Colt’s eyes turned wild, but his voice was calm when he spoke. “I know.”
“You sure you can do that?”
“I guess we’ll find out if I ever have to cross that bridge.”
Chapter Nine
Rory
OTHER THAN RAVEN, THE ONLY other people in the kitchen were Flick and Willa, all of them making sandwiches for the masses. As I entered the room, all three of them stopped talking and gave me weak smiles. The three women still had damp, swollen eyes, which tore at my heart a little more. I’d gotten to know them a little since I’d gotten back to Creswell Springs, and I looked up to all of them. These three had a strength I only wished I possessed.
“Hey, thanks for coming to help out.” Raven motioned me over. “As you can see, we have plenty to do but not much help. Quinn is watching my kids in Raider’s room, and Gracie is outside with Trigger, watching Bates snoop around. Everyone else is still kind of in shock or too fucking lazy to help.”
I looked at the huge island counter that was covered with stacks of bread, platters of veggies, and bowls of different salad spreads for the sandwiches Willa and Flick were already putting together. There was enough food there potentially to feed the entire county, but having seen the MC brothers eat together before, I knew this would only barely feed everyone.
I washed my hands and then stood on the side of the island with Raven. Taking a bowl that looked like ham salad, I started putting sandwiches together. “Who made this?” I asked as I licked a smear off my thumb. “This is delicious.”
“It’s one of Aggie’s recipes,” Willa informed me as she cleaned out her bowl of egg salad and grabbed a new one. “Everything we make comes from one of her recipes. She’s a mastermind at throwing flavors together that make your tongue feel like it’s having an orgasm.”
“How’s Matt doing?” Flick asked as she covered a full platter of sandwiches with plastic wrap and set it aside.
“He’s…” I paused, not sure how to answer that. “He’s not himself,” I finally told her honestly. “I’ve never seen him like this, and it’s breaking my heart.”
“They were really close,” Flick murmured, her eyes filling with tears again, but she blinked them back. “They had always been each other’s best friend, but when their parents died five years ago, they pulled together and bonded even more.”
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Raven said with a shaky sigh. “I keep waiting for him to walk in here and ask me for something to eat. Or to run his stupid mouth. Damn it, he was a pain in the ass, but…he was our pain in the ass.”
We were all quiet for several long minutes, each of us lost in memories of Tanner Reid as we made sandwiches on autopilot.
Three years ago, when Matt and I had first gotten together, Tanner had been around all the time. But I had liked his company. He’d made me laugh, made me feel like I belonged, like I was a part of the Reid family. He had hit on me all the time, but I always knew he was teasing, that I was nothing more than a sister to him. We had become friends, and he was the only guy Matt had never gotten jealous of.
“What happens now?” I asked a while later, when the quiet seemed to be too loud. “I mean, will there be a funeral?”
“Yes,” Raven assured me. “Well, a memorial. Once the boys get taken to the funeral home, they will be cremated. I already asked Bash if that was okay. It was a pretty easy decision to make since there…” Her chin trembled, but she clenched her jaw. “There won’t be much to put in a casket anyway.”
“Willa!” Flick dropped her spoon onto the counter and caught the other woman around the waist as she began to sway. “Shit,” she cried when Willa became dead weight in her arms.
Raven and I rushed around the island to help her, and we were able to get Willa safely laid out on the floor. Raven dropped to her knees beside her, already checking the brunette’s pulse. “Get Spider,” she commanded.
Unsure who she was talking to, I ran to do just that. I raced out into the huge, open room, my eyes scanning over everyone, but there were too many faces. “Spider!” I called out as loud as I could. “Spider!”
All eyes flew to me, but none of them belonged to the scary as hell MC enforcer. “Spider!” I yelled his name at the top of my lungs, and the door upstairs that I could only assume was Bash’s office was jerked open.
Menacing eyes narrowed on me. “What?”
“It’s Willa…” His wife’s name had barely left my mouth before he was running down the stairs. “…she fainted.”
