Heat pricked the corners of her eyes. Don’t cry, you idiot.
“Dad, you need to calm down.”
“Are you talking back to me, girlie?”
“No, I just…Dad, you need to…”
Calm down and let me help you.
But she didn’t have a chance to get the rest of the words out.
At first she wasn’t sure what happened because it took a few seconds for it to sink in. A sharp crack echoed in her head, followed by searing pain along her jaw and mouth.
Oh, God.
Betty heard the frantic beating of her heart, pounding in tandem with the harsh sounds of her father’s breaths. The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth and her hand shook as she reached up and felt along her lip.
Oh, God.
He’d never hit her before.
Oh, God.
Dazedly, she looked at the blood in her hand, her tongue feeling along the corner where her lip was split.
“Betty, I…”
Her father’s eyes filled with tears and he took a step back. “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to do that.” He shook his head and stared at his hand. “Goddammit, I don’t think I did. I don’t…”
He dropped his head into his hands, his body shaking, and Betty moved forward, on auto-pilot. She loved this man. She did. In spite of everything.
She just didn’t know how to show it.
Gingerly, she patted him on the back, exhaling roughly as she struggled to keep it together.
“It’s okay, Dad. I know.”
“I’ll take him up, Bets. You’ve got a visitor,” Herschel Barker said softly.
Betty’s head snapped up and she sucked in a huge breath of air.
Un-fucking-real.
Her emotions, those damn inconvenient feelings she kept buried, were all over the place and she swore everyone could hear how hard her heart beat. How the hell was she supposed to function like this?
She couldn’t function like this. God, she needed a drink. No, she needed a hell of a lot more than a drink. She needed a hit of something strong enough to take the edge off. Something strong enough to make him go away.
What the hell was he doing here?
Her grandfather stood in the garden near the back door, his eyes filled with sorrow, his shoulders weighed down by the impossible position they all found themselves in.
And beside him was the one person she didn’t want to see right now. The one person who didn’t have a right to know the real Betty Jo. To see what really went on in the Barker home.
Beau.
Chapter Ten
TO SAY THAT Beau was shocked by what he’d just witnessed was an understatement.