Wild Fire (Chaos #6.5)(43)

“Jag,” Dutch bit out.

Jagger nodded, went to the door, opened it and held it that way.

Carolyn looked to him, to Georgie, her face started collapsing, then she ran out.

Jagger shut the door after her.

Georgiana turned in his arms and started burrowing.

Then her body hitched when she stated crying.

He held her closer.

“Mwrr?” Murtagh asked from their feet.

“No, boy, she’s not okay,” Dutch answered.

Georgie hiccupped with a sob.

Murtagh collapsed on his side at Georgie’s ankle.

“When’d Dutch get a cat?” Roscoe asked.

“It’s Georgie’s,” Jagger told him.

“Right,” Roscoe muttered.

“You guys need food?” Jagger called.

“Gather the men for a meet,” Dutch ordered. “I want to talk to them about what we can do about Carlyle’s dad.”

Jagger’s expression opened up huge, this accompanying the grin that spread on his mouth.

There it was.

Georgie was right.

Dutch needed his family.

And his family needed him.

“I got her,” Dutch finished.

“I want a breakfast toaster from Sonic,” Georgie snuffled in his neck.

Dutch couldn’t stop his smile.

That was his girl.

Take a hit.

Bounce right back.

“I could eat a toaster,” Roscoe decreed.

“Three a’ those for us, brothers,” Dutch told Jagger and Roscoe. “And some Cinnasnacks.”

“I want Cinnasnacks too,” Georgie blubbered.

“On it,” Jagger said, sounding amused. “And by the way, sweet robe, Georgie.”

Dutch looked to the ceiling.

“Shut up, Jagger,” Georgie said to his neck.

Dutch turned his eyes back to his brother just in time to catch Jag’s usual congenial-asshole grin.

“Yo, I’m Roscoe,” Roscoe called.

“Nice t’meet you, Roscoe,” Georgie sniveled into his neck, taking an arm from around him to reach it behind her and wave a hand a Roscoe.

Now Dutch was finding it hard not to bust a gut laughing.

“Brother, that ass,” Roscoe declared in the tone you used to say, Niiiiice.

“Fuck off and get us food, Coe,” Dutch ordered.

He got a jerk of a chin from Roscoe, another grin from Jagger, and they took off.

Dutch gave her a minute and then he leaned back a bit and forced her to face him with a hand gentle on her jaw.

Christ, she was even gorgeous with red eyes and crying face.

“You gonna be okay?” he asked.

“That was off-the-hook bad,” she answered.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“Like, I could think of a lot of ways that would go, all of them ranging from bad to baddest of bad, and that was worse than all of them…by far.”

“Yup,” he said.

“But maybe it’ll be what she needs to get better,” she suggested.

He doubted it.

That was extreme, but addicts usually had to fall a lot farther than that before they sorted their shit.

“Maybe,” he allowed.

“And bright side, your biker brother digs my ass.”

Dutch didn’t consider that a bright side, but for her, he’d roll with it.

“Yeah.”

Her gaze moved over his face before she rested her cheekbone on his chest and her weight into his body.

He gave her more than a minute to do that.

Then he said, “Babe, I wanna be there for you, but we got a day to tackle. And I think that’ll help you get your mind off shit. So, since you got a thing about mascara and foundation, and I absolutely do not, except I dig what you do with it, you get the shower first.”

He heard and felt her draw in breath, then her cheek slid on his chest when she nodded.

She gave him a squeeze.

He gave her one back and let her go.

“Come on, Murtagh, time to shower,” she called to the cat, and kept talking as she started walking. “Warning, Dutch, he’s a bathroom cat in all the incarnations of that.”

Dutch had already discovered this fact.

“So noted,” he said, moving to the kitchen, and his phone to see if anyone reported in about Carlyle.

But he stopped when Georgie cried, “There it is! You’ve stolen my cat!”

He looked to her, then down to the floor where Murtagh was entering the kitchen behind him.

“He’s a bathroom cat and he knows I’m going there and he’s sticking by you,” Georgie said.

He looked to her. “Babe, grab a shower.”

“I can’t believe you stole my cat,” she snapped.

“Georgie, get in the shower.”

“This is unacceptable,” she decreed.

“You can get in the shower or I’ll carry you there and take one with you, which means we’ll be fuckin’ in there when Jagger and Roscoe show, and they won’t knock on the door before they come in my house. So they’ll hear me fuckin’ you because you make noise, gorgeous. And I like it. And I bet the boys will like it too because they’ll have it as fodder to give you shit about until the day you die.”