Chapter 18
SHEP
The front door opened, then closed.
“Colt, we didn’t expect you,” Ma said from the other room. “Oh, hello. You’ve brought a friend.”
I was at the big kitchen table beside Pops.
Molly, Trig, Ellie, Lainey, and Beau were with us and we were playing a game of cards.
We were betting with mini pretzels and Molly was currently at least twenty ahead of anyone else.
Lainey had eaten some of hers so her pile was shrinking faster than she could lose.
Buck was sprawled on the couch with a book, but he’d fallen asleep reading it.
A fire was crackling in the fireplace and it was making me sleepy, too.
The big dinner Ma and Lainey had put together of crockpot chili with all the fixings, corn bread, and spiced corn didn’t help.
Trig and I had done the dishes and tidied the kitchen, but Ma was back in there getting a plate of cookies for us to share.
I might not be able to eat any more chili, but I sure as hell had room for one, or four, of her snickerdoodles.
At Ma’s words, we looked up from our cards.
Colt came into the room, Stetson in hand. We expected him to come late when he finished his shift at the station, but he wasn’t alone.
I popped to my feet, my chair skidding back.
“Frankie?” I said, not expecting her. Especially not with Colt.
“Frankie?” Pop repeated, eyes widening. “The kid Hank recommended?” He laughed. “Welcome, honey. I admit, your name tricked me into thinking you were a man.”
Colt didn’t look all that happy as he went to hang his hat on a peg by the back door. Snow was quickly melting on his shoulders.
Frankie definitely didn’t look happy. In fact, her eyes were red rimmed as if she’d been crying.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, going over to her. She had on sweatpants, a heavy coat and a hat that were also dusted with snow. If she was hurt, I couldn’t tell.
Molly went to Colt. Waddled, actually. He pulled her into a side hug and leaned down to kiss her.
“You’re Frankie?” Ma asked, eyes alight with her usual humor and offering Frankie a warm smile. Ma wore jeans, a red sweater, and thick fleece socks with ducks on them.
With nine kids, there was always a steady stream of friends over to hang out, so having a surprise guest was nothing new. Having Frankie, who was supposed to be a guy, was.
Frankie nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, her voice no more than a whisper.
“What’s going on?” I asked again.
“I found her in your shop,” Colt said.
My eyes widened, then narrowed. Shit. I’d given her the code to the door thinking I could trust her, but now? Was she like Marv? It’d only been… eight hours?
“Were you stealing from me?”
Her eyes widened at my snarl and she shook her head. She tugged off the hat, her long hair down, but a mess. “No, I–”
“I took a chance on you,” I snapped, pointed at her. “After the last guy, I told Pops no, but I figured everyone deserves a shot.”
“Shep,” Colt said.
“I–” Frankie sputtered.
“Well?” I asked, ignoring both of them. All I could think of was Marv and his five finger discount. “Wasn’t the three thousand enough?”
“Please don’t fire me,” she said, her voice soft. At her sides, her hands shook.
“I don’t know about the three thousand, but she was sleeping there, Shep,” Colt said.
My gaze whipped to his. What the fuck? Sleeping at the shop?
“Sleeping there?” Ma said, sounding appalled.
Colt nodded. “Her car was in the bay. She defended herself with her toothpaste.”
I couldn’t miss the way Frankie’s cheeks flushed. Like she felt truly shamed.
Everyone started talking at once all around us. I stared at Frankie, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. She had her head down, eyes on her boots. A tear dropped to the wood floor.
What the actual fuck?
Ma went up to her, wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tipped her head down so she spoke softly. “Honey, you don’t have a place to live?”
I knew that voice, the one she saved for when she was taking care of someone who was sick or hurt.
Frankie shook her head.
She didn’t have a place to live. She didn’t… she was homeless?
“Well, you’re staying here now for as long as you need,” Ma said immediately.
My anger seeped out of me like a punctured tire. I ran my hand down my face. I’d just yelled at her and accused her of stealing. Of having no integrity. Of being just like Marv. “Fuck.”
