Wild Like the Wind (Page 73)

I knew I hit true with the look in her eyes but still Sarah curled her lip and opened her mouth to speak, but I got there before her.

“If you speak one more word to me, Sarah, I swear to fuck I’ll scratch your goddamned eyes out.”

Sarah gave me a brave look but I could tell she thought I’d do it with the way she braced like she was about to run.

“I cannot believe I’m hearing my own daughter speak this way,” my mother whispered in horror.

“You can’t?” I asked her. “So, when did you earn my respect, Mom? When did any of you earn my respect?”

I indicated them with an out-flung arm but ended it jabbing a pointed finger her way and kept speaking.

“But we’ll start, specifically, with you. Was it when you came to me on my wedding day to tell me my father was thinking of never speaking to me again and you’d be forced to do the same if that was his decision if I married the man I loved, who I then gave babies? Or was it when you both carried out that decision? Or wait. Was it when you came to me in my sorrow and grief after we all lost him and held me and told me this was terrible, it was awful, you wished I wasn’t experiencing the crippling depths of pain I was experiencing but you were there for me? Or was it when you were actually there for me, my sons, helping me to find reasons to get out of bed every day and make sure they were bathed and fed and got the Halloween costumes sorted that they wanted? No? Those last things weren’t you?” I asked sarcastically. “You’re right. They weren’t. You were nowhere near me and my boys.”

Before my mother could reply, I turned eyes to Simon and Blair.

“And you,” I hissed. “He was your boy. And you didn’t even show at his wedding. You also didn’t show at his goddamned funeral. And you think you have any right to be standing in the home he provided for me and our sons?”

“I do,” Simon returned arrogantly. “Because your sons have my blood in them.”

“Their blood runs Chaos,” I snapped. “If I did one thing right by my boys, if I did one thing right by my husband, I made it so they were raised with all the love and loyalty and goodness and light that their father gave them, that their father wanted to keep hold on, and by God, I did just that. What they did not get is they are not pompous, critical, holier-than-thou assholes like you.”

“We’re not getting any younger, Keely. Those boys are in line for trust funds and if you allow this to carry on with this gang,” Simon fired back, “we’ll be forced to do what we did with Graham and make different arrangements.”

“Do it.”

I went solid at Dutch’s voice.

Obviously, when the time came that my family and Black’s had wanted to re-enter my sons’ lives, I’d put them off until my boys were old enough to make the decision (at ten and eight, precisely), and I left it up to them.

As for me, they made no effort to make amends with me, but it wouldn’t matter. These people had killed anything that was left that they had from me when they’d let all of us deal with our loss on our own. And I had never been a shrinking violet (one of my problems, according to my mother), so I made that known.

But I felt it was my sons’ decision, so I let them make it.

Both of them had wanted that piece of me and that piece of their father.

They still held distant. It wasn’t like they didn’t get it, how all of these people had let us swing.

But they’d let them in.

Dutch more than Jagger because he had that kind of heart. He had that part of his father. He tried to learn everyone’s perspective, and even if he didn’t understand it, he did his best to accept it.

Jag was like me.

He could hold a mean grudge.

But he’d followed his brother. I just got the sense he never fully committed to it.

As ever with my boys, I was not wrong about Jag.

And as ever with these people, right that moment with Dutch, they were letting sheer beauty slip right through their fingers.

“Do you think we want your money?” Dutch asked.

“Son—” my father started.

“I’m not your son,” Dutch returned harshly, coming to stand at my side but partially in front of me. “I’m a man called Black’s son, and I’m a man called Hound’s son. I’m a son of Chaos. And it’s obvious that you people didn’t learn anything the first time around. So we’ll just cut our losses here so everyone can get on with their lives, but mostly so you don’t drag Ma through your crap again.”

“You don’t understand, honey,” Tierney tried. “Your father was—”

“My father loved my mother and he loved me and he loved my brother and he loved his Club and he woulda loved all of you,” Dutch jabbed a finger angrily toward them, “if you’d have let him.”

“We’re your family, we were his family, and—” Blair started.

“Has it occurred to you, Grandma, maybe why Dad went lookin’ for another family?”

Excellent point.

She appeared struck and not in a good way.

Hmm, at least it seemed Blair got his point.

Dutch wasn’t done.

“Do you think that hasn’t occurred to me? To Jag? Do you think after all this time we don’t know who our family is? Do you think, even at fuckin’ five,” he bit out that last, cursing in front of his grandparents, which shocked even me, “I didn’t know you left her swingin’ in the breeze when her life crashed down around her? With that and all the nothing that you gave her that came after, did you honestly think you could walk in here and we’d let you get up in her face? If you did, I have one question for you. What in the hell is the matter with you?”

“Dutch, do not talk to your grandmother that way,” Simon ground out.

“And Simon, get the fuck outta my house,” Dutch returned.

They all, every one of them, reared back.

Personally, I wanted to start clapping.

Jag came up on my other side, partially in front of me.

“You heard him,” Jag bit. “And just for the record, I don’t give a fuck about your money either. And I was over your bullshit judgment ages ago. It was just that Dutch thought I should give you a shot. You had it. You took it. You blew it. Now you can get the fuck out, but before that . . .” he turned his attention to Tierney, “my mother is not messed up. She married a man she loved because she knew her own heart and she had the strength of will to face losing everything she’d known all her life to follow it. And then she lost him. She still gave us her, a nice home, got her goddamn masters, and when Dad’s Club made it so she wouldn’t have to work even a day in her life, she still showed us the importance of making your own way. So newsflash, Tierney, your definition of messed up is messed up. You wanna see it straight, look at your sister. You wanna see a mess, look in the goddamned mirror.”

Tierney’s eyes got huge and hurt.

I pressed my lips together so I wouldn’t smile.

“We—” my father began.

“I have absolutely no clue what’s going on,” Tad broke in at this juncture with his smooth, beautiful voice. “But from what I’ve heard, it boggles the mind you folks can stand in this lovely home your daughter created and look at this strong family she made against what sounds like pretty extreme adversity, some of that being you, and not feel anything but pride. However, since you can’t, I will give you this one warning that you need to take this immediate opportunity to leave or I will personally be seeing each of you to the door. And if I have to put my hands on you, I don’t care which gender you are, I’ll do it.”