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  The Sheriff smirked at the audacity of the question. It didn’t matter that they were in the middle of a disaster, there was bad blood between the families and Sheriff Monty Souter would be damned if he’d hand his son over, much less Dawn Everly’s daughter, a woman he regretted not making his, to a Rawlings.

  “Best be moving on now, boys,” the Sheriff said as he reached for Justice’s arm. “They’re declaring the building unstable.”

  “Right,” Chasen said, urging Nolan behind him before reaching down and grabbing the bag on the floor and then having to use his body to move Declan back. Declan was steadfastly focused on Justice, and she was much the same as she looked over her shoulder at him while being pulled the other way.

  “Six days, son,” Chasen said, urging Declan forward.

  Outside looked like a warzone in the truest of senses. Emergency personal could be heard in every direction. The fences around the fields were no more, and yes one wing of the school was gone, so was just about every window.

  “I was worried about you,” Chasen said to Declan when he nodded for the other boys to walk on. Nolan did walk on, but only a few steps. He was determined to hear what went down. To hear what their daddy’s take on the matter was.

  “It didn’t sound like this down there,” Declan said as he watched the Sheriff’s cruiser leave.

  “I bet not.”

  Declan didn’t bother to respond.

  “That girl is seventeen, Declan. Barely that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you have a plan,” Chasen said.

  “I do.”

  “So you and I are clear right now.”

  “Do as I say not as I do,” Declan said sharply. Their father always said that, so much so that Tobias had claimed the saying as well.

  Chasen flinched a grin. Hard roads are difficult to regret when you know if you never walked down them, the people you love the most wouldn’t exist. “When I was caught with an underage girl her parents forced us to get married. Justice’s daddy won’t do that, not in this day and time. No, son. He’d put you behind bars for statutory rape. He’ll be in your recruitment officer’s face and if he doesn’t get anywhere then he’ll march up to your drill sergeant. I don’t need to tell you how much you don’t need this.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “Are you? You get that’s the right girl but the wrong time?”

  Declan’s stare shot to his father’s. Chasen was a man’s man and was quick to tell his boys they didn’t need a woman, not beyond their grandmother Missy who knew how to keep them in line. To hear him say any girl was right for any one of his boys was a kick to the gut, and Declan wasn’t sure why. He couldn’t think about anything beyond the fact that Murdock was hip to hip with Justice just then and he was taking her to her father who liked to throw her around like a rag doll.

  “You heard me,” Chasen said, hitting him on the shoulder before walking on.

  “Holy shit,” Declan said as he noticed Nolan’s truck. The golden, diesel ford F350 had a tree laid directly across the bed.

  “Yeah, I for real needed those keys,” Nolan said as he pulled them out of the bag Chasen was carrying then tossed them to Atticus.

  “Bag feels a little lighter,” Nolan said when their dad had walked on. “I feel like my supplies have been raided.”

  “Not now,” Declan said shortly.

  “Yeah, you’re right. We have all the time in the world. It’s not like you’re leaving in six—no, five days now.”

  “Ass,” Declan said under his breath as he moved forward to look at the damage on his brother’s truck.

  “Good thing you guys are taking Declan’s truck,” Chasen said with a knowing glint his blue stare. “Because, hell, it’s like Mother Nature is all but demanding this truck stay put, right where it’s rooted.”

  “No truck is meant to stay still,” Nolan said, avoiding his father’s gaze.

  “No, a good honest machine does what it’s made to do, no stopping it. It will run as long as you take care of it. Blood, sweat, and tears can go into one; you give it all you got to make it right. Then boom, out of nowhere the last fucking thing you’d expect happens. A damn tree slams into you. Now you gotta start all over.”

  Atticus glanced from his dad to Nolan, then to Declan, feeling like the odd man out. Then again he had all night because all night their dad had been hip to hip with Nolan, saying things just like that, words that seemed to fit the conversation—but not really.

