Claimed By The Devil (Devil's Riders 8)

But love? I couldn’t imagine my big man ever moving on from me. And I didn’t want all the love he had in his heart to go to waste.

Next week was finally my follow-up doctor appointment. I’d waited weeks for this. Hopefully, I would finally get some answers. But it was really hard not to get ahead of myself. My kids needed a mom. My husband needed me, too. I couldn’t leave Jack alone. I couldn’t.

I wasn’t so sure the big guy would make it. I knew he would step it up for the kids. But knowing him, and how much he loved me, it ripped me up inside.

I would do anything to stay with them. It wasn’t even about me. I didn’t care if I had to go through hell and back to stay with them. I would fight, no matter what.

I felt him beside me. Somehow, he always knew when I needed him. His heavy arm wrapped around me and pulled me into his side. The tears started coming then. Hard and fast. I had barely known Meg for more than a month, but I’d liked her a lot. And I cared about her daughter.

The tears were not just for them. They were for me, too. They were for every little girl, and big girl, who had lost her mother.

As a fellow mom, watching her little girl lose her mother felt like a familiar wound. I made a silent promise to Meg that I would help look after her daughter. I just had to stay alive to do it.

I felt a gentle tug at my hand and realized Sally was holding it. She was the first one I’d told. I knew she’d had a couple of early mammogram results that her doctors were keeping an eye on. So far, she was good, but it seemed like maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t.

The simple ceremony ended and the casket was lowered into the earth high up on the hill at the far end of the untamed land behind Honeycutt Stables. It was a beautiful spot under an oak tree where the horses were sometimes allowed to graze. The guys had built a bench and a small fence around the gravestone, creating a peaceful place for Melissa to come and pay her respects.

It was lovely. So lovely that the tears came harder. Sally’s blonde head came to rest on my shoulder and I was surrounded, overwhelmed with the love I felt. Kaylie gave me a sweet smile and a hug as we paid our respects to Nick and Melissa. Then we wandered back toward the farmhouse where the food we had prepared was waiting.

The easy part was over. Today was emotional, yes, but it would be in the days to come that the reality really set in. That was when Melissa would need her girlfriends the most. And we would be there for her. All of us had lost people, some earlier than others. Some still had living family that they had to let go of, like me. But we had formed a new family. We all knew how lucky we were to have each other.

I noticed that a lot of us were holding hands as we walked back to the farmhouse.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Melissa

I stared numbly at the letter in my hand. It had just come in the mail. It was about to join a growing stack I kept hidden in the entryway drawer.

Mom had only been gone for a couple of weeks. It felt like a year. Yet, somehow, all the companies who wanted money already knew that she was gone. I wondered idly if death notices were distributed to her creditors or if I had to do it. They were jumping all over the estate like flies at a picnic.

Unfortunately for them, it had been a rough couple of years. There really wasn't anything left to the estate after Mom put everything in my name. After my father died, we had struggled. I'd gone to a relatively inexpensive state school on a partial scholarship. But I’d had no idea that even that had been too much.

My mother had hidden all her worries from me. Even now, some of the bills were in my name. The mortgage, which we were defaulting on. In fact, it looked like we were a full two months behind. I chewed my lip, feeling the weight of it all bearing down on me.

I sighed and shoved the document back in the drawer. It wasn't like I could ignore the stack of bills forever. But I just couldn't handle it right now. Not yet.

It had been a very quiet few weeks. The house felt so empty. There was no hiding from my feelings. I had Nick and work to fill the time, but the grief was always there, throbbing like a bruise. I was still getting used to not having to take care of someone. Every day, I would forget that Mom wasn’t there. Just for a minute in the mornings. I would wake up and forget that she was gone. I would be thinking about what to make my mother for breakfast or still hoping that she might improve. I’d wished that for so long, it was hard to give up hope.