Hooked (Viking Bastards MC #1)(37)
“Stop apologizing for that jerk.” She even texted me Sunday night about it. I can’t figure out why the whole thing still bugs me. She’s with me, not him.
“I’m sorry.” She clasps a couple of baking trays to her chest and flashes me a smile. “Whoops. Can’t help myself. But anyway, you were so nice about my muffins, even though you ended up not eating a whole one, so I thought I’d do a special home-baked delivery for you.”
“You’re gonna bake me some muffins?” It’s not really funny, but I have the urge to laugh. “I don’t know if the oven’s up for it.”
We leave her overnight case in the trunk and make our way inside. “No, I’m going to bake you some of my famous cupcakes. Well, admittedly, they’re not famous yet, but I live in hope.”
I’m not big on cake, but I sure as hell am going to eat whatever she makes. I can’t remember the last time anyone did something special for me that involved the kitchen.
My smile fades. That’s not true. Mom always used to knock a cake together for each of our birthdays, despite how, as soon as we hit our teens, Gage and I used to complain that we were way too old for that.
Not thinking about it. Trouble is I always think about our mom and dad this time of year. Can’t help it.
I dump the bag of ingredients on the kitchen counter top. “And they’ll never be famous if you don’t get your shit together.”
She gives me a sideways glance as she spreads her stuff out. “It’s not easy deciding to leave the family business, but I am working on it.”
“You’ve been working on it since the day we met.”
She starts to unpack the bag and doesn’t look at me. “Is this because Russell turned up on Sunday? Because I—”
“If you say sorry again I’m gonna tie you to my bed and gag you.”
She looks at me then. “Ooh,” she says, giving a fake shiver. “That’s so tempting. But you can tie me up after you’ve sampled my cupcakes.”
“Yeah.” I’m trying not to laugh but failing. “Doesn’t sound as dirty as sampling your muffins, though.”
I’m still grinning when she shoos me out of the kitchen like she owns it. “Don’t come back in here until I call you.”
…
For a couple of hours I work on my latest job, and manage to ignore the faint unease gathering in the back of my mind. It’s the same every damn year, although usually this compulsion to unlock the drawer starts a day earlier.
I know what’ll happen if I do. I’ll need to drink, and not just a few beers. If Grace weren’t upstairs I wouldn’t even be having this crazy conversation with myself.
Finally, I can’t stand it anymore and throw down my tools. When I first met Grace I told her I was over my mom and dad’s deaths. Christ, I should be. It’s been ten years. But a small, secret place deep inside has never really moved on from when I was eighteen years old and had to take over as head of the family.
I go to the steel workbench along the far wall, and unlock the top drawer. Buried beneath a heap of shit is the photo, and I pull it out.
It’s creased around the edges and nothing special. Just a regular family pic of the five of us together, and my gaze snags on the laughing face of my mom.
It’s been almost ten years since Gage, Kat, and I watched her slowly die of lung cancer, and nothing will convince me it wasn’t connected to the shock of hearing how our dad had been murdered while inside.
Sometimes it feels like only the other week they were both here, fooling around. They were crazy about each other, and you’d never think they’d been together for twenty years. Every year Dad was in charge of the Thanksgiving turkey, and we were all under blood oath not to breathe a word of that to anyone.
It was kind of a family joke. The Sergeant-at-Arms of the Viking Bastards who, once a year, would take over the kitchen and create something that looked like it came right out of a celebrity food show.
The last Thanksgiving I celebrated was ten years ago, when this photo was taken. It was the last time the five of us were all together, as the following week Dad was arrested.
I couldn’t even fake it enough to keep this holiday going for Kat’s sake, and if not for Jett’s old lady she would never have had another Thanksgiving dinner, since I always spend the day getting hammered.
I wait for the craving to hit me, but it’s a faint echo of the usual clawing need that rips through me when I do this annual ritual. Instead, Grace’s smile fills my mind, and a weird sense of peace wraps around the ache in my chest.
Would she stay the rest of the week, if I asked her?
The door opens behind me, and instead of shoving the photo back in the drawer I stuff it into my pocket before swinging around. Her hair’s piled on top of her head and her cheeks are flushed from the heat of the kitchen, and she’s wearing a sexy as hell apron covered in pink roses and frills. I’ve never seen anything like it and have a hard time not just grabbing her and holding her close.
“Cupcakes,” she says, like that’s a surprise. “Come and get them while they’re fresh.” She gives me what I guess she thinks is a suggestive leer, although all it does is make her look cute. “Spiced pumpkin with cream cheese frosting.”
I clean up before taking her hand and letting her lead me upstairs to the kitchen. The smell filling the apartment is amazing, but more amazing than that is there’s only two days until Thanksgiving, and I don’t have the powerful need to hit the bottle at the sound of “spiced pumpkin.”