He was already on the ground floor before Matt and Bash had even stepped out of the office. Side by side, it was easy to tell that the last of the Reid clan were related. Bash was wider in the chest, with longer hair where Matt’s had always been cut shorter, but they had the same stubborn set to their jaws and the same electric-blue eyes. Both pairs were now full of questions as they stomped down the stairs, the Hannigan brothers right behind them.
“What’s going on, babe?” Matt asked when he reached me.
“I don’t know. Willa just kind of went limp.”
He took my hand, and we followed Bash into the kitchen.
Spider was on his knees on the other side of Willa, who had already started to come around. “Don’t try to get up,” he ordered in a voice that shook. “Doc is on his way.”
Willa’s eyes seemed unfocused for a moment before she blinked them and then frowned up at her husband. “What happened? Why am I on the floor?”
“You passed out,” Raven told her as she checked the other woman’s pulse again. “Your pulse is starting to come back up. I think your blood pressure dropped.”
“Well, I feel fine now.” She started to lift onto her elbows, but Spider pressed her back down with a hand to her chest, earning a glare from her. “James, I’m fine. Really. It’s just been a really long and emotional day. I’m okay.”
He got to his feet then bent and lifted her effortlessly into his arms. “You aren’t doing shit until Doc checks you out.” He glanced at Raven. “Can you come help me get her into bed?”
“Right behind you,” she assured him as he carried Willa out of the kitchen.
Jet and Hawk were already getting into the sandwiches. Hawk stuffed one into his mouth, grabbed two more, and then left without more than a garbled “thanks” to Flick. Jet kissed Flick’s lips before cramming his mouth full of chicken salad. “Love you, babe,” he grumbled as he followed after his younger brother.
Flick watched them go with a bemused look on her face, before turning her gaze on Matt and Bash. “You two hungry?”
They both shook their dark heads, getting a glower in return. “You two need to eat. Tell him, Rory.”
I hugged Matt’s waist. “She’s right. Please? Just eat a little something. For me.”
“Did you eat?” I shook my head. “If you fix us both a plate, I’ll eat. But only if you do.”
I rolled my eyes, earning a half grin from him. “Fine, you win. This time.”
He brushed his lips over mine. “Babe, as long as I have you, I win every day.”
Chapter Ten
Quinn
A FIRM KNOCK ON RAIDER’S bedroom door had me pushing to my feet from where I’d been sitting on the floor with Lexa and Max. They didn’t even look up from their coloring when I got up. Unsure if it was friend or foe—or in my case, one of my sisters—I cautiously opened the door an inch. Spotting Colt on the other side, I swung it open.
As soon as I got a better look at my best friend’s face, I knew something was wrong. His eyes looked dead, his face pale and hard. It could have been that he’d just lost one of his closest friends, two of his MC brothers. Heck, it could have been any number of reasons, but that look in his eyes made me worry about him. And Raider.
“What is it?” I demanded, my voice shaking as the memory of thinking Raider had been in the blast earlier that day came back to haunt me all over again. Colt’s jaw clenched, making my already queasy stomach protest more. “Colt?”
Seei
ng the fear in my eyes, he softened his expression slightly and gave me a grim smile. “I just wanted to come say bye, Quinnie.”
The word sounded foreign to me. Bye? What did that mean? “Y-you’re leaving? Now?” When I needed him the most? When I was scared for him and anyone who wore the Angel’s Halo MC cut?
His stiff shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I’ve got some business to take care of, sweetheart. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I wanted to see you before I left.”
Business. Meaning he was going on a run for the MC. I knew better than to ask where he was going or why. He wouldn’t have told me even if I had asked, but he always told me bye before he went on one. I hugged him tightly. “Be careful,” I whispered against the leather of his cut.