  Declan shook his head, telling Atticus to let it be. Truth be told, Declan was a bit relieved to hear his dad talk like that, it sounded like their Chasen was now crystal clear that only one of his sons was leaving for the Corps in less than a week. But he’d never come out and say it. Nope, that was not how Chasen Rawlings worked. He’d push until you crumbled and confessed. He’d let you sweat it out until you couldn’t stand it any longer.

  Declan needed all the help he could get worrying about Nolan and his adventure, because his mind was far from his family, it was with his Justice.

  The right girl at the wrong time...

  ***

  “You all right? You’re shaking,” Murdock asked Justice in a low tone as they sat side by side in the back of his daddy’s cruiser. The Sheriff was on the phone in the front seat.

  Justice nodded. “It didn’t sound this bad to me...I’m just figuring out how lucky I was.”

  “You scared the shit out of me,” he said through a clenched jaw.

  She looked up hastily, not sure how to take his tone. Then again, she never really knew what to expect when he opened his mouth.

  Murdock had sported the all-American southern boy image as long as she had known him.

  His fair hair was usually cut short on the sides and longer on the top; he had a dark stare and a smile that he liked to use as a weapon, right alongside his charm. Either he could turn off or on at the drop of a hat—which Justice never really understood, or trusted. She liked direct. Direct made sense to her.

  Murdock played every sport he could fit into a year. Baseball was his favorite, and football was a close second. Being a hometown hero in the game had robbed him, though. He pushed too hard and now had too many injuries to really go anywhere with his talent.

  “No, no, smart girl,” the Sheriff said from the front seat. “Found her underneath the school in the closet with all the mats from the wrestling team.” A pause. “Right, she was safer there than the rest of the town. Speaking of, did you check on Bell?” A pause. “All right then, when I drop off Justice I will.”

  Justice felt herself relax a little bit. Her father wasn’t home. More than likely he was out and about trying to look like the town hero to all his buddies.

  The Sheriff didn’t say anything for a few minutes once he hung up the phone. After a moment, he answered his radio, then glanced in his rearview mirror at Justice. “Good thing you’re in one piece. I told Murdock if there was one scratch on you I’d skin him alive.”

  Justice gave a weak smile. She didn’t get Monty Souter any more than she got Murdock. Monty seemed protective of her. Her grandmother had told her that he and her mother had a thing in high school, but still...Monty had to know what her mother lived through and didn’t do anything about it, and Justice knew for sure he had seen her father lift his hand to her. Nothing beyond Murdock hanging out more happened because of it.

  All she could assume was the Sheriff thought if Murdock was close it wouldn’t be as bad. But what Sheriff Souter didn’t get was her father knew how to charm people, how to get them to like him. If anything, Murdock liked her father more than his own.

  Her father played Murdock’s ego and swapped old sports stories. Murdock didn’t do that with his dad. At best, his father watched his games from a distance, in uniform. Justice never really got the disconnection between them and didn’t care enough to ask about it.

  “Chasen was awful quick to explain why he was there. They didn’t rattle you, now did they?” Sheriff Monty asked.
<
br />   “No, he wouldn’t. And he didn’t have the chance. He was there all of two seconds before you.”

  Murdock glanced down at her, clearly picking her words apart. She’d said ‘he’ not ‘they.’ He had all kinds of sick scenarios running through his head of her locked in a closet with a Rawlings or two. Rumor had it they liked to share their girls, and always left them rode hard and put up wet.

  Murdock had never liked Declan Rawlings. His stand off attitude and the way he always caught him looking at Justice had been acid in Murdock’s veins for years. Nolan? He didn’t really care one way or another about him, not until he slammed him with a cheap shot in the hall for no reason. And since then his asshole younger brothers always had something to say when Murdock saw them.

  Yeah, it was on. Something happened tonight. He’d figure it out sooner or later.

