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He’s bad news.’
    ‘Care to be more specifc?’
    ‘No, I don’t. Ya have to take my word for it.’
    Strangely enough she would do just that. Beck had always been too overprotective, but he had a sixth sense when it came to trouble. If he said Cole of the Dark Eyes was bad news, then she
believed him.
    ‘Got it. I’ll keep out of his way.’
    Beck gave her a bewildered look, as if he’d expected her to defy him. ‘OK . . .’
    ‘You’ve got enough going on without having to worry about that guy. I’m here for you, no one else.’
    Something changed in his face. ‘Sorry. I’ve been really . . . mean. I’m not good with things down here. Too much bad stuff.’
    ‘Really? I hadn’t noticed,’ she jested, then grew serious. ‘I don’t care what you did or who you did it with when you were sixteen. It does not matter to
me.’
    ‘I’d like to believe that. God, I would.’
    ‘Then when this is all over and we’re headed back to Atlanta, you ask me if I think any differently about you.’
    ‘Fair enough,’ he said, putting the truck in reverse and pulling out on to the street.

Chapter Five

    Beck insisted on driving her around so she could ‘get a feel of Sadlersville’, which didn’t tell her much other than he wasn’t keen to get to the
hospital. Another hint that his relationship with his mother was way complicated.
    As Georgia towns went, Sadlersville wasn’t very old, dating from early in the twentieth century. The founding father, Joseph Sadler, had been a railroad man and there was still a steady
stream of trains lumbering through the city. Though it wasn’t big, it did have churches – almost all of them Baptist. In Atlanta they would have combined them all into one megachurch,
but down here each had their own little building and congregation. Add in a school, a hospital, a laundromat, grocery store and a funeral parlour and that was the sum of Beck’s hometown.
    ‘I couldn’t handle this,’ Riley said. ‘No way. Too small. Nothing to do.’
    Beck snorted. ‘Oh, ya’d be surprised what kind of trouble you can find in a town like this.’
    ‘Oh, you mean trouble like picking up dumb chicks who aren’t smart enough to know your game?’
    Beck frowned. ‘I’m sorry Walker said that. That wasn’t right.’
    ‘Is his wife still with him?’
    ‘Nah. Took off a few months after I moved to Atlanta with a guy who builds swimmin’ pools. Never came back.’
    ‘So why did you leave town?’ she asked.
    ‘Didn’t have a choice. Walker got in my face one night when I was drunk. When I told him I wasn’t the only one who’d had his missus, he laid into me and I went after him
with my knife. We both ended up bloody.’
    ‘Were you like stupid or what?’ she blurted.
    ‘Yeah, I was more mouth than brains back then.’ He grimaced at the memory. ‘Donovan threw Walker in jail to sober up. After a trip to the ER, he made me pack my clothes and
then he hauled my butt to my uncle’s place in Atlanta. Told me to stay up there if I didn’t want to end up in jail, because if I came back home before a year was up he’d make sure
that happened.’
    ‘So
that’s
what brought you to Atlanta. I always wondered.’
    He issued a lengthy sigh. ‘Time I go see the old lady. Can’t put it off any longer.’
    ‘Won’t she pleased you’re here?’
    ‘I’m not countin’ on that.’
    Riley’s knowledge of Beck’s mother was pretty scant – Sadie had never married, she had an alcohol problem and treated her kid like he was dirt. And her son hated her for it. Or
maybe he didn’t because you never knew with Beck. One thing for sure, he never referred to Sadie as his mother. That in itself spoke volumes.
    Beck pulled on to the main drag, as he called it, and headed north. They passed another small restaurant, a dentist’s office, a tyre store and finally turned into a long drive that led to
a single storey red brick building.
    ‘Not as big as the hospitals in Atlanta, but they