Chapter Nine
Rory
OTHER THAN RAVEN, THE ONLY other people in the kitchen were Flick and Willa, all of them making sandwiches for the masses. As I entered the room, all three of them stopped talking and gave me weak smiles. The three women still had damp, swollen eyes, which tore at my heart a little more. I’d gotten to know them a little since I’d gotten back to Creswell Springs, and I looked up to all of them. These three had a strength I only wished I possessed.
“Hey, thanks for coming to help out.” Raven motioned me over. “As you can see, we have plenty to do but not much help. Quinn is watching my kids in Raider’s room, and Gracie is outside with Trigger, watching Bates snoop around. Everyone else is still kind of in shock or too fucking lazy to help.”
I looked at the huge island counter that was covered with stacks of bread, platters of veggies, and bowls of different salad spreads for the sandwiches Willa and Flick were already putting together. There was enough food there potentially to feed the entire county, but having seen the MC brothers eat together before, I knew this would only barely feed everyone.
I washed my hands and then stood on the side of the island with Raven. Taking a bowl that looked like ham salad, I started putting sandwiches together. “Who made this?” I asked as I licked a smear off my thumb. “This is delicious.”
“It’s one of Aggie’s recipes,” Willa informed me as she cleaned out her bowl of egg salad and grabbed a new one. “Everything we make comes from one of her recipes. She’s a mastermind at throwing flavors together that make your tongue feel like it’s having an orgasm.”
“How’s Matt doing?” Flick asked as she covered a full platter of sandwiches with plastic wrap and set it aside.
“He’s…” I paused, not sure how to answer that. “He’s not himself,” I finally told her honestly. “I’ve never seen him like this, and it’s breaking my heart.”
“They were really close,” Flick murmured, her eyes filling with tears again, but she blinked them back. “They had always been each other’s best friend, but when their parents died five years ago, they pulled together and bonded even more.”
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Raven said with a shaky sigh. “I keep waiting for him to walk in here and ask me for something to eat. Or to run his stupid mouth. Damn it, he was a pain in the ass, but…he was our pain in the ass.”
We were all quiet for several long minutes, each of us lost in memories of Tanner Reid as we made sandwiches on autopilot.
Three years ago, when Matt and I had first gotten together, Tanner had been around all the time. But I had liked his company. He’d made me laugh, made me feel like I belonged, like I was a part of the Reid family. He had hit on me all the time, but I always knew he was teasing, that I was nothing more than a sister to him. We had become friends, and he was the only guy Matt had never gotten jealous of.
“What happens now?” I asked a while later, when the quiet seemed to be too loud. “I mean, will there be a funeral?”
“Yes,” Raven assured me. “Well, a memorial. Once the boys get taken to the funeral home, they will be cremated. I already asked Bash if that was okay. It was a pretty easy decision to make since there…” Her chin trembled, but she clenched her jaw. “There won’t be much to put in a casket anyway.”
“Willa!” Flick dropped her spoon onto the counter and caught the other woman around the waist as she began to sway. “Shit,” she cried when Willa became dead weight in her arms.
Raven and I rushed around the island to help her, and we were able to get Willa safely laid out on the floor. Raven dropped to her knees beside her, already checking the brunette’s pulse. “Get Spider,” she commanded.
Unsure who she was talking to, I ran to do just that. I raced out into the huge, open room, my eyes scanning over everyone, but there were too many faces. “Spider!” I called out as loud as I could. “Spider!”
All eyes flew to me, but none of them belonged to the scary as hell MC enforcer. “Spider!” I yelled his name at the top of my lungs, and the door upstairs that I could only assume was Bash’s office was jerked open.
Menacing eyes narrowed on me. “What?”
“It’s Willa…” His wife’s name had barely left my mouth before he was running down the stairs. “…she fainted.”
He was already on the ground floor before Matt and Bash had even stepped out of the office. Side by side, it was easy to tell that the last of the Reid clan were related. Bash was wider in the chest, with longer hair where Matt’s had always been cut shorter, but they had the same stubborn set to their jaws and the same electric-blue eyes. Both pairs were now full of questions as they stomped down the stairs, the Hannigan brothers right behind them.
“What’s going on, babe?” Matt asked when he reached me.
“I don’t know. Willa just kind of went limp.”
He took my hand, and we followed Bash into the kitchen.
Spider was on his knees on the other side of Willa, who had already started to come around. “Don’t try to get up,” he ordered in a voice that shook. “Doc is on his way.”
Willa’s eyes seemed unfocused for a moment before she blinked them and then frowned up at her husband. “What happened? Why am I on the floor?”
“You passed out,” Raven told her as she checked the other woman’s pulse again. “Your pulse is starting to come back up. I think your blood pressure dropped.”
“Well, I feel fine now.” She started to lift onto her elbows, but Spider pressed her back down with a hand to her chest, earning a glare from her. “James, I’m fine. Really. It’s just been a really long and emotional day. I’m okay.”
He got to his feet then bent and lifted her effortlessly into his arms. “You aren’t doing shit until Doc checks you out.” He glanced at Raven. “Can you come help me get her into bed?”
“Right behind you,” she assured him as he carried Willa out of the kitchen.
Jet and Hawk were already getting into the sandwiches. Hawk stuffed one into his mouth, grabbed two more, and then left without more than a garbled “thanks” to Flick. Jet kissed Flick’s lips before cramming his mouth full of chicken salad. “Love you, babe,” he grumbled as he followed after his younger brother.
Flick watched them go with a bemused look on her face, before turning her gaze on Matt and Bash. “You two hungry?”
They both shook their dark heads, getting a glower in return. “You two need to eat. Tell him, Rory.”
I hugged Matt’s waist. “She’s right. Please? Just eat a little something. For me.”
“Did you eat?” I shook my head. “If you fix us both a plate, I’ll eat. But only if you do.”
I rolled my eyes, earning a half grin from him. “Fine, you win. This time.”
He brushed his lips over mine. “Babe, as long as I have you, I win every day.”