The man next to me and I were polar opposites.
The questions continued.
And as they did, the people in the room thinned down.
There were about twenty people left when a question was lobbed my way that cemented my participation in the trial.
“Do you know who Data Data Delta is?”
I shrugged. “Never heard of them.”
“What about DDD?”
I shook my head again. “Nope.”
The lawyer moved on to my seat neighbor, asking him questions.
My seat neighbor gave him stilted, one-word answers.
When he finished speaking, he’d cough a little bit, letting me know that he was likely recovering from a cold.
I didn’t freak out, though.
Wendy had gotten me sick twice since we’d arrived. I was probably immune to everything at this point.
Two more people were told they could leave over the next thirty minutes, leaving us with eighteen.
“We’re going to break for lunch,” the judge said. “You have your food vouchers?”
“Yeah, because eight dollars is really going to compensate me for a meal out,” I grumbled as I stood up and wrapped my jacket around myself.
As I did, the sleeve of my jacket whacked the man in the face.
When I turned to apologize, he was looking at me like I was nuts.
I was sure I wasn’t looking at him with a good expression either.
The man was tall. Not hugely bulky or anything, but really damn fit.
And he was wearing a pair of jeans that looked like they stretched really well seeing as his thighs were thick. His ass was even better.
But the icing on the cake was the way his t-shirt rode up and exposed part of his stomach.
Smooth, tanned skin covered a gorgeous single ab.
I’d bet my left tit he had an eight-pack.
He tugged his t-shirt into place and then snatched something black off the chair beside him.
I didn’t notice what it was until we got into the hallway and he threw it on over his shoulders.
My stomach sank as I saw the black cut on his shoulders.
He was a member of the Dixie Wardens MC Montana Chapter.
I froze, letting him get a little farther ahead of me.
What were the odds that I’ve move to an area that another one of their chapters was located?
Maybe he was from Bozeman, and nowhere near me.
And when we were brought back into the courtroom an hour later, I made sure to sit as far away from him as I could get.
As a precaution, I stayed well away from him for the rest of the day.
After what happened with Errol, I didn’t want another Dixie Warden in my life.
Not for a few weeks if I was selected for jury duty. Not even for a few hours to see if I was selected.
Nope. No. Nuh-uh.