She didn’t have a place to live in this shitty weather? Her only option had been the shop? The muffin. Fuck, had the muffin been all she really had to eat? Had she had dinner?
“Have you eaten?” Ma asked, reading my mind.
She nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I had my leftovers from lunch.”
Leftovers. Fucking leftovers. There was nothing wrong with them and their point was to actually eat them for a different meal.
But she’d stopped short on her lunch at the diner with me to save some of it for dinner?
I remembered her order of soup first. She’d ordered the cheapest thing on the menu because she couldn’t afford more.
Then what would she have eaten for dinner?
“I’ll fix her a plate,” Molly offered, stepping out of Colt’s hold and heading to the fridge.
Ma steered her toward the kitchen island without looking my way.
I met Colt’s eyes over her head. He tipped his chin in their direction.
Shit. Shit. I was standing here like a fucking log. I’d been complaining about how hot the fireplace was with a full stomach while my girl had used my shop as shelter?
Yeah, I was a dick.
Colt stepped close as I turned to stare at Frankie, now settled on one of the stools, watched as Ma clucked over her like she was one of her newly adopted baby chicks.
Like I had been.
“I saw the light on in the back when I drove by,” Colt murmured so only I could hear. “Figured you left it on by mistake at first, then I saw someone moving around. Went in and checked it out.”
Pops and the others had ditched the card game and Buck had stirred from his food coma, but settled at the table like spectators at a gladiator arena, probably waiting for Ma to rip me a new one for neglecting my girl in such an appalling way.
Not that she even knew she was my girl. Still, she was my employee and there was no way I wouldn’t give someone who worked for me, hell, anyone, shelter.
“Said her brother bolted on her a few weeks ago. Took the money that was supposed to go to rent.”
She said they were estranged. Meaning the fucker robbed her and left her high and dry?
“Landlord kicked her out on Sunday.”
I turned to face him. This story was getting worse by the second. “Sunday?” I hissed. The day after we met. The day after I took her virginity. “I only gave her the door code today. She couldn’t have stayed in the shop before.”
He shook his head. “She didn’t. She works at one of the hotels out by the highway. Stayed in a vacant room.”
I looked at him, appalled. “She has a second job?”
How the hell was she homeless when I gave her three grand on Sunday night?
Molly grabbed the loaded plate from the microwave and set it in front of Frankie. Ma pulled a napkin from the holder in the center of the island and set it beside a glass she’d just filled with water. Watched Frankie tuck into the food like she was a small child and needed supervision.
She didn’t have a place to live, worked two jobs now and sold her virginity.
Holy fucking hell.
“She told me not to arrest her,” Colt added.
I spun back to face Colt. “Arrest her?”
He looked to me, his mouth in a straight grim line.
That was it. It. Line crossed.
I’d kept my hands to myself when she was just a woman working for me. I’d woo her or get to know her or whatever Colt suggested. Now?
The timeline had shifted. Everything changed.
I stalked around the island and squatted down beside Frankie. She put down her fork and turned to eye me warily. She was just a little taller than me with her perch on the stool.
“Cherry, why didn’t you tell me?” I murmured.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Molly duck out of the kitchen as inconspicuously as a woman who’d swallowed a basketball could. Ma, thankfully, got up and went with her. We were alone in the kitchen, but with the dining area making the space one huge room, we had a slew of chaperones.
“I’m sorry, Shep. I didn’t know where else to go. I’d never steal from you. But I’m not your problem,” she whispered.
I blinked, wide eyed. “Not my–”
“You’re my boss. Nothing more. Employee lunch, remember? Not a date.”
Nothing more? Fuck that.
I popped to my feet, yelled. “Ma, she’s not staying here.”
“Please don’t fire me!” Frankie said, her voice frantic as she took my hand in a tight grip.
I squeezed in reply. “Fire you? I’m taking you home with me.”
Her eyes widened, even more freaked out than before. “What? Why?”
“Because you’re mine, Frankie Waller, and it’s finally time I took care of what’s mine.”