A tentative smile that didn’t reach her eyes spread on her face as she made her way toward Malc’s side of the car to get into the back.
“Hey guys. Thanks for jailbreaking me. Seth spent the morning muttering off stalker statistics for shits and giggles. I needed a break.”
“Happy to oblige. No one will fuck with you in the woods. I know you don’t like anyone being around, but I will leave the dogs with you. And stay nearby.”
“Sounds good.”
She did not speak to me. Not for the whole ride. Not even to ask how I’d been. And I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d lost whatever softness toward me that had her covering me with a blanket. Especially now that she’d been on lockdown because of my ‘overreaction’ to the boxes.
Judging by the way all the guys in the club talked about the boxes, it was clear she was the one under-reacting. Hell, even Chris had been furious when she’d come down from Hailstorm to see the evidence. And that woman had not only seen, but experienced, the worst the world had to offer.
Malc dropped me off right in front of the trees that blocked my family house from view, leaving me with my conflicting feelings about Billie, and her coolness toward me as I made my way up the gravel drive that was in desperate need of some fresh gravel to flush it out and keep the weeds at bay.
From there, I went about checking the house over, doing some light dusting, tossing all the shit from the fridge and breadbox.
Everything was fine.
Until my dumb ass decided to try to lift said bags of spoiled garbage up and into the bin outside.
I saw fucking stars.
The pain shot up my spine to my brain and then down my leg as well, leaving me dropped down on my knee, cursing through the pain.
After about five minutes before a giant, wet nose was nudging itself into my sweaty face, huffing its hot breath on my skin.
“Tommy, what in the…oh!” Billie called, chasing off after the dog who must have heard my distress. “Are you okay?” Billie called, rushing up beside me, gently nudging the giant beast of a dog out of the way to allow her to kneel down at my side. “What happened?”
“Tried to throw out the trash,” I admitted, squeezing my eyes shut, more embarrassed than I should have been over the admission. It wasn’t like it was my fault my back was fucked up. It didn’t make me less of a man because I needed some time to recover. But even though I knew all of that, it made me feel weak to admit that I couldn’t handle my basic fucking life shit without assistance.
“Stubborn man,” Billie grumbled, and I was acutely aware of her hand grabbing my forearm just under my elbow. “Come on. Let’s get up. This isn’t a good position. We need to get you inside and off your feet for a few minutes.”
With that, I let her help me to my feet as I hissed and cursed my way through the movement.
“Sorry,” I said, taking a deep breath.
“For cursing?” she asked. “I attend a regular cursing yoga class. You don’t need to apologize. So this is the home you needed to save badly enough to join the MC?” she asked, looking at the front as we approached.
It wasn’t a grand structure by any means. But it was slightly larger than the place Malc had that he needed to renovate when they started adding kids to his new family.
It was a two-story structure—the top floor smaller than the lower—with a wrap-around, oversized porch and the same light yellow paint color my grandmother and I had lovingly applied when I was a boy. I repainted it every couple of years in her honor. Just like I kept the hand-carved rocking chairs and swing on the front porch I’d inherited from my grandfather.
“This is it,” I agreed as Billie took a bit more of my weight as I struggled to get up the very low front steps that led up to the front porch.
“It’s absolutely perfect,” she declared, leading me in through the front door I’d left open.
The inside of the house had seen a little work over the years, but the original charm was still there.
“Oh, a hearth kitchen,” Billie said, stopping and staring at the kitchen that was open to the rest of the floor plan of the lower level. It separated from the living and dining areas with a large L-shaped wrap-around island made of a warm wood with a butcher block top that I’d installed since my father had somehow managed to put a massive crack in the old granite one.
The cabinets behind the island were the same warm wood and the appliances had all been replaced since I moved in so there was an industrial-sized stainless steel eight-burner stove and large fridge with a lower freezer to match.