You should get a good attorney out to talk to sweet Willa. Those Daley men are bastards—likely Willa doesn’t have any legal record of ever existing.
I texted her back once the dishes were drying on the dish rack.
Forrest
What does that mean?
Marlena
Shep Daley used to run with Arlo back in the day. Been trying to tell the sheriff for years they were doing something illegal out on that homestead, but no one would check it out. If they manage to get their hands on her, you want her to have an ID so we can get her back.
I stood at the kitchen counter and looked at the texts. Wondered what I should do…if I wanted to tell Willa—which would scare her—or if I wanted to handle it myself.
I chose to tell her.
She would want to know…and she deserved the truth, always.
I heard her turn the faucet on in the bathroom, and I went toward the sound, my phone in my hand. The door was open, and I could hear Willa talking to Nickel inside, filling my dog in on everything we’d been up to that morning in town. I smiled to myself, hating what she’d been through…hating that I was about to stir it all up again.
I knocked gently on the door. “You decent?” I asked.
“No,” Willa’s voice came. She laughed. “Come in.”
I pushed the door open to find her shimmying out of the sundress she’d worn to breakfast…her breasts bare underneath, only wearing a pair of blue underwear. She looked up at me with a sly smile, and I couldn’t help but just…take her in.
God, she was so fucking beautiful.
“Need to tell you something,” I said.
Her smile dropped. She crossed her arms over her breasts.
The bath was still running, Nickel sitting and watching us.
“You’re safe,” I said. “I promise. That’s not gonna change, no matter what.”
Willa’s jaw tensed and she nodded. “Okay.”
I considered how to ask her about this.
“Willa…have you got any kind of ID? Driver’s license? Birth certificate?”
She frowned. “Not that I’m aware of.”
"Okay." I kept my voice easy. "Do you know where you were born? Hospital, town, state?"
She thought about it. "Oklahoma. My papa always said we were born at home. All of us." She paused. "I don't think any of us ever went to a hospital."
"Do you know your last name? Your birth name, before Daley?"
"Pruitt," she said. "Willa Pruitt."
I nodded. Filed it away. "And your papa's full name?"
"Elias Pruitt." Something moved across her face. "Why?"
"Because if you were born at home in Oklahoma to parents who didn't register the birth, you might not have a birth certificate at all. Which means you don't have a social security number, can't get a driver's license, can't open a bank account, can't enroll in school." I said it flat, not letting it become a bigger thing than she could handle right now. "But it also means there's a paper trail we can start building. Marlena's already thinking about a lawyer."
Willa’s eyes widened. “A lawyer?”
