Scars of Yesterday (Sons of Templar MC 8)

She didn’t offer me any words of support, there weren’t any. Smelling of smokes and whisky, she just gave me a firm squeeze of my shoulder, a soft kiss on my cheek. Then she left. Gave me the last of the moments alone I’d ever have with my husband.

I dipped the cloth into the water then carefully began to clean the blood from Ranger’s body.

I couldn’t have the last memory of him being dirty. Being stained with blood. Blood washed off.

I could do that.

Wash off the blood.

That came off.

This memory of day would be like dirt and oil, though. I’d never be able to scrub it from my memory. It would always be a stain.The funeral was an event.

As it should’ve been. The Sons did a few things big. Weddings, patch parties, funerals. It was maybe a show to the newer members that yes, there was a chance of you dying, but you’d get sent off like a king. An important if not attractive quality to the MC life when you were young and looking to become a badass.

I didn’t want this funeral. I didn’t want to see my son in a little suit. Didn’t want my daughter in a black dress. I didn’t want to have to make myself presentable for the world. In truth, I wanted to stay in bed, cuddle my babies close and inhale the faint scent of Ranger that remained on the sheets.

But I hadn’t done that.

Because that’s not what a Sons of Templar widow did. So I got out of bed in the mornings. I welcomed the women who came into my home in a show of support. I made the guest room up for Olive, because I didn’t want her to be alone during what was most definitely the most horrible moment in her life.

I’d been the one who told her. Brock had offered to do it, after I’d emerged from the room where I’d cleaned my dead husband.

I’d refused his offer, as much as I’d been tempted to take it. No way was I letting Olive learn about her son’s death from someone other than me. It was my responsibility. That’s what Ranger would’ve wanted. It’s what a strong Old Lady did.

And I did it.

I told the strongest, kindest women I knew that her only son was dead. And doing that caused me to die a little more inside.

She was taking it well. Or as well as could be expected. She hadn’t really spoken, merely cooked, drank wine and hugged the kids. I knew she was drained. Emptied. It was in her eyes. And as horrific as losing my husband, the love of my life was, the thought of losing my children made my want to rip out my insides. I would not survive that.

I was barely surviving this.

In my darkest of moments—and life was just a series of dark moments these days—I’d wished that Ranger and Cade had swapped places. Cade had been seriously injured in the battle, was discharged from the ICU against doctor’s recommendations so he could attend the funeral today.

It was cruel and ugly of me to wish my loss on one of my closest friends, but I couldn’t help it. This reality was terrible, unthinkable. I would’ve made a deal with the devil to get out of it. But even the devil wasn’t listening to me.

Lucky had broken his leg.

Steg had lost an eye.

Only Ranger was gone forever.

“Mommy, is Daddy going to heaven today?” Lily asked me as I tied a ribbon in her hair.

My stomach clenched, acid running through my veins. Lily was still young, and she understood the concept of death since we’d buried hamsters, goldfish and now her father.

But she hadn’t yet truly fathomed what her father dying meant. She was a little girl who had had a wonderful, loving dad who treated her like a princess. She had not experienced horror and was not expecting a world where her dad didn’t read to her at night or do her hair in the morning. Or maybe she was regressing back into a baby-like state in order to deal with the trauma. I’d read about that online. Since I wasn’t sleeping, couldn’t sleep since the night it all happened, I’d taken to reading all sorts of articles about how children dealt with the death of a parent and how it affected them later in life.

Jack was three years older, therefore he got the fact that his father was dead. He’d cried the entire first night, but then he’d changed. He was grief stricken for sure. Hadn’t smiled, laughed or played, just stared at the TV when it was on or sat on the swing set in the back yard. But he hadn’t cried since that first night. He’d begun insisting on looking after everything by himself, including me.