2. Grier
Grier
I didn’t wake up every morning looking for chaos. That bitch followed me around like I owed her money.
Waffles was my excuse most days, but it truly wasn’t his fault.
I’d been his momma since he was two days old, when his birth mom passed from complications, and my little guy had attachment issues.
If he couldn’t find me back at the house or on the property, he knew I’d most likely be at the recreation center in town.
He was smart—and stubborn. MiMi said he was meant for me, because we were so much alike.
I’d coddled him from day one, putting a diaper on him and strapping him to my chest in a ring sling.
I took him everywhere with me for the first year of his life, and now he came looking for me when he missed me.
Which was basically any time I wasn’t in sight.
Every day, he came to find me, having adventures along the way.
Waffles made friends easily, getting snacks and scratches.
All the kids in town adored him, and they loved it when he came up to them at the petting center.
My sanctuary for special-needs miniature farm animals required lots of help.
I had an entire team to oversee the facility, but on the weekends, I allowed people in to pet and help feed all my little babies at the recreation center.
My sweet, good boy was who I saw first, followed quickly by an all too familiar police cruiser. These days, I was surprised whenever I happened upon my favorite donkey and didn’t see the sheriff. As soon as my gaze landed on the SUV, I couldn’t stop the thrill that ran through me.
I hadn’t seen Finn in almost twenty-four hours, when he’d delivered Waffles home the previous afternoon.
And then the scene I had just driven up on came into focus. Waffles with his ears tucked back, running from the crazy brunette welding a rake over her head as she chased him. I slammed on the brakes of my UTV and shook my head a few times before I confirmed what I was actually witnessing.
Hilary.
I loathed that bitch. She was always running her mouth about Waffles.
I hadn’t gotten a single day of peace from her, and not just because of her precious rosebush.
She hadn’t even owned the flower show when her animosity had started.
Her grandmother had run the place back then.
And then she passed, and Hilary inherited everything.
Miss Hester was the one who planted that bush when I was fifteen and had volunteered to help her with the flower bed outside the shop.
Miss Hester had babied that bush like I did my animals, with love and dedication. Her death had hit me hard.
Waffles only ever ate the dead roses on the bush, basically giving it a free pruning. His selective snacking was the primary reason that bush was still thriving these days. Yes, it was beautiful, and yes, it won awards, but Hilary had very little to do with that.
Finn grabbed Hilary, stopping her before she could hit Waffles with the rake. My fury, already boiling at the sight of someone attempting to harm my bestest boy, imploded when, in the next moment, I saw Hilary turn and kiss Finn.
A hundred impulses flashed through my mind, every single one of them a different way to make Hilary Prescott suffer.
Not in death—death was too quick, too merciful.
I was not a merciful person. I wanted her to suffer in life.
A million paper cuts in the most intimate places, an itch that could never quite be satisfied, no matter how hard or from what angle you came at it, a stray hair that was always tickling your face—that kind of suffering.
Torture that wasn’t considered torture but would legitimately make a person cry.
White noise, static with a hint of ringing, filled my ears. I blinked, then blinked again, convinced I wasn’t seeing what I thought I was seeing. But, no. Yeah, I was. Hilary was kissing Finn.
My Finn.
She barely had her mouth on him before he was shoving her away. It wasn’t an easy push. If he hadn’t grabbed hold of her wrist and twisted it behind her, she would have fallen on her backside. “Assault on a LEO!” he yelled, the click of cuffs snapping into place replacing the ringing in my head.
People were coming out of the businesses along Main Street, watching the spectacle. Finn was eye candy enough on his own. I wouldn’t fault anyone who wanted to watch him at work. Mix in Waffles, and the citizens got a daily comedy act that typically ended with the sheriff at my door in the evening.
This, however, was a new show. Full of action and cursing that definitely would have caused Uncle Luca to bust a blood vessel if he’d heard it being spoken near any of us girls, especially Love Bug.
Lucky for Hilary, my bestie was still at college, and my sister had left early for her summer internship with MiMi down in LA.
If Fallon had her way, she’d live with our grandparents all year-round.
She wasn’t the biggest fan of small-town life, which, admittedly, wasn’t for everyone.
The pace was too slow for my little sis, who was constantly moving, correcting everything around her.
That was the Emmie in her, as Papa always said.
And that was also how the two of us were the most different.
Where Fallon thrived off the fast pace and high energy, I wilted.
All I wanted was a simple life, running the recreation center and my mini-animal rescue in this sleepy little college town.
It wasn’t just the quality of the air. It was the quality of the people who surrounded me.
I wanted each day to be different, yet the same. That didn’t make sense to some people. Or most people, really.
