Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
He whispered something in his grandmother’s ear that had her turning as well, then they were at Ida Bell’s side.
Ida Bell had woken up just forty-eight hours ago from her coma.
She had a lot of broken bones, and she sure as heck shouldn’t be out of the hospital. She certainly shouldn’t be walking on her own toward Koen’s casket.
Shaw, seeing me shiver, slid down to block me from the wind.
I leaned on his shoulder and whispered, “You okay?”
Katana and Shaw hadn’t had a funeral for their little girl. She’d been too small, and Katana hadn’t been up to it.
So instead, Shaw buried her in his backyard, which happened to be on a small ranch just down the road from Denver.
He hadn’t wanted anyone around.
That didn’t mean that the club brothers hadn’t shown up anyway and forced their attention on them.
In my heart, I knew that Shaw felt guilty.
He hadn’t been dealing well with what had happened, and he’d been the reason that everyone had been headed toward his house. In doing so, Koen had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Shaw blamed himself.
Which was clearly obvious by the way he answered my question. “Awful.”
I leaned further into him. “I’m sorry, Shaw. I can’t imagine what you’re feeling or going through right now. This entire situation seems grossly unfair to you.”
He took his jacket off and draped it over my legs. “Shaw…”
“Don’t really feel much of anything right now, Maggie.”
I laid my head on his shoulder. “Did you grow up in Montana?”
“Born and raised,” he answered. “Though I’m new to Sawtooth. I’m originally from the Glacier area. Blackfoot Tribe, to be specific.”
I really studied him hard for a long moment before I said, “I would’ve never thought that you were Native American.”
“Quarter.” He shrugged. “My grandfather was full-blooded. My mom came for a visit to Glacier National Park and met my dad where he lived in Browning. She went home after spending every minute of her vacation with him. Stayed home for about two months before she realized that she missed him too much to stay in California. Moved her entire life to Browning, Montana, and they got married six weeks later. My dad is half Irish. Came for the same reason, to visit Glacier. Met my mom and convinced her to go back to Ireland with them. But Mom passed away, and Dad didn’t know how to raise four kids alone. He moved back to Browning to have my grandparents help raise us. He’s been a park ranger for Glacier National Park ever since.”
“Why’d you move here?” I wondered.
“Wanted to break away from the family business,” he grumbled. “Start something on my own.”
“What was the family business?”
Just as I asked that, Beau took the seat on the other side of me, squishing me in between Shaw and himself.
“Security,” Shaw answered. “Was in the military for a long fucking time. Got out, wanted to jump into business with my Pops and Dad—they’re security consultants for black ops and the government—but they were pretty set in their ways, and didn’t want to ‘rock the boat’ with my new ideas and ‘dangerous ways.’ Fought them for a while on it, but in the end, decided that maybe it wasn’t worth the hassle.” Shaw sighed. “The final nail in the coffin was a really bad breakup. One that had the possibility of going nuclear if I stayed.”
And he’d come here, gotten that new start, and had lost a child.
How awful.
I tapped him with one shoulder. “Are you sure you’re not cold?”
“Positive,” he grumbled just as Denver walked up to the front. “Got more meat on my bones than you do, anyway.”
Beau’s arm curved around my shoulders, and though I wasn’t warm, I didn’t freeze either.
It didn’t help that I sobbed from the moment that everyone started to speak to the end when Denver ordered us all to his place.
At some point during the ceremony, Beau must’ve started his truck up, because it was toasty warm when we got there.
“Ahhh.” I shivered as the heat started to seep into my bones. “This.”
Shaw, who’d ridden with us, took the seat in the back and said, “Jesus. Feels like I’m suffocating.”
I tossed a toy of Iris’s at his face and said, “Just keep suffocating back there until I can feel my toes again.”
Beau got into the seat on the heels of me saying that to his friend.
“Sorry, Thumper. Can’t have my girl’s toes getting frostbite.”
His lips quirked up, but he didn’t complain the rest of the way to Denver’s place.
“Someone knocked Denver’s mailbox down,” I mused as we pulled into his drive.
“Probably the caterers,” Beau mumbled. “Texted Merrill to check on Iris and the rest of the kids, and she said that the caterers were a train wreck.”
I frowned. “What?”
He shrugged. “That’s just what she said. That there were eight of them, and not a single one of them looked like they knew what they were doing.”