Trudy told her it had taken him a week to show the picture of Ginny standing at a table, blowing out her birthday candles. Ginny knew the picture had come from her dad before he died. She hadn’t had a birthday cake since his death.
“What did you do to finally get him to agree to let us see each other again?” Ginny had asked, enthralled by her sister’s story.
“Nothing. He had called Killyama and told her to drive me to the gas station near Treepoint, and he sent a picture of the man who drove me to the church.”
“Did Hammer say what had changed his mind?”
“He wouldn’t be able to say that you were happy if I asked him again.”
“I always told him no, because I knew if I asked what I needed most, he wouldn’t give it to me.”
“What was that?”
“You. I needed you.”
Trudy had looked like she was going to give Hammer a beating when Ginny had told her that fact.
Putting thoughts of Trudy aside, Ginny took a brief shower and started to get dressed, not wanting to be late with the amount of food she needed to cook for breakfast. The Last Riders’ club was packed with Shade’s sister Penni visiting. While she was staying with Shade and Lily at their house, Penni spent most of the time going back and forth between there and the club. She’d come with a man named Jackal, who was unlike the men who normally stayed or visited The Last Riders. He wore a Predators jacket. The cold look in his eyes reminded her of Shade, and the scar that ran down the length of his cheek gave him a daunting appearance. Ginny definitely wouldn’t pick a bar fight with him at a bar, she thought, laughing to herself.
She hadn’t even realized that Penni had brought a third person to visit until Viper requested for her to prepare a tray for their guest, who had been staying upstairs for the first few weeks that Penni and Jackal had been there.
The mysterious guest wasn’t exactly cordial. Ginny hadn’t taken Hennessy’s behavior personally; he was like a big tiger with a sore paw. From what little information she had overheard, Hennessy was a president of his own club, and he was staying upstairs until his injuries healed.
Not only had some of The Last Riders been on the receiving end of his sharp comments, but she had, as well. She had flinched when she’d gotten to close to him one day while cleaning the kitchen. A sarcastic comment from the man had her escaping to the basement to avoid returning a snappish comeback. Penni had mistakenly assumed Ginny was upset but had taken her side when Hennessey thought she had flinched due to his color. Penni had defended her, saying it was due to his large size and that she had seen her do the same thing when Knox stood too close to her.
Her reaction had nothing to do with his size or color, and everything to do with the simple fact that he was a man. She wasn’t intimidated by men; whatever the ethnicity or size. She had been running from true evil since she was three years old. How could you fear normal men, even the size of the Loch Ness monster while you were still trying to outswim the Kraken? She would be able to take the Loch Ness monster on and defeat it with the right weapon. The Kraken, on the other hand, no ordinary person or weapon could destroy that monster.
No, she wasn’t afraid of either Knox or Hennessey. Ginny considered both men guppies in her lake. The real reason she had flinched away from Hennessey was not something she was at liberty to explain to anyone. Other than the men who had saved her life and those in her family, she maintained a strict distance from any other.
From the moment in the church when she had seen the dark figure, it hadn’t felt right to stand too close to any man. It was why she maintained a physical distance from all men, other than those she had grown close to and considered family.
Ginny had started noticing that she couldn’t stand being close to a member of the opposite sex soon after she had seen the dark figure at the front of the church. She couldn’t explain it, but if a boy came within arm’s reach, she immediately moved away. She had rationalized her fear of men to Allerton finding her. There were too many lives at stake if he ever did. Could it be that she harbored a secret fear of becoming close to someone, afraid that Allerton would find her and kill them both?
When she noticed Penni watching her, Ginny could practically see the wheels turning in her head, trying to figure her out. One morning Penni came in and caught her singing in the basement while she was doing laundry. None of The Last Riders were ever up that early on a Sunday morning, so she thought she was alone and had unconsciously started singing along with the music while folding the clothes.