“I’m good, except this emptiness that I feel deep in my soul,” I confessed.
“I know right now it might not seem like it, but it does get better,” she promised. “It might take a while, but one day it will just be a dull ache and not the painful throb it is today”
“I hope so,” I murmured. “I just want to keep myself busy so I don’t have to constantly think about it. I was going to go into the shop and see if there’s anything that needs to be done, but Mav is asleep and I don’t have a car at the moment.”
“I’ll call your dad right now and make him bring it to you.”
“Nah,” I told her with a grimace. “I’ll figure it out. I’ll just call Mila.”
“River, stop being so adult.”
A soft laugh escaped me. “Mom, I hate to break it to you, but I am an adult now.”
She huffed. “Shut up, little girl. I’m not old enough to have an adult daughter.”
The pout in her voice only made me laugh more, and it felt…good. “Yeah, okay. I’m going to go now. Whatever you’re doing, please be careful.”
“I love you,” she murmured softly. “Don’t ever forget that, okay?”
The smile faded from my face as tears stung my eyes. “I-I won’t.” I swallowed hard. “I love you too.”
After I hung up, I just sat there for a while, letting my tears spill over. I hated crying, but I couldn’t seem to stop it from happening. Being sad was exhausting and made my entire body ache. It wasn’t an emotion I’d had to experience all that often in the past, but it seemed to blanket me at that moment.
Once I had my emotions under control, I decided to call Kingston. Not only did he have a car that I knew he would let me borrow until I either got mine back or bought a new one, but he was my favorite male cousin. His mom and my dad were best friends, and Aunt Quinn and Mom had been roommates before they’d married two of the Hannigan brothers. Kingston was more like my brother than my cousin since the two of us were both only children.
“It’s the ass-crack of dawn,” Kingston grumbled when he picked up after it had rung several times.
“It’s after noon,” I informed him dryly.
“Really?” He sounded dazed, and then I heard him shifting around. “Fuck, it is.” His groan sounded like he was in physical pain. “Shit. I should have been up over an hour ago to help at Aggie’s. Mom is going to kill me.”
“Um, before you go to be murdered, could you pick me up and drop me off at the shop?” I asked hopefully. “I’m kinda without a vehicle at the moment.”
“What?” he yelled. “Why the hell don’t you have a car?”
I squeezed the bridge of my nose as a headache began to pound behind my eyes. “Can we discuss that after you pick me up? I’m sure you want to get to the diner before Aunt Quinn comes looking for you.”
He groaned again. “Yeah, okay. I’ll be there in fifteen.”
I was waiting outside when he pulled up, thankfully in his car and not on his motorcycle. I wasn’t hurting, but I didn’t think riding on the back of a bike would feel all that great to me. I climbed into the front passenger seat as soon as he came to a complete stop.
“Why don’t you have a car?” he demanded as soon as we were out on the road.
I told him about Dad supposedly bringing mine over, but he hadn’t, and I wasn’t sure if he was going to. “I don’t really care if he does,” I told Kingston with a shrug. “He paid for it. Let him keep it. I’ll get my own.”
“I’m sure Aunt Kelli will have shit to say about that,” he muttered unhappily. “He’s being such a fucking prick over this whole thing, River. I knew he was going to be pissed about you and Maverick, but I figured he would get over it once he saw how much Mav loves you. This…” He tightened his hands around the steering wheel. “He needs a good knock upside of his hard head, if you ask me.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, fighting off a chill. It wasn’t even cold out, but I still found myself shivering. “I’m just glad no one got hurt at the party. My fear was that Dad would kill Maverick then and there. I call it a birthday miracle that no blood was shed.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said with a grunt as he pulled into the parking lot of Aggie’s. “You take the car. I’ll catch a ride with Mom later. It’s not like I need this damn thing right now anyway. I’ve got my bike, so you keep this as long as you need to.”
Giving him a grateful smile, I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” I murmured and was rewarded with him wrapping me in a tight hug.
“Happy belated birthday, by the way. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to say it at the party.” He pulled back and gently tapped me under my chin with his fist. “Don’t drive fast. At least ten people will murder me if something happens to you in this thing.”
I smacked another kiss on his cheek. “You know you’re my favorite cousin, right?”
Opening his door, he winked at me. “Of course I am. I’m everyone’s favorite.”
Snickering, I climbed into the driver’s seat. After adjusting everything, I pulled my seat belt on and drove the few miles to the Ink Shoppe.
It was still early, so no one else was there yet. The door was locked, so I used my key and opened the back door. Maverick said his mom had gone in the day before to help run the front for his dad, but she normally didn’t do the things I took care of, like count inventory in the stock room and make sure the receipts were in order so I could keep up with the account books.
Locking the door behind me, I walked to the front of the shop and booted up the computer system. While that was getting started, I went into Uncle Spider’s office to see if there was anything in there in need of immediate attention. Sometimes he left me notes in case he needed a certain ink ordered in time for a specific tattoo. Some colors of ink weren’t kept in the shop because they weren’t regularly used and it would be a waste, so we only ordered it if a client asked for it in advance.
As expected, there were a few things I needed to order, so I went into the stock room to see if we were low on anything else.
