I steered her to her car, then clued into reality enough to remember that whoever had absorbed my close-protection role while I’d been away with the fuckin’ fairies needed to know she was on the move. “Who’s been guarding you when Nash isn’t around?”
Orla paused with her hand on the car door. “Mateo and Decoy mostly. But it’s Saint right now.”
Because Mateo was loitering outside Kara’s house. I knew that because I’d left him there, so I scanned the yard for Saint or Decoy, knowing I’d find at least one of them already up to speed with events. Knowing I’d findSaintwatching us from somewhere I’d never fuckin’ thought of.
He was closer than I’d imagined, standing in the shadows of the clubhouse, a few feet from a hog I barely recognised.Myhog, in better shape now than when I’d fuckin’ bought it. CosNashhad scraped it out of a ditch and fixed it. And how was that for screwed up symbolism?
River helped.
As if that nugget of knowledge eased the guilt searing my soul.
You hurt him.
And I’d nearly put my fist through his jaw. A fact that was getting harder and harder to live with. A fuckin’ crater-sized wound not even Orla could fix.
You fucked up.
No, I hadn’t. And neither had he. Everything he’d done had been toprotectme. I knew that as well as I had when I’d screamed the opposite in his beautiful face. But this messed-up world we lived in, it was evil, and in that horrible fuckin’ moment, I’d let it win. I’d letPriestwin, when I knew for a goddamn fact that Nash was still out all hours of the day and night trying to put that right for me too.
I don’t deserve him.
A bitter pill as I reached Saint, thankful I no longer had to swallow barrel-sized antibiotics three times a day. “She’s leaving,” I told him as if he didn’t already know.
He nodded and dropped the keys to my Dyna into my palm. “You first.”
Meaning he’d follow, tail-gunning at the rear of Orla’s Toyota.
“You don’t think I should drive her?”
Saint shook his head. I waited to see if he had more to say, but that was apparently it.
Awesome.I turned to communicate my intentions to Orla.
Way ahead of me, she was already behind the wheel, leaving me to face my bike, a feat I didn’t think all that much of until I threw a leg over the saddle and the timeless sense of freedom I’d always taken for granted was stone-cold absent.
In its place was a vice around my heart that made me feel as if I was having a fuckin’ coronary. It was a cold night, but sweat trickled down my back, my pulse pounding in my ears for reasons that had nothing to do with escorting Orla home.
Fuck’ssake.
Really?
As if I didn’t have enough to deal with.
Fuming, I gunned my engine, ignoring the barbed pull in my sliced-up arm, and rumbled across the yard to take point in front of Orla. But as much as anger had lingered in my blood recently, it didn’t last long, and nonsensical terror took its place in the blink of an eye. Blades. Potholes. A roar of engines too loud to be just mine. Fragments of memories I wanted to light on fire more than I wanted to relive.
Shove through it. That would work, right? Folk had spent all week lecturing me on avoidance. And what was the alternative? Stepping aside while someone else protected my woman?
I saw the madness in that now, even more than Mateo being the one to guard my kids when it should’ve been me.
You’ve had Willow all day, and you’re no fucking protection to her if you’re dead on your feet.
I was no good to Orla either, but I couldn’t be apart from her anymore. From Nash. Me and him, we had shit to discuss. But it could wait. It all could. I just needed to survive this ride and be with them.
Nash isn’t here.
A fact underlined by the radio mic that buzzed in my hand. I fitted it to my good ear and waited for Saint to give me the two clicks he often used instead of actual words. Then it was go time, and the thunder of my racing pulse took a back seat to newfound hyperawareness.
Guarding Orla, I’d always been vigilant, but I swear to god my gaze was so sharp tonight that I could see a pea on the fuckin’ moon.
