Free Hell Bent by Becky McGraw Page A

years to poison his blood.
    Damn her and that fucking song .
    “This was a bad idea…just stop the truck, Cade.  I’ll run back to the compound,” Cecelia said, her voice ragged.
    Try again, Brat—you forced this, now deal with it . 

 
    CHAPTER SIX
     
    “Oh hell no—you want me to talk?  You pushed and now you got it but you sure might not like what you hear, Brat!” Cade’s hands tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles went white.  “Why the fuck was I not something you even considered when you made the decision to leave school and secretly enlist, Cecelia?”
    Her only response, shaking shoulders and soft sobs, pissed him off.  He waited a minute more, then answered for her. 
    “I’ll tell you why—because everything is and always was all about you .  Your family spoiled you rotten and I was stupid enough to get involved with a woman-child who wasn’t any more ready for a relationship than you were to make adult decisions about your life.”
    When she still didn’t speak, he figured he’d made his point and reached for the radio knob.
    “I wasn’t spoiled, I was smothered ,” she ground out, her voice choked.  “By you, by my brother, by my mother and father.  Every one of you wanted to protect me and that was what produced the woman-child you chose to get involved with.”
    Cade sat back in his seat, looked over into the big pools of blue misery that were now pinned on him.  “That’s bullshit,” he said with a snort, looking back at the road.  “You were always barreling headfirst into trouble.  Someone had to save you.”
    “We’ll never know if I could’ve saved myself , will we?” Cecelia folded her arms over her chest.  “Even when I was an adult, David still treated me like an incompetent child.  You all did.”  Cecelia turned in the seat and unfolded her arms.  “You know what he said to me when he came home and said he was quitting the police force to open Deep Six?  When I asked him to hire me?”
    “No, what did he say?” Cade asked, mulling over her words, pairing them what he remembered from back then.  They had two entirely different perceptions for sure.
    “He said…” Cee Cee cleared her throat and lowered her voice to mimic Logan and Cade’s lips twitched. “You don’t even know how to shoot a gun, Cecelia. You haven’t been to war and have no idea what kind of inhumanity exists in the world and I don’t want you to know.  Just get an office job once you finish your degree.”
    “Wise words you should have heeded,” Cade grumbled, in total agreement with Dave’s conclusion.  Cecelia was much too innocent and naïve to get involved in that world.  Back then, at any rate.  Now, she was still naïve but far from innocent.
    “No, what those words did was wake me up to just how overprotected I was and how stifled I’d become…how little any of you respected me as a competent adult.  Those words gave me the idea to join the military to change that.”  She blew out a breath, and out of the corner of his eye he saw that stubborn chin lift higher.  “If shooting a gun, seeing that inhumanity would make me someone my brother respected then that’s exactly what I wanted to do.  I idolized him and his words hurt because they told me he thought I wasn’t worthy of his respect.” 
    Cade had no idea how to respond to that, as she sat back against the seat and crossed her arms over her chest.  He didn’t expect to hear what he was hearing and he was on the edge of his seat, almost holding his breath while he waited to hear the rest.
    “I was tired of being told what I could and couldn’t do by men who didn’t respect me.  Wanted to protect me.  I wanted to be able to protect myself and joining the military did that for me.  I grew up, gained the confidence in myself and my abilities that I was lacking.”  She sighed heavily.  “I knew if I talked to y’all before I enlisted you’d try to talk me out of it.”
    Cade