Authors: Dani Wyatt
Wrangler (38 page)
“Hey.” Louis senses my rising ire, and he knows that will not work in my favor in front of the judge. “
Breathe
. I have a good feeling, okay? We’ve got all your bills, school records, recommendations — all the proof you’ve been knocking it out of the park on your own. You are the most organized almost-eighteen-year-old I’ve ever met.” He laughs, but I can still hear that halt of doubt in his voice.
I’m making a sound like a pressure relief valve on a steam engine when Louis lands a solid hand on my shoulder. My neck is twitching like a motherfucker.
After almost a year of taking care of myself under the watchful eye of my current social worker, I get a notice that Child Protective Services wants to place me in yet another foster home.
Fuck that.
I worked my ass off getting them to agree to let me live on my own even though I had just turned seventeen at the time. They said it was a probationary arrangement, but I hit all my high notes for a year. I worked, paid my bills, kept my grades in the four-dot-oh range and then this?
So, after I got the letter, I wrangled Louis and my social worker and petitioned the court to release me permanently from the nurturing care of CPS. I’m just a bump shy of my eighteenth, so fucking come on already.
Louis gives my shoulder a squeeze, he can feel my tension. He’s one of the only people I let touch me. I’m not a fan of people in my personal space.
“I’ve got another case coming before Judge Carmichael today. She should be here by now.” He scans the nearly empty courtroom and looks at his watch. “Just wait here, and I’ll be back.”
Louis turns away as I settle into the rearmost row of benches tossing my backpack next to me.
He stops a few steps away. “You bring your notebook?” He sets his eyes on me, raising his eyebrows.
It’s a rhetorical question; he knows I have it. I always have it.
“I want you to start right now. You’ll want to have something about today. I’ve got a feeling things will go your way.”
Over the years, I’ve discovered that sketching and drawing relieves my stress. Whenever I have a court date, I’m sketching faces, writing down thoughts, snippets of things I hear. It’s become a part of me.
Louis is out the door. There are two other people inside with me, huddled together in the kind of hushed whispers you find in the cool darkness of a court of law.
The room feels like a bulkhead, and no one leaves quite the same way they came in.
I unzip the top of my back pack and pull out my files and sketchbook. I flip it open to a blank page and shift forward on the bench to dig for the pencil in my back pocket. I set pencil to paper. I love the sound of the surfaces meeting, and then making something new from the friction. I start writing.
Let this be the last fucking time.
I can’t go back.
I won’t go back.
The soft squeak of the hinges on the massive door draws my eye.
The very instant I lay eyes on her, my pencil comes to life.
Louis is guiding a young man a little younger than me inside the courtroom and gets him settled in a bench toward the front.
Right behind him, I see another little girl accompanied by what must be her social worker hustling into the room. Her eyes dart around like a cornered mouse, their color near translucent. Like the crystal clear shallow water of a tropical shore, I want to look away, but I’m mesmerized. Her hair falls to her waist in a tangle of silk the color of antique porcelain. She is as close to a living, breathing china doll as there could ever be.
My eyelids burn when she turns toward me. Her ivory cheek is decorated with an angry purple and red circle. I notice how she crinkles her nose when she looks up at the woman by her side, hoping she will be the one to save her. Because I can see she needs saving. Then for just a moment, our eyes meet.
This broken, little soul with white hair and skin to match digs her sheer blue eyes into mine so deep, I feel her fear. My heart shatters inside my chest as I see the pain in her eyes and the way she moves so softly, gliding instead of walking. Her arms around her waist, holding onto herself, hoping for protection that she seems to know will never come.
Someone else was born inside of me that day. Someone that knew she was part of me.
I love a dirty-talking, head over heels
possessive alpha who will
stop at nothing for a happily ever after.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dani Wyatt used to feel bad about having such dirty thoughts. Luckily, one day she decided to starting writing them down. Her uber alpha heros have a wicked possessive streak and an insatiable libido. Her heroines are intelligent, quirky and worry about having too much muffin top. With her books, you can count on a heaping helping of HOT, a dash of rough and always a happily ever after.
When she's not writing (which is not often) she is probably laughing about some irony (like A-1 Steak Sauce is vegan), riding her horse, wondering why The Walking Dead can't have a new episode every night, or looking cross-eyed at some piece of technology sent to ruin her day.