Free The Last Riders - First Four Votes by Jamie Begley Page A

into fists. “I had made a play for her when I first got to town; she turned me down flat. After that night with you, she ran straight into my arms. You must have scared the hell out of her.”
    “She knew what I wanted and she wanted me to work for it. It wasn’t worth the effort,” Razer weakly argued.
    Dean stood and walked around the desk, casually leaning back against it.
    “Oh, she’s worth it. Isn’t that what you’re here to ask me? If you made a mistake? For Christmas, I gave Beth a weekend trip to Vegas. She’s never been out of Kentucky her whole life. I’m going to ask her to marry me that weekend, Razer.”
    “Everyone at the club will be happy for you. Guess that answers my questions on how life is treating you. Let me know when you set a date. I’ll send a present. See you around.” Razer turned towards the door.
    Dean almost let him go, but he owed the man his life. It was time to pay him back. “Evie has started coming to church on Sundays, did she tell you?" Before he could answer, Dean continued, “She told me what happened that night. She feels pretty bad about it. She likes Beth. She also told me about the bullshit that Sam has been mouthing off about Beth. I thought you were smarter than to listen to a jealous bitch. Unlike you, I cared enough to find out about Beth. I talked to people that care about her; the people she sits next to every Sunday. Do you know she has never missed a Sunday service, even after her father, who was the previous pastor, had passed?”
    Razer turned back, not saying anything, only listening. “The congregation loves her and, when they found out I was dating her, they couldn’t tell me her virtues fast enough. If you hadn’t been a jackass to her that night, she would never have dated me. Her father was a miserable bastard who controlled every aspect of Beth’s life, so she was never allowed to play and socialize as other kids her age were. They never even had a television; he considered it the Devil’s medium. They read scripture every night; her whole world was the church. I watched a videotape of him giving a sermon and he even scared me. There is no way she would place herself back in such a stifling environment if you hadn’t scared her so badly.”
    “Sam told me she had dated several boys in high school, and Beth told me she had partied in college,” Razer defended himself.
    "Beth wasn’t allowed to date in high school, she never attended extra-curricular activities and she never attended dances or prom. She won’t even dance with me; she’s too embarrassed to admit she doesn’t know how. His congregation told her father every misstep Beth made. If she even talked to a boy, they told him. I imagine if she attended a beer bust in college, Beth considered it partying. She probably was too embarrassed to admit to you how little she was exposed to, even if you gave her the opportunity," Dean said intuitively. “Since she graduated college and became Lily’s guardian, you were the first one to manage to get close to her. She works long hours to pay for all of Lily’s expenses and has managed to pay off almost all the debt her parents left. She didn’t want Lily to lose her home.”
    “I should have known she was inexperienced,” Razer said in self-recrimination.
    Dean nodded. “I can only determine that she was attracted to you and was willing to take a chance, despite every stricture her father had droned into her since birth."
    “She must have thought she walked into Sodom and Gomorrah that night.”
    “That may be, however, Beth and Evie have become best friends. She doesn’t even hold a grudge against Samantha. I am willing to bet she would forgive you if you tried.”
    Razer shook his head. “I don’t fit into her life and she damn sure doesn’t fit into mine.”
    “Evie tells me you have been nailing every woman that’s looked your way the last nine months, Razer. Yet you haven’t touched Evie or Sam since that night. You can