Rev It Up (Black Knights Inc. #3)(12)
The boy tentatively reached out to shake his hand with red, sticky fingers before surreptitiously glancing at his mother. He leaned toward Jake, grinning and whispering conspiratorially, “My toes like to breathe, too.”
Jake laughed and turned to tell Shell she was suffocating her son’s toes when the stricken look on her face had him frowning. “Shell? Is something wrong?”
***
Is something wrong?
Yes, something’s wrong! Everything’s wrong!
She shouldn’t still have to catch her breath whenever Jake moved with that silky, sliding, big-cat grace of his. She shouldn’t still get light-headed just by being next to him. He shouldn’t be able to cruise back into their lives without so much as a by your leave, making her want to forget the awful things he’d done, the awful things he’d said. Making her want to second-guess her decisions about…well…everything.
And the sight of him with Franklin…
Dear Lord…
She opened her mouth without having the first clue what she planned to say—because she sure as heckfire couldn’t tell him any of that. But she was saved, thank you, baby Jesus, from having to say anything at all when Becky Reichert, Vanessa Cordero, and a dark-haired woman she didn’t recognize pushed through the back door.
“Sorry about the lollipop,” Becky said as Shell lifted a hand to her temple. Sure enough, ten minutes in Jake’s company, and she was on the fast track to Migraine-ville.
Why had she let Frank talk her into this again?
Because you’re a pushover when it comes to your brother, that’s why. And you were under the mistaken impression that this might actually be good for you.
She’d very much like to find whoever “they” were and kick them straight in the groin.
Raking in a deep breath, she tried to shake away the tension in her shoulders and neck as she turned toward her brother’s fiancée.
Becky held a platter stacked high with baked potatoes and a bowl of salad just about big enough to bathe in. Vanessa and the dark-haired woman were each loaded down with French bread, plates of bratwurst condiments, and what looked to be pecan pies.
It appeared they intended to feed an army.
“It was the only thing I could think to use to distract him from going upstairs,” Becky explained as Michelle set her chardonnay aside and jumped from her chair to help with the food.
“No worries,” she was quick to assure her future sister-in-law, who didn’t look the least bit shaky to her, by the way. In fact, she’d go so far as to say Becky Reichert looked incredibly calm. No wonder Frank had fallen head over heels. The woman obviously had nerves of steel—a characteristic her balls-to-the-wall covert operative brother no doubt found completely irresistible. “It’s not like it’ll ruin his dinner or anything. He takes after his Uncle Frank in the appetite department.”
A brief look of abject horror flashed across Becky’s pretty face as she turned to survey the cornucopia of food now straining the supports of the weathered picnic table. “Oh, great,” she grumbled. “We probably didn’t make enough.”
“We’ll manage.” Michelle laughed, glad for the distraction Becky provided so she could take a few moments to gather herself.
But that proved to be easier said than done.
Because the whole situation, what’d happened between her and Jake, what’d happened to Steven after they’d just started to build their life together, what was still happening to Franklin every day, growing up without a father, was so unbelievably unfair that sometimes she had the urge to rip her hair out by its roots and scream at the top of her lungs.
And it was that last one that bothered her most. Because she remembered what it was like as a child to watch her friends crawl all over some dependable-looking guy—a guy who tickled and laughed and taught them to ride their bikes—and feel a dark, aching hole in her heart, knowing that’d never be her.
She’d tried so hard to ensure Franklin didn’t experience that same throbbing void, but Fate, that unbelievably unfair witch, had stepped in and robbed her and her son of the future they deserved.
And she couldn’t help but lay a good portion of the blame for how everything had turned out at Jake’s big feet…
“I, uh, I used to call you Chesty McGivesItUp,” Becky said in a quiet undertone.
Okay, and that managed to rip Michelle way from her unsettling thoughts. “Huh?”
“When I thought you were Frank’s lov—”
“Gross,” she held up a hand. “I don’t even want you to finish that sentence.”
Her brother had laughingly informed her that, before she’d gone and blown her cover, the Knights had suffered under the impression that all his furtive trips up to Lincoln Park to visit her had, instead, been booty-calls to a secret lover—which was as hysterical as it was ludicrous. Especially considering that most times Frank had been re-grouting her tub or changing one of Franklin’s dirty diapers. A far, far cry from satin sheets and soft whispers…
“Yeah, I know, right?” Becky made a face. “But, I, uh, figured I better tell you in case any of the guys bring it up.”
She laughed; she couldn’t help it. “Chesty McGivesItUp, huh?” Becky winced and nodded. “I think I like that. Boss Knight. Snake Sommers. Rock Babineaux. And Chesty McGivesItUp Carter. Has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it? I always wanted a cool handle. Thanks.”