  No one bothered to say another word until they’d made it to Justice’s house. Her home had been in her grandfather’s family for three generations and had seen better days. It sat in the middle of fifteen acres. A two-story white frame house. Tall Georgia pines lined the gravel drive and were thick behind the home, everywhere else they were still present but not as dense, their shade never really let the grass grow too high, which was good since her and her grandmother handled all the upkeep on the home now.

  Justice could see branches everywhere and her heart kicked up a beat.

  “Storm didn’t really come this way, not the brunt of it,” the Sheriff said to calm her.

  When the house did come into view, it was clear all the windows were intact. There were a few long branches on the roof and laying across the porches, but nothing compared to downtown which took the heat.

  Through the window, Justice saw her grandmother in the kitchen, on the phone, as she made a pot of coffee.

  “Thanks for the ride,” she said, quickly getting out and not inviting in company. She knew she’d fall apart the second she saw her grandmother, and didn’t need to give Murdock or his father any more reason to suspect what happened during her night.

  If Justice had a chance to rest, to breathe, she could figure out how to smooth it all over, the way she always did.

  Murdock did get out but only to get in the passenger seat and slam the door then lean against it.

  “You heard her,” his father said. “They just got there. I don’t need any trouble, son. Those Rawlings always leave. It’s not worth the hell.”

  Murdock shook his head in a pissed off way. His judicial father never got him, but then again that was more than likely because he wasn’t his son, not really. The secret was a skeleton in their family closet. Murdock was a mistake his mother made when Monty was in the service, the navy.

  Every time his parents fought they both threw daggers. Monty wanted to be commended for raising a boy that wasn’t his—giving him his name and his benefits, and she wanted to him to accept fault, saying she only stepped out because he was saddling up to any pretty thing he could find at every port.

  It’s never awesome to know that you were the result of a revenge fuck, and Murdock had lived with that truth since he was a boy.

  His father shined his spotlight across the property, looking for damage, then pulled away the second he saw Justice make her way in.

  ***

  Justice had done all she could to calm herself as she climbed the steps and then made her way to the kitchen.

  Bell Everly was gifted in many areas, and aging gracefully was one of them. At sixty-four, she barely looked fifty. Her fair hair had turned whiter over they years but there was still more than a hint of blond and red. She and Justice carried the same build, both relatively tall at five foot eight inches. Strong shoulders, a narrow chest, and wider hips.

  The lesson on knowing how to be patient, to plan and expect the darkest hour to end, came more so from her grandmother than anyone.

  Justice let her bag fall from her shoulder and pressed her lips together, holding back any emotion she could, but the second her grandmother carefully approached her, with concern in her gaze, Justice lost it.

  Silent tears came. She covered her face, which was twisted in agony, with her hands. The next thing she felt was her grandmother’s arms around her, swaying her as her hand ran over the back of her head, the same way she had always calmed her when life seemed to press a little too hard on her granddaughter.

  “Did you say your peace?” Bell asked, after a moment.

  Justice nodded, but her tears which remained silent, never stopped.

  “That is all you can ask for, Justice. Let life unfold as it needs. Every chapter finds its end.”

  Her words were anything but comforting, but Justice took them and held on to them.

  It was dawn before Justice went to sleep. She and her grandmother sat at the kitchen table for hours, drinking coffee. Few words were passed, more so glances that seemed to already know it all.

  Her grandmother now knew what the Sheriff saw, what Murdock saw—Justice in a crowd of Rawlings. She knew that Justice had a justifiable reason to worry.

  Keep to the story was the plan. For her to look her father in the eye and say what she had already said.

  “We’ll stay busy helping out around town, just don’t let him get you alone until this has had time to die down,” Bell had said to Justice before she went to bed.

  It burned Bell alive she had landed here, with the demon her daughter had brought home decades before. Until Justice was eighteen, until either one of them had a place to go, this was it. Them watching the calendar slide by.

