Their Blue-Collar Girl (The American Soldier Collection 4)

“Lean on me and enjoy the sky.”

They were silent a moment.

“I think Ben enjoyed the ice cream,” Dante said then chuckled as he pulled a piece of grass from the ground and played with it.

“He definitely did,” Lori replied.

“It was like he never got to go out for ice cream before,” Dante added, and Lori swallowed hard.

“He didn’t get to do a lot of things he should have. But he can now. Thank you for bringing him with us.”

Dante covered her leg with his hand and began to rub back and forth across the material. It gave her the chills and made her feel really good. She loved it when they touched her.

“What was Ben’s father like?” Charlie asked, and instantly Lori knew this was it. It was time to tell them everything as she took a deep breath and waited.

“You don’t have to tell us. It’s none of our business.”

“It’s okay, Charlie, I should probably tell you guys everything.” She turned toward him and he looked at her attentively. She sat legs crossed in front of the three of them on the blanket.

Charlie, Dante, and Trevor listened as she explained about Ben’s father and escaping from the town they lived in. She told them about how they made money, secretly kept in contact with her parents and about finally making the decision to settle down.

“I’ve never had much. That was the only way to save money for the future. We never knew when we would have to just pack up and leave in the middle of the night. Take a bus or a train to get away faster. Those things cost money so we saved for those emergencies. A small suitcase a piece is what we had. I worked and Maggie stayed with Ben. I felt that he needed his mother to constantly be there to protect him and I learned fast how to mix drinks and wait tables. I mostly worked at hole-in-the-wall places or anyplace I could work off the books and keep my clothes on. I’m not lying about that, Charlie. I would never take my clothes off for money or prostitute myself.”

She lowered her eyes and fidgeted with her hands until Trevor covered them with his own.

“In all honesty I was asked, I was even tempted, but when times were tough suddenly out of nowhere we’d catch a break. I would find work or Maggie would babysit somebody else’s kids,” she told them and he believed her as they listened.

Lori told him about the night they received the prank calls after moving into a house they rented.

“You must have been very scared,” Trevor whispered as he moved closer and began to caress her thigh.

“We heard Derrick was on the run now that he killed someone. We tried to take the extra precautions, but they weren’t enough. We thought about calling the police but we feared that Derrick’s family would try to say he acted this way because we had his child. His family had connections and we couldn’t take the chance of losing Ben. I would have rather died than seen Derrick get a hold of him.”

Lori wiped a tear from her eye and her heart was beating rapidly.

“It’s all right, baby, you can trust us,” Charlie whispered to her as he took her hand.

She knew she could trust them. She was just scared as she squeezed his hand tighter.

* * * *

Dante was trying to remain calm, but he just wanted to hold Lori in his arms and love her. That thought rocked his world.

She explained how she heard Maggie scream upstairs, how she called the police then headed up the staircase. She quickly ran through the part about the gun and breaking her wrist but Michelle told them the whole story as Maggie explained to her. Dante wondered why Lori tried to act like it was no big deal.

“So you saved their lives. You were willing to die for them?” Dante asked as he watched Lori struggle with the story. She didn’t want to sound like a heroine, she tried to minimize what took place, and he could tell she felt horrible for pulling the trigger.

“You’re so brave, baby.” Charlie held her face in his hands. She tried to pu

sh him away, turning her head as the tears flowed from her eyes.

“No, Charlie, I helped kill a man. I took a life.”

“No, baby, you saved lives, Ben’s and Maggie’s. They’re here now and so are you because of your strength and love for them. He was going to kill the two of you and take Ben. You said it yourself that you would rather die than let Derrick get Ben. Thank God you didn’t. You survived and now we’re here together,” Dante told her as Charlie pulled her against him.

He wiped the tears away from her eyes then gently laid her down on the blanket.

Charlie stared into her eyes as Trevor lay on the other side behind her.