Wild Like the Wind (Page 72)

“It wasn’t the shirt I had a problem with,” Tad muttered.

Hound and Dutch chuckled.

Jag guffawed.

A knock came at the door.

All my happy, gooey goodness of food and family and friends and love in the air flew right out the window when my panicked eyes hit Hound.

All the people I knew who would show at my door were at this table.

Except people that belonged to Chaos.

Hound was scowling toward the door.

“Shit, fuck, shit,” Jagger mumbled.

“I’ll get it,” Dutch said, pushing back his chair.

“No, honey, no,” Bev put in, moving faster than my boy. “I’ll get it.”

Her gaze darted to me and then she scurried to the door.

“Do I need to follow her?” Tad asked, his silky voice alert to the vibe.

“Should you hide in the kitchen, Hound?” Jagger asked.

“I’m not hidin’ in the fuckin’ kitchen,” Hound growled.

“Right, I get something is going on,” Tad also growled. “So do I need to follow my woman?”

“She’ll be good, Tad,” I said softly.

Tad had no chance to relax.

None of us did.

“No! You don’t get to do that!” Beverly shouted angrily.

Tad was out of his chair like a shot.

So were Hound, Dutch and Jag.

I came a lot more slowly so I was still climbing down when my eyes fell on the six people that stormed into my dining room and I felt the entire room freeze, including me.

I had not seen a single one of them in years.

And I wished I was not seeing them then.

“What the fuck?” Jagger muttered, having come to a stop behind me.

“They pushed in, Keely, I couldn’t—” Bev was saying, rounding them as she came into the room.

“That,” Graham’s father spat, pointing at Jagger. “That right there. That language. That’s why we’re here.”

“Simon,” Graham’s mother whispered, reaching out a hand to his forearm to pull it down.

I stood immobile, not believing on one of the handful of good nights that I’d had in eighteen years, good nights that would be remembered as one of life’s best, that these people were in my living room.

Graham’s parents and sister.

My parents and sister.

“So, Keely, your mother talked to Dutch last week and he shared that Jagger, too, has joined this gang,” my father stated accusingly.

I should never have allowed them into my sons’ lives.

After what they’d done to Graham and me, I should have never done that.

“Get out,” I said.

It was strangled, barely above a whisper, which was not the only reason why not a one of them listened to me.

“So now we’re here to do an intervention because we cannot believe that you married a man who was messed up in something like that, learned your lesson the hardest way that could be learned, and now you’re allowing your sons, my grandsons, to make that same mistake,” my father went on.

“Dutch, Jag, you don’t want this to get ugly, you get these people outta this house,” Hound warned.

Tad waded in, moving toward them. “I think that—”

“You get another step closer, we’re calling the police!” Graham’s mother shouted, panic in her voice, clearly mistaking Tad’s AC/DC tee, taking it as indication he was a spawn of Satan member of a motorcycle gang.

“You can’t call the police when you are the ones not welcome in a home,” Beverly snapped.

“Our grandsons are here,” my mother snapped back, swinging an arm toward my boys.

And, I noted, but was not surprised that she did not make mention of the fact that her daughter was also right there.

“God, Keely,” my sister Tierney said disgustedly. “When are you gonna get yourself together? This is insane. You’re so disturbingly messed up. Both your boys in that gang? I swear, Mom nearly had a heart attack when she learned. She wasn’t even over Dutch getting into that insanity. Now you allow Jagger to get involved too?”

“Like we said, this is an intervention,” Sarah, Graham’s sister put in. “We’ve left it too long. We should have gotten involved long ago, before we lost Graham to that mess. But now, we can’t allow this to carry on.”

“Keely—” Hound growled, and he said more.

I just didn’t hear him.

“You can’t allow?” I asked quietly over him speaking.

“Can’t allow, won’t allow, take your pick. But I’m not losing my grandchildren like I lost my son,” Simon declared.

“You lost your son before his throat was slit, Simon,” I spat.

Graham’s mom, Blair’s face drained of color as her hand inched up to her throat and she stared at me like I’d connected a punch to her face.

I should feel that. As a mother, I should feel that.

But since that woman missed her son’s wedding, was not there when either of her grandchildren were born, and didn’t show at Black’s funeral, for Blair, I felt nothing.

“You didn’t accept who he was before he found Chaos,” I kept at Simon, ignoring Blair. “You definitely didn’t accept him after he found Chaos, you disinheriting him clear indication of that. You didn’t accept him or me when we found each other. You continued not to accept either of us or our boys when we had them. And you didn’t step in when my babies and I lost him. So your legacy of loss is not on Graham, Simon. It’s on,” I leaned his way, “you.”

“All right, you guys,” Dutch said, and I heard him moving around the table. “Jag and me’ll walk you out to your cars and we’ll make a time to talk about this later.”

“I’m not talkin’ about dick later,” Jag bit out.

“Jagger, sweetie—” my mom started.

Sweetie?

Sweetie?

For some reason it was that that made me see red.

Because when had she earned the right to call my son sweetie?

Was it when she made him cookies?

No, because she’d never made him cookies.

Was it when he was being adorable after getting a birthday or Christmas present he especially wanted?

No, because she’d not been with him for a single birthday or Christmas.

Was it when she blew on scrapes on his elbows and knees the many times he’d gotten them?

No, because she was never around when he got into scrapes.

Not even when he suffered the worst scrape of all, when his father was scraped out of his life.

“Shut your mouth,” I clipped, and she reared back like I came at her physically. “And get out of my house.”

“You want us out, but these guys,” Sarah sneered, indicating Hound and Tad, “are welcome. Right? Are they ones that got my brother’s,” she leaned toward me, her face twisted, “throat slit, Keely? They can sit at your table but we can’t be in your home?”

“Jag, Dutch, deal with this,” Hound ordered, and I could tell he was barely reining it in. “Now.”

“Come on, guys,” Dutch tried gently. “Let’s get you outside.”

I ignored all this.

“Yes,” I said to Sarah. “Absolutely. Although Tad is Beverly’s fiancé and sells insurance, Hound is Chaos and yes. He’s welcome at my table. Because he earned his place there by being here,” I pointed to the floor, “for me and my boys. You, on the other hand, didn’t even meet them until Dutch had hit double digits.”