Page 279 of Romeo

“I’m not asking you to.”

His eyebrows lifted slightly.

“Give her the night before everybody crashes down on top of her.” I looked toward the dark window, seeing Granny’s porch instead of my own reflection. “She’s still fucking shaking. She doesn’t need Georgie, Frank, and every patched Son in Virginia crowding into that house before she’s even had a chance to sleep.”

Priest watched me for a long moment before nodding. He understood that kind of protection. Sometimes keeping people away for a few hours was the only thing you could give somebody when everyone who loved them wanted answers.

“Bring her to the club first thing in the morning.”

There it was.

Not a question.

I could have corrected him. Told him Fiona wouldn’t be anywhere near the Sons’ clubhouse in the morning. Told him that before sunrise I intended to have her packed and headed south with me.

Instead, I met his eyes.

“Thank you.”

Priest nodded and together we dealt with Webb. He didn’t ask me for a play-by-play, and I didn’t offer one. He had enough information to understand why the man was dead, and after looking once more at what remained of Marcus Webb, he seemed to decide there wasn’t much point discussing whether I’d overreacted.

There were some things men like us didn’t need explained.

By the time we finished, Webb had disappeared from my immediate problem list, but the hollow place beneath my anger remained exactly where it had been. Priest could help me clean up what I’d done tonight. He couldn’t change why I’d done it.

Before he left, he stopped beside his truck and looked back at me. “Romeo.”

“Yeah?”

“Give her my love.”

The simple fucking words caught me harder than they should have.

“I will.”

Then he drove away, and I stood alone in the dark with Fiona’s voice still lodged inside my head.

He would have if you hadn’t been here.

I wasn’t making the mistake of not being there again.

I was clean by the time I made it back to Granny’s, but the shower and fresh clothes hadn’t done a fucking thing about what was still crawling around beneath my skin. Fiona’s voice had followed me through every mile back to Rosewood, quieter now but no easier to ignore.

He would have if you hadn’t been here.

I barely had time to knock before the door opened.

Fiona stood on the other side in a pair of sleep shorts and an oversized T-shirt, her hair loose around her shoulders. Her eyes found mine, widened, and then she was moving. She threw her arms around my neck so hard I rocked back a step before catching her against me.

“You came back.”

The relief in her voice cut straight through me. I wrapped both arms around her and buried my face in her hair, breathing her in because I fucking needed to. Warm skin. Shampoo. Fiona. Alive and standing in my arms where she belonged.

“I promised you I would.”

She held me tighter, and the way her body softened against mine told me she hadn’t been doing much better since I left. I felt like an asshole all over again for walking away from her, even knowing exactly why I’d done it.

Granny appeared behind her in the hallway wearing a robe and an expression that said she’d been waiting up too. Her eyes moved over me once, taking in the fresh clothes and damp hair. Her gaze held mine for a beat longer than necessary, and the faintest nod told me she’d already put the pieces together and approved of the way I’d handled it.