Microsoft Word - ClaimingHisCowgirl_LoriKing_PDF.docx

Microsoft Word - ClaimingHisCowgirl_LoriKing_PDF.docx by Unknown Page B

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Authors: Unknown
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finding any sort of peace or happiness.
    Lauren liked Eddie, but he didn’t have much of his own. That’s how

    50
    Claiming His Cowgirl
    he ended up with Joss in the first place. She’d found him at the
    unemployment office where she worked, and brought him home to
    “crash on the couch for a few days”. A few days turned into weeks
    and then months of sharing her mother’s bed. They’d be content for a
    while, and suddenly, something would happen, and Joss would start
    drinking again, and Eddie would run for the hills.
    He used the phrase “getting out of Dodge”, but he’d been doing
    it so much that Lauren figured he had a whole other life he was living
    away from the trailer park. Not that she blamed him. She hated when
    her mother got like this. Joss was an angry, mean drunk. She would
    start feeling sorry for herself, crack open a fresh bottle of liquor, and
    before long, she was taking out her depression on her young
    daughter.
    Lauren had been dodging the blows for almost eight years, and
    she prayed for the day that she’d be old enough to leave all of this
    behind. It couldn’t come soon enough.
    The closet door slammed open, and the blanket was jerked away
    from her. “There you are. I know you hid my bottle. Give it back, you
    thieving little bitch.”
    “I didn’t take your bottle mama. It was right by the couch where
    you left it.” She whimpered when Joss pulled her to her feet by the
    hair on her head.
    “That’s the empty one. I’m talking ‘bout the bottle I had in the
    cabinet over the fridge. Full bottle, still sealed. Where the fuck is it?”
    “I don’t know, Mama! I didn’t take it! I can’t even reach the top
    of the fridge!” She was crying loudly now, a mixture of pain and fear
    engulfing her.
    Joss continued to grip a handful of her hair as she marched her
    out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. The cabinets hung open,
    their contents strewn about the counters. “You have five seconds to
    get that damn bottle or I’m going to whip your ass, girl.”
    “I don’t have it, Mama!”
    “One…”
    “Mama!”
    “Two.”

    51
    Lori King
    “Please! Mama, I’ll help you look for it!”
    “Three…”

    Lauren shot awake, panting for air, and covered in sweat. The
    terrifying nightmare was a memory from the day she’d first been
    taken away. Her mother had beaten her nearly unconscious before the
    neighbor lady called the police to check on the screaming. They’d
    packed her up and sent to her see Danica Washington, a Montford
    social worker.
    Danica had been kind enough to take her to Crawley Creek
    where Lauren managed to find some semblance of peace for a few
    weeks before the courts made her go back home. The hell had gone
    on, year after year, cycle after cycle. Each time she was removed
    from the trailer, she was taken to Abe and Sera Crawley. They fought
    for her, but they couldn’t convince the courts that Joss was a
    permanent threat. Her mother was very good at manipulating the
    facts to make herself look better, and she did more thirty-day rehab
    programs than Lauren could count.
    Thanks to the government’s red tape, Lauren grew up in fear.
    Her only escape was her time at Crawley Creek, her only real friend,
    Vincent Rhone. He’d been the first one to treat her like she wasn’t
    broken. The first one to accept her as a Crawley Creek kid even
    though she didn’t live at the ranch. The first man to love her for who
    she was.
    She didn’t buy his story about needing to move on, and never
    really loving her in the first place, but at the time, it hurt like hell to
    hear it. She took his advice and moved on with her life, but she’d left
    her heart at Crawley Creek.
    Sitting there in the dark, haunted by her memories, she cried for
    the first time in eighteen years.

    52

Chapter 6
    August 6 – Wedding Countdown T-minus 2 days

    Lauren was stolen away from breakfast by an overly excited
    Hawke and Roman who wanted to show her their improved

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