Deploy, Part One (Rawlings #1)(22)

If Justice had a chance to rest, to breathe, she could figure out how to smooth it all over, the way she always did.

Murdock did get out but only to get in the passenger seat and slam the door then lean against it.

“You heard her,” his father said. “They just got there. I don’t need any trouble, son. Those Rawlings always leave. It’s not worth the hell.”

Murdock shook his head in a pissed off way. His judicial father never got him, but then again that was more than likely because he wasn’t his son, not really. The secret was a skeleton in their family closet. Murdock was a mistake his mother made when Monty was in the service, the navy.

Every time his parents fought they both threw daggers. Monty wanted to be commended for raising a boy that wasn’t his—giving him his name and his benefits, and she wanted to him to accept fault, saying she only stepped out because he was saddling up to any pretty thing he could find at every port.

It’s never awesome to know that you were the result of a revenge f*ck, and Murdock had lived with that truth since he was a boy.

His father shined his spotlight across the property, looking for damage, then pulled away the second he saw Justice make her way in.

***

Justice had done all she could to calm herself as she climbed the steps and then made her way to the kitchen.

Bell Everly was gifted in many areas, and aging gracefully was one of them. At sixty-four, she barely looked fifty. Her fair hair had turned whiter over they years but there was still more than a hint of blond and red. She and Justice carried the same build, both relatively tall at five foot eight inches. Strong shoulders, a narrow chest, and wider hips.

The lesson on knowing how to be patient, to plan and expect the darkest hour to end, came more so from her grandmother than anyone.

Justice let her bag fall from her shoulder and pressed her lips together, holding back any emotion she could, but the second her grandmother carefully approached her, with concern in her gaze, Justice lost it.

Silent tears came. She covered her face, which was twisted in agony, with her hands. The next thing she felt was her grandmother’s arms around her, swaying her as her hand ran over the back of her head, the same way she had always calmed her when life seemed to press a little too hard on her granddaughter.

“Did you say your peace?” Bell asked, after a moment.

Justice nodded, but her tears which remained silent, never stopped.

“That is all you can ask for, Justice. Let life unfold as it needs. Every chapter finds its end.”

Her words were anything but comforting, but Justice took them and held on to them.

It was dawn before Justice went to sleep. She and her grandmother sat at the kitchen table for hours, drinking coffee. Few words were passed, more so glances that seemed to already know it all.

Her grandmother now knew what the Sheriff saw, what Murdock saw—Justice in a crowd of Rawlings. She knew that Justice had a justifiable reason to worry.

Keep to the story was the plan. For her to look her father in the eye and say what she had already said.

“We’ll stay busy helping out around town, just don’t let him get you alone until this has had time to die down,” Bell had said to Justice before she went to bed.

It burned Bell alive she had landed here, with the demon her daughter had brought home decades before. Until Justice was eighteen, until either one of them had a place to go, this was it. Them watching the calendar slide by.

Bell saved every penny she could from where she worked at the school as a substitute teacher, and the part-time job she had driving the elderly all the way to Savannah for doctor’s appointments, but Brent Rose made it impossible for ends to meet.

A home that had been paid for decades before now had a lien on it, a payment he never paid himself. She had no choice but to get a different car months before and it too had a note on it; those bills coupled with the other routine household bills and providing for a teen girl made it all the harder.

“One day,” Bell told Justice over and over, “this will all be a bad dream.” Which she believed with her whole heart.

The last two years had been hard, yes. But before then, she and her late husband were blessed enough to raise their granddaughter. Yes, neither of them slept on the days they had to let Justice stay with Brent each week, yes they knew Justice endured more than they were even aware of, but the sun had its moments and it would again.





Seven


The one f*cking time Declan Rawlings wanted to go to school, he couldn’t.

Nope.

Because of the damage, the seniors were dismissed. Their graduation ceremony was postponed to a date when neither Declan nor Nolan would be in town. They didn’t care.

Declan didn’t plan to wear the cap and gown anyway, at least not unless Missy, his grandmother, made him.

Some of the lower classmen had to report to the middle school for finals but for the most part school for the year was over for everyone. Which meant Declan didn’t get to see Justice. He’d tried calling her, but it went to voicemail every time, and he didn’t feel good leaving a message, not when he didn’t know who would get it. It was the silent treatment all over again, only this time it was worse.

This was it, his last day in Bradyville for a good while. Tomorrow morning Nolan was driving him to the base, then heading off on his own. The night before, his family all met up at the bar and had a graduation slash going away party for Nolan and Declan along with two other cousins who had walked the line that year.