3. Diamond
DIAMOND
I pad barefoot around my porch, looking toward the sunset. It’s magical out here on my ranch, aptly named Rustic Grove.
This place once belonged to my grandparents. I moved back here when… when shit got rough.
I turned the main house into the clubhouse, and the outbuildings into accommodation for whoever needs it. My wing has two floors, and I keep my residence separate from the clubhouse. There are several bedrooms in the south and west wings downstairs because the dwelling is huge.
Sapphire and Ruby have separate cabins at the far side of Rustic Grove and I hope to add more.
I glance over toward the stables. I rode earlier, after we got out of jail, to help clear my mind. I don’t like the idea of wasting an entire morning, but at least I got to meet Nash Calloway, and now I know what to expect.
Clearly, he isn’t going to give us any leeway, but that’s never bothered me in the past. Maybe he’ll surprise us all and do some good in this town. I loved Benson, but he really didn’t have the balls for it anymore. We did all the work for him.
Timothy Lanzetti has been buying up land around here for the past year, which makes me suspicious. If they think they’re going to build an airport or some damn theme park, they’ve got another thing coming.
At the last town meeting, Lanzetti claimed he was using it for a new regenerative wind farm, not something I’m super impressed with, but in his Armani suit and fifty-thousand-dollar Rolex watch, I can’t see him out in the fields getting his hands dirty. I don’t buy it.
Nash, on the other hand?
I close my eyes for a second and try to get the vision of his pretty blue eyes out of my head.
It’s wrong, really, for a man who is so clearly alpha to have such a handsome face.
I can’t help but linger on thoughts of what he has under that damn uniform, too.
I love a solidly built man, I’m not gonna deny it.
If Nash wasn’t the sheriff, he’d be right up my alley in every single way.
I’m not the only one with a rap sheet. Okay, his are all fucking accolades: exemplary law enforcement awards and hero of the year type of shit.
But the question begs: Why did he move to this tiny town?
We don’t have a huge population or giant shopping malls, and most of us like it that way.
We make a good living without conglomerates and fancy hotels.
It’s a real small town where people look you in the eye, and everyone knows everyone.
But Nash Calloway? He’s under my skin, and I plan on finding out exactly what he’s doing here and why.
I don’t usually take my truck out unless I’m hauling feed for the animals.
I love riding my motorcycle. It’s a beautiful vintage Harley Davidson Softail Deluxe.
Black, silver, and aqua with horses running toward the club logo down the side.
It’s my baby. But today I’m running errands, and that may or may not have included a patrol of my own.
Fine. I stalked Nash Calloway’s place of residence.
It wasn’t hard to find out where he lives, and sue me, I’m intrigued to know whether there’s a Mrs. Calloway.
According to Sapphire, who heard it from Daphne Lovett, owner of the local grocery store, he’s single.
Rumors are just that until proven otherwise.
It’s not like Daphne to get these things wrong, but still. Let’s not jump to conclusions.
Slumped low in my seat, I’m shocked at what I see.
Nash hollers into the house and heads to his truck. A few seconds later, a little girl runs out, a backpack in her hands. She couldn’t be more than six or seven, and she’s the spitting image of him.
I don’t stare because I’ve never seen a single dad before, clearly taking his little girl to school. I stare because she reminds me of my own daughter, Annalise, when she was that age. My beautiful baby, who was taken from me.
A lump forms in my throat as I watch them. My eyes glaze over, and my mind switches to a very dark time…
“Don’t take her! I’m begging you, she’s all I have!” I cry helplessly.
But Neil doesn’t care about me. He just wants to hurt me. The lies he’s told. That I’m unfit to be a mother, that I take drugs, that my child would be better off without me. It ripped me in two, but this? Full custody?
“You should’ve thought about that, Diamond, before you tried to leave.”
Annalise reaches for me, crying, but it’s no use. Several people hold me back as I drop to my knees, screaming, “Please! She’s my daughter!”
“This won’t look good for you, D,” he sneers. “Look at you, groveling on the ground like a peasant. Take a long, hard look because you’ll never see her again.”
If I’d had a gun close by, I would’ve shot the motherfucker, but all I wanted was my baby. She’s the only thing I got right…
I wipe a tear from my cheek. Six years. That’s how long it took to get my daughter back.
My friend, Bane—the Prez of the Ridgehaven Hellions in Mississippi—helped me.
We go way back and had a brief fling, but we were always better off as friends.
I wasn’t going to leave my club—and he sure as shit wasn’t going to leave his—but I owe him a debt that he waves off every time I bring it up.
He saved me in a lot of ways. My daughter was a teenager by the time the custody arrangements were overturned.
Bane dug up everything on that son of a bitch, shit even I didn’t know about, and the courts turned her over to me.
We had a lot of making up to do. Annalise and I are good now, but the memories still sting.
They’ll haunt me until my dying day, but with therapy and the love of my daughter, I slowly forgave myself.
After that moment, I vowed to never, ever let anyone dictate what I could or couldn’t do.
I would never let a man have power over me.
Those are hurdles I’m still crossing. While I might love a dominant male in the bedroom, I struggle with men of authority.
Men like Neil, who was a lawyer. He abused that power with lies and friends in high places.
It’s why I’m so untrusting of people I don’t know.
You can count my real friends on one hand.
My club is all I have. My girls never let me down. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a man-hater. I have some amazing men in my life, my pops for one, who lives not far from here. But after Neil? Something died inside me. A part of my heart broke that I fear will never grow back.
I trusted him. I fucking loved him. And that got me nowhere.
Nash folds his hand into the little girl’s, takes her backpack from her, and helps her into the truck. She says something, and he laughs. I stare, my eyes almost bugging out of my head. His smile? It’s not forced or sarcastic like it was toward me. And why would it? I was horrible to him.
He says something back and then ruffles her hair, her curls bouncing before he buckles the seatbelt and then closes the door.
He stops for a second, his back stiffening, and I slide farther down in my seat, not wanting to be seen.
His head turns, scanning the area around him.
Surely Nash can’t be this fucking good. He has cop instincts, I get that.
Maybe I have underestimated him.
Maybe there’s more to Nash Calloway than meets the eye.