Page 35 of The County Line (Whitewood Creek Farm #2)

Three days later… ?

Maverick’s funeral is terrible.

And I’m not saying that because I’m pissed as hell that my buddy left me without saying goodbye or that he’s left his little sister devastated and broken.

I’d tell him that to his face if he was still here.

After the storm that hit us three nights ago, you’d think that the rain would have let up. But it’s April in North Carolina, and there’s no reprieve from the showers that are pouring down on our sad looking gathering among the willow trees.

I stare across the cheap looking casket that’s closed over where I know my old friend currently lies, preparing to be lowered into the earth.

It’s quiet by the graveside, almost too quiet.

There’d be hardly anyone here if it wasn’t for Lydia and her father, the town’s reverend, putting out a message to the community of Whitewood Creek to show up for one of our own.

But even with that call to action being pushed, there’s still only about twenty of us saying goodbye to one of the best kids I’ve ever known who also made some really shitty decisions in his life.

But isn’t that what friendship is about? You show up even in the messy.

His own damn dad didn’t show up.

I want to drive straight to that rundown trailer park where he used to hole up, drag him out by his collar, and wring his damn neck. Watch the blood drain from his face as I make him understand the damage he’s caused to both of his kids.

He might have not been physically abusive to Maverick or Molly, but he hurt them in ways that cut deeper. He consistently chose money, greed, and his reputation among the lowest scum North Carolina has to offer over his kids’ safety, emotional security, feeding them, and any semblance of love.

He never gave them a sense of belonging, never made them feel wanted and left Molly with a slew of insecurities she doesn’t deserve to hang onto.

It’s a privilege I took for granted as a kid, growing up with parents who, for all their flaws, loved me unconditionally.

Once I realized how rare that was, I made it my mission to stand up for people who didn’t have what I did.

And he dragged Mav into the mess of his job.

That’s what makes him unforgivable in my eyes.

My mind drifts, unbidden, to that night in prison.

The shitty, metallic stink of the place and the stale air thick in my lungs.

My bunkmate, Atticus, had been asleep on the lower bunk while I perched on the top, carving into a scrap of wood I’d picked up in the yard.

Woodworking was my refuge when the hours stretched too long, and my body ached from endless workouts when there wasn’t anything else to do.

The commotion started suddenly—a loud burst, a crash—and before I could fully register what was happening, Atticus was yanked from his bed, his cheek slashed open by a shiv.

I didn’t hesitate. I went to work, ignoring the risk, the potential retaliation. I paid for it with a blade to my chest, a wound so close to my heart I’m lucky to be standing here now.

And I’d do it again.

I’d do it for Atticus. I’d do it for Molly and Maverick. I’d do it a thousand times over if it meant sparing her even a fraction of the pain she’s feeling now. I wish I could have gotten in touch with him. I wish I could have stopped this from happening.

Across the casket, Molly sits on the ground, her knees tucked close, clutching a handful of dirt.

She tosses it over the plain brown coffin with a quiet finality.

Her face is calm, like the grief hasn’t fully sunk in yet—or maybe it has, and she’s just holding herself together through sheer force of will.

“She doin’ alright?” Mav’s old friend Rhett Miller asks me as he slides up next to me.

Rhett grew up in the Whitewood Creek Trailer Park with Molly and Mav and would occasionally come around the farmstead with them during the hot, summer days when the creek that opens up to a lake behind the park wasn’t cool enough.

His mom still lives here while he gets his plumbing business established in town, and I know that Cash had reached out to him for a few favors at the distillery while I was gone.

“I think she’s still in shock.”

He nods and shakes his head, squeezing my shoulder. “Y’all let me know if I can help in any way. Mav was one of the good ones. Hate to see this be his ending.”

I nod as he steps to the side while the preacher drones on, his voice solemn and full of wisdom but I don’t hear any of it.

My gaze shifts to the pitiful scene surrounding us.

A spray of orange and yellow flowers we picked up before the service sits wilting at the edge of the grave. No one else thought to bring any.

The mourners are a mismatched bunch—some in black, others in whatever they pulled from their closets this morning. It looks like Lydia’s dad walked down the street, grabbed the first handful of people he could find, and dragged them here as a favor to God.