Opening the door, I was surprised to find the light on. Frowning, I took two steps into the room and froze when I saw the blanket Mav and I used to make a bed sometimes was lying on the floor. I kept it neatly folded up and hidden away, so I knew Uncle Spider or Aunt Willa hadn’t messed with it.
“Someone’s been in here,” I muttered to myself. It wasn’t the first time I’d thought that something was off in the storage room. The week before, when Lyric had come to pick up his package of ink, the box had been in a different location than I remembered placing it originally, and I thought there had been a smudge of what looked like blood on the box.
At the time, I’d just thought I’d moved it and hadn’t remembered because I was so scatterbrained from being pregnant. But now, finding the blanket on the floor, having obviously been slept on, I was sure someone had been in the storage room.
I made sure to lock up every night, so I knew unless the person doing it was some kind of magician with a lockpick, then that wasn’t how they were getting in. And other than a few misplaced things, along with the use of the blanket, nothing else had been off. There was no missing money, no missing supplies, and nothing had been vandalized.
My heart squeezed as I imagined someone breaking in just to keep warm and sleep. But as much as I felt sorry for whomever it was, I couldn’t let it continue. I wouldn’t risk anything happening to the shop just because I felt sad for a homeless person.
Muttering a curse, I walked around the shop, checking all the windows. It was in Maverick’s room that I found where the person had been getting in. His window was closed but unlocked. Upon closer inspection, I saw the smudge of fingerprints. They were small, telling me the person had slender fingers, making me think it was either a kid or possibly a woman. Definitely not a man, because all the men I’d ever met had wider fingers than those prints would match.
My curiosity got the better of me, and I walked outside. Starting at Maverick’s window, I looked
around for any footprints and found a few sets several feet away. It had rained the day before, so the dirt was still slightly damp, making the footprints stand out. Bending, I took a picture of them with my phone. By the size and shape of them, I would have guessed it was a woman in running shoes.
Straightening, I kept my gaze on the ground and tried to follow the prints. When they led me to the woods, my stomach dropped. The thought of the girl—which was what I pictured now that I’d seen the footprints—sleeping in the woods with nothing to keep her warm at night broke my heart.
I ran back into the shop and grabbed the blanket then pulled a few bottles of water from the small fridge we kept in the front. I had a supply of snacks under my desk, and I selected a few bags of chips. None of the drinks or food had been touched, which bothered me even more.
Was the girl hungry? Thirsty? What was she eating if she wasn’t eating my snacks, damn it?
Wrapping them in the blanket, I carried them out to the edge of the woods. I left everything out of sight of the shop so no one would ask questions, but where I hoped the girl would easily find it.
As I started back to the shop, I glanced over my shoulder one more time, hoping I might catch sight of someone. But I couldn’t even sense anyone. Shoulders dropping, I entered through the back door and finally got to work.
Thirteen
Maverick
On my way to work, I stopped by Aggie’s to grab some food, knowing River wouldn’t have stopped to get some for herself. I wasn’t happy she’d gone into the shop when she should have been resting, but it didn’t surprise me.
My girl wasn’t one to sit around doing nothing. She didn’t like to keep still, and she always wanted to earn her own way. It was why she’d started paying her own car insurance when she first got a vehicle, even though her mom was insistent that she didn’t need to worry about it.
Walking into the diner, I went straight to the counter where Aunt Quinn was taking care of to-go orders. Seeing me, she smiled and her eyes lit up. “Hey, sweetie. Kingston is working on your order right now.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, dropping my huge body onto one of the stools.
She grabbed a pot of coffee and a mug, pouring me a cup. “You look like you need this more than I do,” she said with a shake of her blond head. “Are you doing okay?”
“I’m good,” I assured her before swallowing half the contents of the mug in one gulp.
“Yo, man,” Kingston greeted as he walked out of the kitchen with a bag full of to-go boxes. “I put in a few extra onion rings for River. She looked like she needed a little more meat on her bones when I picked her up this morning.”
“Yeah, thanks for lending her your car,” I told him, handing over my card to his mom to pay for the food. “If her dad doesn’t bring hers back by tomorrow, I’m going to take her shopping for a new one. Maybe an SUV.” I would feel better if she were in something as big as a tank and just as sturdy. Her car was safe and pretty strong, but I needed her in something bigger.
He shrugged. “Take your time. I don’t need the cage anytime soon.” He tossed in some packets of ketchup, ranch dressing, and a few other condiments he knew River liked.
As big and as inked up as Kingston was, he didn’t look like he spent half his time behind a grill flipping burgers, but when he wasn’t working at his dad’s bar or on runs for the MC, the guy was a pretty badass cook. Aunt Quinn had been teaching him how to run Aggie’s since he was old enough to wipe down a table.
“Call and set up a time for your new tattoo,” I told him as I took the bag from him. “No charge.”
“Dude, you ain’t giving me free ink.” He put his elbows on the counter and leaned forward. “The girl might as well be my baby sister the way I love her.”
“I’m still not going to charge you for the new piece,” I argued.
He smirked. “You drive a hard bargain, my man. I mean, if you insist and all.”
