“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you had a case in Texas. Or an ex-boyfriend.”
Damara gets irrationally upset with me. “If I had an ex-boyfriend in Texas, how the hell would he find me in like… one of the biggest states. Use your brain, Magnum.”
“So it’s the cops, then.”
Damara’s voice gets higher. “When the hell did I say that? Please tell mewhenI said that.”
I can tell that she thinks getting loud with me will stop me from pushing her to be honest with me for once without mehaving to tie her ass up, but it won’t work. I’m not afraid of her loud mouth or even her hands coming at my face. She can try to beat my ass up all she wants.That won’t stop me from loving this pink-haired she-devil.
“Maybe you would accept that I loved you if you would tell me the fucking truth about something and give me a chance to prove to you that I’m not going to hurt you or abandon you.”
“You got me pregnant!” She yells.
“And that wasn’t my choice. But I’m doing everything in my power to look after you and take care of this fucking situation, so please Damara… be patient.”
“You could have slipped me an abortion pill instead of a pregnancy test,” she says, reaching out her hand to slap me, which I should have seen coming. I grab her hand and press it to my lips, which only pisses Damara off more.
“Stop it!”
“Stop what? Treating you like a human being, even if we both got thrown into this situation?”
“I don’t want to go to Texas.”
“If you have a warrant, you’d better tell me now because like it or not, sweet cheeks… we’re going to Texas.”
She glares even harder, if that were even possible. “If you call me sweet cheeks again, I’m going to bite on you like a rabid raccoon.”
“I’d like that,” I reply, grinning from ear to ear. “I’d get rock hard if you sank your teeth into me.”
“I hate you.” I want to act like it doesn’t hurt like a punch to the gut when she tells me that she hates me, especially since it rolls off her tongue. But it hurts. I want so much for Damara to feel something for me other than hatred, especially since she’s getting more and more pregnant withourchild.
“I already packed you a bag. Let’s find out who bound us together for life,” I respond to her sassy comment without rising to the obvious verbal challenge.
“This won’t change things between us,” she says. “A road trip to Texas won’t make me wake up and suddenly love you.”
I want to take that as a challenge. Maybe I should force the trip to take two to three days and ignore Deacon’s calls. Three days with just me and my tongue might make Damara crazy enough to agree to something even crazier than our first contract…
I maintain my outward stoicism.
“Great. Do you have anything else you need to tell me?” I ask her calmly. Damara spooks easily. I have to keep her nice and calm if I want her to be even a little bit compliant.
“Yes,” Damara says with a sigh. “I have warrants in Texas. Three. And no, I don’t want to talk about it.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Damara
Ishould have known Magnum would make a big deal over nothing. There’s no point in going over my past and reviewing all the sordid, fucked up details that entail Damara Simmon’s life. Magnum glares at me with determination to penetrate my walls and drag the secrets from my core. Is that what he thinks love is? Telling him all my damn secrets?
I haven’t told anybody about the charges in Texas. I expect Tamiya might know because of her nosy ass company, but she never asked any questions and as far as I know, that’s a good thing because it means she understands that some shit is better kept a secret. I did things that I wasn’t proud of to save my own ass and ultimately, I did what I had to do in order to free myself.
Those warrants in Texas could lead to a much bigger investigation than anything Magnum is prepared to handle. He can just take his baby and go at the end of the day. The so-called love he feels will evaporate once he knows the truth. I’ve always known that my past was far too heavy for me to ever move on from.
I never really tried starting over. I knew what I deserved was to spend life on the run, so that’s what I did. Dyed my hair pink, I went on the run and I never really settled down anywhere untilmy sister convinced me to come out and stay with her. I started the daycare, but never felt completely settled or comfortable in that life. Tamiya and her man can hardly consider themselves settled considering how much time they spend on motorcycles and they both like it that way.
But I’m older. Like Magnum. And this beast of a man makes me question everything I thought about my life and future. The baby doesn’t make it easier. That baby will probably look just like Magnum knowing my luck and I’llneverbe able to run from this part of my life. Without knowing what I’ve been through, Magnum can’t imagine how hard it is for me to believe he could really love me through this.
Maybe that’s why I’ve been brought to this point. To break the spell before we’re trapped together for this little road trip to Texas. Whoever has this information must be holding it over Magnum’s head or he would have gone rogue by now and we would be going… anywhere but Texas.