He kissed the top of my head that didn’t even reach his chin. “I will. Not sure when I’ll be back,” he said again. “But I won’t be able to call to check on you much. Be careful, okay? Don’t do anything reckless. I’d hate to have to kill someone if something happened to you or the baby. And call if you need me or Kelli for anything life-or-death.”
My eyes widened. “Kelli’s going with you?” On a run? That made no sense to me.
“Yeah, just me and her. I wouldn’t take her with me unless I had to,” he assured me with another grim smile, but there was something in his green eyes that had me taking a step back from him.
I trusted Colt with my life. He had been there for me through every up and down in my life. He was the one person in the world I knew I could count on no matter the time of day, no questions asked. He was my person, and I liked to think I was his too. I had never been scared of him. Never. But right then, with that look on his handsome face and that look in his eyes, he was making me nervous.
“Just be careful, Colt.” He nodded his dirty-blond head, and I hugged him again. “I love you.”
I got another kiss on top of my head before he stepped back. “Love you, Quinnie,” he gritted out and walked away.
I stood there in the doorway watching him walk down the hall. Something was wrong, I knew it, could feel it. But if it was MC-related, I knew I would never know what it was. I started to go back into the bedroom when I saw Raven come out of a room farther down the hall. Seeing me standing there, she came over to me.
“Hey. The kids okay?” She stuck her head in to look at her kids who, while still a little shaken up from the earlier chaos, seemed blissfully unaware of the true destruction that had been done today.
“They’re doing good,” I assured her. “Everything okay? You look run off your feet.”
Her lips twisted into a sad excuse for a smile. “Willa passed out. Doc is in there with her and Spider now, but he’s not happy with her blood pressure. He and Spider are making her go to the hospital for the night.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered low, so the kids couldn’t hear me. “Is she going to be okay?”
“I think she will be, if she can survive Spider’s freak-out.”
“Let me know if there is anything I can do. I feel like I’m just hiding in here.” Or like I’m being locked up, but I didn’t tell her that.
She didn’t need to know that her brother had exhausted me by making me come over and over again until I had fallen asleep on top of him. Or that he had woken me a while later to deposit his niece and nephew in the room with me before giving me a kiss and disappearing. That had been hours ago, and I hadn’t seen or heard from him since. I knew he was shaken up after what had happened to Tanner and Warden, that it was hurting him deeply. And I even accepted that he was worried about something happening to me and the baby, but I wanted to be with him right now. Wanted just to hold his hand if nothing else, damn it.
He had promised me he would be careful, but I didn’t completely trust that he hadn’t been crossing his fingers. He was hot-tempered and wanted to avenge his friends. Part of me wanted him to kill the mofos who had taken Tanner and Warden from us. But a bigger, terrified part of me wanted him to just hold me and let the others deal with it.
“Flick’s going to come and watch the kids in a few. Come and get something to eat,” Raven urged. She touched a hand to my stomach only to drop it quickly when she realized what she had done. “Sorry. I hated it when people touched my stomach when I was pregnant with Max. I was as big as a house, and I guess a pregnant belly is like a magnet or something, but you’re still not even showing.” She shook her head with a tiny smile lifting one side of her mouth. “I’m just really excited to be getting a niece or nephew.”
“It’s okay. You can touch my stomach whenever you get the urge,” I promised her. “Where is my baby daddy, by the way? Have you seen him?”
“Sorry, I haven’t seen him, babe.”
I forced a smile. “Okay. Well, I’ll come eat as soon as Flick comes to relieve me.”
She turned to go, then stopped and looked back at me over her shoulder. “He’s just worried about you, Quinn. He doesn’t want anything to happen to you and the baby.”
I tried to make my smile brighter, but it was still forced. “I know.”
Ten minutes later, Flick knocked on the door. She had two plates for the kids in her hands. “I’ve come to feed the monstrous Reid spawn.”
“Aunt Flick!” Max jumped up and ran over to hug her leg.
