Her Old-Fashioned Oregon Daddy (Stateside Doms Book 6), page 1
Her Old-Fashioned Oregon Daddy
Stateside Doms, Book 6
Rayanna Jamison
Contents
A Note to My Readers
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
About Rayanna Jamison
Also by Rayanna Jamison
Red Hot Romance
Copyright © 2022 by Rayanna Jamison and Red Hot Romance, Inc.
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including, but not limited to, photocopying or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. maren@redhotromancepublishing.com
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, locales, and events are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, and events are purely coincidental.
A Note to My Readers
This story is a spin off from my Three Rivers story, Back Woods Daddy which also came out today. Both stories are complete standalones featuring different main characters. However, if you feel like you are missing details of Dusty and Ashley’s backstory, it’s because the story is not truly theirs to tell. You can find those details in Back Woods Daddy as they are embroiled in the story of Trask and Terri.
Back Woods Daddy involves more conspiracy and bad guys than I generally include in a story, and after working on it, I needed something a little lighter. I hope you enjoy both stories and the way the lives of these characters mesh together.
Prologue
Ashley
Cops. Judges. Lawyers. The City Commissioner. The former District Attorney. Gang Members. My high school English teacher. Dozens of others.
What did they all have in common? Currently it was that they were all being arrested in an FBI takedown of a decades-old drug-smuggling, sex-trafficking ring, and those arrests were being shown on national TV.
My eyes were glued to the screen, my heart was pounding in my ears. Tears pricked the corners of my eyelids, and I felt… I didn’t know how I felt. Relieved. Vindicated. Safer. Full of regret.
The cafe where I worked, where the takedown was flashing across the big screen TV on the wall above the register, was abuzz with disbelief. Three Rivers was, at first glance, an idyllic, close-knit, coastal town where everyone knew everyone else and the local gossip mill was our biggest problem.
I knew better. No, I hadn’t known the depths of corruption or how deeply the scandal would rock the town when it was uncovered, but I had known for a long time now that something was seriously wrong.
It had all started the night of the fire. I was seventeen years old. Like most seventeen-year-olds, I was stuck on the cusp of adulthood, rebelling and making an endless number of stupid choices.
One of those stupid choices, or more accurately a long string of them together, landed me at the apartment complex the townies referred to as Little Rivers, searching out my next high.
I got it, but then they wanted something from me. High and numb, I gave it, just like I had several times before, too strung out to care. It felt good at the time.
This time was different. This time they wouldn't let me leave. They said I “still owed them”. They kept me there for two days, and when I came down, I realized then how far I had fallen, how bad it had become.
I swore to myself that if I got out of there I'd turn my life around, and I probably would have, except that when help came, it came in the form of my longtime crush, Dusty David Reese, and when he showed up everything got so much worse.
Dusty didn't come alone; he came with Terri and Jake. Both had been a few years ahead of me in school. I still remember the way their feet sounded on the wooden stairs as they made their way to the apartment where I and another girl I knew from school, Stacy, who had just showed up that morning, were being kept.
The three of them entered together, with Jake doing complicated fist bumps with our captors and speaking in a language I didn't understand. Immediately, my heart sank as I realized he was one of them, or at least that was how it had seemed at first. But nothing is ever how it seems.
Jake stood to the side, speaking with the men in hushed tones, while Dusty and Terri sat down on the faded plaid couch in the living room with Terri sitting on Dusty’s lap, a move that made no sense. Terri was part of a duo, high school sweethearts with Trask King, one of the infamous “River brothers” whose mama had named them all for the rivers where they had been conceived. Her and Dusty were just friends. Even if, in the two days I had been up here, Trask and Terri had broken up, she wouldn’t have gotten together with someone else already. Certainly not Dusty.
Chairs were arranged in a circle; a bong was produced, and Stacey and I were invited to join. I did, hoping I could sit next to Terri and find some way to signal to her that we were in distress, but Jake and Dusty flanked her, and when the men started leering at her, making gestures, and speaking in broken English, I saw the writing on the wall. They wanted her, too. Jake leaned over and whispered in Dusty's ear. Dusty responded by bending down to whisper into her ear, cupping the back of her neck and kissing her passionately.
We passed the bong around again, and when it was put away an argument broke out. It wasn't in English, so I don't know what was being said.
In the commotion I saw Terri duck around a corner and pull her phone out of her pocket, probably to text Trask to come get her out of there if she had any smarts at all.
I followed her. She looked up and saw me just as she slid her phone back in her pocket.
I startled as she reached out and grabbed my wrist. “Hey… it’s Ashley, right? Ashley Carter? Are you okay?”
Tell her! Tell her!
I opened my mouth, took a deep breath and spoke, but all that came out was a whisper. “I’m okay… are you?”
Terri shuddered. “I will be, but I definitely know why I’ve never come up here before.”
