Dylan's Redemption Read Free Page B

mistake.
    “He’s the only father you had.” Leave it to Greg to speak the cold, hard truth.
    “Lucky me.”
    He and Pop wanted her to finish it. Tidy up her past and get on with the business of living. They wanted her to be happy. After all these years, she didn’t know if she remembered how to do that seemingly simple thing.
    “Fine. I give up. I’ll go to Fallbrook and exorcize the demons. Satisfied?”
    “It’s a start.” He pulled her up out of her chair and wrapped her in his arms.
    Greg and Pop were the only ones she’d allow to touch her. “I’m not going to see any of the McBrides. Even you can’t ask that much of me.”
    “Just go and put your father to rest and check on your brother. That’s all I ask.”
    She hugged him tighter and thought he might be asking too much. Even of her. She’d been tough and strong the last eight years, but even she had limits. She reached and surpassed them when she lost Hope. She didn’t know if she could ever survive that kind of hurt again.
    “How about I take you to dinner?”
    “Oh sure, come here and turn my life upside down, and then just take me to dinner like nothing’s happened.” She pretend pouted.
    “Come on. We’ll catch up. I’ll make you laugh and maybe get a glimpse of that elusive smile of yours,” he teased, still holding her lightly in a comfortable embrace.
    She gave him a smile as fake as a pink flamingo lawn ornament. “Not tonight. I need to make some calls. I have to make funeral arrangements. Lord knows, Brian hasn’t done it. He doesn’t have the money.”
    “If I know you, you’ll do a hell of a lot more than plan a funeral.”
    She hid a smile and the plans forming in her mind to get her brother moving down the straight and narrow. She’d already pulled herself out of the pit of despair. She could do the same for Brian. No way she would let her niece or nephew grow up with a drunk for a father.

 
    Chapter Two
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    T HURSDAY NIGHT AT his cousin’s bar, McBride’s, was busy and raucous. Rowdy men and women crowded the place, looking for a good time. The music blared, the drinks flowed. People danced, laughed, and occasionally got into a squabble or two. Mostly, they had a whole lot of fun.
    Brody and Rain had certainly changed the locals’ dive bar into a place everyone loved to gather. Some nights, Dylan walked in to check things out and make sure the crowd stayed friendly and no one started a fight. Tonight, he searched for a particular patron. Someone he hadn’t seen in quite a long time. If he wasn’t mistaken, someone who’d been avoiding him at all costs, since he came home nearly two years ago.
    With his back to the bar, he scanned the room. Only the bartender worked behind him, and he tracked him with his peripheral vision. An old and safe habit of watching his back. It had saved him many times in the military, and he’d never gotten out of the practice, even while he served on the Atlanta Police Department, working the streets for two years. Unhappy living in the city, he’d wanted to move back to his hometown, where you knew your neighbors and they knew you.
    Small-town living lent itself to a quieter life and certainly less violent crimes in general. Fallbrook had its share of drug dealers, robbers, and domestic abuse, though murders were few and far between.
    He hated the domestic abuse cases. He couldn’t stand to see women in the direst of circumstances and think they had no one to turn to in their time of need. Even when they did call the police, they often didn’t press charges because they were too afraid and too used to making excuses for the person who abused them. A vicious cycle, one few women broke away from.
    He’d seen the kind of damage a fist could do to someone’s ribs or back or legs. Abusers, in many circumstances, avoided the head because it wasn’t easy to hide that kind of damage. Stick to the body and limbs, where clothes hid the injury. Sick tactics an abuser used to hide his