Larger Than Life by Alison Kent (bill gates books recommendations .TXT) 📗

as the driver shut off the engine. The door opened; a pair of black combat boots, unlaced and tongues flapping, hit the ground, drawing Neva's gaze before drawing a startled gasp she wished she'd managed to stifle.

It was too late. Everyone had heard.

"Uh, Neva?" Candy asked as Neva slid from the bench to her feet. "Were you expecting someone?"

All Neva could do was shake her head because Mick Savin had made his way around the open driver's-side door and captivated her attention. He wore his sunglasses, his outback hat, and a white T-shirt beneath the navy blue sling immobilizing his arm. The shirt was bunched over the waist of a pair of worn jeans, the legs of which were bunched over the tops of the boots.

He looked like a man who'd barely managed to dress himself. He moved like a man in pain. She wanted to go to him, prop a shoulder beneath his good one, wrap an arm around his waist, help him get to where he was going as quickly as he could in order to ease the brackets from around his mouth.

What was he doing up and around? No, wait. What the hell was he doing driving? She couldn't imagine being in his condition and wanting to do more than lie still and sleep. He looked like he'd been chewed up and spit out. The sunglasses he wore did nothing to hide the bruises beneath his eyes.

But none of that meant that she wanted him here. And she certainly didn't want witnesses to her reaction to his arrival. She walked out to meet him at the edge of the patio, stopping and crossing her arms over her chest to keep him from coming any closer.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, a question that was much simpler than all the questions behind it, especially the ones demanding she examine why her heart raced so madly at seeing him again.

He cocked his head to the side, and then he smiled—a smile that made the day that had gone before nothing but a distant memory. God, but she needed help. She was obviously on the verge of losing her mind. She shouldn't have wanted him here, but she'd never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

He reached up with his one good hand, used his index finger to tug the dark lenses away from his eyes. They sparkled, and her pulse jumped, jumped harder at the sound of his voice when he gave her a wink and said, "I hear from the veterinarian back in Pit Stop that you took my dog."

After watching Liberty Mitchell willingly leave with that snake Holden Wagner, who'd sworn not to let anyone get to her, Yancey climbed into his car. He slammed the accelerator to the floor, spun his tires out of Neva's drive onto the main road, and hit the switch for his lights.

Spencer's truck wasn't but a quarter mile ahead, and damn if the boy was going to get home without having his ass handed to him for making fools out of the both of them. The boy had gotten too big for his britches, back-talking in public. Bad enough he had no respect for his father, but to have no respect for the law was an attitude in need of ad-justment.

Spencer had slowed for the curve ahead to avoid rolling his truck. His being a careful driver in this case worked in Yancey's favor. He blasted past the boy on the wrong side of the road, braked and spun in front of the truck, forcing the other vehicle onto the shoulder.

Shoving open his door, he climbed out and headed around the back of his car toward the cab of the truck where Spencer sat dazed. He was wearing his seat belt, and the truck hadn't slopped hard enough to do more than jar him.

Still, Yancey had to force back his initial reaction, the dutch of fear to his heart. He'd be a damn poor excuse for a father otherwise. In this case, however, he knew Spencer was fine. And that made doing what he had to do less hard than had the boy been hurt.

He jerked open the truck's driver's-side door and glared. "Do you have some sort of explanation for what went on back there? Because if you do, I'd really like to hear it."

Spencer was slow to turn, and he kept both hands gripped tight to the wheel when he finally did look over and match Yancey's glare. "You mean the way you threw your weight around and made Candy feel like shit?"

Always back to the girl. Always back to the girl. "If she's feeling like shit, you can blame yourself. You know I don't want you seeing her. If you did what I said, we wouldn't be having this problem."

"No, Dad. I blame you. You told her to shut up and get the hell out of your sight."

"That's not what I said, and you know it." Yancey took a deep breath. "I told both of you to leave while I conducted an official interview. Don't turn it into a personal vendetta."

"I'm not turning it into anything." Spencer pulled off his ball cap, threw it across the truck's bench seat. "You started it when you decided to butt into my life and tell me who I can date."

"You don't need to be dating anyone. Not seriously." Why was that so hard for the boy to understand? "And not now. You have football coming up. You have your studies. If you need to be getting laid, do it. Just keep it in your pants and out of your head."

"God, I can't believe you. You're sick, man. You're fucking sick."

"Why? Because I want your future to be more than a postscript at the end of the road? You get more involved with that girl than you already are, you won't think of anything or anyone else."

"There's nothing wrong with her!" Spencer jerked off his scat belt and pushed