“Is she okay? Let me see her!” Izzy demanded, and Dixie handed the phone to Tracey. Izzy’s worried eyes stared back at her. “Are you okay? I’m sorry I’m not there. I’ll be home later tonight.”

“I’m fine. Really.”

“Oh, Trace. I should have been there for you. When I get home, I’ll spoil you rotten. I promise.”

Tracey held up a cookie. “The girls are doing a great job of that already, and as much as I appreciate it, I don’t want to be pampered, or even talk about what happened anymore. It gives too much power to the guys who attacked me. Can we please just act normal and talk about something else? Kennedy and Lincoln’s birthday party, or your husbands, or Penny’s wedding, or something?” Kennedy and Lincoln’s party was a little more than a month away.

“Are you sure?” Dixie asked.

“One hundred percent,” Tracey assured her. “I know you guys are willing to talk about it, and I promise if I feel the need to, I will. But right now I just want to talk about something happy and pretend life is normal.”

“You heard the woman,” Izzy exclaimed. “Let’s get chatty!”

Tracey leaned the phone against a set of books on the coffee table, and as all the girls gathered around, a cacophony of conversation erupted. For the first time since last night, Tracey heard herself laugh. She looked at the women who had become her family and realized Diesel had been right after all. She had needed time with them. But there was no denying the part of her that wondered if—hoped—she’d get more time with him, too.

Chapter Five

THE WIND WHIPPED against Diesel’s skin, and the sun beat down on his shoulders as he drove his motorcycle back over the bridge that separated Peaceful Harbor from the rest of the world late Sunday afternoon. It seemed fucked up to him that the sun was still shining with all the shit going on inside him. He remembered the first time he’d come over that bridge the month after his mother died, when he’d driven cross-country, trying to shed the sadness that had clung to him like a second skin. It hadn’t worked then any better than it was working now. Only this time it wasn’t sadness eating away at him. It was a dire need to see Tracey, to make sure she was okay, and a plethora of other feelings he didn’t want to dissect. He’d tracked down the third guy who had been with the assholes who had attacked her. The pussy had hightailed it back home to West Virginia the minute he’d gotten wind of his friends’ arrests.

That was all well and good, but it wasn’t enough.