Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 127949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
“See? Isn’t it nice to have someone to love you?” Margaret gives me one last look before Dawn comes up and hands her the bouquet, pressing a solid kiss on her red lips.
“Hi, Sheriff.” Dawn glances my way then right back to Margaret. “Just couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“You’re too good to me.” Margaret presses the mixed bouquet of roses, lilies and daises to her face on a deep breath.
Dawn’s arm slips around Margaret’s shoulders and she leans in to whisper something in her ear, which makes Margaret’s cheeks go red.
“Uh, you ladies need some privacy?” I chide, but there’s always something oddly uncomfortable when I’m around people showing affection.
Maybe I just don’t want to admit to myself there is something missing in my life.
Dawn pulls her face from Margaret and kisses her softly, then steps back. “I gotta go. Just wanted you to know I love you. Back to work.”
“Thank you.” Margaret sniffs the flowers as Dawn waves at me, then at Summer, who chirps at her from the open service window between the kitchen and the dining room.
I chew and swallow my bite as Margaret turns toward another table waving her over as my radio goes off and I hear Malcolm, one of the other deputies, come through.
“We’ve got a few reports coming in from that medieval fair deal out there on Baldwin Road. Wallets being lifted, jewelry missing…the word is, most of the thefts are happening during a sort of belly dancing or some such music sort of show they have going on. You want to go out there? Or I can head out? I hear there’s a dancer there…like total smokeshow chick.” He pauses and I hear the hope in his voice. “I’m happy to go check it out.”
I push the button on my radio and turn my mouth to where it’s clipped on my shoulder, an odd twitch in my dick I’ve not felt in forever when he said, ‘there’s a dancer there…’.
It makes me pause for a second, not remembering the last time even the sight of a woman made me hard let alone the mention of one. “I’ll head out. Leaving The Over Easy now.”
Malcolm’s staticky voice answers, sounding less enthusiastic than his words would suggest. “Sounds good. Say hi to Margaret from me.”
She nods as she walks away. Turning, she tosses a final comment over her shoulder. “Be careful with those dancing girls. I hear they cast spells on lonely men…wouldn’t want you to fall under a spell.”
I shake my head as I leave my money on the table and slide out of the booth, then out the door and into my cruiser.
The heat of the late summer morning is ramping up, the interior of the car blasting me as I pull out of the parking lot, down the street, wondering if I’ll ever know what it’s like to fall under a woman’s spell.
Chapter Two
Kezia
“Please don’t screw up again.” Genevieve, one of my ‘sisters’, fixes the sparkling hair piece at the back of my head, then spins me around by my shoulders to stare into her glaring blue eyes. “Got it? I really don’t want to find myself on rations for a week because some dude figured out we lifted his wallet.”
She’s three inches taller than me but it always feels like more. She’s older as well, but I’m not sure by exactly how many years because I never have birthdays and don’t even know how old I am for sure.
From what I can put together, I’m around nineteen. But I look younger, and that—along with the genetic jackpot I won from whomever my birth parents were—is the reason I’m on task with lulling unsuspecting men into watching me dance while others in our group take care of business.
If you can call thievery business. In my family, we do. Among other things.
“When am I not on rations?” I reply to Genevieve, who for a second gives me a sympathetic look. Then she shakes her head and is right back to business as my stomach twists and growls, reminding me that I had not earned a morning meal.
In my world, everything is bartered or earned. Mother and many of our pseudo ‘fathers’ in the clan made it clear last night my performance did not meet their standards and the take was short, as well as my tips.
When I questioned that perhaps it wasn’t my dancing that was lacking but the efforts of the others that move through the crowd with their trained fingers, what I earned was the absence of morning rations.
Genevieve drops her voice. “Don’t let them hear you crabbing or you know Mom’s favorite saying…” She pauses and we finish in unison: “If you think things are bad for you now, they can always be worse.”
The people I call mother and father are not the ones that birthed me. That’s no secret in our lifestyle. They are my third set of ‘parents’ since I came to be with the nomads that are my family.