Page 45 of Moonshine Lullabies

It was Hex’s fancy RAM, and he got out of the driver’s seat, Saint getting out the passenger side, both of them sans their cuts as they stalked across the grass in Collier’s direction, stopping when one of the Sheriff’s deputy’s put a hand on Hex’s chest.

Hex gave the man a wicked look, like he’d just cursed him where he stood, but the deputy was askin’ questions. He was either brave or stupid, just carryin’ on with whatever he was sayin’.

Hex thrust his chin in mine an’ Tate’s direction and said something to the deputy. When the deputy looked my way, I raised my chin and nodded.

Hex came my way, but the deputy stopped Saint.

I left J.P. dealin’ with our parents, and Collier answerin’ all the questions. I sighed, putting on my emotional big girl panties to deal with what may come from the vice president of the Voodoo Bastards.

He put a hand to my shoulder and his other on Tate’s and gave ‘em a squeeze. To his credit, he didn’t ask if we was alright – instead he said, “As soon as they let us, we’ll gather up some of your things and we’ll take y’all someplace safe. Alright?”

I swallowed hard and gave a nod, and he tightened his grip on my shoulder imperceptibly and nodded.

“Alright,” he affirmed, and he stood and waited with me an’ my son, keepin’ any and all comers away from us.

Finally, Collier came over, the cop questioning him letting him go.

“You good, brother?” Saint asked, also having been given leave to come over.

J.P. had our parents over between Daddy’s truck and our mamma’s car and was tellin’ ‘em somethin’ or other. I didn’t care. I really didn’t need their bullshit on top of everything else right now. Lord knows, this was all on J.P. and this club of his, but knowing my mother and my daddy, they’d somehow make it all my fault.

I closed my eyes and swayed a little on my feet, letting the bitterness wash over and through me and dissipate for now. The same thing I did anytime I got angry at the injustice of it all. I swear, if I’d been born a boy, I wouldn’t catch half as much shit from my dyed-in-the-wool old-world God-fearin’ family as I did. Made me grateful Tate was Tate and not a… a… a Trish or somethin’.

He too seemed immune to my family’s bullshit, having both been born a boy and their first grandchild…

He hugged me tight and Collier put a hand on my back to lend more strength as though he was an inexhaustible wellspring of it.

I suddenly felt guilty as I hadn’t even heard his reply to Saint’s question of if he was good or not.

Damnit.

“Soon as they let you back in the house, pack your bags,” Hex ordered me. “Pack for a good long while. We’ll get this place boarded up for you, an’ take you on outta here for a while.”

“How long is ‘a while?’” I asked and was a little frightened at how emotionless my voice came out. I guess I should have expected that we couldn’t come back for a while, but…goddamnit this wasn’t fair!I wanted to scream that. Scream it in all of their faces how unfair it all was but then that hollow voice inside of me came through loud and clear in my head, toneless and with the reality of the situation –Life’s not fair, Jessie-Lou. Never has been for you, and may well never be…

“As long as it takes,” Collier said, and I turned to look into those pale blue eyes and saw nothing but a cold and cut-throat determination in them. A silent promise that he would get us back to our lives as soon as possible from this.

I nodded once, slowly, and out of every damn one of ‘em standing around, felt like he was the only one without his thumb up his ass.

It felt like an age before we were allowed back inside. I made Tate stay out with his grandparents, while I went in and got dressed, packed some things for him and for me, and nearly lost it all over again when I picked up his bullet-riddled backpack off the back of his desk chair in his bedroom.

I swallowed hard and refused to lose my mind on a bunch of what-if’s that didn’t amount to a hill of beans.

If he had been home, he woulda been shot. J.P. too. Their rooms were in the front of the house where the most damage had been done.

I froze when I went into my room.

At the feathers on the bed from the pillows piled at the head. At the three shots across the television on the dresser. They’d apparently ridden back here and had taken some shots at the back of the house, too – but Collier’d saved my life by shoving us both off the bed and onto the floor.

I shuddered at the thought of how close… of how he could have been shot, could have died… all to protectme.

I turned to find him standing in the doorway and I startled, taking several deep breaths sawing in and out of my chest as the realization hit me harder than a freight train and knocked my soul clean out my body.

That man loves you…

No other words or actions could prove it any harder than the way he looked at me now, with empathy and… and I don’t know what you would call it. But it was there, and it was real. As real as I’d ever seen or felt anything in my whole life.

This man loved me, and he didn’t want anything from me… not a thing.

---