Own the Wind(70)

One month later…

I stood out in the cold, a beer in my hand, next to a steel drum filled with fire giving off a wave of heat. I felt an arm slide along my shoulders and I tipped my head just in time to hear Landon, who’d claimed me, say, “Jesus, Tab, what’s goin’ on with that? It’s like a hippie hookin’ up at a Tea Party rally.”

My eyes went to where his were aimed and I saw Lanie and Hop, not quite hidden by the steps that led up to the office that they were behind but mostly hidden by the dark of the November night. She looked glamorous, as usual, her glossy, thick dark hair gleamed even in the distant fire and floodlights. I’d gabbed with her earlier and saw she was casual for Lanie, wearing jeans, but her killer, expensive boots, elegant sweater, and the pashmina she had wrapped around her neck screamed class.

Hop, on the other hand, was in beat-up, faded jeans (that still looked good on him), a black thermal, and his battered cut, a black leather jacket with the Chaos insignia on the back. His dark hair was overlong and falling in his face, and his kick-ass, biker mustache that ran thick across his lip and down the sides of his mouth needed a trim. Something, knowing Hop for ages, I knew he’d get around to when he felt like it, he had a classy dame in his bed or not. This could be the next day. This could be next month.

I watched as they talked, then Hop suddenly grabbed Lanie and I held my breath when he kissed her, hot and heavy.

I had to give it to her, she struggled.

For about five seconds.

Then her arms wrapped around his shoulders, he arched her further into the shadows, twisting his torso so I could see nothing but the indistinct Chaos emblem on his cut, and I knew they were going at it.

My eyes darted around the forecourt of Ride, where we were currently engaged in the eating and drinking portion of a Chaos hog roast. The raising-hell portion would come in about half an hour after the pig was decimated and there were more bottles passed around than plastic cups being filled from kegs.

I spied Dad, his eyes pinned to the stairs and thus Lanie and Hop, and his eyes were narrowed.

Uh-oh.

My gaze moved, and I located Tyra talking with Dog’s woman, Sheila, and she had her back to the couple.

Shoo.

“Don’t know, sweetheart, but thinkin’ that right there flies in the face of all that’s holy,” Lan muttered, and I burst out laughing.

Through my laughter, I saw him grinning down at me.

I kept laughing even as I felt something warm hit my belly, my eyes wandered from his, and I saw Shy fifteen feet away, standing with Boz, Roscoe, and Bat, looking at me, his lips curved up, his face, clear in the floodlights, happy.

His brother and his girl were getting on and just with something as simple as that, all was right in Shy Cage’s world.

Knowing that, one could say all was right in mine too.

Suffice it to say, Landon had been true to his word. The time it took for me to prove to him that he trusted me with his brother didn’t last long. It happened close after all hell broke loose with Chaos.

As for me, I knew I’d fall in love with my man’s brother when Shy, Rush, and I hit Denver International Airport to fly down for my grandmother’s funeral, and Lan was at the gate. Shy hadn’t said a word, probably because he knew I’d try to talk him out of Landon taking time out of his life and money to buy a plane ticket in order to be with me during what the Cage brothers thought was my hour of need.

Seeing Lan there, I was shocked.

Lan simply gave me a hug and muttered in my ear, “Family looks after family.”

That was sweet and all, but flying to Arizona to attend the funeral of a woman he didn’t know and, obviously, seeing as she was deceased, he’d never meet?

I would understand during the funeral why he was there when I discovered what the Brothers Cage had arranged.

This was, while Rush and I hung tight and Shy gave me his support, Lan wasted no time in his approach to Mom. I didn’t know what he said. I just knew by the look on her face when he was saying it, she heard him. He lurked close to her the entire time I was in her space, at the funeral home, the gravesite, and at Gramps’s after.

His message was clear: Don’t get any ideas about being a bitch to Tabby (and she would, it was Mom’s way, even at her mother’s funeral). You do, I’ll pounce. Seeing as he wasn’t exactly small but he was obviously a badass, Mom, who could miss the most blatant of hints, didn’t miss Lan’s message.

Therefore, I endured Gram’s funeral without having to endure my mom being a bitch. She didn’t even chance throwing a bitchy look at me. She stayed well away.

That did it for me with Lan, but I didn’t know what did it for Lan with me. I just knew I’d been let in. When he called Shy, or Shy was talking to him and I was around, he asked him to pass the phone over and we gabbed. Not forever and not deep but friendly, warm, and sweet. And now that he was up for the weekend, he joked and teased, all genuine, all real, nothing watchful, nothing fake.

I knew Shy loved it.

So did I.

The good part of that awful visit to Arizona was that Shy and Lan got a chance to see their grams. We met her for dinner. I loved her on the spot. This was because she was beside herself with joy at the surprise chance to spend time with her boys and she didn’t hide it. This was also because she flirted audaciously with Rush. It was funny. She was funny, and something else she didn’t hide was that she clocked Shy loved me and folded me into the family immediately.