Wild Like the Wind (Chaos #5)(85)

“Jeez, you look like you just got sucker punched in the nose by Anthony Joshua,” he observed. Then he gave me his sweet boy grin and lowered his voice. “It’s all good, Momma. Chill. Yeah?”

“Yeah, sweetheart,” I whispered.

He shoved me down in the chair.

Hound brought me my wine.

They moved around, dealing with shit while I sipped.

Chairs scraped.

Before they started passing stuff around, I called, “Halt!”

Three sets of beloved male eyes turned to me.

I looked from Hound to Dutch to Jagger, saying, “Okay, boys, making this official, even though that’s unnecessary. Your momma and your Hound have finally got their heads outta their asses and we’re doin’ this. And I mean we’re doin’ this. For now, we’re keeping it from the Club. We’ll share when that’s gonna change. But we’re taking time for ourselves first and to be with you boys.” I lifted a hand Dutch’s way, as usual, my potato boy had put the bowl in front of his plate. “Now pass the mashed potatoes.”

Dutch shot me a grin.

Jagger punched Hound in the arm.

I took the potatoes as they started passing the other stuff.

I felt Hound’s gaze after I picked up my knife to start sawing into my chop.

I lifted my eyes to his.

And there they were.

Hound’s eyes across from me at my kitchen table.

My biker and my boys all around me.

A dream I’d lived once, but it died when the blood of its most important component ran free across a pizza place parking lot.

And here I had it again.

I love you, I thought.

I love you, those eyes replied.

I smiled at him.

His mouth got soft.

Then I picked up my fork and started sawing.



“This isn’t the time to get into it.”

“Jag—”

“But if we don’t take this time to get into it, that time is gonna pass, we’ll never get into it, so we gotta get into it.”

We were still at the kitchen table.

The meal had been decimated.

It worked wonders on Jag’s hangover.

All three of my boys had hefty pieces of cake and then seconds.

Now Jag had something to say that Dutch clearly didn’t want him to get into.

I felt a nervous prickle in my belly as Jagger finally pinned Hound with his gaze, but the question came out low and mellow when he asked, “Why’d you keep Jean from us, man?”

Shit.

“You’re right, honey,” I piped up, aiming this at Jag. “This isn’t the time to get into that.”

“Yeah, Jagger,” Dutch growled. “Shut it.”

“Dutch, appreciate you’ve got a mind to me,” Hound rumbled. “But Jag, you got somethin’ on your mind, you don’t act like a dick about gettin’ it out there, you put it out there.”

Dutch shot me a look.

I gave him a just-let-it-happen nod and turned my attention to Hound.

“And this needs to be said because it needs to be understood. Before anything gets any further and thoughts wander, I’m gonna lay it out there like it is,” Hound declared.

Yep.

Shit.

Hound kept pronouncing.

“Most important, it isn’t lost on you boys that I had feelin’s for your ma for a while. You know that, it’s now where it is, you were right. That’s what it was. But if you ever get it in your heads that was why I had all the time in the world for either of you, push that shit out because that’s not only not true, it’d piss me off it even crossed your minds.”

Now all of us were staring at Hound.

“It started because of my love for your old man and my respect for your mother. It took about a week before you both earned what you got from me, what you have from me, what you’ll always have from me,” Hound told them. “I did what I could in the part I played to raise you like my brother woulda done if he wasn’t gone. That was for Black. But me doin’ it was all for you.”

Fucking hell.

I was definitely going to start crying.

“Place in my heart, Hound,” Dutch murmured. “Always.”

Start crying like a ninny!

“Yeah, Hound,” Jagger mumbled. “Always.”

Damn it!

“Jean was mine,” he said.

Oh boy.

I swallowed.

“I get you both got me in your hearts, you didn’t have to tell me that. And I get you feel betrayed I kept somethin’ that meant something like Jean did to me from you, knowin’ I know what you feel for me, how I feel about you. But she was mine.”

“I don’t get that,” Jagger said quiet.

Hound gave it to him.

“Did a lot in my life, son, some good, but there was bad. The worst kinda bad there is. You do what you feel needs to be done, do it without hesitation, do it even with pride, but it scores marks in your soul and you feel those marks. You can let them bein’ there take you over and make you think that’s all you got in you. Like you boys were, like helpin’ your mother out was, Jean was proof that what I got under those marks is still good and pure and right. No way she’d take me into her life the way she did if I wasn’t the kinda man who deserved that trust, her time, the love she gave me.”