Stay Vertical (The Bare Bones MC #2)(64)

I refrained from telling the hospital how I’d wound up that way. I said I was too traumatized to talk about it, and could they get blood from a stone? No one could make me talk, especially after my jaw was wired. I had to trust that the club would take care of it for me, and so they did. Never go to the police to settle your beeves, even when cops are friends of Dr. Driving Hawk, generous benefactor to the annual charity auction.

I needed to grieve the loss of my innocence. That’s why I hadn’t made love to Lytton since the event. Dr. Petrie suggested that my subconscious might equate Lytton with the event, inasmuch as any man’s penis would remind me of that horror. So I stayed pretty much in my own little world until I was ready. And Lytton had picked the perfect day to surprise me with his proposal and his stunning chocolate diamond ring. His love had allowed me to endure my pain, and it was time to emerge from that shell.

“Check out my new ring, Maddy.”

Madison must have just come in with Fidelia—she’d been picking my niece up from her play group. I thought, as I often did when I saw Fidelia, that I was still on the fence about having kids. I’d seen nothing but bad examples of parenting growing up. Madison had been doing a good job of changing that around.

Either way, I was in no rush. I realized that I’d just had unprotected sex—with my fiancé, no less!—and that was just what had happened to Madison and Ford. It had turned out all right for them. I might let Mungu, and fate, step in and decide for me. My new job was certainly low-stress enough. Now I worked for a family organization.

Madison inhaled sharply, so loudly she drew the attention of several people. Dominique and Brunhilda leaned in to see what was so amazing. “A chocolate diamond!” shrieked Madison, like a game show hostess. “Does this mean what I think it means?”

“Yes, that’s what it means.”

Once Julie, Sapphire, and Speed’s new old lady Tess joined in, the high-pitched squeals were enough to make my ears ring. I already had problems with tinnitus after Iso’s attack, so I endured it long enough to answer their questions. No, we had no date. He’d just asked me.

“Where are you getting married?”

“Are you going to wear a traditional white dress?”

“Why don’t you get married in Kenya?”

That last one actually was a good idea. Something unique, off the beaten track, just like Lytton and me. Even a few brothers took breaks from their darts to wish me happiness.

Faux Pas was gracious enough to say, “I see a lot of Ford in Lytton. They are both intense, powerful, mentally sharp men.” It sounded even more adorable in his very thick French accent. “It’s as though if they focus the power of their mind into one sharp beam, it could cut like a knife. I see similarities that they probably don’t even see because they’re too close to it. I knew they were brothers before the DNA results even came back. They may have grown up separately, but their hearts are one, together. See how they chose two beautiful sisters.”

He was probably wasted, but he always came across eloquently. I was hugged by about thirty people before I remembered what Ford had said. Madison had something urgent to tell me.

“Madison, what’s this urgent thing?”

“What? Oh, right. Here, let’s go onto the side patio, get away from this noise.”

The side patio was where everyone was smoking, so we wound up going around the corner where the bikes were parked. Madison talked as we walked.

“Your phone was on the table just now, and it was ringing. It said the call was from that Olivia Jaymes Hospice Home—”

“Where Ingrid is.”

I sort of knew before Madison even told me. Ingrid’s stomach had been obstructed due to tumor growth the last time I’d visited three days ago. I think I’d already been through so many ups and downs regarding Ingrid’s cancer, I’d already been through the wringer. I’d cried my tears—well, metaphorically, of course. I’d experienced all ten stages of grief within a few months’ time frame, maybe skipping over a few stages. I couldn’t tell if I’d numbed myself to grief, or if I truly had never felt deep emotions when it came to her. I knew that Emma’s love for her mother, which was based on fact as a result of the kind way her mother actually treated her, was definitely a lot deeper and more genuine than whatever I felt for Ingrid.

Was a child obligated to feel so-called “love” for a parent? Just because we’re born blood relations to some people, does that mean we automatically “love” them? There are some pretty heinous relatives, to be sure. We forgive some pretty horrible behavior by people just because they’re related to us. We would have put some strangers in the rearview a long time before the relative wears out his welcome. I never would have taken care of Ingrid if she wasn’t my mother. I felt I had done my duty. I felt clean, purified of guilt. We’d all banded together to go above the call of duty, actually, to put her in a nice hospice. Madison and I just hoped we wouldn’t be doomed to be reborn with Ingrid in a future life as a result of something we failed to do in this one. I felt karmically clean, though.

However, I’d expected to feel more despair when the end came. Nothing like that happened. I just said, “It’s over, right?”

Madison nodded and handed me my phone. “At one-fifteen today.”

We just breathed deeply, staring numbly at the cement. Gregg Allman sang about some woman never troubling him no more. I didn’t know if Maddy noticed the symbolism because we were just staring blankly at a smashed cigarette butt.