Wild Like the Wind (Page 57)

“Right. Then boys first and then you can tell Bev,” Hound declared.

I smiled up at him.

He bent his neck to touch his lips to mine.

I went back to my coffee.

And that was when Hound laid it on me.

“Jag had no business putting himself forward to become a recruit for the Club.”

My heart skittered at his words and I turned my head to stare at him.

He took bacon out of the skillet and put it on a paper-lined plate.

And kept going.

Briefly.

“Did it for us.”

“Sorry?” I asked.

He reached into me and I swung back so he could open the cupboard to pull down plates, saying, “He needs to focus on school. The brothers will let him do that because he’s Jag. He’s Black’s. Normally, they’d put him off. Tell him to hang around, get to know the boys and re-approach after he’d got his degree. It wasn’t that he already knew the boys. It was that he was a legacy. I didn’t get it when he called me, said he wanted to start earning his patch, especially since Dutch isn’t close to havin’ his yet. He shoulda waited until that happened too. Knowin’ he knew about us, now I know he wanted as in as he could get so he could take our backs when we came out to the Club.”

I was back to staring at him.

He’d said all this while scooping out eggs, laying out toast and bacon and he offered me my plate, which I took automatically when he went on, “Not sure he gets a recruit don’t have say in dick. The brothers lose their minds, Dutch and Jag try to get in there, that won’t go good for them. Black’s boys or not. But it was a fuckuva solid they engineered for us in order to try to take our backs.”

“It’s because of the cut and the bike,” I said softly.

“Hit the table, baby,” he replied, also softly.

I grabbed my coffee mug and moved to the table.

Hound nabbed his plate and mug and followed me.

After we sat down and were digging in, Hound, with mouth full, agreed with me.

“It was. They saw your car at my place, knew I was fixin’ it up ’cause I had you there. Not dumb, either of them, you’re never around and they know you were with me, they knew we wouldn’t start anything unless it was somethin’ real. Then you say you wanted to let those go, they got the clue. So they moved to make sure we had as much firepower as we could get with the Club. Good boys. Good men. Love their ma. Backin’ me. Means a lot.”

I had egg on a triangle of toast held aloft and my eyes on him.

But my mouth was saying, “Oh my God. I think I’m gonna start bawling.”

He sucked back some coffee, turned his eyes to me and smiled big.

“Serious as shit, Keekee, you become one of those cryin’ and carryin’ on women, I’m gonna have to think of dumpin’ you again.”

That got me over the need to burst into tears.

“We’re not quite at the point where we can joke about that, Shepherd Ironside,” I snapped.

“Did I fuck you awake this morning?” he queried.

“I was kinda, sorta awake by the time you started fucking me,” I retorted.

“But mostly, you were still asleep when you took my cock.”

I decided just to glare.

“So I’d say we’re totally at the point we can joke about that,” he decreed.

I took an angry bite of egg and toast and shot back with a full mouth, “Now’s the time for me to think of dumping you.”

“Babe, how long was I at you on this table before you went for me? About a minute? You missed my dick. No way you’re dumping me.”

“Would you like me to throw eggy toast at you this morning?”

He grinned. “Feel like bawling?”

I did not.

And that made me more irritated.

“You’re an asshole, Shep.”

He just kept grinning and resumed eating.

I stared at him, unable to remain annoyed because Hound was sitting at my kitchen table, eating breakfast after he spent the night with me.

He was also grinning just a week to the day after he’d walked in and found his Jean bug had passed away.

I’d done it, times two.

I’d won my man.

And even at a rough time in his life, I was making him happy.

So I let it go and ate the delicious breakfast he’d made me.

I waited until my lunch hour to phone my oldest boy.

He answered right away.

“Yo, Ma.”

“Hey, Dutch. How’s Jagger?”

“He puked three times cleaning up his own puke and another cleaning up some biker groupie’s puke, and now he’s passed out on the couch on that biker groupie.”

Visions of Jagger in his little boy pajamas gleefully pushing himself along with his feet on his mini-motorcycle on Christmas day danced through my head juxtaposed with him passed out on a biker groupie.

This did not compute and made me want to puke.

I powered past that.

“Too much information, boy,” I muttered.

Dutch started chuckling.

“He gonna rally?” I asked.

“For what?” he asked back.

“I want you boys over tonight for dinner.”

Dutch was silent, contemplating this.

He’d been this way since he was a little boy. Except for a time in his early teens when he’d taken to various acts of douchebaggery, which pissed me off and scared the shit out of me, he thought shit through.

It was hell getting a wish list for Santa out of him. He did three or four drafts before he gave me the final.

As was our way, I waited while he contemplated this.

“We gonna do the handovers?” he asked quietly.

He meant were they going to get their father’s things.

We weren’t doing that.

It was me who was contemplating on that.

I wanted Hound there.

And Graham’s bike hadn’t been touched so it probably would not start right up. So they were going to have to handle that.

But before it was touched and when Black’s cut was handed over, I wanted some kind of ceremony.

I didn’t know what that was.

I just knew both boys would be there and I wanted to be sure they were okay, as was Hound, that Hound would be there too.

“No, and no questions,” I replied. “Do you have plans?”

“Nope.”

“Do you know if your brother has plans?”

“Chaos owns him now, and he can be all about Jagger but he’s not that stupid to make plans after he was taken on, so probably not.”

“Good. Six thirty. I’m making fried pork chops.”

“You should have led with that.”

I smiled. “See your asses there when you get there.”

“Yeah, Ma. Later.”

“Later, Dutch. Love you, kid.”

“Back at you.”

We hung up and I called Hound.

“Yo, baby,” he answered.

“The boys are gonna be over tonight for pork chops. Six thirty,” I told him.

“I’ll be over earlier, help you cook.”

“Cool, honey, thanks.”

After saying this, suddenly, I got freaked.

And freakily, over the phone, Hound read it.

“Babe, they’re good. They’re cool. It’s gonna be fine.”

“I kinda know that, but having them say they want us together and having them see us together are two different things,” I replied.

“Are you gonna spend the next six hours winding yourself up about this to end up fuckin’ it up?” he asked.