Especially after these last six months.
Chapter 3
Brock climbed up into the cab of the truck. Slamming the door behind him, he sat gripping the steering wheel and breathing in an effort to dispel the tidal wave of anger crashing through him.
What.
The.
Hell.
It was the thought that rolled through him on each seething inhale and exhale. He’d never seen a more clear-cut case of cheating another person in all his damn life. The amount of stuff in the back of this thing could have been loaded into a tow-behind. And that bit about this being cheaper than a rental car?
He gripped the steering wheel until it hurt.
On the one hand, no wonder the driver was angry. On the other, that hardly excused what he did. The need to get back into the house and take another look at the itinerary and contract that were drying on his counter was overwhelming. He wanted to look at what this move had cost her, and more than anything he wanted to call the person she’d booked this train wreck withand read them one hell of a riot act. They were going to have to do a lot of hard talking if they wanted to dissuade him from proceeding with legal options.
Like he had a right.
Like they’d done this to him, or his dad. Or even his kid sister, although she had her own husband to watch out for company predators looking to make an extra buck by conning women into paying more.
Because that’s what this was. In his mind, he could see exactly what went through the moving company’s representative when little Miss Stace Malone walked into their office, a young mother with a baby on her hip, and no idea that she was about to be robbed. They’d taken one look at her, and with every naive word that came out of her mouth, every uncertain question she’d known to ask, and all the important ones she hadn’t, she’d been their mark from that point on.
They should be sued.
It wasn’t his problem.
She wasn’t his problem.
It still pissed him off.
He started the truck up, and then noticing the sheriff standing at his window, hands on hips, looking up at him, he rolled it down. “Go on, sheriff. You’ve got your job to do. I’ll back this beast up into her driveway and help her unload.”
“Two makes the work go faster,” the sheriff offered.
“Pretty sure there’s water works going on in the privacy of her new home.”
“After what she’s just been through?” Thompson snorted. “I’d not blame her.”
“Nor do I. But nobody wants witnesses when they hit that low.”
Shaking his head at the ground, the sheriff toed at the mud. “You’re going to roll this truck clean out of its tires and be up to your axles in the mud in five minutes flat. You’ll ruin the rims.”
“Like I care what happens to this truck,” Brock growled. “I just want to get it off the road so it’s not blocking us from getting to town. I’ll call the company when I’m through and tell them they’ve got 24 hours before I have it towed.”
“You sure you don’t need me?”
“Everybody needs you, Sheriff,” Brock said, offering a crocked smile he didn’t feel, just to lighten the mood. “It won’t take me five minutes to unload the back of this thing. Fifteen if I put the crib together for her. I’d rather you book that son of a bitch, so she has at least one thing less to worry about tonight.”
The sheriff nodded. “That I can do.” He patted the door twice with his hand by way of goodbye and headed back to his squad car.
Watching in the driver’s window, he saw the trucker in the back bombarding the sheriff with either questions or demands from the moment he opened the door and got in. By the look of him, concern for his truck seemed to have dispelled some of his anger. It made Brock think of the moving company’s contract in his kitchen again. If he got paid by the size of the load rather than the mile, that might explain some of his anger, but as far as he was concerned, nothing excused his actions. He’d attacked Stace with her baby in her arms. He’d knocked them both to the ground. He’d shaken her, drenched her in ice-cold mud and water, and there was no doubt in Brock’s mind that he would have hit her if he hadn’t pulled the man off her.
He hadn’t even cared that he was doing in public, right in front of his and Pops’ home, with them watching from the window.
It was a good thing he’d gotten out here as fast as he did. It might have been showing off to bring his gun, but he didn’t regret grabbing it on the way out the door. Shooting out the tireswas overkill, but it stopped the driver from leaving with all her stuff. What little stuff she had.
He ached to know her story.
