Saved by the Devil (Devils Arms Book 3)

she had become friends with was willing to rent a car in her name. This meant nobody could trace the car rental to her. Phoebe was going to drive the car to South Dakota before buying a bus ticket to get her closer to her goal. In two days, she would be done with this life and free from her husband’s violent care. She just had to make it through the next few days and she’d never have to deal with the abuse he doled out to her again.
She went to the shower and turned on the hot water. She climbed inside and sat down on the floor of the shower and cried as the warm water soothed her. Phoebe held her legs tightly to her chest and for the first time in forever her mind was filled with plans for a better future.

Chapter Two
“Jazzy, get your shoes on so we can go meet Cody and Rage at the park,” Peanut called out as he pulled his boots on by the door. He grabbed his wallet and keys off the table and stared down the hallway wondering what the heck was taking her so long.
“Jazzy, let’s go!” he called out. He frowned. What was that little hellion doing in the bathroom? He watched as she came barreling out of the hall bathroom with her hair half in a ponytail. His guts clenched with worry when he saw the panicked look on her face.
“Dad, dad, help! I can’t get it out,” she screeched, her eyes wide and filled with worry as she tugged at her hair.
“Let me see, sweets,” Peanut said, turning her around to find her hair tangled around the ponytail holder. “Jazzy, why did you mess with it? I helped you put it up this morning and it was fine.”
“I wanted to cut some bangs,” Jasmine grumbled nearly giving him a panic attack. Had she cut her hair? Fuck, he hoped not because he didn’t know shit about cutting hair any more than his nine-year-old did.
“Did you cut you hair?” he demanded.
“No, dad. I couldn’t get it out of the ponytail. You can’t cut hair while it’s in a ponytail,” Jasmine said in a tone that implied he was an idiot for even suggesting it.
Peanut rolled his eyes. Reaching out, he tried to untangle the knot his daughter had put in her hair. Tugging gently at the ponytail holder that was somehow twisted up in a knot, he grunted in response. He finally got the hair untangled after ten minutes of working with it. Her silky brown locks fell to just past her shoulders. He reached over and grabbed the comb off the coffee table where he’d laid it this morning when he’d put her hair up. He slowly tugged it through the knotted strands trying not to pull her hair.
“Ow, that’s pulling, daddy,” she complained.
Peanut didn’t snap at her even though she’d done it to herself. He knew she hadn’t done it on purpose. He’d had to learn a lot of patience in the past four and half years since Jasmine had arrived in his life. The night her mother had shown up on his doorstep with photos of her adorable little face he’d been a goner. Peanut had taken one look at her chubby baby face and pretty green eyes and he’d known that it didn’t matter if she was his biological daughter or not. She needed him and that was all that mattered. He’d taken both Jazzy and her mom in without a paternity test or a fight. It had taken about two seconds for him to decide that anyone that adorable deserved a father. Jazzy had been his from that moment on. Her mother fought hard to stay as long as she was able, but the cancer eventually got her. Stage four ovarian cancer wasn’t very forgiving.
“Sorry, Jazzy pants, but it’s really tangled,” Peanut replied, his hand holding the knot while trying to gently work it out with the comb.
“Don’t call me that, dad. I’m too big for that nickname now. I’m almost ten, you know,” Jasmine insisted, sounding annoyed.
Peanut smiled a little sadly. Every day she got a little less dependent on him. Her growing up was going kill him. He didn’t even want to think about what would happen when she started dating. Maybe he could forbid it until she was thirty—or maybe forty.
Yep, forty sounded good.
“Alright, sweets, it’s all fixed up. Do you want me to put it back up?” he asked.
“No, I’ll leave it down. That way we can go meet Uncle Rage and Cody. I’m getting too old to go to the park you know. I think next time we should maybe just go get ice cream or maybe go to the arcade. Oooh, or the mall,” Jasmine said importantly, grabbing her shoes and pulling them on.
Peanut shuddered; he wasn’t about to tell his cute little hellion that the mere thought of going to the mall with her made him queasy. Thankfully she had plenty of Aunties to take her in his place because he wasn’t ever doing that shit again. The one time he’d taken her a little over a year ago had been three hours of pure hell. She’d manically insisted on going into each store and by the time he’d called for back-up he’d been at his wits end. If Rooster hadn’t taken pity on him by bringing Star to help, he likely would have sat down in the middle of Macys and cried like a little bitch.
“We can talk about that later, let’s just get our stuff and go meet Cody and Uncle Rage,” Peanut said, stuffing her hair tie and the comb into the pocket he’d had sewn into the inside lining of his cut. He’d learned in the past years that Jasmine changed her mind at lightening speed, and he