Read Online Welcome to Sugartown by Carmen Jenner - Free Book Online

heart’s as big as an
Ox’s.
    Yeah, there’s
a nice visual, I think, and pull another
long draught of my beer.
    She’s been
silently coaxing me over, trying to get me to dance, but I don’t
dance on account of looking like a freaking chimpanzee with two
left feet. Some dudes have rhythm with that sort of thing, but me?
I save all my rhythm for the bedroom. Give me a blonde with soft
curves and a nice rack and I can make her body dance with my hands
alone. But on a dance floor? Not so much.
    Ana grins
like an idiot and makes several weird hand gestures to get me to
come closer but I just smile and shake my head and store the memory
away for a later date when I might need something pleasant to think
about.
    “ Beautiful,
isn’t she?” Bob asks from beside me. I wonder how long I’ve been
gawking at his daughter like a total dick.
    “ Yeah, she
is.”
    “ She looks
just like her mum did at her age. Got the fire of the devil in her,
too. Just like her mother.”
    “ Yeah, I’m
starting to see that.”
    “ But she’s
soft underneath, breakable.”
    Surprised by
the reverence in his tone, I turn toward him. “I can see that about
her, too.”
    “ Ana’s a good
kid. She’s suffered through a lot of shit from the kids in this
town after that Turner fuck finished with her. I would have broken
both his legs already, but I’m on pretty thin ice with the
Constable as it is, and I’ve got my businesses, my wife and Sammy
to think about.”
    “ I’m kinda
surprised you let that stop you.”
    “ You gotta
know when to pick your battles, Son. Sometimes you gotta let your
kids sort out their own shit.”
    “ Like
choosing who they date?”
    He guffaws,
“You’re a good kid, Cade. I like having you around the shop. But
not around my daughter.” Bob takes a long swig of beer. “’Course,
it’s not up to me who Ana dates, and she rarely takes notice of
anything her old man tells her these days. But know this: you take
her down that road you’ve been on, drag her down, you hurt her in
any way and I’m gonna finish you. I don’t care if I have to follow
you to the back of beyond. You hurt my little girl and I’ll put you
to ground quicker than you can fucking blink. Are we clear,
Cade?”
    “ I’m not
gonna hurt her, Sir. Ana’s about the best thing to happen to me in
the last ten years.”
    He swigs the
remainder of his beer and leans in to set it down on the table
behind me. “Just make sure you’re the best thing to happen to her,
too. Ana doesn’t need you to be another decision she’ll regret.” He
gives me a long hard look and strides away, over to his
wife.
    Fuck. He’s
right. I’m not the best thing for Ana. I’m not even close. I’m just
a kid who made some pretty fucked up decisions, who turned into a
man who made even more fucked up decisions. The worst of which I
did time for. It doesn’t matter that I’ve spent every waking minute
since I got out working my arse off and trying to keep my tarnished
record clean. It doesn’t matter that I’ve spent every second of my
life since trying to be nothing like my father. I’m his flesh and
blood and that alone makes me not good enough for her.
    She deserves
a man that went to uni to get a degree, someone who makes a killing
and wears a monkey suit and comes home every night to their big
fuck off house full of riches, not some dick who didn’t finish high
school, works a job “the man” tells him to because his
stupid-as-fuck decisions took away all his other options, and who
can fit all his worldly possessions on the back of a motorbike,
like me. Which then begs the question—what the fuck am I doing
here?
    I chug the
remainder of my stubby and set it down alongside Bob’s. I’m outta here, I think,
and head around to the alley where I left my bike. I don’t get much
further than the side of the house before I hear Ana behind me.
“Elijah, wait. Where are you going?”
    “ Home,” I
reply without turning around, and then I laugh to