“He won’t let me leave!” I blurted out. “Or Stacey, either. I’ve been here for days but Stacey has only been up here since this morning. They say we owe them.”
Darkness clouded Terri’s eyes and her entire demeanor changed. She nodded. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you out of here. I don’t know how yet, but we will.”
Yelling in the next room escalated. Someone threw a punch. Dusty burst into the hallway and grabbed Terri’s arm.
“C’mon! We have to get out of here!”
“Wait!” Terri cried. “Stacey and Ashley. We can’t leave them here.”
Dusty grabbed my hand and I froze. A new round of arguing started. “C’mon! We have to go!”
When I didn’t move he threw me over his shoulder and ran down the stairs, holding Terri’s hand with Stacey right behind us.
We ran four blocks before we stopped in a dark alley behind the old Thriftway to catch our breath.
“What the hell was that?” Dusty yelled into the darkness.
Terri pulled out her phone and typed away, presumably texting Trask again.
“Don’t ask me,” she muttered. “I took four years of French.”
I laughed at the absurd calmness in her voice. I was just about to start walking home when Jake ran up, huffing and puffing.
“What was that?” he screamed at Dusty. “Taking their girls? You almost got me killed. They knocked out my teeth!” He spit on the ground.
It was dark but I didn’t see any teeth missing.
“They are minors, Jake,” Terri deadpanned. “Children. Local young ladies with families. And they don’t belong to anybody.”
Before Jake could respond, a truck that could only be Trask’s rolled up. He jumped out and Terri ran into his arms.
“We have to burn the place down!” Jake yelled. “Or they’ll just keep coming after us!”
“What!” Terri yelled. “Are you crazy?”
“It’s a den of sin,” Jake ranted. “We have to burn it down or they will never stop! We’ll be doing the town a favor and they will never be able to prey on young girls again.” His eyes were huge, the pupils dilated. Whatever he had done up in that apartment, it had been more than just weed. “We need lighter fluid. And gasoline. And a lighter. And rags and a hose!”
I knew arson was a crime, obviously, but so was what they were doing. The more Jake ranted and raved, the more sense he made. At least to me. Terri was still gaping at him like he was out of his ever-loving mind. Maybe he was, but then so was I.
“No,” Terri said firmly. “Do not do this.”
“I'll get the gasoline. You get the rags,” Jake told her, ignoring her protests. He turned to Dusty. “You get the hose.” And then to me and Stacey, he directed, “You get the lighter and lighter fluid.”
Terri caught my eye and shook her head, but all I could think about was how it had felt being stuck up there, knowing that trying to leave could get me killed, or worse. There had surely been girls before me, and unless we did something tonight there would surely be girls after me.
“Jake’s right,” I told Terri. “We have to. We have no choice.”
We scattered into the night in our search for supplies, leaving Dusty, Terri and Trask standing alone in the alley.
We did it that very night. We burnt down Little Rivers, accidentally killing someone in the process. Technically, Jake started the fire, but I was the one who gave him the lighter. Stacey chickened out and ran home before we ever got to Little Rivers. I heard later that Terri had enough good sense to haul herself, Trask, and Dusty to the Dutch Diner, where everyone knew them and could provide an alibi.
It should have been an open and shut case, with Jake going down for arson and me for being an accessory to a crime, at the very least.
But in the days that followed, it became clear that nothing would be open and shut about that night.
Instead of Jake going to jail, Trask had gone down for a crime he had literally nothing to do with, despite Terri having hard evidence of his alibi. The evidence didn’t make a difference when she never showed up in court to corroborate his story.
Coming out of my memories, I squinted up at the TV just in time to see Judge Marigold, the judge who had presided over Trask’s trial, and the former district attorney Jerry Carlisle being hauled out of the courthouse in handcuffs.
Another memory hit me in the gut, and I sank into a booth, trying to catch my breath.
“I didn’t do anything!” I shrieked as they none-too-gently shoved me into a cop car.
“Shut up, you whore,” Detective Morales sneered. “We know you set the fire at Little Rivers.”
“I didn’t though! I didn’t!” I started crying as we drove downtown to the police station and kept crying as they set me in an interrogation room and left me there for hours, cuffed to a table.
I was a minor, just barely, and the way they were treating me probably wasn’t legal, but I didn’t know that at the time.
When the door opened again the DA Jerry Carlisle, a lawyer and three cops entered the room. The cops stared me down with disgust. The lawyer and district attorneys were apparently there to play good cop.
“Look, Miss Carter,” the DA said, taking a seat across from me. “We know you’re not the one who started the fire.”
“Yes! That’s right. I didn’t! All I did was give Jake the lighter and fluid.”
“You mean you gave Trask the lighter.”
“No! What? I…” I closed my mouth, confused. “Trask wasn’t even there.”
The DA rolled his eyes, and the cop, the same one who had roughly arrested me and called me a whore, stepped forward.
