Chaos series by Kristen Ashley

She was right.

I didn’t get the chance to confirm. She kept talking.

“They might have split because it was just time and now it’s all good. But no woman, no matter what went on with her man, would be thrilled to sit down to lunch across from him and the woman that lights up his life. It’s just not gonna happen. So brace, sister, and be cool with her on that. Logan’s a dude so he’s not gonna have any clue about this if he thinks they’ve both moved on. So that shit’s gonna be up to you.”

I thought this was good advice, so I nodded.

“Now, is his girl still being a brat?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’ve only seen them once since the kitty incident. Deb let Low have them on Saturday and I met them at the Compound for lunch. It was fast food. We ate it fast; then I got outta there so he could have time with his girls. He picked them up from dance last night and took them out to dinner before he took them home. He did that last week, too, and neither time I was involved. I’ve convinced him to slow things down. Give them time with their dad. Only inject me into the scene on occasion so they can take their time to get used to me.”

“Welp, that shit’s out the window come Friday,” she declared.

She was right.

It was Wednesday, almost a full week after the kitty incident. Logan had set up lunch the first day Deb could get away, so that day, we were having lunch.

And the coming weekend, even though I still felt it was too soon, the girls were coming to stay.

According to Logan, Deb was all in to help and once she’d learned what Zadie had done (which was the very next day when Logan called her), scaring me about Chief, she’d laid into her daughter.

I’d worried this would make Zadie hate me even more.

But lunch at the Compound was another ingenious Logan move.

He’d told me Deb had never been one with the biker life. She rarely came on Chaos or participated in any of the things they did with old ladies and families.

But she didn’t stop the girls from doing it and Logan also told me they loved their Chaos family, enjoyed hanging at the Compound with their dad, his brothers, their women and kids.

Even though our time having lunch there was short, Logan’s message to his daughters being that I was still around and not going anywhere, for the girls, it was also a revelation.

I didn’t know how the Chaos brothers and their families had treated Deb, but after our lunch, I had a clue.

This was because there were a lot of wide eyes from Cleo and Zadie about how they treated me. Along with the Chaos family giving that to the girls (and obviously Logan), to me they were welcoming, affectionate, loving, teasing. Even the new brothers, Shy, Snapper, Roscoe, and Speck were all over meeting me and getting to know me in a way it was obvious they were opening their arms along with the rest of Chaos.

And then Rush, Tack’s son, had come in.

He was older than Tabby and maybe that was why he remembered me better.

But remember me he did.

And when he walked in and looked at me, and while I was staring at his adult handsomeness that was on par with his father’s back in the day (and now), he folded me in his arms and said loud enough for the girls to hear, “Heard you were back. Since I heard, been lookin’ forward to seein’ you and givin’ you a hug. Good you’re finally home again, Millie.”

It was sweet as Rush could always be. He’d been a little boy on the go, something to do or see or experience and he didn’t want to waste any time doing it, seeing it, or experiencing it (thus his nickname was Rush).

But in all that, he was always sweet, a good kid, a loving son to his dad (and his mom, even though I knew that was more difficult for him because he was also a loving brother and Naomi never treated Tabby right).

So, for me, it had been a lovely reunion.

For the girls, it was an eye-opening one.

I’d worried in the dramatics of the kitty incident that I would lose headway with Cleo along with Zadie digging in against me.

Luckily, that didn’t happen. Cleo greeted me with a big smile the minute I’d walked in and with the way Chaos was with me, it just got better from there.

On the other hand, Zadie hadn’t been bratty, but she’d been back to sulky and mostly silent.

The good part about that was that she had plenty of attention to give what was happening at the Compound with Logan and Chaos.

And Logan was a part of that because he’d also changed his strategy.

Apparently, he had been withholding some of his displays of affection for me.

I knew this because at the Compound he’d let it loose. There was more touching, hand holding, arm around shoulders or waist, and a lingering (though not wet) kiss when I first arrived to meet them.

Not only in deed but in word and in look, he gave it to me.

He also gave it to his girls, lavishing the same on them at every opportunity in a way that was so natural, I knew it was just how it was with them.

It was cute.

No, not cute.

Beautiful.

Cleo obviously blossomed under it.

But Zadie did too.

I figured she just loved her dad. Though I figured it was more, his behavior with her when I was around being indication he was not angry with her and was moving on.

I just hoped she’d sort herself out and move on, too, the right way.

I would find out that weekend when Deb dropped the girls off at my house for them to stay the weekend.

“Mmm,” I mumbled to Kellie’s comment about the girls spending the weekend, my mind consumed with that, my eyes wandering to my computer monitor.

“Why’d you end it with him?”