Wild Like the Wind (Chaos #5)(68)

It started in my kitchen. It was the Sunday afternoon after Jean had died and Hound and I had ended.

I was baking cookies because I was dedicated to the act of dulling the pain of all that had happened through sugar instead of tequila because my life might be over (again), but my life wasn’t over. My boys didn’t need some alcoholic momma swishing in and making a fool of herself during their wedding ceremonies (whenever that happened—for Dutch I hoped it was at least ten years so he’d have some fun for once—for Jag I hoped some woman settled him down in about five).

They came in the back door together.

It was their home and I’d not given them any indication, since they’d both essentially moved out of it and were living together, that they couldn’t come and go as they pleased.

But it was me (not Hound or the boys of Chaos, definitely not) that had ingrained politeness in them. So they had the sense this was their home (because it was) but it was mostly now only mine, so they didn’t spring themselves on me and texted or phoned to say they were coming by.

This was usually a heads up prior to me making a meal that I should make more to feed them.

But I knew their game. They were checking on their momma, making sure she wasn’t lonely, giving her some company.

It was just, if they were going to do that, they were going to get themselves some of her cooking.

For a second I thought that maybe my biological connection with them sent them vibes that I was making cookies, and both my boys loved my cookies, and that had sent them on a trajectory straight to my kitchen, like a homing beacon.

But with one look at the serious on their faces, I knew this was not it.

“What’s up, boys?” I asked.

“Hey, Ma,” Jagger said.

“Ma,” Dutch said.

My eldest came to me first. Putting a hand to my waist, he also bent down and put his lips to my cheek.

I was tall. Black was tall. It was impossible that my boys would not be tall.

So they were both tall.

Dutch was taller, taller even than his daddy. He was six-two.

Jag was his father’s height, six foot.

Dutch was wearing his prospect cut. It didn’t have his name on it or the Chaos insignia patch on the back. Just Prospect at his chest with the arced word Chaos in their Wild West font on the back. His faded jeans hung on him like a girl’s wet dream. His black thermal needed to be dumped since it’d been washed so often, it was no longer black. But still, it fit his wide chest like someone had tailored it to match his proportions like armor.

Dutch had always had serious girlfriends. He didn’t take a girl out unless he was interested enough that, if she didn’t blow it on the first date, he knew he wanted to take her out again.

It was only his first that had broken his heart. Whatever Hound had told him, he’d avoided that in the future with his next two girlfriends and he’d been the heartbreaker.

But he’d done it as sweet as he could.

It still had cut him up.

I’d liked both of his last girlfriends (not that first one, she was beautiful, knew it, so was up her own ass). But for whatever reason Dutch decided they weren’t the one, he put an end to it.

I was glad. He was way too young to get serious with a girl. He’d chosen the course of Chaos, but he still had time to put in to find the man he was going to be.

The weird thing was I sensed he knew this. I sensed he wouldn’t settle down until he could give the woman he chose the man he intended to be.

That didn’t mean he didn’t want company along the way.

Jagger was wearing a long-sleeve, gray tee that would, if animate due to its close proximity to his skin, have had to have been in love with him. His jeans were probably selected because they attracted attention to the parts of his lower body that would set a female to drooling. He wore this stuff like his brother, with a casual confidence that was so their father. But there was a hint of cocky to Jag.

He knew he was hot.

Dutch probably knew it too. He was just quieter in that knowledge.

They both had great bodies that came partially from genetics, partially from them learning from Hound they should put time into honing them. They still were members of Hound’s gym and they both still hung out with the Chaos boys at their workout equipment at the Compound, Dutch now more since he was on Chaos all the time.

So Dutch was bulking up, even in that department larger than his father.

But he was not larger than Hound.

Jag came to me second, doing the same thing and staying close as he sucked in breath through his nose, gave me a jaunty smile and said, “Cookies.”

“Yup,” I replied, smiling back at him.

“We gotta talk,” Dutch put in.

I watched the smile fade from Jagger’s face as he stepped away and glanced sideways at his brother.

This was when I mentally prepared for whatever was coming next.

My thoughts were, they were going to tell me their decision about their father’s cut and bike.

What was strange about this was I’d told them to make a decision, so I didn’t understand why they both were acting so cautiously.

“Jagger called Hound,” Dutch announced.

Oh shit.

I hadn’t prepared enough.

I shored up my defenses so I would do nothing but hold my boys’ eyes and nod.

“He asked Hound to put his name forward officially to recruit,” Dutch went on.