Her Son's Hero

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER ONE

“SEAN, SEAN, spawn of the con!”

Dominic Payette turned and watched from the porch as five jeering boys pounded down the sidewalk in front of his house, chasing a scrawny, sandy-haired boy. With his bulging backpack weighing him down, the kid didn’t stand a chance. The pack leader, a big guy with ruddy cheeks and shocking red hair, grabbed the bag and yanked the kid to a stop.

Dom set down the box he was carrying.

“You ignoring me, con?” The big guy shoved the whelp hard. The other boys circled, penning the kid in. “Think you’re better than us, little rich boy?”

“Leave me alone.”

“Or what? You gonna tell your mommy?” Another shove. “Gimme your money, rich boy.”

“I don’t have any. You took it all at lunch!”

Dom gripped the banister hard. He had to give the kid a chance to defend himself. He knew from all those years of being picked on that bruises healed quickly, but pride took much longer. Maybe it was tough love, but those were his rules.

He could see the tense line of the boy’s bony shoulders, the wildness in his eyes. The kid mumbled something, head bowed in resignation.

His tormentor’s lip lifted in a snarl. “Take his bag.”

The gang seized the boy by his sticklike arms while the redhead punched him in the gut. The kid doubled over, and his backpack was yanked off him.

But the bully didn’t stop there. He kicked him in the chest. Hard.

Dom leaped over the railing off his porch, outraged by the redhead’s viciousness and complete lack of honor. He had the kid outmatched and outnumbered—it was hardly a fair fight.

In a few long strides, Dom was on top of the pack, wading into them like a lion into a pile of field mice. The boys froze and stared up at him wide-eyed.

Dom knew he could be scary looking when he wanted to be. Five feet ten inches of solid muscle honed from years of mixed martial arts training, a shorn scalp and the fading bruises along the underside of his jaw would intimidate anyone. He glowered down at the boys. “You guys got a problem?”

The bully whirled around to face him. He went so pale even his freckles disappeared. “Let’s go! C’mon!”

The kids scattered, huge eyes still fixed on Dom. They dropped the backpack as they raced away.

“Are you okay?” Dom asked.

The boy slowly got to his feet, cradling his midsection, panting. His face was tomato-red, as if he was holding his breath.

“Hey, if it hurts, I find it’s better to shout it out.” Dom didn’t need to bruise the boy’s ego any more by telling him it was okay to cry like a girl. Boys at this age were trying to be men. Dom got that the kid needed a different outlet. “Just yell. I swear, most of the pain, it’s in your mouth. Like this…” Dom’s booming bark startled the kid.

But he didn’t say anything. He’d swallowed his pain, forced it deep inside. Defeat dulled his soft gray eyes. He picked up his pack and brushed himself off.

Dom grimaced. “Do you live around here?” he asked.

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” the boy said warily.

“I guess that makes you smarter than me.” He smiled. “My name’s Dominic. I just moved here for the summer—in that house right there.” He gestured to the two-story Victorian behind him. Showing the boy he lived on his route home from school might make him feel safer.

The kid glanced from the house to the U-Haul truck at the curb. His eyes widened when he spotted the equipment inside.

He inched closer, his caution melting away like snow in the sun. “Are you, like, some kind of boxer?”

An easy misconception, since the most visible piece of gym equipment in the truck was a punching bag. “I do some boxing,” Dom said, “but I’m actually a mixed martial artist. My specialty is karate, but I also have training in wrestling, boxing, judo, Muay Thai and Brazilian jujitsu.”

The kid gazed up at him in awe. “You’re not, like, in the UFF, are you?”

“Actually, yeah.” Dom grinned, wondering if the boy would recognize him. Dom was at the top of his league, poised to win the welterweight Unlimited Fighting Federation belt in September. “Are you a fan?”

“My mom doesn’t let me watch fights on TV. She says they’re a bad influence.”

Dom’s lips quirked. Mixed martial arts wasn’t really for children; people got hurt in the cage and bloodshed was common. But the sport was misunderstood by many, and criticized unfairly as being nothing more than a glorified bar brawl.

The kid walked up to the edge of the truck. “Wow, look at all that stuff. It’s like you have a whole gym in there.”

“I pretty much do. I train eight hours a day.”

“That’s so cool. My name’s Sean MacAvery.” He stuck out a grubby hand. The defeated child from moments ago had disappeared. Dom’s callused paw swallowed the boy’s hand and the kid pumped it with more vigor than expected from someone who’d just been kicked in the ribs. “I live across the street, over there.” He pointed to where almost identical houses lined the road. “Do you need help moving your stuff in?”

Dom had to be careful. In his experience, people in small towns could be suspicious of outsiders, and judging by the way the neighbors kept flicking back their curtains to watch him, he figured the inhabitants of Salmon River hadn’t made their minds up about him yet. “You’d better ask your dad first,” he said.