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
Sharyn McCrumb
Robin Bielman
Melody Carlson
Ariadna Marrero Saavedra
Lois Lowry
Cindel Sabante
Constance Barker
C.D. Breadner
Elle McKenzie
Emily Jenkins