Page 47 of Kandie Shoppe

“Okay—” Looking around, sadness engulfs me. “I just need a sec?—”

“The fuck is going on?” comes the thunderous tones of Ulysses from the entrance of my loft.

“The fuck you doing here, Sheriff?” Oz demands bristling, turning fully with fists clenched like he’s ready to charge Ulysses like a raging bull.

Astonishing like he has a death wish, Ulysses steps fully into the overcrowded space. Ignoring my cousin, he takes in the destruction. His ice-cold blue gaze misses nothing. In short strides, he is in front of me as if he’s trying to block the horror from my view.

“Look at me.” His hands are on my neck, tilting my head up so that I’m meeting his fierce gaze.

“I’ll going to kill the motherfucker who did this. I don’t give a fuck who it is. Do you understand me?”

I swallow, the tightness in my throat overwhelming. My face is hot. My nose stings. He wipes the tears falling unchecked down my cheeks.

“Do you believe me?” he urges. Mouth hard, eyes fierce, I do. I believe he will do exactly as he promised. And I want him to.

Nodding, I step into his hard chest. He doesn’t hesitate. Strong arms cover me. I shudder, a sob breaks free. Warmth fills in the shattered places I didn’t know were still there, so jagged and raw until this very moment. A feeling of safety envelopes me. Even in this space, once loved, now obliterated by hate and evil, I feel protected by him.

He holds me like that for a long time. Eyes closed, I can hear my cousins moving around us, clearing away the mess the vandal left.

He just holds me while I cry, my shoulders shaking from my silent sobs.

“I got you, wildcat.” His whisper is a rough brush against my hair.

Encased in the haven of his arms, I know to my soul it’s true.

I nod, a strength I’ve always had to hold close rising again. “We may get knocked down, but Loves don’t stay down,” my daddy would tell Kerania and me. “Kandie, why don’t you take the Sheriff down to the shop and make sure everything is squared away down there,” Oz calls over from my kitchen where it seems like every dish has been smashed and my KitchenAid mixer looks to be dented. Wow. That motherfucker must be really angry with me.

I don’t bother to argue with them. I cover Ulysses’ big hand, tugging him forward.

“Aye,” he calls out to my cousins, who all pause to look at him. Oz straightens from tossing my two broken chairs into a growing pile of debris.

“Yeah?” His face is stoic, but he can’t hide the way his eyes darken when they come to rest on our clasped hands before meeting Ulysses’ hard gaze.

Ulysses turns to my bed. I worked six months to afford saying, his voice dead, “Throw that bed away, fucking burn it.”

“Planned on it, partner,” Nebraska says from over by the door.

“And as soon as we find the coward who did this, they are joining the burn pit,” Oz says with quiet promise.

“Fuck, yeah,” says my other cousins, joining in with various promises of destruction.

“We know who it ain’t though, don’t we, Sheriff?” Oz winks, turning from us.

A frown puckers my brow. Turning to Ulysses, I look up at him. “What is he talking about?”

“Nothing,” he mutters. This time it’s he who is tugging me.

“Coldblooded,” Nebraska laughs and my other cousins all join in like they all know the funniest thing. Like they did when they had got up to some type of illegal activity they kept to themselves that the rest of the family wouldn’t find out about until much later when a body would turn up floating down river of the Tombigbee.

Chapter

Fourteen

Ulysses

“Stay here,” I tell Kandie, unclipping but leaving my DWX semiautomatic in my shoulder holster.

“No one is here, U,” she says behind me.

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