Deploy, Part One (Rawlings #1)(40)

Justice all but turned green, knowing Murdock was far too paranoid to go away anytime soon.

Bell pulled Justice to her. “Not your fault, baby,” she said as she rocked her. “He fell.”

“Mom is still not coming back,” Justice said.

Bell moved Justice back and looked her in the eye. “You’re stronger than your mother. Always have been. The only way for her to cope is to move forward, not back. She loves you, but...”

“I remind her of him, and even dead he’s a threat,” Justice said with a degree of anger in her tone.

Bell nodded.

Truth be told, her mother had wanted to come home. She said she knew Justice needed help managing the funds and insurance and she could bring her family to Bradyville.

When Bell told her the man may be dead but the debt he created wasn’t, when she made it clear that Justice would be lucky to go to school the following year, her mother’s plans changed, something came up and yeah...

Justice didn’t need to know or hear anything to make her feel less loved and wanted. Because she was loved and wanted, by others, those who chose her. She’d been through enough, and right now Justice needed to pick up the pieces and let her parents rest in a dark past that was better left unremembered.

***

After seeing Atticus again, sitting in her section at the diner, nearly two months after the horrific night, Justice awoke somewhat from her hell.

“You need anything else?” she asked Atticus as she took away his empty plate that once held his second helping of pancakes.

It wasn’t easy waiting on him, being near his knowing stare. It was even worse when Boon, Tobias, or his dad was with him. And forget it if Nash Rawlings, their gramps, came in—Justice would outright trade tables to avoid his gaze.

The southern ex-military man seemed to have the ability to reach in and read your every thought—Justice was sure both Chasen and Atticus inherited his trait of doing so.

She felt guilty for not sending the letters she was supposed to send for Nolan, upset she couldn’t get him to answer, and yes she missed Declan, even though she was sure with what she had been going through he would have been too much to handle.

Even though Justice knew her actions, in part, were to protect him, and she thought of him each night as she drifted to sleep, the idea of him seemed a universe away. Almost as if the girl he left here died hours later when she fought back, really fought back for the fist time. And this girl? She wasn’t too sure who she was yet.

“I’m good,” Atticus said, pulling out his wallet. As he did, he purposely set a letter on the table as he counted his cash out. When he saw Justice staring at the name—who it was addressed to—frozen in place as if someone had shined a spotlight on a dormant memory, he grinned. “Yeah, I miss him. ‘Bout to go over to the post to mail this.” He looked up at her, his near gray gaze searching hers. “Got anything you need me to mail? Pick up?”

Justice gasped, and ended up having to brace her tray when she heard the dishes rattle from her shaky embrace. She’d forgotten all about her P.O. Box.

Her mom could now call any time; there was no need for secret mailboxes.

“Cuts—who’s first out?” Josh, the manager yelled from threshold to the kitchen.

Justice’s nervous gaze grew wider. She held up a finger to Atticus, somewhat asking him to stay, but knowing even if he didn’t she had to move fast.

She never asked for first cut, those who stayed past eight hours moved to an hourly wage, and she needed the cash. Which is why Murdock wasn’t supposed to pick her up for at least another few hours. But today she asked to be out, and after an awkward glance her boss gave her the nod.

Justice rushed back out to her section, to Atticus. “I do need a ride to the post office. I mean if you’re going there already, but I need like twenty minutes,” she glanced over her section, at all the side work she had to do before she left. “Maybe a few more.”

Atticus grinned, an accomplished, Nolan grin. “No prob. I gotta take this order over to gramps. I’ll swing back through and get you in a few.”

“Okay, but I need you to bring me back here, directly.”

Atticus’s grin faded. “Picking up another shift?”

“I got a ride home.”

“Well, you want to call your ride and tell ‘em I have you covered?”

She did. God she did. But knew it was a bad idea. Not only was Murdock more protective than ever since her grandmother had put space between them, but every single day he had some remark about the Rawlings.

He’d asked if she she’d seen them, then when she asked why he’d say his dad was asking about them. “That is bad, Justice. We don’t need to give them any fat to chew,” Murdock would say.

Justice tensed, she sucked at lying. Really sucked at it. “It’s just already set up and all,” she said finally.

With a stiff ‘Declan’ nod Atticus stood up and put his hat on. “Okay then, see you in a bit.”

Then he winked at her and made his way out.

Justice’s boss had given her a ton of slack since she came back two and half weeks earlier. He’d overlooked her forgetting half her orders, her dropping plates, not leaving her section the way it should be, even being late almost every day because Murdock was always hung over and not eager to take her in at four each morning. But she knew one day the slack was going to run out.