It was a word Jack had heard 10,000 times in a hundred bar fights.
And it had never once made him want to hit somebody as much as it made him want to hit somebody right now.
"Okay," he said quietly.
"Okay, Emma."
"You don't ever have to say that word again."
"And you don't have to ask the next man."
"Why?"
"Because you're coming inside with me."
"You're going to eat."
"And then we're going to figure this out together."
"Okay?"
She stared at him.
"You won't leave?"
"I won't leave."
"You promise?"
And Jack Carter, who had not made a promise to another human being in 20 years, not to his mother, not to his ex-wife, not to his parole officer, not even to his own brothers, looked that little girl in the eye and said the word.
"I promise."
He held out his hand.
It was big.
Scarred.
Two of the knuckles had been broken and never set right.
A tattoo of a snake wrapped around the back of it.
He was suddenly very aware of all of these things, the way a man is suddenly aware of his hand when he is about to hold the hand of a child.
Emma looked at it.
Then she took it.
And Jack Carter felt a small, thin, dirty hand slide into his.
He felt something in his chest.
Something he had locked away a long, long time ago kicked once very hard and started to breathe.
They walked into Miller's Diner together.
Every head in that diner turned.
Every single one.
A giant leather-clad biker, hair gray at the temples, tattoos up both arms, and a tiny blonde child in torn pink sneakers holding his hand like it was the only solid thing left in the world.
The waitress, Darlene, who had been slinging hash at Miller's since 1987 and had seen every kind of trouble the desert could produce, took one look at them and didn't say a word.
She just grabbed two menus, nodded to the back booth, and led them over.
"Honey," Darlene said, bending down to Emma.
"You want pancakes?"
Emma looked up at Jack, checking permission.
Jack's jaw worked for a second before he could speak.
"Get her whatever she wants, Darlene."
"Whatever she wants."
"I want pancakes," Emma said quickly.
"And bacon."
"And orange juice, please, if that's okay."
"Sweetheart," Darlene said.
"That is more than okay."
Darlene walked away.
Jack sat across from Emma.
The booth vinyl creaked under him.
Emma was so small that her chin barely cleared the table.
She was looking at the salt shaker like it was the most fascinating object in the world because she was trying very hard not to look at Jack.
Because looking at Jack was making her want to cry.
And Jack could see it.
And he didn't know what to do about it.
Jack Carter did not know the first thing about a crying child.
"Emma?"
"Yes."
"The place with the fence, was it a foster home?"
"Mhm."
"How many foster homes have you been in, honey?"
She counted on her fingers.
Her fingers were tiny.
Thin.
"This is four."
"Four."
"Mhm."
"And the other three, why did you leave?"
"They sent me back."
"Who sent you back?"
"The parents."
"The foster parents?"
"All of them."
"Why, honey?"
She shrugged.
And that shrug nearly broke him.
Because it wasn't a shrug that said she didn't know.
It was a shrug that said she knew exactly why, and she wasn't going to say it out loud because she had decided a long time ago that some things were just the way things were.
"Emma."
"Yes?"
"Why did they send you back?"
The little girl looked across the booth at the most feared biker in three counties.
Her bottom lip started to shake.
"They said I was too much trouble."
"They said I cried too much at night."
"They said I had bad dreams."
"They said I looked at them funny."
She stopped.
Her voice became smaller.
"They said nobody was ever going to want me because there was something wrong with me."
"And I should stop asking because asking was just going to make it worse."
Jack Carter had killed a man once, though the state had never been able to prove it.
Jack Carter had walked through a prison riot without so much as raising his voice.
Jack Carter had not cried since the day they buried his mother in 2005.
But sitting there in that booth, he felt something hot slide down his cheek.
And he did not reach up to wipe it.
Because he did not want Emma to see him wiping it away.
He did not want her to think what she said was something to be ashamed of.