It’s a damn shame. Maverick deserved better.

But what’s worse? So does Molly. She doesn’t deserve a dead brother and a deadbeat father.

The cemetery worker we’ve hired begins to slowly lower the casket into the earth, giving me my last glimpse of him.

I try to recall the last time I saw him, around five years ago, right before I got sent away.

He’d been with me the night we were out when I defended the woman and ended up catching an assault felony charge.

And after I told him what had happened, told him it looked like I’d be getting sent away, he’d said something like ‘that sucks, bro.’

And it did.

I remember thinking he’d be there for me.

Maybe come for visits or at least write me.

But he wasn’t. And I guess a part of me has always held a little onto that bitterness.

But now, I feel none of it. Nothing but empty regret that I hadn’t found him sooner and brought him back to the distillery, back to the farm, and away from whatever danger he was running from.

They don’t have any leads on who did it.

Maverick’s body was found in a ditch outside the county line, in a rough patch of city twenty miles away.

That’s part of why it took so long to ID him.

The coroner said his blood tested positive for a mixture of drugs and alcohol, so they speculate he either fell into the ditch or was thrown there.

Cause of death? Inconclusive.

I try to imagine what it would feel like to die like that.

Alone. Abandoned in the dirt. I can’t picture what might have gone through his mind—if he felt fear, if he had regrets, if there was a fleeting moment when he might have wished he’d made different choices.

I want to summon some kind of empathy, anything other than what’s been consuming me lately.

But all I feel is rage.

This constant, gnawing fury that eats away at me. I’m so sick of it, sick of living in this narrow emotional bandwidth where the only dial I can reach is anger. Punishment, retribution, the craving for someone to hurt as much as I do—it’s the only language my soul seems to understand anymore.

I told Liv that in my last session. Told her I hated who I was becoming. She called it progress because I was feeling frustrated, even if it’s with myself.

If this is progress, I’d gladly regress.

Go back to feeling nothing at all.

The small crowd begins to disperse. I see Lydia exchanging soft words with her father while Molly remains rooted to the ground, staring at the freshly turned soil.

When she tries to stand, her legs wobble, and I’m there in an instant.

She collapses into my arms, her body trembling with a quiet grief too heavy to be expressed in tears or sound.

“Let’s get you out of here,” I murmur quietly in her ear. She nods, her head buried in my chest.

The preacher approaches, offering me a warm smile and an outstretched hand. My family’s never been religious, but this is Whitewood Creek—everyone knows everyone. I know he’s seen me helping out at the community center with Lydia and I’m sure he’s heard about my past.

“Good to see you here today, Colt,” he says with an easy smile.

He’s a tall man who looks like he’s in his early fifties with a strong build.

I can feel the strength behind him when he shakes my hand, and it surprise me.

He’s nothing like the meek and mild preachers who used to come to the prison to witness to us heathens.

We’d joke that if they wanted to get through to us, they’d need a few more tattoos and some actual understanding of the hell we were living through.

My other arm stays curled protectively around Molly, shielding her from the lingering stares of the few attendees who haven’t yet left.

Strangers, most of them. Strangers to Maverick, strangers to Molly.

It almost makes it worse that so many strangers are here.

I think I would’ve preferred it to be just us.

A private goodbye for a man who, despite everything, deserved something better than this.

“Maverick was a close friend of mine growing up,” I tell him.

He nods. “I’m sorry for your loss. Wish I’d had the opportunity to know him. I can tell he was loved and will be dearly missed.”

I fight the urge to scoff considering there’s hardly anyone here but he’s not wrong. He was loved, and he will be missed.

Even if it’s just by Molly and me.

Regan and Cash each pull us in for a hug, their eyes flicking between us, full of quiet concern.

They’ve always known Maverick and Molly were close to me—we practically grew up tangled together—but I can tell they sense something deeper now.

Something more by the way Molly’s clinging to me like I’m the only thing keeping her here.

And they’d be right. I have no intention of hiding it anymore. Molly’s mine as much as I’m hers.

Still, now’s not the time to talk to them about what my plans are for her.

“We’ll see you back at the house?” Regan murmurs, her voice meant for both of us.