Page 65 of Fastlander Fealty

Silver hesitated, trying to figure out where to start as she dug through the bag of food for her and Owen, but Hallie took the lead on the storytelling for her. She had remembered word-for-word what Silver had told Rook, even the parts Silver didn’t remember because her adrenaline had spiked during that encounter, and her anger had drawn things from her she didn’t really think about.

It was awesome hearing the story from Hallie’s point of view. Hallie was deep-down-to-her-soul a good woman. Silver could tell, just from the pride in her voice as she told the story of how Silver had freed herself.

Hallie made her sound…fearless.

She liked who she was around this Crew.

And as she settled into eating an enormous amount of food with the mother-freaking Alpha of the Fastlanders, two women who were quickly becoming important to her, and Owen who couldn’t seem to stop looking at her with this proud little smile on his handsome face, she thought this was perhaps her favorite moment of her life thus far.

It was like she was on a high after being held under water for so long. She was breathing fresh air, and looking at herself differently, and she was proud. Proud she was here, proud these people seemed to be okay with her, proud to be up here on this jobsite where the man she was falling head-over-heals for was draping his arm around the back of her chair, comfortable, like he’d done it a hundred times before.

This made her old life seem completely unacceptable.

She was going to switch out her phone, and probably track down the Fuller brother she’d dropped the tracker on, and destroy that phone too. She was going to change her banking information, and switch over to her sister company, and start completely fresh here.

Twenty-five bucks a day to live somewhere she would feel safe, and oh, this felt like absolute freedom.

She smiled over at Owen, and caught him looking at her again. He didn’t duck his gaze away. Instead, he grinned wider and dragged her chair closer to his. Oh, she liked him. She really liked him. She liked this version of herself she was around him.

Silver leaned over and rested her head against his shoulder, and he pressed a soft kiss to the top of her hair. With butterflies flapping wildly around in her stomach, she eased back just enough to grin up at him, but he leaned down and kissed her lips quick.

When she dragged her gaze back to the blanket to reach for her sweet tea, Gunner was watching her, chewing his food thoughtfully.

She dropped her gaze and exposed her neck, thinking she had perhaps angered him, but he sighed and said, “Fuck the Holland Pride. They’re coming for us either way. Lucia saw it. Now we have another weapon. We’ll see how you fight, girl.”

Silver straightened her spine and lifted her gaze to Gunner. “If they come, I want Rook.”

A slow, wicked smile took Gunner’s lips. He nodded once, and then returned to the food, and chatting with the others.

Owen slid his hand over her thigh and squeezed gently, just a reassuring gesture. When she swung her attention to him, his expression had gone serious, and the color of his eyes was lightened to a frosty blue. “If Rook touches you, I’ll kill him.”

Truth.

Chapter Twelve

Today had been the best day of Silver’s entire life.

She had said goodbye to Owen and Gunner, dropped Hallie back at Moosey’s to finish her shift, and then gone grocery shopping with Corey to stock Silver’s new kitchen with food and cooking utensils.

Corey had brought a speaker over and played music as they’d cleaned the singlewide with supplies they’d bought at the store, and ran a load of dishes in the dishwasher, and organized the shelves. It meant a lot that Corey was spending one of her days off work helping Silver get settled.

They made the bed and placed pillows from the store with those really soft jersey knit sheets that were stretchy. She had wanted those for a while, but Rook had only allowed what he’d bought in his garage apartment, which was one ancient flattened pillow that smelled like mildew no matter how many times she’s cleaned it.

Corey had given her the passwords to the internet service Gunner had equipped the property with, which meant tomorrow would be the first day she got back to work on her website, and took on clients.

She was excited about feeling like her life could be normal, whatever that was.

When she could afford it, she would purchase a little desk and chair set she’d seen in a craft-store-window in town, but for now, she could work from the kitchen island, thanks to Corey bringing over a tall bar stool for her to sit on there. She’d set up her computer workspace, and already, she loved this place. No one was looking over her shoulder waiting for her to make a wrong move, or say something that required reprimand.

She could just exist.

She could just breathe.

She could be happy.

The second the truck engine sounded down the road, Silver rushed to the door. She got a glimpse of herself in a full-length mirror Corey had brought over.

Her smile made her face look almost unrecognizable. Silver paused and studied herself closer.

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