Finn
I stepped away from Grier for five minutes. Six feet, that was all that separated us for the first time in more than fifteen hours. If it hadn’t been an important call, one I didn’t want anyone in the lab to hear, I wouldn’t have put even that little distance between us.
But she was coming out of her shock. Her tears had dried fully.
Those goddamn hiccup-sniffle noises that were about as torturous as having a cattle prod zap my heart finally passed.
Jagger had been close to losing his shit watching his eldest daughter so utterly wrecked all night.
Once Luca arrived with Violet and Shaw, the tension in the lab only doubled.
Jagger, I most likely could have handled without much issue.
Luca Thornton, the greatest NFL defensive player in pro football history, not at all likely.
Even as leaned-down as the beast had become since retiring and starting his own youth athlete program for talented, underprivileged teens, spending more time coaching than tearing men apart on the field, he outweighed me in muscle.
Grier’s dad and godfather kept their cool, though.
They were there to support her, not cause more problems. She barely noticed them, however, her attention locked on Waffles.
While she was focused on him, I took care of her.
All night, she held on to me like I was her lifeline, and I held her right back.
With her at my side, I’d taken call after call, giving orders to my deputies a few times but leaving the work to my family.
Mom kept me updated while the MC investigated.
Because we all knew this was not going to be something that could be handled through legal channels.
Hilary would get a fine at most once the DA finished tearing apart any case we could make against her.
Finally ending the call with my grandmother, I turned around, expecting Grier to still be beside Waffles. He was sleeping peacefully now, no longer whimpering in that pitiful little way that affected everyone in the lab, myself included.
I gave him a scratch behind the ears. “Glad you’re gonna be okay, buddy.”
He kept sleeping, and I went to find Grier.
As I walked toward the big barn, I noticed her UTV was still parked where her mom had left it when she’d driven it over for her the night before.
In the barn, staff was moving slower than usual, but working.
Everyone had a heavy heart, but there was still work that needed to be done.
A farm this big wasn’t sustainable with only a few people.
It was never-ending, requiring round-the-clock maintenance.
For the animals, the equipment, the land, and everything in between.
Not finding her in the barn, I walked up to her house. It was a barn too. One that she’d turned into a loft apartment overhead, while below, there were a few stalls. One was for Waffles. Climbing the stairs, I called her name. “Grier?”
No answer.
Her kitchen and living room and office had an open concept, only her bedroom and bathroom separated with a wall. When I found the bedroom empty, I got a bad feeling. The bathroom was silent, but I still checked. Nothing.
Pulling out my phone, I retraced my steps. Her phone went straight to voice mail, and I realized it must have died. I hadn’t seen her with it during the previous long night. I called her mom next.
“Is Grier with you?” I asked when she answered. She and Violet had left with their husbands to shower and get some breakfast, promising Grier they would be back soon.
“No,” Shaw answered. “We just got home.”
“I turned my back for five minutes, and she disappeared. She’s not in the barn or the house. The UTV is in the driveway, though.”
There was a brief pause on her end before she finally spoke again. “Are any other vehicles missing?”
I scanned the driveway, taking inventory.
Staff and guests parked in a separate lot closer to the barn.
All the farm vehicles appeared to be accounted for.
One of the trucks was absent, but I remembered Leo had asked Cody to use it to haul a trailer out to the east pasture to pick up a cow that had been limping the day before.
Then I realized the Jeep was gone. “I gotta go,” I muttered, disconnecting and running for my truck.
I had barely cleared the last gate when my cell rang. Caller ID flashed on the screen on my dash. Dispatch. Fuck.
A knot of dread filled me. “What is it?”
“We have multiple calls about a possible 10-35 and a potential 10-37 in progress, Sheriff.”
“Florist?” I guessed at the location of the vandalism and destruction of property.
“Affirmative. Witnesses say they saw a Jeep dragging something from that location.”
I punched the gas harder with my foot. Dragging something.
Grier was dragging something from the florist shop, and I honestly didn’t know if it was a something or a someone.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if my woman had decided to hog-tie Hilary and drag her ass back to the farm to feed to the piglets.
“I’ll check it out myself. No need to involve anyone else,” I told the dispatcher, Naomi, and then hung up before she could say more.
Sweat broke out on my brow, rolling down my neck and back.
Clenching my hands around the wheel, I hit the lights, thankful I’d gotten them installed in my personal vehicle.
There wasn’t much traffic so early on a Sunday, but the old-timers would be on their way to Aggie’s for their daily gossip session.
I blew past the diner doing a hundred and ten, swerving around two cars and a truck, slapping my horn the whole time.
The last car was still in my rearview mirror when the calls started flooding in.
Dispatch, a deputy, three different MC brothers, and my mother. All of them, one on top of the other.
“Where?” I snarled when I connected to Dispatch.
“We have a 10-80 at…” Naomi read off Hilary’s personal address as the location of a domestic disturbance. “Deputies are 10-23. But we have five other callers. All with conflicting details. Request you divert your priority from the 10-37 to this, Sheriff.”
