Wild Like the Wind (Page 4)

If one of the brother’s kids walked into the Compound, faster than snot Black would have them up on his shoulders, horsing around.

They all had their place in the Club, and Black’s place had been the glue that held them together in shaky times or in times when those shakes were like earthquakes.

But it was also because he was their light. The beacon of the brother they all wanted the Club to be. He was about Chaos. He was about Keely. He was about his boys. And nothing on this earth mattered beyond that. Not money. Not respect. Not a thing.

He was not Graham.

It was a solid name and Hound had heard Keely calling him that, but usually in a teasing way. The rest of the time, if she wasn’t using a sweet nothing, it was always Black.

She’d dropped the Black since he died, and Hound knew it was another way she wanted to drop the brotherhood.

“So now, essentially,” she kept going, “they pretty much feel like I made my bed, I made my boys’ beds, and we need to lie in them.”

Fucking assholes, Hound thought.

“Whatcha need?” Brick asked softly, and her pissed-off eyes went to him.

“I need my parents to give a shit that my husband got his throat slit,” she spat.

Hound, nor any brother, could beat back the flinch at that.

She stomped out.

The men around the table all looked at each other.

“They were always motherfuckers,” Dog muttered under his breath. “Remember their wedding. They had sticks rammed so far up their asses it’s a wonder they didn’t come out their mouths.”

Hound remembered that too.

“She’s better off without them,” Arlo put in. “She’s got Chaos, she doesn’t need their shit.”

He knew that was true. Every man at that table knew that was true.

The problem was, Keely didn’t know that was true.

He waited until after he won all his brothers’ money, they got pissed and it got late so they were all taking off.

He hung back.

She was at the door.

So was he.

He waited again, this time until she impatiently caught his gaze.

She wanted him gone.

“Whether you want us or not, you got a family who wants you. You can’t do anything to make that change. Nothing, Keely. We’re yours. Forever.”

With that, he didn’t let her say a word.

Hound gave her what she wanted.

He walked away.

Several months later . . .

Hound stood at the end of the walk with his arms crossed on his chest, his leather cut on his shoulders beating back the October chill, and watched as Keely headed back down the walk with Dutch and Jagger.

Dutch had demanded that his Halloween costume be mini-biker, and as much as Keely pushed back, he’d have none of it.

And where Dutch went, Jagger followed.

So they were both in jeans, little-man biker boots, white T-shirts, little leather vests that Bev made for them, with bandanas tied around their foreheads.

Dutch’s was red. It was Black’s bandana, he wore it all the time. Now Dutch had it all the time.

Hilariously, Jagger’s was purple. It was Keely’s. She used to wear it all the time too, tied around her neck, wrapped around the top of her skull and tied at the back with her hair flowing out under it. Even wound around her wrist.

Dutch told Jag that real bikers didn’t wear purple, but Jag dug in and purple it was.

Keely made it to Hound and stopped.

“You’re scaring all the neighbors,” she accused.

“Good,” he replied.

Dutch laughed.

Jagger pulled his hand from his mom’s and caught Hound’s.

Then he tugged on it, grunting and demanding, “Let’s go! Candy!”

Hound allowed himself to be tugged.

Keely walked next to Dutch.

Hound stood at the end of the walk as they all went up to the next house (Jagger racing to the door, Dutch playing it cool).

He did the same at the next house.

And the next.

And the next.

One year and two months later . . .

Hound moved back up the walk, into the kitchen and saw Keely where he left her, at the kitchen table, practically buried under Christmas paper, bows and ribbons.

“Trash is out,” he grunted.

She looked to him and nodded.

He looked to the doorway that led to the rest of the house then back to her. “Where’s Bev?”

“She has to get ready for her own Christmas,” she told him.

He nodded.

He got that seeing as it was Christmas Eve.

“What more you got to do?” he asked.

She was distracted with wrap and boxes and similar shit, and her eyes came to him.

“Jag’s mini-Flintstone-use-your-feet motorcycle came unassembled.”

“Right,” he grunted again. “Where is it?”

“The box is in the basement.”

He nodded once, turned on his boot and headed to the door in the basement.

He put the little-kid motorcycle together and hauled it up the steps.

She slapped a bow on it and he put it under the tree.

“You rock, Hound, thanks,” she whispered. “Now go home. And Merry Christmas.”

He nodded again.

“Later.”

Her eyes stayed dead but her gorgeous face got soft. “Later, honey.”

Hound walked out her back door.

Four years later . . .

Hound did not hurry through the halls of the hospital.

But he didn’t take his time.

He hit the nurse’s station and grunted, “Black.”

The nurse behind the station stared up at him with big eyes and such was her bullshit judgment about bikers, she didn’t have it in her to speak. She just lifted a hand and pointed down a short corridor at the end of which was a number of curtained bays.

Hound walked that way.

When he hit the bays, he looked left and right.

They were three in to the left.

He barely moved into the space when Dutch hit him, wrapping his little kid arms around his hips.

He put a hand to the boy’s back.

The doctor or nurse or whoever was working on Jag in the bed looked up at him.

“Can I help you?”

Dutch turned in his hold so Hound’s hand was at his chest.

“He’s with us,” he said.

Hound wasn’t and never would be.

And he absolutely was and always would be.

Hound forced his eyes from a pale Jag with his pinched face and his yellow tee stained with blood to Keely sitting next to him looking even paler and totally freaked.

Her eyes were glued to Hound.

“What happened?” he asked.

“It’s my fault,” Dutch spoke up, and he looked down at the kid.

Then Hound turned his gaze to his brother and saw the gaping wound tearing up the inside of his thin, kid forearm that the nurse or doctor or whoever he was, was stitching.

He returned his attention to Dutch.

“How’d you do that?” he asked quietly.

“We were fightin’,” Jag put in, his voice usually loud and excited, was weak. “I did wrong.”

“It’s okay, baby,” Keely whispered. “Get you stitched up, it’ll all be okay.”

“We were just messing around,” Dutch muttered.

Hound looked down at him again and his tone was still quiet when he asked, “Tell me how messin’ around got your brother that gash, son.”

“We were just messin’ around then I got mad then Jag got mad then Mom told us to cool it, and she sent me out to the yard and Jag up to his room, but Jag was so mad he went to the back door and slammed his fist on the glass and it went through and he got cut,” Dutch answered, looking beaten. He cast his eyes to his feet. “But I shoulda cooled it before it got to that place. So it’s me did wrong and I know it.”