Wild Like the Wind (Chaos #5)(42)

So since his place wasn’t a sty anymore (not that she hadn’t been over before, just that she was Jean, he didn’t subject her to that when she had a fussy pad full of stuff, but it was way better than his), he showed her.

Keely had even come over on Saturday morning before anything was delivered and steam cleaned the carpets. Some of the stains didn’t come up, but it still looked a load better.

“Was what you had before not good enough for her?”

Jean’s question made him look down at her, leaning on her walker inside his closed door.

“She didn’t like me living in a pit,” he told her. “She said I deserve better.”

Jean studied his face for a beat before she replied, “You do. Was her telling you this what caused you to allow her to spend a great deal of your own money on you?”

It wasn’t simply that Hound was keeping the two best parts of his life all to himself, not letting them meet each other because he knew it would end with Keely eventually, but also because Jean wasn’t her biggest fan and the fact it would end eventually was part of why she wasn’t.

Among other reasons.

“I had other motivation, Jean bug,” he shared. “I’m spendin’ more time here, and yeah, that’s with her, but it was a pit.”

She threw a bony hand out toward the room that didn’t actually look like a Harley-Davidson god puked all over it. The crankshaft barstools were cool but Keely left it at that for anything unusual, and all the rest of it was just masculine and comfortable.

“Is this her style?”

Keely’s house was not black leather and chrome.

It was bold and in your face. If he was forced to describe it, it was like junked-up-cool, biker gypsy rock ’n’ roll.

“No.”

“So she doesn’t just come here, hiding with you. You’ve been to her home,” Jean stated, but it was a question.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“That said, you’re still hiding.”

“Jean—”

“You know I don’t understand this, Shepherd. You seem to be taking this in your stride but it makes no sense to me. She’s here every night. If she feels you deserve a better place to live and puts the work into making that happen, because I know it was her that cleaned this carpet, I heard it, then why is this what it is?”

“It just is.”

“It makes no sense.”

“You don’t live in our world.”

“I know if I was a young woman who caught your eye and owned your heart, I would not hide that in an ugly apartment that can be made nicer with decent furniture but it’s still no better. I’d shout it to the world.”

“That isn’t in the cards.”

“Because of you or because of her?” she demanded.

Because of her, he thought.

“Because of my brothers,” he said.

“And they matter this much to you that you can’t have the woman you love, who I’m hoping from the time she spends with you and the effort she takes to make your life better, cares about you too?” she pushed.

“Yeah.”

“And you think this makes sense?” she asked.

“I think it is the only way it can be and we’re both takin’ what we can get, how we can get it, until shit happens where we can’t have it anymore.”

“Would you give up your brothers for her?”

“That’s like asking me to cut off my own arm.”

She studied him again before she nodded. “I see. And this Keely understands this so she allows you to hide her away in this ugly apartment taking what she can get.”

He’d deal with whatever the brothers decided to dish out if it meant in the end he’d have them and he’d have Keely.

But she had the man she gave it all to, and he was dead. And although she had more to give, she couldn’t give it all making it worth it to butt up against the brothers to have her. She knew that so she was taking what she could get and giving it all the same.

He didn’t explain this to Jean.

He said, “The man she loved, my brother who died, there’ll be no one else like that for her.”

“Of course not,” she returned. “She loved him. She married him. She gave him children. But does that mean she can’t find another to love, if not the same, a different way that’s just as beautiful?”

Hound stared at her.

She didn’t wait for his answer.

She declared, “It’s clear she can’t. She may care enough to clean your carpeting, Shepherd, and she may think you deserve better, and I would very much agree.” She leaned his way slightly, just enough not to take her off balance. “You deserve better,” she stated.

“She’s a good woman,” he told her firm.

“I’m sure. But evidence suggests you still could do better.”

He felt his mouth get tight and forced through it, “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this.”

She examined his mouth and murmured, “Maybe we shouldn’t.” She looked back to the room and finished it, “I like it very much. Whatever one can say about what’s happening, she had a mind to you when she furnished your apartment. It’s very much you. And it is definitely better than what you had and it looks very fine.” Her eyes came back to him. “What you deserve.”