Rolling my eyes at him, I scribbled my name across the slip Aunt Quinn handed over and then bent to kiss her cheek. As I turned to leave, it was to find Colt walking through the door.
Spotting me, he clenched his jaw. “Where’s my daughter?”
I gritted my back teeth, hating that the man seemed to detest the sight of me now, but it wasn’t anything I didn’t really expect. Colt Hannigan was a hard-ass, and I got that he was overprotective of his only daughter, but he needed to realize I’d been protecting her for almost as long as he had. I wasn’t ever going to let anything hurt her.
Even if the one doing the hurting was her own father.
“She’s at the shop,” I told him. “I’m taking her something to eat, so unless you need something, I’d like to get it to her before it gets cold.”
“Yeah, she’s not answering my calls.” He grunted something about her being stubborn like her mother under his breath before raising his voice again. “Tell her I’m getting her car checked over before I bring it to her. New tires, brakes, oil change, all the fluids topped off. Need to make sure it’s safe for her to be driving it.”
“If Max is working on her car, then he would have told you I got the oil changed last week. And he did a full inspection. Her brakes and tires were fine.” I shifted the bag in my hand. “But, yeah, I’ll tell her.”
As I passed him and walked out the door, he followed. “What do you mean, you got the oil changed? Since when do you do shit like that?”
I didn’t turn to face him, instead calling over my shoulder as I headed for my bike, “Since you gave her the car. I’m the one who has always gotten the oil changed as well as made sure the tires and brakes were in working order so that she was safe on the road.”
Once a month, I took her car to the garage, and Max checked it over for me. I couldn’t sleep at night unless I knew my girl was safe in all aspects, including driving the short distances from home to school to work and back again.
“Are you telling me every time I’ve asked if she’d gotten the oil changed, that was your doing?” I shrugged and slung one leg over my bike. Once I was seated and had the food stored away, I finally looked at him again. “Just how long have you been with my daughter without me knowing, Maverick?” he snarled.
I met his gaze without flinching. “I’ve always loved River. From the time she could crawl, I have protected her. And I’ll spend the rest of my life doing both.” He took a menacing step toward me, and I just sat there. If he wanted to take a swing at me, he was more than welcome. “I know you don’t like the thought of me dating your daughter, but the truth is, I’m going to marry that girl as soon as I can get a ring on her finger.”
“The fuck you are!” he roared and charged toward me.
“Colt, stop!”
I tensed at the sound of Uncle Bash’s barked command. Colt stopped only a few feet from me, his chest rising and falling in heavy pants as he glared at me, but he didn’t take another step toward me.
My honorary uncle, godfather, and MC prez stomped up behind his brother-in-law, his blue eyes blazing. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“This has nothing to do with you,” he growled. “This is between me and this worthless piece of trash my daughter thinks she’s dating.”
His words cut me deep, but I didn’t let him see that by so much as blinking.
“Worthless piece of trash,” Uncle Bash repeated. “Up until River’s birthday party, you’ve practically praised this boy. How many times have you said he was a hard worker, had a good head on his shoulders? Fuck, brother, you even said he would make a good husband a while back. And now you’re treating him like shit on the bottom of your shoe.”
Those electric-blue eyes landed on me, and the hardness on his face eased. “River is a smart girl. I trust her judgment in people as much as I would my wife’s. That she picked Maverick as her man doesn’t surprise me. He will watch over her, protect her, provide for her, and treat her like a queen.”
I had to swallow the knot of emotions that filled my throat at his words, but f
rom the look on Colt’s face, it was all going over his head.
“Listen to me, brother,” Uncle Bash muttered, lowering his voice. “I know how hard it is to accept that your daughter has grown up. When Lexa started dating Ben, I nearly lost my mind. But I learned my lesson, and you should have learned something from what we went through, too. Get on board with who your little girl loves or risk losing her forever.”
Colt’s nostrils flared, and he spat on the ground at my feet. “Fuck your lessons, Bash,” he gritted out before turning and walking back into the diner.
I watched him go as dread churned in my gut. I had a bad feeling where River’s dad was concerned, and I didn’t like it.
Uncle Bash blew out a harsh sigh and turned his gaze from the closing diner door back to me. “I’ll try again after he’s cooled down a little,” he offered.
I shook my head. “Don’t bother. He’s not going to accept me being with River.”
“It’s not because you aren’t good enough, Mav,” my uncle tried to assure me. “For some fathers, they just can’t let go of their little girls. He wouldn’t be able to accept anyone.”
“I get it,” I said as the dread in my gut churned a little harder. “I just don’t want it to hurt River.”
But I knew my real fear was that Colt would try to tear us apart.
Fourteen
River
By closing time, I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, and even though I wouldn’t say I was in pain, I was more than a little uncomfortable.
Fighting a yawn, I went through my normal routine to make sure everything was in order and ready to go for the next day before grabbing my things.
“Babe,” I called out as I walked back to his room where he was finishing up the last of his appointments. He’d canceled the ones from the day before, and he’d had me squeeze some of them in between his clients for that day, so he was still working. “I’m on my way out. Do you need anything before I go?”
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