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“Matt.”
I closed my eye, mentally yelling at myself to let her go. Fucking shit, I felt like that was all I had ever done with this girl. “Just five more seconds.”
She wrapped her arms around my waist, holding on tight, giving me those five seconds.
All too soon, they were over, and she started to turn away again. Then her head snapped around, her eyes darkening. “Please be careful, Matt. I overheard my father talking to the DA. Something is going on. I think …” She swallowed hard and shook her head. “Daddy said they were getting close to making an arrest.”
“I’ll be okay, babe,” I told her with a wink that had some of the worry leaving her gorgeous face. “Don’t sweat over me, girl. Your pops can’t touch me.”
She tried to smile, but there was too much pain in them, too many memories. “Yes, he can. All he has to do is use me.”
I didn’t acknowledge that for truth, even though we both knew it was. “Go, Rory. I’ll call you before you go to bed tonight.”
I stood there, watching until she crossed the street and climbed into her BMW M2. It was a new car, baby blue, and perfect for the mayor’s daughter. It wasn’t what she wanted to be driving around in, though. No, she wanted to be on my bike, just as much as I did, just as much as I craved her there.
Only once she had her seatbelt on and had pulled into traffic, giving me one last wave, did I finally get back into my truck.
My brother’s face was clenched in hard lines. “So, she’s back.”
I nodded. “She’s been back for about three weeks or so now.” The only reason I hadn’t told my brother was because he had been gone. If I hadn’t broken my hand, I would have been gone, too. I never thought I would be glad I broke the damn thing, but when I looked at it from that point of view, I had to admit it was kind of a blessing. If I hadn’t been in Creswell Springs when she had first gotten home, it was hard to tell what might have happened.
“Have you lost your fucking mind?”
“We both know I lost it when she left three years ago.”
Three years. That was how long it had been since Aurora’s dad had caught her with me. The mayor’s only daughter didn’t belong with a low life with the last name Reid, or so that fucking bastard had told us that night.
Three years. It was how long it had been since she had been sent away to some boarding school to finish out her last year of high school, and then to who knew where.
Three fucking years. I had felt like I had lost everything when she had left, but there had been nothing I had been able to do about it. She had been too young, and I had been too fucked up to think clearly.
Now she was back, all grown up, and I wasn’t about to let her get taken away from me again.
I would kill anyone who tried to fuck me over this time around. Rory was mine. She knew it. I knew it.
In the end, I would make sure the fucking world knew it, too.
Chapter 23
Raider
People didn’t like hospitals, but I hated them. Every time I had been at one, it was to get bad news. The death of my mother when Raven was still just a baby. Then my father dying. Death shrouded the place in gloom. The last time I had been in one, it was because of Gracie, and for a few days, it had felt like we were going to lose her, too.
This time, I was there with Quinn. She hadn’t stopped crying since the call with Colt. When my brother had arrived, he hadn’t wasted time getting her away from me and bringing her to the emergency room. I had followed behind them in Kelli’s car after stealing the keys. She had still been screaming at me as I had burnt rubber, chasing after my brother.
I didn’t understand anything that was going on. From what I could see, Quinn had just needed a few cuts stitched up. It was nothing that my sister or Dr. Robertson couldn’t have taken care of over at our house. Instead, Colt had rushed Quinn to the ER.
Without me.
I had arrived just in time to see two nurses and a doctor hurry Quinn into the back. When I had gone after them, Colt had stopped me at the examining room door, asking me to give her some privacy.
Everything inside of me had screamed to stay with her, but something on my brother’s face had stopped me. And with her still sobbing, I had stepped back. I hadn’t gon
e further than that, though.
I had stood there while the nurses came and went, yet the doctor had remained. Every time the door would open, Quinn would still be crying. Every time I looked inside, it was to find her holding Colt’s hand, his face just as grave as the nurses who would return with one thing or another each time.
She had been in there for about half an hour now, and I was quickly losing my fucking mind. I should have been in there with her, should have been the one holding her hand. Quinn was mine, yet it was my brother who was taking care of her.
