Read Online Between the Sheets by Molly O'Keefe - Free Book Online

coat and pulled the elastic from the ponytail at his neck. He gathered his hair back up and put the rubber band back in, pulling it tighter.
    “Okay. The story is, I didn’t know about Casey untilfour months ago, when he showed up on my doorstep in West Memphis and told me he thought I was his dad.”
    Her mouth fell open. “You didn’t know …”
    “About Casey?” He shook his head. “Nope. His mom, Vanessa, and I dated twelve years ago, back when I was pretty young and stupid. We broke up and I didn’t hear from her again. But about six months ago, Casey’d been put into the foster system because Vanessa had been convicted of possession with intent and sent to jail.”
    “Marijuana?”
    “Meth. She … she ran with a pretty bad crowd.”
    “Bad crowd” was putting it mildly. The Outlaws were the kind of motorcycle club the uninitiated thought about when they thought of motorcycle clubs. The kind of club that gave them all a bad name.
    Not every club was like Sons of Anarchy . Most of them, actually, weren’t.
    But Outlaws was. Meth. Guns. Prostitutes. They had dirty thumbs in all of it.
    “When she was sent to jail she still didn’t try to contact you?”
    He’d gotten over his anger at Vanessa, or at least he thought he had. But every once in a while, he found a vine of it that he hadn’t chopped down, or poisoned with forgiveness. That she would have her kid dragged into the foster system rather than contact him and ask for help was a pretty shitty thing for a mom to do to her kid.
    But when he was truthful with himself, he knew he hadn’t given Vanessa much to recommend him as a father.
    “She had her reasons for not wanting me around Casey; it’s not like we brought out the best in each other.”
    “So, she was arrested. Casey was put into a foster home.”
    “Two. Two different foster homes. The first one was too crowded.”
    “They moved him to a second one and he ran away and found you?”
    It was like one of those stories about dogs that got moved to the other side of the country, but ran back thousands of miles and found their old home—except Casey’s story was way more sad and terrifying. He’d crossed state lines, from Memphis to West Memphis; he’d crossed the damn river, walking for hours with nothing but an address in his pocket. The thought of it could still wake him up out of a deep sleep with nightmares.
    “She’d told Casey enough about me that he found my grandfather’s repair shop and then found me.” She stared at him slack-jawed and he laughed. “Sounds unbelievable, I know.”
    “It is unbelievable! It is amazing. Casey—”
    “Bravest kid I know. Bravest person.” It felt good to say it out loud, as it reminded him that there were other sides to Casey than what he was seeing on a day-to-day basis.
    “You were able to just take custody?”
    He shook his head, trying to get comfortable in the tiny chair. “There was no ‘just’ about it. I took him back to the foster home; we called his case worker and started the process.”
    “Blood tests, court dates, counseling …”
    “All of it.”
    “And then you moved to Bishop?”
    “Fresh start. For both of us.” He didn’t want to talk about all the trouble Vanessa had gotten into, or the things Casey had seen. That was all shit he wanted whitewashed. He wanted it painted over with good memories. Safe memories. Normal childhood stuff. “I thought it was a good idea. We both needed a clean slate.”
    “And this was all four months ago?”
    Ty wasn’t sure why he remembered, but when Casey had walked into Pop’s old shop the boy’s shoes had been untied.
    Tall and gangly, he’d walked in the first bay and had stood in the shadows until Ty noticed him. And the second Ty got a look at Casey, with his chin up like he was daring the whole world to take a swing, something cold pierced his snake brain. Something knowing.
    “Do you know Vanessa Ponchet?” the boy had asked.
    “I did. Long time ago.” Ty