“On my way,” I bit out, doing a sharp U-turn and gunning it. As soon as I disconnected the call, I accepted an incoming call from Max.
“Your deputies have Grier at gunpoint.”
Hands tightening around the wheel, I swallowed the shot of fear that hit me. “You have eyes on the situation?”
“Yes, with six other brothers at the ready. I’ll let you take point on this, considering who is involved,” my uncle said quietly.
“If they so much as breathe wrong in her direction, take a headshot,” I commanded and disconnected.
A block away, I saw the two deputies. One was parked on the street, the driver’s door open, using it as a shield as he pointed his gun right at Grier.
The second cruiser was on the lawn in front of Hilary’s house, the officer in the same stance.
Behind them, Hilary was swinging a baseball bat at nothing, screeching something about Grier being unhinged.
My sirens were still going, causing the two officers to look my way. I came to an abrupt stop right behind Grier’s Jeep and jumped out. “Stand down!” I roared at my men. “Stand down now!”
“But, Sheriff—” Otis, who was parked on the street, started to argue.
“We got a call—” Carlos talked over him.
“I said, stand down!” I bellowed, the sound causing Grier to flinch.
My heart was pounding so hard against my ribs, I wondered if this was what a heart attack felt like.
If anything happened to her, I was going to kill both those motherfuckers.
I jogged over to her, shielding her body with my own, facing the men and making sure to keep Hilary in my line of sight.
“Put your guns away, or I promise you, losing your jobs won’t be the only thing you’re going to have to worry about. ”
Slowly, Carlos lowered his weapon. Otis followed the command more reluctantly, and they both holstered their guns.
“Did either of you even assess the situation before deciding lethal force was the best option?” I yelled at the two deputies. “When was the last time either of you needed to shoot someone?”
For them, the answer was never. Crime was low in Creswell Springs, and it had nothing to do with the two bumbling idiots before me.
Primarily, the MC took out any risks to the community before any of my deputies even became aware of a potential disturbance.
Other than the random loud noise complaint regarding a college student, they didn’t get many calls for action.
“Hilary called me,” Otis explained. “Said someone was trying to kill her.”
“That lunatic destroyed my roses!” Hilary shrieked, storming toward us. I shifted, keeping my body a wall between her and Grier. “That unhinged, spoiled little bitch destroyed my prize-winning bush.”
Using the bat, she pointed at the mangled plant on the lawn.
“Arrest her!” Hilary yelled, her voice hitting a pitch that caused a dog to howl in the distance. “She vandalized my property.”
Behind me, Grier hadn’t moved or spoken. I stepped back until I could feel her body pressed into mine. Her hands clutched at the back of my shirt, and I felt her trembling. But she was alive. Thank you, God, she was alive. It was all I wanted, all I fucking needed.
With my heart finally slowing down to a more stable rate, I cocked a brow at the hostile woman in front of me. “Do you have proof of that?”
“Of course I do. It’s right there.” She pointed at it again with the bat, swinging it wide, nearly hitting me with it. “Look at my beautiful roses.”
Giving the plant a disparaging glance, I shrugged. “Just because it has roses on it doesn’t mean it was your roses. That could be any number of rosebushes. My mom has two of them in her backyard. Miss Hester helped her plant them when I was ten.”
Hilary hissed and swung the bat again, this time pointing it toward me. “She ripped it out of the ground in front of my shop and dragged it here, where she unloaded it in my front yard.”
“Again, do you have proof? Security surveillance? CCTV access? Maybe eyewitnesses?” Her mouth opened and closed like a fish.
Even if she had all that shit, I’d make it disappear.
“You can’t go around accusing people of crimes they didn’t commit without proof, Hilary.
That, in itself, is a crime. As is threatening a LEO with a weapon. ”
“What are you—” she started, but I disarmed her of the bat and twisted one arm behind her back. Unlike the last time I’d arrested her, however, I was without my cuffs. “Carlos, get over here and cuff her.”
He scrambled forward, but she began to resist. “You’re all idiots. I didn’t do a damned thing wrong. Grier is the one who committed a crime, not me! I’m innocent.”
“You’re a baby murderer!” Grier cried, finally finding her voice.
Hilary stopped struggling between Carlos and me, a deranged smile twisting her face. “Oh no. Did your precious Waffles not make it?”
Otis appeared beside me, taking over restraining Hilary. Which was the only smart thing he’d done, as far as I could see.
Hilary kept running her mouth. “That little monster got exactly what he deserved.”
I could have stopped what happened next. I could have grabbed Grier and carried her away. I could have stepped in front of Hilary and shielded her. Instead, when I felt the enraged little spitfire brush against me, I let her.
Whoever had taught Grier how to punch had done a fantastic job.
Her thumb placement was perfect, the swing a thing of beauty, and the crunch that followed impact truly musical.
Hilary cried out as her head snapped back, blood already dripping down her nose and into her mouth before Grier fully stepped aside, shaking out her hand.