Read Online BAD Beginnings by Shelley Wall - Free Book Online

And I can take it all away, just like that.” Snap. The loud click of her fingers made him jump. She was threatening him? Seriously? His blood thawed a bit and started to heat. He felt the hair on the back of his neck hit a full tilt.
    “Go ahead. I dare you. You take it away from me…and you’ll end up with what?” He yanked the glass from her fingers, filled it again, and chugged the golden liquid. “Nothing. And you know it. Don’t fuck with you? No, sorry, Sharon. Don’t fuck with me. Now get the hell out.” He walked to the front door, yanked it open, and waited for her exit. Would she call his bluff? Would she realize she wasn’t talking to the real Logan?
    Would she call the police?
    Her mouth opened but no words followed. Seconds ticked by. She closed her mouth and left. Just as the door clicked shut, she hissed. “I want my ten grand by Friday or I’ll go public about you and who you really are. Don’t think you can mess with me, you little shit. You know what I can do.”
    She strolled to a car down the street, where the new hubby must have waited. Does the man know who he married? Or care? Baden shivered. And what exactly was all that cryptic shit about? Money? Her son owed her money? Ten grand that was apparently more important than finding her son since she tossed an ultimatum.
    He grabbed another bourbon, dropped onto Logan’s leather recliner, and clicked the flat-screen television on for a late night glance at the news. He was asleep ten minutes into the show, and dreamed of being chased—by himself and Gemma.

C hapter Eight
    B aden wasn’t a stranger to passing out— he was no drunk either. He’d had his first bout of light-headedness the week Natalie disappeared. Now he knew it to be his fear of public speaking that turned his nuts into tiny balls of concrete before drawing the blood from his brain. When he was a teenager, he imagined it was hormonal. Just before they were to do their semester speech project, Natalie had teased him on the phone the night before. She wasn’t exactly one of those pure and simple girls. No, Natalie liked to infer sex, even though he had been pretty sure the inference was hollow. It wasn’t until after her disappearance that he realized how deeply wrong he had assumed. And how disturbed the poor girl was.
    He and Natalie had speech class together, as well as gym. Though in gym, the girls were either on opposite ends of the basketball court…or opposite ends of the football field. Gym was definitely off-limits for interaction. No sweaty bodies intermingled in Coach Worth’s watch. Speech, however, was a playground. Mr. Deifenbacher, the teacher, was ancient and usually gave an assignment then sat back and let the kids “do their thing”. A thing that included a lot of flirting and talking, all part of class. And all of it intended to hold as much shock value as the student felt they could get away with.
    Natalie’s voice on the phone the prior night had held as much innuendo as a teen looking for action could lace into a conversation. Baden had dated virtually no girls before her. His sexual experience started when he ran into a graduate student after driving to Dallas to visit colleges. He had been a fairly good tight-end in football and a few b-list schools thought him worthy of a look. The girl who gave him a campus tour thought him worthy of a lot more…and who was he to decline the offer? That had been between his first and second date with Natalie.
    So, when he told Natalie he was nervous about the speech project because he’d never stood in front of a group and talked—she gave a breathless giggle that instantly made his newly awakened parts hard. Okay, they’d been awake since he was twelve though not used by anyone but him.
    “Just keep your eyes on me, Bad, I’ll give you a show that’ll make you feel like I’m the only one there. You’ll be great. Look at me and talk to me. Forget everyone else.”
    Natalie was one of the dance team