“Okay, so you gave someone the lighter. Who isn’t the important part right now. The important part is that you gave the lighter knowing the intent of the person you were giving it to was to start a fire. That makes you an accessory to a crime. A felony, to be exact. You could go away for years.”
I started to cry again. “I’m sorry. I just wanted them to pay for what they did.”
“They hurt you?” The DA was speaking again, a concerned look on his face. “We can try to go after them for that, but with the place burned down there's no proof.”
I could only cry. Looking back, I was probably suffering from shock and PTSD, as this happened only weeks after the fire took place. But back then I only thought the tears made me look weak.
“You can go on trial and end up in prison for seven years, or we can make a deal.”
“Please… I… I'm pregnant,” I whispered, revealing something I had just discovered that morning.
“If you have a baby while incarcerated, it will more than likely go into the system. You might be able to get him or her back when you get out, but by then they will have lived their whole life without you. You'll be a stranger.”
“Please!” Instinctively, I rested my hand on my still-flat belly. “I want my baby to know me.”
“So then”—he tossed a folder with my name on it in front of me on the table with a wicked smile—“let's cut a deal, shall we?”
In the end I cut a deal for six months in juvie, which would have me released before I gave birth.
And all I had to do was swear that Trask had set the fire. At the time I thought I was doing the best thing for my future and my baby. And maybe I was.
But in reality, I had given them everything they needed to manipulate me. Then, and for years to come. And I had added another nail to Trask's coffin. There were so many people who could have saved him. So many people who could have corroborated his alibi. I thought for sure that my cutting a deal wouldn’t make a difference in the scheme of things, but it had. Nobody had saved Trask.
In the end, my choice hadn't helped anybody, not even myself. Terri, Stacey, and Dusty had all disappeared, Trask had gone to jail, and despite Officer Morales’ best efforts to save his half-brother, Jake had never dealt with the guilt, and drank and drugged himself into an early grave, dying from an overdose a few years after the fire, and the corruption had stayed hidden in the shadows. To this day, until this moment, I had lived in fear, overtaken by guilt, and with them watching my every move.
Now it appeared that just like Trask, I was finally free. And I had no idea how to handle that freedom.
Chapter 1
Dusty
The call came in while I was wrangling a bus full of at-risk youth into a movie theater for an afternoon matinee. I answered it, holding a finger to my lips to quiet the gaggle of pre-teens gathered around me.
“Hello, this is Dustin Drake.”
“Hello, Mr. Drake. This is Miles Devlin with Windy City Investigative Services.”
Windy City? Chicago? A scam call? Someone looking for donations? Consumer survey? I wasn’t sure, but something told me not to hang up. “How can I help you?”
“I was hired to find you.”
Whatever I had been expecting, that wasn’t it. “To find me?” I tried and failed to keep the shock out of my voice as ten sets of eyes stared up at me under furrowed brows.
“Yes, sir, and can I just say you are not an easy man to find.”
“Did it ever occur to you that might be because I didn’t want to be found?” When I had left my hometown, I had changed my surname of Reese to my mama’s maiden name of Drake. I wasn’t trying to actively hide from anyone or anything, I had just been ready to put the past behind me and start a new life.
“Um, yes, sir, it did, but worrying about that is not in my job description. I get paid to find people. And I found you.”
“Great, good for you.” I was annoyed now but also curious. “So, who hired you?”
“It was a couple, actually, sir. Trask King and Terri Travers.”
I’m pretty sure my heart stopped beating only for a second. Last I’d heard Trask was in jail, and Terri had put him there by disappearing and not showing up in court to corroborate his alibi. The thing was, she shouldn’t have had to. Trask was innocent and everybody from the judge to local law enforcement knew it. When Trask had gone down for a crime he didn’t commit, a crime he and Terri had saved me from being a part of, that was when I knew some shady shit was wrapped up in that night. When the district attorney both bribed and threatened me to keep me from testifying on Trask’s behalf, I left and never looked back.
I never planned to, either. Guilt and fear had kept me away. In fact, the super-suspicious, paranoid part of me was screaming inside to hang up and change my name and number, that I had been right to run, and that this was a scheme to bring me back. For what reason, I didn’t know, and I didn’t care to. But on the off chance that it wasn’t some dirty scheme to bury long-extinguished evidence, I had to know. Because there was one person I would go back to Three Rivers for, and that person was Terri Travers.
Terri had saved my life that night. Not literally—I wouldn’t have died. But if she hadn’t thrown me up against Trask’s truck and physically blocked me from participating in a very stupid scheme to burn down an apartment building, my life would have turned out very differently. After I left Three Rivers I had gone to community college and then to an online university, graduated with a degree in social work and gone on to run a youth program for at-risk city kids. My lifestyle wasn’t cushy, but it was comfortable, and I was happy. And I owed that all to Terri.
