The man at the front of the church’s clothes were of lower quality but that was a deception, something Rutledge had not yet learned. Layne knew this was a deception because the man at the front of the church had more shit in his hair than Tripp and a haircut that he didn’t get at a barber. He also had a tan that wasn’t from the sun or from an olive skin tone. It was October in Indiana and unless someone was fresh from vacation, no one had a tan.
And he was extremely good-looking, out of a magazine good-looking and he had an easy, very white smile that he was shining on the flock of girls surrounding him.
Bleached teeth, carefully crafted tanning bed tan and a fifty dollar haircut.
Definitely not a Youth Minister.
“Excuse me,” Rocky murmured and slid away from him before he could catch her.
She wasn’t three strutting strides away before Layne ordered a simple, “Tripp.”
“On it,” Tripp muttered and moved to follow Rocky.
Rocky strutted naturally but Layne watched and learned something new about his woman. When she meant business, her strut changed, it became subtly more suggestive and a fuckuva lot more watchable. She captured TJ Gaines’s attention ten pews from the front and she kept it. He had teenaged girls hanging on his every word and practically hanging off his every limb, but, for Gaines, they’d vanished. Gaines was watching Rocky and even standing at the front of a church, his look was openly carnal.
Nope, definitely not a Youth Minister.
Rocky rounded the front, hips swaying, ass swinging, and didn’t even glance at him but smiled brightly at someone in the second pew back. She stopped and greeted an old woman Layne didn’t know, going so far as to put a knee to the vacant front pew to lean in, take the old woman’s hand and have a chat. This also meant that tight skirt, which Layne had noticed had a slit up the back, stretched across her hips, thighs and an ass which was now pointed straight out.
Gaines’s eyes locked on her ass and his look kept the carnal but added hungry.
Fuck.
Rocky just hit his radar with a big, fucking ping.
“Shit, Dad, she’s good,” Jasper muttered from beside him.
Layne felt his jaw tighten and he held himself back as Rocky’s attention was caught by a couple of the girls, as she knew it would be, she squeezed the old lady’s hand and turned to the girls and Gaines. He saw her head move around as she greeted Gaines’s entourage and then, even though her back was to Layne, he knew the second her eyes met Gaines’s because he arranged his features to hide the hunger but they didn’t change to kindly Youth Minister. Instead, they changed to blatant interest, an interest she was meant to see, read and, Gaines hoped, act on.
Layne tensed to move when Gaines held out his hand and Rocky’s lifted hers to take it but Layne stopped when Tripp did his thing.
He’d been talking to one of the girls but the minute Rocky’s hand touched Gaines’s, Tripp didn’t hesitate. He turned toward Layne and called, “Okay Dad, we’re comin’!” even though Layne hadn’t said a word.
Then Tripp leaned in, grabbed Rocky’s hand, said a few words to Gaines and the girls around him, turned and tugged Rocky behind him as he led the way back to Layne, Jasper, Vera and Josie, dragging Rocky behind him.
Layne grinned as his son and his woman moved. Tripp grinned back. Rocky didn’t grin. Rocky looked displeased.
Tripp didn’t let Rocky’s hand go until Layne’s arm slid around her shoulders, he pulled her front to his and tipped his chin up at Tripp who stepped away.
Then he dipped his chin down to look at Rocky.
“Not fair,” she whispered before he could speak, “reinforcements.”
“Baby,” he replied on a smile.
“We should sit,” Vera announced abruptly, Rocky’s head turned to her, Layne let Rocky go with a sigh and they all slid into the pew.
Without telling his son to do it, Jasper worked with Layne to engineer the seating arrangement to pin Rocky between them so that Tripp went in first, then Vera, then Jas, then Rocky, then Layne and finally Josie.
The service started and they did a lot of standing, sitting and singing, though Layne didn’t sing. While people’s eyes were to their hymnbooks, Layne’s eyes were locked on Gaines who was sitting in a pew, three rows back and to the side and he had a very pretty, very young blonde girl on one side and a very pretty, very young, redhead on his other side. His entire pew was taken with girls, some pretty, some not-so-pretty but all of them were young. Layne guessed freshman, at most sophomores.
Two seconds after the sermon started, Rocky turned into him and her lips went to his ear.
“He’s not right,” she whispered.
“I know, baby,” he whispered back.
“He’s really not right.” She kept whispering.
Layne turned his head to her, her lips went away from his ear but he put his face close to hers, held her eyes and whispered back, “Baby, I know.”
She gazed at him a second, worry open in her eyes then she nodded and turned to face the front.
Layne glanced back at Gaines and his followers and he felt his gut squeeze.
Then he made a decision.
He leaned in front of Rocky, caught Jasper’s attention and Jasper leaned in front of Rocky too.
“You just went active duty,” Layne murmured, Jasper’s eyes sliced across the church to the third pew then back to Layne.
“Gotcha,” he returned quietly and sat back.
Layne sat back too then glanced at Rocky and saw she was smiling.
After the sermon, Layne walked back into the vestibule holding Rocky’s hand and they stopped when one of his mother’s friends called her name and Vera broke off to greet her.
Five seconds later, Layne felt Rocky’s hand squeeze his tightly, he looked down at her to see her eyes directed across the vestibule and his eyes followed hers.
Gaines was again tending his flock but the very pretty, very young redhead was close to him and had a hand resting on his chest. She couldn’t be more than fourteen but she rested her hand on his chest the way Rocky would rest hers on Layne’s.
Layne’s stomach roiled.
This wasn’t about God, Jesus and religion. It also wasn’t about drugs. This was what he’d suspected it was, but hoped it wasn’t. It was about something else, something far worse than drugs.
But what Layne didn’t get was that the guy wasn’t hiding it. It was like he had carte blanche to cultivate his underage harem right in the vestibule of the church. And, if he was into young girls, how could he also be so blatantly into Rocky?
Layne scanned the crowd and he saw some adults had their eyes on the group, their manner watchful and uncomfortable. Parents who had concerns but who were not stepping in.
Layne looked back at Gaines whose hand was dropping from doing something around the redhead’s ear.
Dedication.
Those girls were devoted not to their faith in Jesus but to their worship of TJ Gaines. These parents had had words and the girls had gone teenaged girl berserk. The parents were either lazy and didn’t want the headache of dealing with pissed off teenaged girls in the throes of a very sick crush or they had nothing to go on but speculation they really hoped wasn’t accurate.
In the ‘burg, it was undoubtedly the latter.
Layne looked at his sons. “Jas, Tripp, shut that shit down,” he growled and both his boys nodded and wove through the crowd.