Page 26 of The Devil's Scars

Scars leaned forward. Just a bit. Enough to catch a whiff of her perfume, all sultry and woodsy and warm.

“Go on,” he said, his voice husky.

“I took Keira after Hailey… died. Well, after she was murdered.”

“Oh,” Scars said softly, very sorry to have started this conversation. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” She sucked down the last of her drink, felt the dark rum burn her throat. She told herself that’s why her voice was suddenly thick as she spoke. “Hailey’s ex – Keira’s Dad – killed her. Damn near killed them both, actually, since my sister was nine months pregnant with Keira when Gil stabbed her eleven times in a drug-induced rage.”

“Motherfucker,” Scars snarled. “He killed a pregnant woman?”

“He did.” She set her glass down, wishing that it was full to the brim and Coke-free. “Thank Christ the neighbors heard the fight, and came over to check on Hailey after Gil had stormed out. She was barely alive then, but she was conscious and in full-on labor, and she held on long enough for the ambulance guys to deliver Keira.”

“Did Hailey see her baby?” he asked quietly.

Zoe glanced at him, and he saw tears shimmering in those clear green eyes before she looked away again. “Yeah. Just for a second. Then she… then Hailey let go. I think – I think that she willed herself to live long enough to see that Keira was OK, and once that was done…” Her voice trailed off.

“Goddammit.” Scars wanted to take her in his arms right now, wanted to make her stop hurting. “Zoe…”

“Anyway.” Zoe took a deep breath and collected herself. “I took Keira when she was six days old, and I’ve had her ever since.”

Scars paused, saw that she wasn’t at all comfortable with his sympathy. He decided to change the topic slightly. “Your parents help you out with Keira?”

Zoe huffed out a laugh. “Nope. No way.”

“Because?”

“Because my alcoholic Dad left when I was thirteen and Hailey was ten, and Mom’s a drunk. I’m not much and I know it, but believe me, I’m the best that little girl’s got.”

“Why do you say you’re not much?”

She shrugged, a deceptively casual gesture that didn’t totally hide her pain. “No real education. No real money. No house of my own. I’m a struggling tattoo artist, now working for an MC.”

“So?” Scars rasped. “Something wrong with any of that?”

“Maybe not. But I’m not really classy or much of a role model, you know?”

“Bullshit.” Scars didn’t like her devaluing herself, and he wasn’t about to let that stand. He knew a thing or two about raising kids who kind appeared out of nowhere, from watching his own brother do it with his daughter Cindy, and Scars knew that it was a hard job to do right –maybe one of the hardest jobs out there. “Nothing classier than stepping up and taking that baby, Zoe. Nobody better for that little girl to look up to than the woman who loves her, and keeps her out of the foster care system.”

Startled, Zoe gazed up at him. “You think?”

“Yeah. I fucking think.”

“Oh.” She blinked at his ferocious expression, looked away from the intensity in those incredible eyes. “Well… thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Scars paused. “And why didn’t you tell Wolf all of this right after it happened? I thought you two were tight. Like brother and sister.”

“We are, but like I said: he was dealing with enough. I knew that if I told him about all of this, he’d be on a plane and in Fargo in a matter of hours, and things would be in jeopardy here.”

“I’d have handled all of it just fine on his behalf. Believe me.”

Zoe looked at him, took in the strength and stubbornness of his body and his personality. “I can see that now, but I didn’t know you then.”

He liked her saying that she didn’t know him then – the implication that she was getting to know him now was hanging out there, and God knows, he wanted her to know him. In more ways than one.

“And the dickhead?” he asked, still not happy with the vagueness of her answers about the son-of-a-bitch who had killed her sister. “Where is he?”

“Gil? I really don’t know.”

---