Blood in the Water (Kairos) Read Online Free PDF

was extremely attractive.
     
    ~o0o~
     
    The redhead sitting across from him at the table in the visitation room was as beautiful and alluring to him now as she’d been fifteen years ago.  Sure her hairstyle had changed, she’d tamed the wild curls that had caught his twenty-year-old eyes, and she’d added a few lines around the corners of her eyes, just as he had; but she would always be the sassy bitch that had dared to answer him back.  There wasn’t a day that went by that Samuel Carter ever regretted falling in love with Moira Belle Lebeau, even if he often had to stifle the urge to strangle her.
     
    “You didn’t think you needed to tell me he’d been suspended, cher?”
     
    “Nothin’ you could do about it from in here, was there?  Thought I’d save you the time worryin’ about it.  Terry’s got no business bringin’ that to you.”
     
    “Terry knew I’d be concerned.”
     
    “And here you are bein’ all concerned and that’s all you can be, cher.”
     
    Samuel knew he was looking daggers at his wife, and he was glad that this was one of the visits that she’d chosen not to bring the children along.  If she kept up like this he’d be in for First Degree Murder, probably end up on Death Row for the damage he was about to do to her.  They didn’t need to see their daddy squeeze the breath out of their momma here in the prison visiting room.  He was so angry, at Terry, at Moira, at himself, at the world, that he almost missed the imperceptible way her expression softened.
     
    “I know it grates on you, bein’ stuck in here.  But you gotta trust me.  You’ve left me alone a long time now to bring those children up and you need to trust that I know what I’m doin’ with them.”  Moira sighed, obviously having caught his renewed irritability at her reminder about how long she’d had to cope on her own.  “You don’t need to be worryin’ about Dean bein’ suspended for something; that weren’t nothin’.  You need to concentrate on gettin’ your ass outta here in time for your daughter’s birthday.  She’s depending on her daddy bein’ there.  She won’t ask for no presents, says all she wants is you home.”
     
    Samuel’s heart shattered.
     
    He took a deep breath, trying to find some center, some calm.  He knew he was failing miserably, but he had to at least pull himself away from the verge of crying like a baby right here in the middle of everyone.
     
    “You gonna at least tell me why he was suspended, cher?”
     
    “Fightin’ in school.”  Samuel didn’t miss how uncomfortable Moira looked, positively shifty.  She could manipulate him like no other woman ever had, except for maybe his mama; but she had too fiery a nature for subterfuge.  She had a direct brain to mouth link with no filter that made it practically impossible to lie, at least to him.  She seemed to manage it just fine with some people. 
     
    “And the rest, cher.”  He prompted gently.
     
    Moira took a beat, but he knew she knew she had to give it up.  “He tells me one of the boys in his class was bein’ mean to Ashleigh.  Said some things ‘bout you bein’ a jailbird, ‘bout you never comin’ out.  Said a few more about the club, about her family bein’ criminals.”
     
    The pieces of Samuel’s heart shattered into fragments.
     
    He dropped his head and looked at the table top, keeping his eyes wide until he was sure the tears would not fall.  He usually kept the feelings of powerlessness tamped well down, but they were leaking out all over the place right now.  He’d always hated seeing his kids off to school.  Dean he was less worried about since the boy had grown big enough to take care of himself, and had heeded some lessons in how to fight from his collection of miscreant uncles, but Ashleigh was his baby girl.  He hated that some little shit had been mean to her, hated that little shits like that existed, hated that he was stuck where he was and