Big Saul wrapped a clean cloth around Ray’s injured leg and gently lifted her onto an old leather chair inside the garage.<\/p>\n
\u201cStay right here, little bird,\u201d he said softly. \u201cI’m gonna fix this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ray sniffled and nodded.<\/p>\n
But before Saul could stand, the little girl grabbed his hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease don’t be mad,\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n
The old mechanic froze.<\/p>\n
\u201cMad at who?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tears filled Ray’s eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cMommy’s boyfriend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silence filled the garage.<\/p>\n
Saul’s jaw tightened.<\/p>\n
His green eyes darkened.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he do this?\u201d<\/p>\n
The child lowered her head.<\/p>\n
Then slowly nodded.<\/p>\n
The heavy wrench in Saul’s hand clenched so hard his knuckles turned white.<\/p>\n
But when he looked back at Ray, his voice stayed gentle.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou listen to me, sweetheart.\u201d<\/p>\n
He knelt beside her and carefully wiped away her tears.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’re not alone anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then Big Saul stood.<\/p>\n
And everyone in town knew one thing\u2014<\/p>\n
when the old mechanic got that look in his eyes,<\/p>\n
someone was about to answer for what they’d done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Big Saul wrapped a clean cloth around Ray’s injured leg and gently lifted her onto an old leather chair inside the garage. \u201cStay right here, little bird,\u201d he said softly. \u201cI’m gonna fix this.\u201d Ray sniffled and nodded. But before Saul could stand, the little girl grabbed his hand. \u201cPlease don’t be mad,\u201d she whispered. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}