What I wanted was to sleep until I wasn’t tired anymore, wake up, and have my morning cup of coffee. Sometimes at dawn. Sometimes at noon. Sometimes at 9:23 a.m. on a Tuesday for no other reason than that was when my body and soul were both connected and said, Okay.
Then I wanted to take an hour to stretch. Some days, that meant nothing more than stretching my arms up to the sky and letting out a breath. Other days, that meant hard-core yoga, more intense than the intermediate classes I taught Saturday afternoons at the rec.
Afterward, I wanted to love on all my farm babies.
Make sure they had what they needed, even if it was just a cuddle or an apple.
Once I was sure the vet and the hands had everything under control, I wanted to go to the recreation center.
I owned the place, technically, although it had been a gift from Papa.
Once I was done showering all my mini fur babies with love, I would make my way to the rec center, where I climbed on the rock wall, ran on one of the treadmills, or taught yoga.
And then Waffles would find me, no matter where I was, and we’d enjoy the rest of our day together.
That usually meant that Finn would show up at some point.
First to pretend to be grumpy, then to pretend like he wasn’t thinking about kissing me. Which was absolutely my favorite part.
That was my version of a different day, but the same. I loved my life in Creswell Springs.
Papa had called it a gag gift when he’d gifted me the rec center.
Because he was stupid-rich, not smart-rich like MiMi.
He was always doing crazy things. Too much free time on his hands, endless love for his family, and an obscene amount of money in his bank accounts.
We’d moved to Creswell Springs permanently when I was fourteen.
Until then, we’d split time between West Bridge, Tennessee, Santa Monica, and here.
Wherever we happened to be, my grandparents would visit often.
During one of his visits, Papa had noticed the older building that had been more or less abandoned, and he’d bought it. For me, specifically. Just handed over the deed, said to fix it up however I wanted, and to send him the bill for any and all construction.
Mom joked that being stupid was a requirement before anyone could become a rocker.
I had to agree. Both my grandfathers were rock stars, and my dad and uncle Cannon had followed in their footsteps.
All four of them were dumb as dirt, to the point there were times I wondered if they shared the same brain cell.
But I adored them, regardless of their lack of IQ.
I’d gutted the building, turning it into a recreational center.
Creswell Springs didn’t have a gym, and other than the bowling alley, there wasn’t much else to do in the town except drink at the local biker dive bar.
I’d had the rock wall built for myself, along with the yoga studios.
And I’d added a pool and indoor basketball courts, turned the field behind the building into a soccer field, and then finally put in the workout equipment.
Thankfully, MiMi had taken pity on the community and hired a director to run the place for me since I was only sixteen at the time. Again, Papa was stupid-rich. He was cute like that. The rec was popular from day one, with residents throughout the county signing up for membership.
When my family moved to the area, it had brought a lot of growth as well.
Barker & Reid had to hire more crews to help with the construction of our homes.
Uncle Luca started his sports camps for talented, underprivileged students.
That meant more jobs for educators, security guards, IT engineers, and so much more.
That didn’t change anything for Creswell Springs directly since many of the builds were outside the town’s limits. But it did offer a more stable economic environment for the citizens. More jobs meant growth, in every definition of the word.
I loved this place. It gave me a sense of security that had been missing from every other “home” we’d had.
Here, I could be myself. Papa saw that. It was why he’d gifted me a piece of it.
So I could leave my own personal mark on the community.
Fallon wasn’t nearly as enamored with the town or the locals.
She spent more time with MiMi than any of us grandkids.
There was no doubt in my mind that one day Fallon would take over for our grandmother at ASM.
I was proud of my sister and all the work she did, including the charities she assisted MiMi in running these days.
While Finn arrested Hilary, I put my fingers to my lips and gave a piercing whistle that had Waffles bouncing over to the UTV. “Hi, baby boy,” I cooed, because he was the bestest boy, and if I didn’t sweet-talk him, I was gonna start throwing out threats to the woman being cuffed.
And the curse words that would leave my mouth that would definitely get back to Uncle Luca.
No one wanted that. Not me. Not Love Bug or Fallon, who would get lectures too, even if they weren’t home.
Definitely not Hilary, who would be the one he blamed for my hearing, and then repeating, such profanity.
Because, yeah, I would totally blame it on that skank.
I stroked a hand over Waffles’s snout when he jumped into the passenger seat. “Ready to go home, big guy?”
He nuzzled his nose into my side, exhaling loudly in response. I kissed him on top of his head, giving his ears a scratch that caused one of his back legs to kick a few times before he settled, sitting on his butt in the seat.