Deploy, Part One (Rawlings #1)(2)
Come late August, the first leg of Nolan’s adventure would be over, and Declan would be out of boot camp. Declan was hoping Nolan’s choices and Declan’s cover-up would be downplayed a bit; he was counting on it. Right about then, family and friends would be too pumped to see everyone, to spend days at the bar and on the river, with BBQ and beer that never ended. Hopefully, the pair of them would only be ragged about how they went about their summers.
Their grandfather gave Nolan and Declan the idea to plan it that way when he noticed how many shifts they were swapping and the bullshit excuses they were pulling to do so. He simply said, “Whatever hell you two are up to that’s gonna piss your daddy off, wait til’ the Rally to tell ‘em. I’m too old to be settling all of your tempers for you.”
After hearing as much, Nolan swapped his plans up. Instead of flying overseas with a buddy after they walked the line, they were going to wait until August. Until then, Nolan was headed to the mountains, then north through Canada before making his way back for the Rally. The road trip of trips as he called it—even though it was more like as far as he could get and as much as he could see in a truck in the few months’ time he had.
Filling in for one another with school deals, and sometimes family ones, wasn’t odd for Declan and Nolan.
Declan was the second oldest of five boys, he and Nolan were not even a year apart. Nolan was younger, born months too early.
He almost died. But as their daddy always said, Nolan, like all his boys, was a fighter—only he had to fight a bit harder straight outta the gate.
Nolan and Declan favored each other. More than a few people assumed they were twins. Some close to their family even claimed they were, only they said Declan was the early one—because he was the fighter. Nolan? He was just good people. The kinda guy who was happy to be alive. A smile never really left his eyes. Declan always liked a degree of control. An order. Something he could count on. Nolan was born thinking the world was an adventure he had to soak up to survive.
Out of all the brothers and cousins, they were the tightest, which made no sense to most of the family. Declan proudly wore the * name badge. He was the one who put up with no one’s BS. Not only could he handle Nolan, but he was also the only one Nolan cared to listen to.
Declan gave up cussing the sky, and decided to hurry his ass up and finish landscaping the flower beds as he was told to do. At this point, he wanted to be gone before the storm hit. The one that was bound to fall from the sky, a day late and a dollar short, and the one that would happen if Murdock Souter said one f*cking word to him—or worse, if he saw him touch or speak to Justice Rose.
Declan would never admit it to anyone, but he’d had it bad for Justice since before he could remember. Since she was a knock-kneed, tangled hair tomboy skipping her grandfather’s church services to climb trees or go fishing in the river. Nolan was the first to follow her when he was no more than seven, telling all his brothers she was his ‘take.’
‘My take’ is a phrase all Rawlings’ men used when they were in a crowd and spotted a girl they wanted. The phrase had been around for generations and held more weight than one would think. But then again, words and rules as such were needed when it came to their family. It was too big, with too much aggression without such things—it was never good.
It didn’t matter that Nolan and Declan decided girls were gross not long after Nolan had called ‘take’ on Justice, and didn’t see all the benefits of girls until they hit middle school—Nolan had said it.
Over the years Declan asked him if he was ever going to withdraw and Nolan would just grin and shake his head. Meaning it was a bad deal that Declan knew what Justice Rose’s lips tasted like, really bad.
When Justice would skip the sermon on Sundays more than one Rawlings always followed her and when they did they’d tease her about being a bad girl, and she’d spout, “I heard it already, he’s been preachin’ those words for days. ‘Sides that, he says I’m an angel anyhow, and angels have to fly.”
She was her grandfather’s girl until the day he died when she was fifteen. She had never been her father’s girl, not even when she was little. He was always the one who came after her when she ran off, and he was never happy about it.
There were more than a few bad rumors about him that had lasted for years, ones that said the face he had as the town alderman was a joke. He was a white collar drunk with a short temper; both issues only became worse when his wife hit the road when Justice was two—with a Marine who was only in town because his buddy was a Rawlings and invited him to the annual Rally.
Declan had always been worried about Justice and questioned if all the bruises on her came from her tomboy ways when she was a girl.
As a teen, after her grandfather passed, he seriously questioned them. Not the bruises he could see, because they were few and far between, but the pain in her eyes. He wasn’t sure if they were coming from her dad or that * Murdock who was always around her place.
Murdock’s dad and hers were friends, good friends, and were quick to push Justice and Murdock together, which made Murdock’s head all the bigger and put a divide between Justice and the Rawlings’ clan. Nolan was the only one who was real with her on a daily basis.
Declan knew he’d end up shredding Murdock, so he kept his distance. Their younger brothers were in different grades and on different halls so they never really saw her, not that Declan knew anyhow.