Free Taming Cross (Love Inc.) by Ella James

bad life, and I never even thought about my lack of parents.
    So, when I met Sean the weekend before graduation—when I finally met the infamous Sean Tacoma, the weed dealer I’d never met (because I was always left in the car while Alec ran in)—I couldn't help but be smitten.
    Sean was cute, with bright green eyes and reddish blond hair, and all I could think about was what pretty babies we would have. They would be cuter than all the other kids in preschool. Better-dressed. And they would have the perfect family with a mother and a father.
    Stupid, I know. Stupid, selfish Meredith.
    I squeeze my eyes shut thinking about how stupid I was. I didn't know where my choices would take me, and if I had... I could have joined the Peace Corps. Been a missionary. Nowadays I think that I would like that. Volunteer work. Work that helps people. Now that I don't have any choices that don't suck.
    Sometimes, since coming to the clinic, I think about the pretty kids that Sean and I would have had—if we hadn’t gotten into trouble in Atlanta. If I hadn’t fled to Vegas. Sometimes I think about the children I’ve met here who were born without arms and legs, children with cleft lips, children who can’t afford clothes, and I feel sick with my old self. I wish I could send a note back to my past.
    “Señorita   Merri, you look sleepy!”
    I'm holding four-year-old Maria in my lap, and we're working on her hand coordination. She has a rare condition where she's missing a part of her brain—the corpus collosum—so she has trouble with fine motor skills.
    I lean in and kiss her on the nose, then snap my teeth near her cheek. “Grrrr! I am a dragon! Dragons never sleep!”
    Maria giggles and snaps her teeth at me, and in seconds we are rolling on the floor. She flops onto her back, still giggling, and points to my hair. “You have a barrette. It looks like a diamond. I like diamonds.”
    It's not a real diamond. I found it on the ground one day and only kept it because I really needed something to keep my hair out of my face. Pretty soon, I won’t need it anymore.
    “Can you get it out of my hair? If you can, you can have it.”
    I feel her little fingers grip my neck as her other hand delves into my hair, and I can't resist tickling her underneath her arm.
    “No fair!” she cries, but she's laughing.
    I lean my head down and wait for her to free the barrette.
    If only I had known how nice life is when you're focused on something besides yourself.
    When Maria gets the barrette, I clap and kiss her cheek. I hold her close for just a second, telling her a silent goodbye. Tomorrow, I'm leaving. I hope she wears the barrette for a long time. I hope that she’s the prettiest girl at preschool.
     

CHAPTER TEN
     

     
     
    The club is less than fifty yards ahead: a box-shaped, white and red building framed by a parking lot that’s surrounded by dirt. As I come up on it, I realize it’s not quite as small as I thought—maybe about the size of a roller skating rink back home. The parking lot isn’t empty but it isn’t full, either. I count maybe fifteen or so cars and one ragged out white Honda CB500F.
    I notice, as I park beside an old Maxima, that on the wooden porch there’s a girl with long, bleached blonde hair wearing nothing but a sombrero and a black string bikini. I wonder how seedy a place has to be for Priscilla to call it that.
    It takes me a minute to get off my bike, because my body is so stiff and sore, and after that I have to dig through my bag to find the one source of protection I was able to take across the border: a small, palm-held Taser. I bought it for Suri years ago, when we were all starting college, but she refused to carry it, and somehow it ended up at my house. I slide it into my pocket, check for my wallet, and lock my bag onto the bike.
    The whole time, this girl is dancing for me. As I cross the dusty parking lot, where the air smells of sour liquor and fried foods, she rubs her palms over her