Now Rory held his position, not following. Inside, he was shaking with rage, but outside he kept everything locked down. He had to be here for her. He would be here for her.
“You mistook why I have backup,” he said coldly. “They’re here to keep me from killing you. Call me ‘boy’ one more time, talk about any kind of claim you think you have here, and they won’t be able to stop me.”
He was aware Thomas and Marcus had joined him, standing at his back and underlining the declaration with the darkest of markers.
When Marcus moved forward and gave Rory a look, Rory nodded. Marcus stepped over to the crumpled man, hauled him up by the collar. Since Burton was like a fat, unsteady gnome, Thomas went with him to flank the other side.
“I wouldn’t count overly much on our willingness to stop him.” Marcus’s eyes were shards of green glass. “We’d be more than happy to help him get rid of your body and be his alibi. The whole fucking community.”
Thomas jerked his head at the assembly of men and women. “This town looks after its own. And Daralyn is ours. Don’t come back. We’ll be watching.”
Then Rory saw his brother’s eyes shift to something behind him. Thomas’s gaze sharpened and moved to Rory, a warning. Rory heard a quiet stirring among his neighbors. They’d agreed that they would all remain quiet, here as witnesses and reinforcement while they allowed Rory and his family to handle this. So there was only one reason they’d be murmuring among themselves. Something unexpected had happened.
Shit. Rory turned to see Daralyn approaching the group on her bicycle. In her jeans and pink knit shirt, she was an unlikely pastoral picture. He bit back a curse, but as his gaze briefly met his mother’s, he knew he had to stand by what he’d said to her, and to Daralyn. Much as he wished he could keep her from it, Daralyn had every right to be here.
She walked through the group, steady and quiet. Many spoke a quiet word to her, reached out to touch her arm. Elaine slipped an arm around her waist, squeezed. Daralyn never looked at any of them, but she paused for each acknowledgment, as if drawing strength from that before proceeding. Her gaze stayed locked on Burton, bleeding and slack in Marcus and Thomas’s grip.
Only when she reached Rory’s side did her attention shift from her uncle to him. He held out his hand and she took it. She was ice cold, and he felt the tremor. The protective side of him, still backed by rage, immediately demanded that he get her out of here. She wasn’t up for this.
He told that side of himself to fuck off. She was stronger than anyone here, including him. He put it in his expression, his grip. We’re here. We’ve got you. Do what you have to do.
Her gaze flickered, and she gave him a slight dip of her chin. Then she turned back to her uncle, studied him.
Rory couldn’t read anything from her face. She was a blank page, except for the hand that stayed in his grip. Her thumb rubbed over his slightly reddened knuckles, her gaze moving briefly to them, then she looked at her uncle, taking in the damage to his face, the bleeding nose and swelling eye.
She released Rory and moved forward, toward Burton. Rory tensed, but Marcus and Thomas were on it, their grip tightening on their captive in emphatic warning.
She stopped a foot from her uncle, met his gaze squarely, her back straight, chin up.
“This is my home,” she said. “My family. I don’t want you here.”
She said it clear and strong. Nothing outward indicated the effort the declaration might have cost her. Maybe in this one miraculous moment, it didn’t cost her at all.
It freed her.
“I don’t know why you did what you did to me,” she said. “But I don’t think you know, either. Because you don’t have a soul. You have to have a soul to know why.” She extended her hand, her voice as firm as Rory had ever heard it. “Give me the keys to the house.”
Elaine had come to Rory’s side. She put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing hard, her tear-filled eyes brilliant with pride and pain both.
Several weeks ago, Elaine had shown Daralyn the simple handwritten will her father had left. “‘My worldly belongings go to my closest kin,’” Daralyn said now, quoting it. “That’s from