  Bell saved every penny she could from where she worked at the school as a substitute teacher, and the part-time job she had driving the elderly all the way to Savannah for doctor’s appointments, but Brent Rose made it impossible for ends to meet.

  A home that had been paid for decades before now had a lien on it, a payment he never paid himself. She had no choice but to get a different car months before and it too had a note on it; those bills coupled with the other routine household bills and providing for a teen girl made it all the harder.

  “One day,” Bell told Justice over and over, “this will all be a bad dream.” Which she believed with her whole heart.

  The last two years had been hard, yes. But before then, she and her late husband were blessed enough to raise their granddaughter. Yes, neither of them slept on the days they had to let Justice stay with Brent each week, yes they knew Justice endured more than they were even aware of, but the sun had its moments and it would again.

  Seven

  The one fucking time Declan Rawlings wanted to go to school, he couldn’t.

  Nope.

  Because of the damage, the seniors were dismissed. Their graduation ceremony was postponed to a date when neither Declan nor Nolan would be in town. They didn’t care.

  Declan didn’t plan to wear the cap and gown anyway, at least not unless Missy, his grandmother, made him.

  Some of the lower classmen had to report to the middle school for finals but for the most part school for the year was over for everyone. Which meant Declan didn’t get to see Justice. He’d tried calling her, but it went to voicemail every time, and he didn’t feel good leaving a message, not when he didn’t know who would get it. It was the silent treatment all over again, only this time it was worse.

  This was it, his last day in Bradyville for a good while. Tomorrow morning Nolan was driving him to the base, then heading off on his own. The night before, his family all met up at the bar and had a graduation slash going away party for Nolan and Declan along with two other cousins who had walked the line that year.

  The entire event felt whimsical to him. Declan remembered sending Tobias off the same way, and how excited he was. Declan also remembered how the glint in Tobias’ eyes had changed just weeks later when he returned. In a few weeks’ time, Tobias had lived a lifetime—he saw nothing the same as he had before, and now it would be much the same for Declan.

  Declan was a little unnerved about the choice he’d
made, but his dad told him that meant he wanted it, and he believed him—because he knew he did.

  “Knock, knock,” Declan heard and turned to see Atticus leaning in the doorway to the ten by twelve room he shared with Nolan. A room that had flags and posters of half naked women pinned to the walls.

  “What’s up?” Declan asked in his standard stoic tone.

  “Just checking out my room. I think I’m gonna to put a gaming system right ‘bout here,” Atticus said, stretching his arms out on the far wall.

  “Coming back,” Declan said not bothering to hitch the grin Atticus was hunting for.

  “In four years,” Atticus spat, plopping down on Nolan’s bed.

  “I’ll be back for the Rally, and some between then.”

  “And there’re plenty of beds in this town for you to fall into,” he taunted, which earned him a hard glare.

  “Daddy’s worried about you.”

  Declan paused his packing for a mere second, long enough for Atticus to notice, then went back to his task. “He say so?”

  “Naw, I can just tell. He won’t sit still and keeps looking at his watch like he has somewhere to be. He and Tobias have been talking a lot, too.”

  “That’s good, though.” Declan meant Tobias and their dad talking. It had been a bit tense. Tobias didn’t say it, but Declan knew Tobias felt like he let their dad down, getting hurt, coming home so fast. Tobias was wrong.

  Yeah, their dad was proud Tobias went in the Corps, but it was still hard on him to wonder how he was. One day, he’d get a letter from Tobias and laugh and be in the best mood ever, then another letter or email would come, and the mood would shift.

  Declan was glad he was signed up long before the news came about how bad Tobias was hurt. Before Tobias told his dad how many of his buddies didn’t come back, and if they did, they had far more than a rod in their back to contend with.

  Declan was sure if he hadn’t already signed his dad might’ve been a little less eager, gave him a few more warnings, made him wait a year after school to make sure it was what he wanted.