Read Online Protect and Serve by Gwyneth Bolton - Free Book Online

Besides the fact the hard wood was starting to make her butt numb, the lack of feeling in her legs and the ache when she shifted her body clued her in that she and Carla had been there for more than a minute.
    “I can come with you to California. Then I can take care…well…we can take care of each other this time, Br—Penny.”
    What am I doing? Penny scooted away from her mother and looked at the her. As best as she could see with her tear-swollen eyes, Carla was still the same petite and crazy woman. She contemplated telling Carla just how insane she was. But then the press of the doorbell jarred her and her heart started pounding.
    Please don’t let it be Jason again . She didn’t know how he’d managed to almost break her. Almost? Girl, please! That man broke you all the way down. You better run .
    If she hadn’t been trying to be so strong and hold it all in, she might have been able to maintain everything. But he’d kept pushing, and she’d broken. She didn’t think she could take any more of him that evening.
    “I’ll get it. And if it’s that ole high-and-mighty Hightower cop, I’m gonna cuss him out! I don’t know what you put on that boy, but he is just determined to continue sniffing around you. It’s probably best that we move to California instead of staying here the way he’s coming after you.” Carla just kept right on spouting her nonsense as she trotted off to the door.
    Penny got up and followed her, just in case she needed some help turning Jason away.
    The man acted as if he’d never heard the word no. He never did like not getting his own way. The baby Hightower boy had been a little spoiled in that regard.
    “Oh, hell, no!” Carla’s high-pitched yell reached her from the entryway. “I said I’d call you. What part of I’ll call you can’t you understand? Why you showing up here now?”
    Penny put more pep in her step and raced to the entryway. She figured it wasn’t Jason who had Carla yelling like that. When she got to the door, she saw an older man standing there she didn’t recognize.
    He appeared to be in his mid-fifties. It was hard to tell. He looked as if he had had a rough life, but the only tellers were the eyes. His face was unusually smooth, and his lean, muscled body appeared to be in tip-top shape. His salt-and-pepper hair was cropped close to his scalp, with just a hint of a receding hairline.
    He glanced up at Penny, and his eyes actually seemed to brighten. She frowned, because she could have sworn she had seen him someplace before.
    Carla placed her hands on her hips and cemented herself between the man and the entrance.
    “What’s going on, Carla? Who is this man?”
    “He ain’t nobody important, and nobody for you to be worrying about.”
    “Oh, now I’m nobody. I ain’t important? You just gonna hold a grudge for damn near thirty-something years?” The man took his eyes off of Penny and narrowed them on Carla.
    “She don’t need to know you. She doing just fine without you. We don’t need you. We fixin’ to move to California.” Carla gripped the door and started shutting it in the man’s face.
    “Why don’t you let her decide if she needs to know me or not?” He looked at Penny again.
    His eyes. There was something about his eyes, the copper color. She had seen them before.
    In the mirror.
    Oh crap! You have got to be kidding me . Penny raised her head toward the heavens. Big Mama, are you up there yet? Can you stop whoever it is who seems to have it in for me up there?
    The man pressed against the door. “Can I at least come in and talk to her?”
    Penny knew Carla wouldn’t be able to hold off the strong, muscle-bound man for long. She was torn between helping her mother shove the door in his face and meeting the man so that they could get this little ghettofied family reunion out of the way. It would be one less thing to deal with.
    “Carla, just let him in. Let’s get this over with.”
    Carla glared at her and kept trying to