Wild Like the Wind (Page 49)

Hound, of course, had set me straight about that.

In thinking about it the past few days (and months but the last few days especially), I’d realized that was when I’d started to fall in love with him at the same time realizing (finally) he was already gone for me.

He hadn’t treated me like porcelain.

He’d laid it out like I was the biker bitch, old lady I damned well was. Like I could take it. Like I had to do what he’d told me to do. Get my head out of my ass and restart my life because I’d let my grief get out of hand.

It hadn’t felt good at the time, but in the end, I appreciated it.

I’d also gone out and got myself a short-term man.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t gotten laid since Graham died. It had taken years but I found one-night stands to deal with the basic needs. It was rare and I went far afield to sort that shit for myself.

But I hadn’t found someone that I went back to even twice, much less was with for a few months.

That man didn’t last. He wasn’t Black. He wasn’t even a biker.

But mostly, even though I didn’t realize it at the time, he wasn’t Hound.

In the end, after Hound had laid it out for me and I’d thought on it and realized he spoke true, I gave Dutch my support for his decision to give his life and loyalty to the brotherhood.

It was what he wanted.

It would make his father ecstatic.

And it was what Hound wanted.

Now, I’d do the same for Jag.

“Thanks, Ma,” Jagger replied.

“The Club has shit goin’ on so they’re sittin’ the table tonight and they’re gonna vote on a lot of it, including Jag. We all know that’s gonna swing Jag’s way so he’s gonna be a recruit soon,” Dutch said. “But he doesn’t have a bike and to be a recruit, he’s gonna need one.”

My gaze slid between my boys and I saw Dutch’s face was noncommittal.

I also saw Jag’s jaw get slightly hard.

Uh-oh.

They both wanted Graham’s cut.

“Jag told me about Dad’s cut and his bike and we been talkin’,” Dutch continued.

Yeah.

They both wanted their father’s cut.

“All right,” I said when he didn’t go on.

“We can’t decide.”

Shit.

I didn’t want to be in the middle of this. It was already hard enough to give up what I was giving up, even if I knew in my heart it was already theirs. I couldn’t make the decision of who got what.

“It really has to be you boys that decide,” I told Dutch.

“We can’t,” Dutch said firmly. “So we asked Hound to come over and help us make the decision.”

What?

Shit.

No.

Fuck!

No!

“He’s gonna be here in a few,” Jagger put in.

Shit!

No!

I hid all this from my sons. I had no choice.

And I wondered what Hound was thinking.

He had to know the meet wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t here. If they wanted to talk just to him, they’d meet at the Compound or at Hound’s or at Dutch’s.

A swift wave of hope washed through me that maybe, since some time had passed since Jean died, he’d seen the error of his ways with how he’d touched me, what he’d said to me, and he was using this as his in.

I rode that wave and let it crash me to the shore, because the way he was, what he thought, I found it very doubtful he’d reflect on that and come to the correct conclusions.

But also, what he thought, there was no going back.

In all this madness, it did not give me any warm fuzzies to note how both my boys, particularly Dutch, were watching me so closely.

It could just be they got how tough it was for me to let go of the final two, most important pieces of their father.

It could be something else I didn’t want to contemplate.

They knew me, even Jagger was watchful of me, tuned to me. And they both were tight with Hound. I knew they’d spent time with him that week. Jag had mentioned being mildly pissed that Hound hadn’t shared Jean with him and Dutch, but he wasn’t letting the fullness of that through because it would interfere with the support he was giving Hound now that he’d lost her.

It sucked I was glad Hound had that from my sons.

I was still glad he had that from my sons.

“While we’re waiting,” I said nonchalantly, “do either of you want cookies?”

Jag slid another sideways glance at his brother that continued not to give me warm fuzzies.

Never had I offered either of them cookies when they hadn’t pounced. They actually never even waited for me to offer. They took their bodies seriously. They still ate the shit out of my cookies.

“Yeah,” Dutch murmured, finally moving forward.

“Cool, Ma. Thanks,” Jagger said, like always, if Dutch gave the approval (or not) in a certain situation, Jagger followed his brother’s lead.

They ate cookies.

I took the last tray out of the oven, turned it off, and was in the act of scraping the cookies off and onto a wire cooling rack when the back door opened and Hound strode through.

He didn’t even knock.

That was new.

Actually, the back door was new.

He usually came to the front.

And knocked.

One look at his handsome, blank face told me what he was thinking in accepting the meet with my boys with me in attendance.

He was a badass biker who lived life wild, took it by the throat, and shoved aside anything he didn’t want in it.

I’d been shoved aside.

He was over me.

“We gonna do this shit in the kitchen?” he asked.

Not even a greeting for my boys.

I stared at that handsome, blank face.

It had been studiously blank for years, trying to hide what his actions screamed, how deep he felt for me.

That was different now.

It was just all gone.

Two months of watching him smile, laugh, climax, tease me, get pissed at me, it was all swept away, shoved aside, and he was moving on.

No, he’d moved on.

Standing in my own damned kitchen after he’d slammed me against the wall, caused me physical pain using my own fucking hair. Hair he’d slid his fingers through. Hair he’d wound around his fist. Hair he’d tangled his hand in while I went down on him. While doing that, he’d said the vile things he’d said to me.

And it was him that had moved on.

Fuck him.

“Let’s move this to the living room,” I said, and then I put down the tray, took off the oven glove and started them doing just that.

My house looked like the women who owned that Junk Gypsy business had come in, taken over and gone a little insane.

It was all, every inch wild and bold, bright colors, clashing prints (except the boys’ rooms, which I’d let them decorate, the extent of this being motorcycle, souped-up cars and mostly-nude women posters as well as dirty clothes on the floor).

I even had a round copper tub in the middle of my bathroom that was tarnished green on the outside, had a checkerboard of mismatched-colored square tile floors, a piece of distressed furniture made into a basin, red walls with stuff all over them, including a huge mirror with a wide, stamped-tin frame.

It was totally over the top.

I loved it.

Black would have loved to hate it.

And I loved that too.

Hound, I had no idea. He existed in his surroundings, filling them up with his badass biker vibe, but they didn’t matter to him in the slightest.

The last two months I’d wondered (often) if we’d both fit in my tub.