Wild Like the Wind (Chaos #5)(108)

“Yeah, Hound,” Jag mumbled.

“Totally,” Dutch said.

“I love you,” I piped in.

Hound looked to me and grunted.

Then he moved to put Jag’s plate in front of him.

He went back to the stove to pour more batter.

I smiled at my pancakes.

“Man, I’m totally coming back every morning,” Jag said, digging in to the butter to prepare his pancakes.

“Come later,” Hound said. “Your mother and I get down to business in the morning. We don’t need interruptions.”

Jag’s hand arrested in spreading butter, he started to look sick and mumbled, “I think I just lost my appetite.”

Dutch, on the other hand, busted out laughing.

I looked to my man.

He was smiling at the skillet.

His family was around him.

He was happy.

And I knew he was right, Jean would be happy for him.

So I forked back into my pancakes.

Just as happy.



That evening, seeing as I was in the garage, staring at Black’s bike, not in my seemingly sound-proofed house, I heard Hound’s bike as it pulled in at the back and the roar of the engine cut off.

I kept standing there, staring at Black’s bike like I was mesmerized, so my phone beeping in my hand with a text made me jump.

I looked down at it.

The text was from Hound and it said, You said you were home. I’m home. You’re not. Where are you?

He was home.

Home.

I let a smile drift across my lips before I texted back, In the garage, babe.

About one minute and five seconds later the back door opened, Hound prowled through but his gait slowed when he saw me standing by Black’s bike.

He looked at me, the bike, me and asked, “You okay?”

I nodded. “I’m trying to figure out the ceremony.”

My expressive Hound had appeared watchful and wary as he approached me, but now he looked perplexed.

“What ceremony?”

“The Give Dutch Black’s Cut Give Jagger Black’s Bike Ceremony,” I told him.

He stopped close to me and started staring at the bike.

“You have any ideas?” I asked.

His gaze came to me. “Hand Dutch Black’s cut and pass off the keys to Jag.”

“That’s not a ceremony,” I pointed out.

“Okay. Then crack open some beers after you do that.”

I grinned at him, shuffled the foot of space I needed to get to him and then leaned against his side, putting my head on his shoulder.

He slid an arm around my waist.

I did the same to him.

We both stared at Black’s bike.

“It hasn’t been started up since Graham shut it down. I’m not sure it works,” I muttered.

“Jag’ll get it goin’.”

I took my head off his shoulder and looked up at him. “Will you do that? So Jag can just fire it up and ride away?”

I didn’t even get all the words out before I felt his loose body get tight and his expressive face close down.

Okay, apparently, that was the wrong request to make.

“Sorry, that’s … sorry, obviously I shouldn’t have asked,” I whispered.

“I got his woman, not touchin’ his bike,” Hound replied.

Well, I wasn’t exactly Black’s woman, considering I was now Hound’s.

But that was a conversation for later.

I nodded, fast. “Yeah, yes, honey, I get it.”

“I hear you wantin’ Jag just to be able to fire it up and roll on out but he’ll like lookin’ it over. He and Dutch can do that together. Won’t take much. But they do that together, that’ll be something else they’ll both have.”

I kept nodding. “Yes, that makes sense.”

“And I won’t be there for that,” Hound declared.

I turned so my front was pressed to his side and wrapped my other arm around him. “I get it, when they work on it, get that bike running again, that they do it on their own. I get that, but whatever ceremony I come up with I think you should be there.”

“I’ll be there, if you bring all the brothers in, but not just me, Keely.”

“Just you, Hound,” I pushed. “You and Dutch and Jag and me.”

“And Black.”

“Baby,” I said carefully. “It’s about moving on from Black.”

“No, Keekee, it’s about you lettin’ him go in that way and givin’ him to your boys. And I got no place in that.”

“You do,” I pressed.

“I don’t, babe. That’s about your family.”

“You are our family.”

“I hear that and I love that, babe, but this is something else.”

“If it is, then who was at my back when I went to the morgue to identify him?” I asked.

Hound had no response to that.

“Who was in my living room when you all came to tell me you took care of Crank?” I went on.

“Kee—”

“Who stood on my back walk after he took out the man who took my husband from me, the man who took away my sons’ father?”

“That isn’t—”