Bury the Hatchet

Chapter Twenty-Six - Bury the Hatchet

TALLIE

Lance had been arrested pending charges of violating the protective order and doing so while armed. For now, he was in jail, but Daddy said he'd be released on bail as soon as the next morning. And he probably wouldn't face any significant jail time, if any. Probation was far more common in these cases. The restraining order would still be in effect, but Lance had already ignored it once. He might do so again, and it might not work out in my favor the next time.

I could still barely believe that Lance had done any of the things he'd done since the wedding. It was hard to reconcile this version of him with the man who had been in my life since I was a baby.

He'd always been demanding and authoritative, but he'd never laid a hand on me before. The change in him made me think that maybe Hunter was right about something else. Maybe Lance had gone off the deep end. Stress could change a person, and not necessarily for the better. His whole career had been built around doing whatever it took for me to become Miss USA, and now that dream had been snatched out from under him. There was a part of me that pitied him, but that part was getting smaller by the day.

Regardless of what I wanted to believe about him, the truth was that he'd bruised me on two separate occasions. Worse still, he'd shown up carrying a gun at a public event he knew I'd be attending, and his presence was in direct defiance of a court order. Maybe I hadn't been seeing Lance clearly before, but I knew I was now. The events at the mall were more than enough to convince me Hunter was right and I needed a bodyguard.

Daddy and Hunter decided I needed two of them so one would always be with me, particularly when Hunter wasn't around.  And the when Hunter wasn't around part was going to be here sooner than I'd like. He was leaving for a road trip with the team on Saturday and wouldn't be back for almost a week. With all the recent events, once again, Daddy decided to take Friday off work. He came over in the morning before Hunter left for practice and was still with us all afternoon while we interviewed the various security guards.

When the last of the men headed out the front door, Daddy looked down at his cell phone. "Lance is out," he said after scrolling through a few messages. "He took a deal. Two years of probation and court-mandated anger-management counseling. If he stays out of trouble for the probationary period, nothing goes on his record."

"That didn't take long," Hunter said.

"It was just a misdemeanor and he didn't have a prior record. The courts prefer to deal with those cases quickly and move on." Daddy sipped from his coffee cup, setting his phone on the dining room table. "I don't suppose either of you have seen the latest going around the news about all of this?"

I shook my head, and Hunter let out a grunting sound. We'd both been actively avoiding the news lately.

"Well, son, let's just say they're showing you in a slightly more sympathetic light after the events at the mall and Lance's arrest, but that isn't saying a lot. You two are still essentially a spectacle. A side show. I doubt you'll be free from the gossip pages until something juicier comes along."

And there wasn't anything juicier than the two of us right now.

"So," Daddy said, "let's make a decision on these bodyguards. There's not any time to waste."

I sifted through the stack of files we had from each of them, complete with background checks, resumes, and photographs. There were two men who'd made me uncomfortable, and I didn't want to be alone with them. I found their files and started a new pile. "These two are definite nos."

"I liked Evan," Daddy said, putting a hand on one of my discards. "He seemed really competent."

"And intimidating," I replied.