“Find a way to make it happen. I’d hate to get your father involved. We both know what happens when you get out of hand.”
My stomach clenches. I’ve tried to block that out of my mind over the years. I was twenty-four and fresh out of college when I went on a date to the local football game. Kent Darby was a math teacher who asked me out and I agreed. I had met him a few times at school functions and football games; however, I didn’t know that he was married. If I had, I never would have agreed. We went out and after dinner, he took me to the local marina and parked. We started talking and it was a fun evening until he started touching me and pushing me to do more with him.
I was inexperienced because of my father, so I had pretty much steered away from men. That night was freeing; I liked it. It got intense; he ripped my shirt. I don’t think he meant to do it; I wasn’t exactly fighting him off, I was curious. But, my door was ripped open and my father drug me out. My breasts were hanging out because my shirt had lace at the top and I didn’t wear a bra. When he saw me like that, he lost it. And when I say he lost it, I mean he went bonkers. He threw me to the ground and had two deacons from his church hold onto me. Then he went after Kent.
This is where Kent explained to my father that he was married, and I had seduced him. Lured him away by using sex. He was weak. The words blurred after that, as well as their faces because I was crying. What woman wouldn’t cry when she’s being discussed like she is to blame for the fall of the human race. After ten minutes of discussing how women were to blame for the fall of man, Kent left. That’s when my father began beating me. I passed out during the beating and woke up in my father’s church. The water in the baptistery had been drained. I was in a chair in the middle of it, tied up, surrounded by my father and three of his most trusted deacons. I was anointed with oil and struck repeatedly by a belt they had blessed. The goal, ultimately, was to show the demon inside of me that they would not allow him to stay. They kept me tied up for three days. My clothes were ripped from my body and I was roughly washed by them to purify me. I honestly thought I might die. Then Sheriff Richardson found me, somehow. He showed up and convinced my father and his crazy henchmen to free me. With the stipulation they let me go to Kentucky, where my Uncle Carl lived, or he would arrest them and continue investigating.
The deal made me mad. I kind of hated the sheriff, even if he had saved me. He could have done more, but when it was all said and done, I was just glad to get away.
“Do you hear me, girl? You ignore me and I will make sure your daddy…”
“I hear you. When?” I ask, once his voice pulls me out of my thoughts.
“Tonight. Seven o’clock. I happen to know for a fact that man you live with has been staying out late at night. So you don’t have an excuse. Meet me at the old Crossroads Church out on HWY 25. Get here and be alone, or else.”
He hangs up with that dire warning.
“What’s up, Peaches?” Latch asks me as I hang up the phone. I’m sure something in my face alerts him to what I’m feeling.
“It’s nothing,” I lie, trying to shake it off. I turn to go back into the laundry room, a thousand different thoughts swarming in my brain.
I make it back there and my body starts shaking as realization fully sinks in. I forgot, from the time I’ve been in Kentucky, just how much I am afraid to be back around my father. Even when I thought about going back home, I never meant it. I never wanted that. My past has left me feeling so insecure and unworthy, and it took Sabre to show me that I am not only normal, but I am exactly what he wants. I’m who I need to be. I don’t know what I believe about the next world, but I do believe that Sabre and I are meant to be together—that we are made for each other. I don’t care if that does make me sound like a Pollyanna.
I stiffen when I feel arms come around me. For a split second, I think Sabre has come home, but it’s Latch.
“What’s wrong, Peaches? Talk to me, honey.”
“That was my uncle. He wants to meet with me.”
“Absolutely not. Sabre told me about your family. He’d shit a brick if he knew you even talked to one of the motherfuckers.”
Even in my fear, I laugh at Latch’s reply. “I need to meet with him, if I don’t, he won’t stop. It’d be best to attack this head on and try to avert disaster. If my father comes here, Sabre will kill him.”
“Then the sorry bastard needs to be killed.”
“Latch, I need to…”
“I’ll call Sabre.”
He doesn’t give me a chance to reply before he has his phone out. This won’t go well.
“Damn it!” Latch says, hanging up the phone.
“What’s wrong?”
“Shaft says Sabre and the other members are at the old packing plant in a meeting; there’s zero cell service out that way.”
“It’s okay, we can all talk tonight,” I lie. I’m not going to tell him. I’m going to find a way to deal with this before my family takes my happiness from me. I can’t let that happen. I do not want my father anywhere near the state of Kentucky.
*