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"Did it at least look epic?" she murmurs through the obstruction. "Tell me that looked good."
"It looked fucking hilarious," Harvey assures her, arriving on the scene.
“But seriously,” Maddie adds. “I need you to do inventory, babe."
"Wait for the adrenaline to wear off before you try to move," I say. "Does anything hurt? Throb? Feel weird?"
"Yeah." Her chuckles die away. I scan her for obvious signs of injury. "My ego is pretty damn shattered."
"Fuck's sake." I nudge the cap of her sleeve out of the way to assess the road rash on her upper arm. Aside from a few bruises likely to bloom over the coming hours, she seems to have gotten off lightly. No awkward angles for her limbs. No clear tears or blood on her clothing. "Take a deep breath. Does anything hurt when you do that?"
She inhales long and slow. "Nope." The breath whooshes out, fogging up the visor of the helmet.
I carefully remove the damn thing to give her room to breathe.
“You want me to get help?” Harvey asks.
“What do you think, fuckhead?” I growl, adrenalin still firing through my veins.
"I think she's okay, Uncle West." Maddie sets her hand on my arm, recoiling when I flash a heated glare at the girl.
"Even so." I shift into a crouch and coax Rae to set one arm around my shoulders while I scoop an arm beneath her legs, the other behind her back. "We'll get you inside and rested for a bit."
"It wasn't that bad." Rae tries to pull her arm away. "Honestly."
I slap it back in place. "There ain't anything wrong with being cautious," I snap. "Put your damn pride away."
Her eyes widen before she breathes a barely audible, "Sure. Whatever."
I stash the way Maddie glowers at me to deal with later. Fuck me. Brothers have lost toes and broken legs from minoraccidents at less than twenty miles an hour. So fucking sue me for caring about her wellbeing.
"Go get Cassidy," I instruct Harvey. "She should still be in the storeroom with Tex."
The pain in my ass hikes an eyebrow. "You want me to interrupt that?"
"Get your goddamn mind out of the gutter,” I snarl. Rae shifts in my arms, head turning to and fro to track who talks. "They're loadin’ in the week's groceries."
"Sure they are." Harvey jogs ahead, turning to pace backward as he adds, “You owe me a fifty if they’re fuckin’.”
"If Dad asks, remember it was your idea to use Charlene’s bike." Maddie fusses with Rae’s hair as we walk, pulling it free from my arm.
"Am I in trouble?" Rae mutters, words tickling beneath my chin.
I glance down at her as we cross the yard. "Nope." Her weight pulls at the old injury in my right shoulder. "You're not." I gladly bear the pain. "The goddamn thing rusted away in the far corner. It's a fuckin’ waste of a good ride."
"Did she not want to take it with her?"
"Didn't get the chance,” Maddie mutters.
Rae stays quiet the final yards to the clubhouse, adding as I step through the threshold, “I know nobody talks about her, so if you want me to shut up, that's okay."
I stall, holding us in the doorway. "Sometimes people have good reasons for not wantin’ to talk about things, Rae, but that doesn't mean you should stop askin’ questions."
She peers up at me."You sure?"
"Positive." I catch movement in my periphery and look up to find Cassidy crossing the living area.
"You know, if you were that concerned about her, Digs, you should have left the girl where she was outside." Herred dreadlocks swing side-to-side down her back, at her waist, creating a metronome effect. "If she has a neck injury, you've made it worse."