“Hey, buddy.” With him still clinging to her leg, she half walked, half waddled over to the bed where she set the two paper plates down and then picked him up. Giving him a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek, she tickled him under the chin and rubbed her nose against his. “You hungry? Because I’m not sure if I just heard your tummy growl or if you’re actually turning into a demon spawn.”
“Can I have a sandwich, Aunt Flick?” Lexa asked as she looked at the two plates cautiously. Having a nut allergy had given the little girl a reason to question everything she put into her mouth.
“Of course you can, baby. Me and your momma made these ourselves.”
“You look like you got this lot under control. I’m going to go grab a sandwich,” I told Flick as I backed out of the room.
“Sure. Don’t worry about us. I’ve got these two. Take your time.” She gave me a sad smile. “Get some fresh air too. I’m sure you feel suffocated right now. Just go out through the kitchen. From what Hawk said, Bates is still dicking around out front.”
I gave her a nod, because I really did need some fresh air, but more than anything, I just needed to see Raider. I didn’t want to turn back into the girl who had done nothing but follow Raider Hannigan around like a lost little puppy. Didn’t want to become the girlfriend who constantly checked up on her boyfriend. But right then, that was exactly what I felt like I was doing.
As I entered the main room, I glanced around both in search of Raider and any of my three sisters. I had been able to avoid them for the most part since everyone had been put on lockdown and stuck inside the clubhouse. I’d mostly stayed in Raider’s or Colt’s room throughout the day because my morning sickness was still hanging on. Plus, I didn’t have the energy these days to deal with their bitchiness.
I spotted Heather sitting on one of the couches with one of the MC brothers. They were sitting close, but with all the kids running around, they both knew better than to play around like they normally would have if it was just the brothers in residence. Amanda was sitting on the floor with a few of the other sheep. They were all still openly crying and leaning on each other.
There was no sign of Whitney. My stomach churned when I didn’t see Raider either. Jealousy and uncertainty filled me, but I tried to push down my old insecurities. Raider said he loved me, and I believed him…
Mostly.
Years of being pushed away, of watching him with every other female and ignoring me weren’t going to evaporate from my memory bank overnight. Or even in a few days. Hell, maybe not even in a few years. But I loved him, and we were having a child together. I wanted to at least give this a chance.
Give him a chance.
I walked through the main room and entere
d the kitchen. The place was empty of people, and considering the platters of sandwiches were still untouched, I was pretty sure Raven had told everyone to stay out of the kitchen for now. I washed my hands, put two sandwiches and a few carrot sticks on a paper plate, and then walked outside to eat.
Smoke was still in the air, but at least the worst of it had faded. I could hear loud voices from the front parking lot and the beeping of a truck backing up, and I figured the wrecker had finally arrived to take away what was left of Matt’s truck.
Pain stabbed through my chest as the realization that Tanner and Warden were really gone hit me all over again. I sat down on one of the old picnic tables and put my face in my hands. Neither one of them would ever come into the diner and tease me again. I wouldn’t see their faces, hear their voices ever again.
I’d lost plenty of people I’d loved over the years, the last being my mother to cancer, but it never got easier to handle. You never grew a tough enough skin over your heart to protect you from the pain of losing someone you cared about.
“Quinn…?” Raider’s voice was hesitant, and I lifted my eyes to see him crouching down beside me. Concern darkened his green eyes, and he cupped my cheek, wiping away a stream of tears that was flooding down my face. “Sweetheart, don’t cry.”
“S-sorry,” I muttered, pulling back so I could wipe away my tears with the hem of my shirt. “It just hit me all over again that they’re gone.”
He nodded but didn’t say anything. For several minutes, we were both quiet. I felt shy with him for some reason and kept my gaze on something off in the distance, but I could feel his eyes on me. I didn’t know what to say to him. He had lost two men who were like brothers to him and I knew he was hurting, but I had no words to offer that could ease the pain.
“Colt and Kelli left,” he finally said, breaking the awkward silence between us.
I nodded. “He came and told me bye.”