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The sight of him inside my truck, the flames making it impossible to even get close to it, haunted me, and my stomach churned at the memories.
Tears stung my eyes, and I clenched them closed as I hid my face in Rory’s hair. Like she always did, she seemed to know I was losing control of myself. Her arm tightened around me for a second before she shifted so she was lying with her head on my pillow, and she pulled my head down onto her chest.
She combed her fingers through my hair, telling me without words that it was okay to break down. No one was there to see but her. My arms went around her, holding on tight as I let go for the first time since I was a little kid.
Silent tears fell from my eyes, soaking through Rory’s shirt. She didn’t speak, didn’t make a single noise, knowing I needed the quiet more than words of comfort right then. This girl, she had always gotten me. Even from the first day we met, she instinctively had seemed to know exactly what I needed and when to give it to me. She’d become a part of my soul from the instant she’d flashed her sassy yet adorably shy smile at me.
Chapter Seven
Gracie
I WATCHED AS THE SHERIFF spoke into his phone before I turned away from the sight of one of the men who supposedly ran Creswell Springs, sickened just looking at him. The trouble with this town wasn’t the MC, but the corrupt SOBs who were in the mayor’s pocket. Ever since I had started working with Jenkins, I’d seen firsthand just how slimy the DA and sheriff were, but neither was nearly as bad as the mayor himself.
That he had it out for the MC had me wondering if it could have been him who’d caused the tragedy that the fire department was still cleaning up.
My eyes lifted to what was left of Matt’s truck. The paramedics had already extracted Tanner’s and Warden’s bodies, something Hawk hadn’t wanted me to see. But I needed to be there to make sure their bodies had been treated respectfully. When Jenkins finally retired, the MC would be my clients, and I wasn’t about to let my mentor down by not giving them the full extent of legal protection I possibly could.
Now there was nothing left of the truck but a steel frame, the seat inside only a pile of warped springs. The smell of burning flesh still lingered in the air, making my already churning stomach protest every time I dared to breathe too deeply.
“Darlin’, you should be inside away from all of this.”
My gaze snapped away from the ghost of a truck and straight to my grandfather. Jack’s face, like those of most of the other MC brothers who were still spread out around the parking lot, was streaked with ash. His gray hair had soot darkening it, and his clothes were filthy.
“I already told Hawk I need to be here for this. I’m not leaving until Bates and his men are gone.”
Jack’s eyes went across the parking lot to where my boyfriend was talking to one of the firefighters. This guy was one of the few whom the MC trusted, which meant I trusted him too. But while Hawk was talking to the guy, his eyes kept coming back to me, making sure I was still there. That I was safe.
“The boys have been taken to the hospital’s morgue, Gracie girl. All these jackasses are doing now is looking for something they can hype up and arrest someone over.”
I pressed the back of my hand to my nose as the wind began to blow a little harder, stirring up all those godawful smells that had been screwing with my gag reflex for the past few hours. “I know, Jack. That’s why I’m not going anywhere until Sheriff Bates gets his idiot men off the property.”
“You’re looking green, Gracie.” My head swiveled around to find my father coming up behind me. It was still a little crazy to think that Trigger was my father, and not the evil man I had grown up thinking I shared DNA with. But every time I saw Trigger, my heart leaped a little. In relief that I didn’t share a single gene with the man who was responsible for my mother’s death. With love for the man who had helped create me and had spent the last few months trying to make up for not having been a part of my childhood. I was just thankful that he was a part of my life now, that I got to have family who cared enough about me to worry about me. Lord knew no one in the Morgan clan ever had. “You gonna be sick?”
“No, I’m fine…” But even as the words left my throat, I felt the bile coming up to follow them out. I bent in half, retching up the meager breakfast I had forced down so Hawk wouldn’t hound me about not eating for the third day this week.
Trigger grabbed my hair and held it back, keeping it from getting any of the revolting smelling vomit in it. Not that it would have mattered. All the smoke had soaked into every pore—along with every other smell that had been in the air—and it was going to take more than one shower to get them out.
“Baby!” I heard Hawk’s running feet before I saw them stop right beside me. I felt his strong, warm hand touch my back, grounding me when I needed it the most.
When I trusted the now scant contents of my stomach to stay there, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and straightened before stepping back from the mess I’d made.
“You okay, darlin’?” Jack asked concernedly. “You’re pale as death, girl. Your lips are bloodless.”
“I’m fine,” I muttered. “My stoma
ch is just in knots from everything that’s happened today.”
My grief over losing Tanner and Warden, one who had become like a brother to me, the other just as much family as any other MC brother, was staggering. I wanted to cry, but I knew if I started, I wasn’t likely to stop. That, on top of having to watch the cops and listening to them joke about the death of two good men, was fraying my nerves.
Tires crunching over gravel and asphalt filled my ears, and I glanced over at the gate to the MC’s clubhouse. Jenkins’s car rolled into the parking lot. Once he was parked, he came over to me. He was scanning his eyes over my face just as the other three men in my life were doing. But whereas the other three were trying to urge me to go inside, my mentor knew better than to try to coddle me. I might be sweet little Gracie at home, but at the office, my boss had started comparing me to a barracuda.
“Bash available?”
“He’s inside, dealing with Matt,” Hawk informed him, keeping his hand on my back.
“A few things have come up. We should talk.”
“Not yet,” I cautioned, and all our eyes went to where the sheriff was still on his phone, probably still talking to the mayor, whose daughter was now somewhere inside the clubhouse. “Let’s let the place clear out first.”
