Royce, Melanie, and Rhys were at the kitchen table, drinking from mugs of coffee and chatting away like they did it most every mornin’.
Like it was normal.
Like it was right.
My chest pressed full. So tight it was close to overwhelming.
Because sitting at the head of the table was my mama. My mama who was propped up in her wheelchair and drinking from a cup, too.
But it was my knees that were wobbling and my stomach that was tipping when my gaze traveled to the far side of the room. To where the man was standing, leaned against the wall next to the back door with his arms folded over his chest.
Fierce.
Unrelenting.
A warrior who stood guard.
Sage eyes found mine like he’d felt me coming from a mile away.
Our gazes tangled.
Fire crackled in the middle of the room. It was so severe that I guessed the rest of the room must have felt it because every voice fell silent.
Richard pushed off the wall and came toward me. His lithe body vibrated with fury and strength.
Sinewy muscle packed—flexing and twitching.
Little earthquakes trembled underfoot with every step that he took. My breaths came shorter and shallower as he slowly, purposefully closed the distance between us.
And then he was there, standing in front of me.
One massive hand cupped the uninjured side of my face, and the other brushed back the hair that was tousled in disaccord.
This feeling of security infiltrated. Wrapping me like a dream. That dark aura covering me in a shroud of protection.
Hard and savage.
Somehow soft.
Hungry eyes took me in like he was watching the sunrise breaking the day after living through a total eclipse.
And that’s what it felt like—standing in the sun.
“You’re awake.” Richard’s gruff voice scraped through the air and wrapped me like an embrace that I wanted to sink into forever.
Was I terrified? Of him repeating our bad history? Of him leaving me with a crater in the shape of him that I would never recover from?
Yes.
Wholly yes.
I would be a fool not to have reservations.
But there was a bigger part of me that was crying out to be heard. Screaming at me to listen to what was in his cryptic words and see what was hidden in his caring eyes.
“How are you feeling?” Richard’s head pitched to the side, his nose so close to mine that he might as well have been kissin’ me.
I thought maybe he was actually thinkin’ about doing it.
Right there.
Right out in the open.
My attention darted over his shoulder to the mass of faces that were watching us. We might as well have been on the big screen. Our love story playing out in vivid technicolor.
Witnesses to if we would ride off into the sunset or if we were written in tragedy.
I swallowed around the pressure, my tongue darting out to wet my dried, cracked lips. “Sore,” I managed to force out.
Richard growled. I didn’t know if it was from him watching the action, his needy stare on my lips, or if it was from the anger that blistered across his flesh.
Truth was, the side of my face pounded in a dull, throbbing ache, and my stomach was still agonizing with the blow.
But it was more the fear than anything.
The warning that vile, disgusting voice had hissed in my ear.
“You shouldn’t go diggin’ up graves. You never know when you might fall in.”
A shiver streaked down my spine.
Richard reached out and tipped up my chin, and I knew he was reading me. That he felt the terror wedge itself deep into my psyche. “Won’t let anyone touch you.”
It was a rumble.
Thunder that boomed through the space.
I nodded at him.
Surrendering to that truth. Believed that whatever was going on, he would do his best to take care of us.
The scraping of chair legs jolted us from the bubble. “Hell no, no one’s touchin’ you, sweet thing. We’ve got you.”
Rhys had pushed to standing. The brawny, hulking man with dimples in his cheeks actually cracked his knuckles in a show of support.
From where Royce remained sitting like some kind of tatted king in his chair, violence came on a rush, his own show of loyalty, even though he didn’t need to say a thing.
My father pushed back from the stove and stood staunch.
I understood it immediately. The fact that everyone was there for me. That they were surrounding me in a hedge of protection.
Steadfast.
Unfailing.
Daisy lifted her unbroken arm and curled it into a fist, her voice a shout of solidarity. “Hell, no. No one’s touchin’ my mommy!”
I choked out a shocked laugh, and Emily slapped her hand over her mouth to hold hers in, while Melanie fell into a fit of cackled giggles where she sat at the table. “Oh my god…I think Daisy is my soul mate.”
Rhys stampeded like a bull across the kitchen and swept my daughter into his arms. He tossed her in the air. “No way, Daisy Mae! We’ve got her, don’t we?”
“Heck, yes!”
“We will prevail!”
“We will prevail!” she parroted.
“We won’t back down!”
“No’s backin’ down!”
“And we won’t say bad words!” Rhys slid that right in there like he was still chanting his war song.
Her mouth popped open. “Oopsie.”
“You probably shouldn’t talk like that, little miss, yeah?” He ruffled her hair. “You know what my mama used to do when she’d catch me saying things I shouldn’t say?”
Her eyes went wide. “What?”
“She’d wash my mouth out with soap.”
Horror struck her little features. “Soap? But my mouth isn’t dirty. I already brushed all my teeth.”
“But you’re spouting dirty words. You don’t be careful, they’re gonna grow in there just like the weeds out in the field.”
Daisy stuck out her tongue and frantically wiped her tongue with her hand. “Eww…I don’t want nothin’ growing in there. Yuck.”
Rhys chuckled.
She grinned in all her adorableness, and she reached out and tried
