Wild Like the Wind (Chaos #5)(64)

The boys both had vehicles, with Dutch now also having a bike. They also both parked in the drive in a line behind the door that led to their father’s bike. They fought and bitched at each other about who pulled in first because neither wanted to be fenced in when they were ready to take off, and I’d laid down the law that neither of them fenced me in.

So like their father.

And so like their non-biological father.

I got out of my car, went right to Black’s bike and ripped the cover off, tossing it aside.

He had a shit-hot bike.

And my man on that bike …

God.

Not once, in all the time together, did I not get wet the instant I saw him astride that bike.

I told him that happened to me about two weeks after we started seeing each other.

About five minutes after that, we were fucking on that bike.

It was our first time on his bike, but not our last.

I would not tell the boys that.

That fucking hideous night, he’d taken his truck to get pizza, for obvious reasons.

So it had been my man who’d backed that bike right there.

I’d put the cover on.

But other than that, that bike had never been touched.

Never been moved.

It was where Black had put it.

And now that shit had to end.

I left the cover off, walked out the back door to the garage, walked the walk that led along the back of the house and moved up the stairs to the back door to my house.

I tried not to remember the day years ago I stuck my head out that door during a huge snowstorm, when Hound was standing out on that walk at the place between detached garage and house, and he was staring at the thin line of space between both.

I failed at not remembering this and froze, staring at my hand on the handle of the storm door.

“Hound! It’s half a blizzard out here! The bad half!” I’d shouted. “What in hell are you doing?”

He’d been wearing his Chaos cut, like always. The black leather jacket beat up with use, the Chaos insignia patch stitched to the back, small rectangular patches stitched where a breast pocket would be, one said Hound, the one under it said Enforcer.

Hound’s cut still said Enforcer. But back then Tack had the patch that said President (and still did), Dog’s said VP, Brick’s said Sgt at Arms, under which was another one that said Road Captain. Hop’s jacket had Tail-Gunner.

There was a secretary and treasurer who at that time of the snowstorm I no longer knew (and still didn’t, though I knew Hop was now VP and Tack’s son-in-law, Shy, was Sergeant at Arms). The rest had Member or Prospect (even though Chaos verbally called them “recruits” because the founders not only were all ex-military and that felt natural, they also felt like bucking even MC traditions—they didn’t name their club “Chaos” for nothing).

I just knew after Tack took over and cleaned up the Club, Big Petey had been given the patch that said, Chaplain.

“Behind this wall is your laundry room!” he’d shouted back.

I knew that. He knew that. I just hadn’t known why he was shouting it through a snowstorm.

“Yeah!” I’d yelled.

“Need to attach your garage!” he’d yelled back. “Gonna get the boys here to see to that.”

In the end, he’d never done it, mostly because I’d pitched one holy hell of a fit at the thought of a bunch of bikers pounding a hole in my wall to attach my garage.

To see that didn’t happen, I’d talked to Dog, who was one of the more level-headed ones (though not when it came to me, but still, he was more level-headed generally) and convinced him I was going to see to that as part of all the work I was doing, dedicated to giving my boys the home Graham and I had promised each other we’d make for them.

I never did it.

But right then, I remembered Hound standing outside in the snow, staring at that space, and I knew then (but buried it) like I knew now he didn’t like me to walk through snow.

That could have been when the tears came.

It wasn’t.

I had shit to do.

And that shit was opening my door, walking in and unraveling my scarf from around my neck. Tossing it and my purse and my jacket on my kitchen table. Running up my stairs.

And, after I turned on the light by the bed, going straight to my closet.

In the early days, as a form of self-torture, I’d hung it on a hook at the back of my closet door so every time I opened it, he’d be right there, the smell of leather, the hint of my man waving at me.

Eventually I’d torn our bedroom apart to usurp another room, “To give you the bedroom of your dreams, baby,” Black had said. “To build a bedroom and big closet and kickass bathroom for the biker queen you are.”

Before the workers had started tearing down walls, I’d folded it carefully, put it in a flat plastic crate, and tucked it away safely.

Now, I found that crate in the big-ass closet I’d had to give myself, took it out, moved to my bed with it and set it down.

I crawled in, pulled the box deeper into bed with me, and sat there, cross-legged, staring at it.

It took a second but finally I flipped the lid on it.

I’d put it in, not like a brother would do, back—and Chaos insignia—up.

I’d put it in like an old lady would do.

Front, the patch that said Black, the one under it that said Secretary, and the one under that that said Road Captain up.