His heart had nearly ceased beating. Worse, his eyes burned. How could her father expose her to the kind of people who surrounded her day and night? It was the very first time he thought of his own young sister, running wild in the swamp, home alone, caring for their drunken father while he and his brothers lived life.

He wanted to shake her all over again, and he wanted to pick her up and carry her somewhere safe. But where? There was nowhere he could take her that her father wouldn’t come after her and buy his way out of trouble.

“I ought to beat you within an inch of your life for even suggestin’ such a thing. You’re not a coward, Bijou, and don’ you ever act like one again.” His hands did settle on her thin shoulders. Hard. But he stayed still, resisting the urge to make her a target for his rage all over again. She looked at him without wincing. “Do you understand me? This will never happen again. Will it?”

Her eyes on his, she shook her head.

“Say it. I want to hear you say it. You’re done with drugs, alcohol and anything else that father of yours has to offer.”

“I’m done with drugs and alcohol,” she had repeated in a low, steady voice.

“I’m takin’ you home and havin’ a word with your daddy.” He planned to beat the man within an inch of his life, just as he’d promised her he’d do to her if he caught her with drugs again.

That’s when she’d given him that smile. That so small, tentative smile, as if she knew what he wanted to do. “It won’t do any good, but thank you all the same.”

The child was standing there thanking him and he’d just committed an unpardonable sin, shaking her hard enough to injure her. And she was right, which only infuriated him more. Even his chief wouldn’t back him up. He would have to take her back to that mansion with its swimming pools, home theater, bowling alley and all the drugs and alcohol and blatant corruption and immorality that went on there.

She didn’t say a word as they made the journey from the hotel to her home. The gates were manned by a guard who waved them through and frantically called up to the house. He stopped her as they approached the door to the ten-thousand-square-foot mansion.

“You know what I did, layin’ my hands on you like that, was wrong. No one, law enforcement or not, has the right to ever touch you, especially in anger.”

She nodded solemnly, her gaze steady on his, a rather disconcerting stare for one so young.

“Are you sorry?” she asked.

There was nothing in her voice or on her face to give away her feelings on the matter.