I considered myself lucky to have all of them as friends, but I knew if I had to give them all up it would be Annabelle I would miss the most. Just thinking about being without her was enough to make me feel like there was a boulder sitting on my chest, making it almost impossible to breathe.
By morning I might have to face life without her. That was the scariest thing I’d ever have to face. Ten times more terrifying than Wroth Niall in a rage and being the one he was ready to tear apart.
I sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm my heartrate. She wouldn’t hate me for long. She couldn’t stay mad forever. I’d find a way for her to see it from my point of view. I had to keep telling myself those things over and over until I was finally able to relax once more. Tightening my arms around her, I brushed a kiss across her forehead and breathed in the fragrance of my shampoo in her hair.
Before I was ready, my eyes began to grow heavy and I was drifting off to sleep…
She was gone when I opened my eyes the next morning. I pushed down the disappointment and got out of bed, knowing that Gram would come looking for me if I wasn’t out of bed in time for breakfast.
I sat down at the table with my grandparents and ate the food that Gram placed in front of me, but I didn’t taste any of it. Gram asked me twice if I was feeling okay, and I forced a smile and assured her I was fine. The concern in her hazel eyes told me she didn’t believe me, but I wasn’t about to blurt out what was bothering me.
Gram loved Annabelle and she would skin my hide if she knew I’d done something to hurt her. I couldn’t tell her the reasons why I’d broken a promise to the girl who was more my best friend than anyone else on the planet. There would be an all-out war between my grandparents and Mrs. Cassidy-Malcolm. Annabelle would get put in the middle, and she would end up hating me even more than I suspected she already did.
Or would, once she talked to Noah.
Gramps was always grumbling about the grass and having to mow it. I didn’t know why he was so fussy about it because I’d been mowing it since I was twelve. After breakfast I went out to get the yard work done before he could open his mouth about it. By the time I came back in, just a little over an hour later, Gram had a glass of her sweet tea waiting for me.
I gulped it down, enjoying the sugar shock to my system that always came with a glass of Gram’s special sweat tea, before heading back to my room and grabbing a quick shower. I was just pulling a clean shirt over my head when my bedroom door opened and Devlin walked in. He barely glanced at me before flopping down on my bed.
I caught the pillow he threw at my head easily. “Thought you and Liam were going fishing this morning?” At least, that’s where he and Liam usually spent their Saturday mornings.
Devlin clenched his jaw. “That was the plan until Tawny called him and asked him to drive her to Nashville.”
I swallowed back a curse and dropped down on the edge of the bed to put on my boots. “That bitch is trouble.” Liam and Devlin were normally inseparable on the weekends. Well, before Tawny came into Liam’s life. Now Liam was ditching Devlin and anyone else for that stupid coke whore.
“Yup.”
I combed my fingers through my damp hair and stood. “So what do you want to do?”
“Wroth said he was putting hay in the barn today. Want to go out there and give him a hand? See if Mary Beth made one of those cherry pies?” He grinned as he sat up on my bed. “I could really go for a slice of one of her pies.”
I was up for anything that didn’t involve us going near the garage. Maybe I was acting like a pussy, but I wasn’t ready to face Annabelle if she was going to hate me. It would be best to let her temper cool off a little before I saw her again. I’d even go out to the Niall’s farm and carry heavy-ass bales of hay to avoid a confrontation with her.
I grabbed the keys to my truck and called a goodbye to Gram as we headed out the back door. “I probably won’t be back for dinner,” I told her. “We’re going out to the Niall’s farm to help out.”
Gram smiled fondly up at me, and my heart twisted with love for the little wrinkled-face lady who had raised me. “You two are good boys. Tell Mary Beth I said hello.”
It was a twenty-minute drive out to the farm. Devlin spent the time trying to find something decent to listen to on the radio, but our only radio station only played old country music. We were close enough to Nashville to get some of their stations, but the closer we got to the farm the less of a signal we got until we were mostly just listening to static. Frustrated, I turned the damn thing off and we were silent for the last five minutes of the ride.
Wroth’s farm was one of the largest in the county, but a few years before, his father had nearly lost it to the bank. Wroth had enlisted in the marines and used his sign-on bonus to get his old man caught up on their mortgage. While he was away, he’d sent money home as often as possible to help keep it running, but it had been Liam who had helped out the most. He’d worked at the garage part time, helping Devlin’s dad work on engines. After Wroth had come home from his deployment, however, he’d quit the garage.
Of course that was the same time he’d started dating Tawny. Fuck, if there was ever a chick I hated it would have been that bitch. She was sucking all the good out of my friend and turning him into a person I didn’t recognize anymore.
I drove past the old farmhouse about half a mile before I reached the barn. Wroth was standing on the back of his truck surrounded by huge bales of hay that he’d cut and baled himself over the last few days. Stopping a few feet away from the other truck, I got out and walked toward the barn with Devlin.
“Zander! Devlin!”
I couldn’t help but grin at the excitement in Marissa’s sweet little voice. She was standing in the barn entrance with an orange kitten in her arms. Liam’s little sister was nine and was always following Wroth around. You would think that someone as scary looking as Wroth would terrify any kid who went near him. That wasn’t the case with Marissa. She might have been the only person alive who didn’t cringe at the sound of his beast-like voice or cower when he went all rage-monster. I was pretty sure that Marissa was the only person Wroth actually cared about.
“Whatcha got there, Rissa?” Devlin asked as he scratched the kitten behind the ears. It was tiny, nothing more than a ball of fur.
“This is Peaches,” she informed him. “Wroth found her last night. He nearly ran over her with his truck. She doesn’t have a mommy, so he brought her home to me to take care of.”
I tried not to snicker at the thought of the beast known as Wroth Niall picking up a stray cat and bringing it home. I bet the poor kitten had been terrified at the sight of the ex-marine. I knew better than to speak those thoughts aloud, though. I wasn’t about to push the rage-monster’s buttons. I didn’t have a fucking death wish.
“Want some help?” I asked the beast, who was tossing bales of hay onto the ground two at a time like they were nothing.
“I’m not gonna say no, dude.”
Smirking, I started carrying the bales already on the ground inside the barn. There was already a small stack against a back wall so that was where I put the rest. After a few minutes of talking to Marissa, Devlin started helping and before long we were finished—with the first load at least. It took three more loads before the job was done.
Covered in sweat, we went down to the farmhouse for lunch with Mary Beth. As soon as we walked through the door, I knew Devlin was going to get what he came for. The smell of Mary Beth’s famous cherry pie filled the entire house, making me want to sit down and never leave.
“Marissa, put Peaches in your room, baby.” Mary Beth was running around the kitchen putting together freshly cooked roast beef sandwiches. “And wash your hands.”