Page 59 of All Along

“Geraldine,” Maya’s father bellows as he enters the house from the garage.

Geraldine startles and I scowl. She’s obviously afraid of her own husband. Why the hell doesn’t she leave him?

“We have a visitor, Roger.”

Roger walks into the living room and smiles at me. His smile is fake as shit. “Who’s our visitor, Geraldine?”

He moves to his wife and wraps an arm around her to pull her near. She winces when he touches her hip. I nearly lose my hold on my temper but I reign it in. I have a message to send to these people. Ranting and screaming won’t help.

“This is Caleb,” Geraldine says. “Caleb, this is my husband, Roger.”

Roger holds out his hand but I cross my arms over my chest. No way am I shaking the hand of the man who tortured the woman I love throughout her childhood.

“Ah, yes, I remember you,” he says as he drops his hand. “What can we do for you today?”

“You can stop harassing Maya.”

He chuckles. “She’s our child. We don’t harass her.”

“I was being kind using the word harass. You will stop torturing your daughter.”

His eyes narrow. I know the look. I’ve seen enough evil men in my time in the Army to recognize evil when I come across it. This man is rotten through and through.

“It’s none of your business.”

I snort. “You tried to make it none of my business. You convinced me I wasn’t good enough for your daughter. But you didn’t give a shit if I was good enough for her or not. You just didn’t want her to be happy. You want her to be miserable the same way you are.”

“What is he talking about?” Geraldine asks Roger. “You convinced Caleb he wasn’t good enough for Maya?”

Apparently, she doesn’t know about the ‘talk’ her husband had with me.

Roger shrugs. “It’s true, isn’t it? He’s a soldier. He’s not even an officer.”

He doesn’t have the first clue what he’s talking about. I could be an officer if I wanted to. I got my degree a few years back. But I’m not letting him derail this conversation. This discussion is not about me. It never was.

“You are the ones who aren’t good enough for Maya,” I grumble. “You’re the ones who shouldn’t breathe the same air as her.”

“I don’t know who you think you are but—”

I hold up my hand to stop his tantrum. This isn’t a discussion.

“From now on, Maya doesn’t exist for you. You don’t call her. You don’t speak to her. You leave her the hell alone.”

Geraldine rolls her eyes. “We live in a small town on a small island, we can’t help but run intoour daughteronce in a while.”

Their daughter? How dare she! They never treated Maya like a daughter. They didn’t love her and cherish her the way they should have. They didn’t nurture her the way a child needs. Their mistreatment of Maya stops now.

“You bump into Maya at the grocery store, you walk away. You bump into her at a restaurant, you turn around. And you sure as shit don’t search for her anywhere.”

Roger prowls toward me. A muscle ticks in his jaw and his eyes are full of fire. If he’s trying to intimidate me, he’s going to have to try a fuck of a lot harder.

“You!” He shakes his finger at me. “You don’t tell me what to do. Who the hell do you think you are? Do you know who I am?”

“I know exactly the kind of man you are. The kind that isn’t a man at all. The kind that thinks hitting a woman makes him strong. The kind that thinks putting other people down makes him bigger. Clue in – you aren’t the big man. You’re a small man in a big man’s clothes who doesn’t know how to wear them.”

“How dare you?” He raises his fist.

I lift my eyebrow. “Gonna hit me? Go ahead. This should be fun.”

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