“Yeah, I see it’s starting to make sense,” he said softly, almost gently. “It’ll get worse from here, especially if she doesn’t come out of hiding.”

Turning my head to the left, I heard his words. They sunk in, causing a shudder to snake its way down my spine. God, a meth lab would probably be better than this.

Oh Mom, what have you gotten yourself into?

Her life, what had become of it, hurt like a real physical burst of pain, and something that I long since believed was dead sprang alive deep inside me. A need I’d suffered with for so many years, an urge and drive to fix her—to fix Mom.

Two fingers landed on my chin, gently forcing my head center. My eyes widened as they once again connected with his. “They could use you to get to her.”

My brain immediately shut down on that. The whole thing was just too much. Mom stole money from me and some crazy windshield-breaking rednecks that were hell-bent on revenge. It sounded like a plot from a movie featuring a washed-up action star.

“Honey, the best thing you could do is to turn around and leave town,” he said again, his brown eyes holding mine in a steely gaze. “There’s nothing here for you.” Jax almost sounded disappointed by that, and when my breath caught again, his gaze finally left mine, flicking down to my parted lips. His voice was deeper, rougher when he spoke again. “Nothing but trouble.”

Five

I didn’t go home the next day like Jax had ordered me to do. Not because I currently wasn’t in possession of my own car or because he had absolutely no business telling me what to do. I seriously had no choice but to stick around and . . . and do what? Track Mom down and find out just what kind of crap she’d gotten herself in, and hopefully get my money back?

The idea that there was no money left at all was something I couldn’t allow myself to think about, but at this point, it was either staying here for the summer or living in my car. Whenever I got my car back.

But it was more than that. Yeah, the money was huge, it was linked to my life, but it was also about Mom. It was always about Mom.

When Jax had left last night, he’d wanted me to leave with him, so that he could drop my “sweet ass” off at a hotel that he actually offered to pay for, but I refused, figuring the last thing I needed was to owe someone money. He’d warned that he was sending a cab.

He’d actually had the nerve to say to me, “I know you’re smarter than this, honey, so I’m going to give you forty minutes to get over yourself, and when a cab pulls up in front of your house, you’re going to get your sweet ass in it.”

What in the hell?