Scars of Yesterday (Sons of Templar MC #8) - Anne Malcom Page 0,42

you. Not inside your head. Not in your shoes. But I get losing someone you love. Someone you’ll always love. I understand that pain. The need to shut out the entire world and just linger in your pain because you don’t know what else to do. Maybe being too scared to do anything to distract yourself from that pain because that might take you even further away from him...” she trailed off, her voice softer and more vulnerable now.

I knew she was thinking about Gwen’s brother, Ian, the man she’d been in love with when she moved here. The one who had died and broken both of their hearts.

She still wore that, her grief for him. Still palpable and fresh even though it had been years. Even though she was madly in love with her husband, had a family, a beautiful life.

That scared the shit out of me. Especially since I didn’t have a husband or a beautiful life right now. So how would I look in a few years? Would sorrow and pain be etched into me like carvings in stone?

“You’re going to come to the party,” she stated, her tone a little more familiar and commanding. “You can totally be mad at me for turning up here and forcing you to go. I can handle it. I’ll actually respect it. But I think you know how stubborn I can be. If I can convince my biker husband to engage in a four-step skincare routine, I can get you to this party.” She raised her brow, inviting me to even try to challenge her.

I was tempted.

Very fricking tempted.

In any other situation, there was no way I would go head to head with Amy Abrams. Only a few people in the world were brave enough to do so, one of those people being her husband, the next her best friend. And... okay, there were actually only two people I could think of. Which was saying something considering all the badasses in cuts that we knew.

But this was not just any situation, and I didn’t really have enough self-preservation to fear going head to head with her. I wasn’t afraid of anything anymore, and if I was honest with myself, I was unconsciously trying to sabotage the life I’d had before and any relationships I’d had in that life. If I pushed away the Sons of Templar and everyone connected to them, I’d have less reminders of my husband and that I’d lost him.

So yeah, I was tempted to fight Amy on it. To get ugly. But then I thought of my kids getting ready to go to the club, both of them likely excited about the prospect of seeing people I hadn’t let into their lives for months. People who loved them. Who only wanted to protect them.

Fuck.

I got up from the sofa. “You can be a real bitch, you know?”

She smiled sweetly. “I’m well aware. Do you need me to pick you out an outfit while you do your makeup?”

I scowled. “Yes,” I snapped, wishing I could deny her, but the bitch had impeccable style. If I was going to go to this fucking party, I was going to do it looking good.

Chapter 5

It wasn’t great.

Being at the club again. Being around everyone. Being the sad, lonely widow and not the content, in love Old Lady. Despite the fact that no one made me feel like the widow.

I didn’t need anyone to make me feel like the widow. That’s who I was. What I was now. It was all but tattooed on my forehead, etched into my soul.

That fact was all the more prevalent at the party because Ranger wasn’t there, shooting me looks every now and then. Grilling with Jack. Catching me leaving the bathroom and pushing me against the wall for a make out session. Getting me drunk while staying sober, driving us home, carrying our sleeping kids to their beds and then fucking me on the kitchen counter.

None of that.

He had been my anchor, so without him, I was floating around this place. Of course, all of the women in attendance made it their mission to make sure I was never left alone, not for a second. You would’ve thought they’d coordinated it. They probably had.

But the kids were happy.

More than happy. They were ecstatic at the welcome they got, at seeing all of their friends in one place. A place bursting with memories of their father. I had been worried and watchful at first, thinking