Bluegrass Undercover (Bluegrass Brothers)

month to provide for her and in return she was his doormat.
    Annie had been mortified by it and had taken pains to always be the one in control and to never lose her identity in a relationship. As a result, she was more inclined to go on a couple of dates and then the relationship just drifted away into nothingness. The men usually were intimidated by her anyway and because of that tried to exert control over her. She would not let them make her fit their concept of a “normal” woman who would sit eagerly by the phone waiting for them to call or who would do whatever she could to make him happy. She always got a kick out of that.
    Being the simpering trophy girlfriend just wasn’t her style. She was too busy to worry if he called her or not. Most of the time she forgot about calling him at all, and most of his calls went to her voicemail. But, as she scraped another burnt layer off her failed attempt at cooking, she realized that this time was different. Cade didn’t complain about her job. He didn’t complain about the fact she didn’t call him. He didn’t complain about the fact that when at school she wanted to keep it professional. He didn’t even complain when her fears surfaced, and she hurried him from the house when it got late. Fears of those nights at the foster home always surfaced. It was why she couldn’t spend the night with anyone. Not realizing it, she stabbed the casserole dish with her knife as the flashback assaulted her.
     
    Annie pulled on the old, ratty white undershirt that served as her nightgown and jumped onto the cot that served as her bed. The thin mattress sagged under her slight form as she pulled the musky covers over her head. She had turned twelve years old today, but no one knew it. It was just another night in Hell. She’d been at this foster home for four weeks, and her only escape was school that started last week.
    She shared a room with two other girls, Stacy and Sarah. They were both eight years old. She was the big sister, and the girls looked to her to protect them, but she couldn’t. She had tried, oh, how she had tried. She had received a broken rib for the effort along with a black eye and probably a concussion, but she had never seen a doctor.
    The floor board creaked, and a shadow blocked the light coming under the door from the hall. Hell had arrived. Stacy and Sarah stifled a cry and pulled the covers tight to their little chins. Annie heard the door open and closed her eyes. She started working over the science problems from class that day and tried to block out the screams coming from the girls. The first night she was there she had jumped on his back and tried to stop him from hurting them. She had saved them that night, but she had been so badly beaten that she couldn’t stop him again.
    As she huddled under her blanket that hadn’t been washed the whole time she’d been there, she thought about her science teacher Miss Whitebuckler. School hadn’t started yet when she had arrived, and after the scars from her beating faded, she had been enrolled in school. Miss Whitebuckler would help. She was a tough but fair older woman who had taken a liking to her. She knew no one else would listen to her. Social services thought she was a liar and stopped investigating the claims of neglect and abuse she had told them about.
    The sobs reached her ears along with the crack of the belt. She knew she couldn’t stand it anymore. She peeked out from the covers to peer at the broken floor lamp near her bed. She slowly slid out from the side of the bed and onto the floor. Her knees scraped along the rough hardwood floor as she crawled to the lamp. The long rusted pole was solid enough to be of some assistance. She hadn’t been labeled a troublemaker for nothing, and this time she knew what she was up against.
    Her fingers wrapped around the cold, iron rod as she crept quietly to the large figure facing the bed. The girls’ cries masked the sound of her approach. She lifted the pole high and with all her strength brought it down on his head. The sudden silence was deafening. The pounding of her blood running through her body was all she could hear. Stacy and Sarah stared at her with their eyes wide as they watched his body fall to the floor.
    “Grab your thing. We’re getting out of here,” Annie told them. The girls scrambled to grab what little they had. She pushed hard as she lifted the window and boosted the girls through it before he could wake up.
    Miss