Wild Like the Wind by Kristen Ashley
They both had great bodies that came partially from genetics, partially from them learning from Hound they should put time into honing them. They still were members of Hound’s gym and they both still hung out with the Chaos boys at their workout equipment at the Compound, Dutch now more since he was on Chaos all the time.
So Dutch was bulking up, even in that department larger than his father.
But he was not larger than Hound.
Jag came to me second, doing the same thing and staying close as he sucked in breath through his nose, gave me a jaunty smile and said, “Cookies.”
“Yup,” I replied, smiling back at him.
“We gotta talk,” Dutch put in.
I watched the smile fade from Jagger’s face as he stepped away and glanced sideways at his brother.
This was when I mentally prepared for whatever was coming next.
My thoughts were, they were going to tell me their decision about their father’s cut and bike.
What was strange about this was I’d told them to make a decision, so I didn’t understand why they both were acting so cautiously.
“Jagger called Hound,” Dutch announced.
Oh shit.
I hadn’t prepared enough.
I shored up my defenses so I would do nothing but hold my boys’ eyes and nod.
“He asked Hound to put his name forward officially to recruit,” Dutch went on.
Okay.
This was all right.
I was expecting this, though not for a while.
I thought it was too early. I’d like Jag to wait until his brother was a full member. Until after he’d finished school, which would be at the end of May. And then even later.
He wasn’t even legal to drink.
Of course, his birthday was next month (he still wouldn’t be legal to drink), his brother’s birthday came two days after Jag graduated.
Still.
I looked to Jag. “Might be hard to recruit and go to school, Jagger.”
“Hound knows that and the brothers know it too. Hound told me it might take longer that way to earn my patch. But they’ll give me space to get my degree and I’ll still be on the road to the patch,” Jagger replied.
He’d thought it through. Discussed it with Hound.
I should have realized with how close my boys were with Hound that I couldn’t exactly erase him from my life. He would steer clear. I would steer clear. We’d have the bond of Chaos and have to deal, especially when the boys patched in and I was again sucked deeper into Chaos in the way that would pull me in, which wouldn’t be that bad. It wasn’t like I was an old lady and expected to show at events or sit on the back of a bike during a ride.
So it was then I realized I’d never be fully quit of Hound, and not because of history old and new, and memories old and new.
But because of my boys who he’d never let go and I wouldn’t want him to, but even if for some insane reason I did, they’d never let him go either.
“If you have it worked out, it’s your decision, your life, but like your brother, you have my support,” I told Jag.
This brought to mind that, years ago, when Dutch first started talking to me about it seriously, I hadn’t wanted him to put himself forward to join Chaos.
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 waite
“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.
Now, I’d never know.
My living room we walked into had a red-orange velvet sofa and matching armchair, both nearly taken over with huge teal velour pillows mixed with ones covered in burnt-orange patterns with thick, little tufts of fringe around the sides. The wood floor was topped with a huge rug patterned in reds, golds, bricks, teals and browns that might cause a headache if all the other prints weren’t clashing with it, adjusting the eye to sheer design insanity. Gold-based lamps with shades that had a complicated print in hues of brick red sat on the two end tables.
This fed into the dining room that had a long, tall dining room table with bright red stools around it, ten of them, like I had huge dinner parties where I played happy hostess to all my friends.
Which I did not.
Mostly because, over the years, Bev had become my only true friend.
But maybe I would.
Maybe I’d ask some of those straight-laced, middle-of-the-road, hadn’t-tossed-back-a-shot-of-tequila-since-high school people I worked with over for a biker bitch meal that’d knock their socks off.
I’d tell them to Uber their asses to my house.
Then I’d get them drunk out of their brains and show them how to live.
How to burn bright.
How to tear life up.
When I took my position opposite my gold-rimmed glass coffee table and faced off with Hound, I fought tossing my hair, because if he wasn’t going to give me anything, I sure as shit wasn’t going to give him anything.
Hound stood behind my couch, my dining room table behind him.
Both the boys stood to the side, opposite the armchair.
“Right, Hound, told you Jagger and me gotta make an important decision about some seriously important shit and we can’t,” Dutch started it, not earning Hound’s regard.
He hadn’t looked at me since he walked into my kitchen.
He’d been about blanking me out and the boys.
So Dutch already had Hound’s regard.
“What I didn’t say was that Ma’s ready to let go of Dad’s cut and his bike, and me and Jag gotta pick which one is gonna get which,” Dutch carried on.
At that, Hound’s gaze sliced to me.
I didn’t move. Didn’t even lift my chin.
I just took it for a beat before I looked back at my boys.
“We can’t pick which gets which, we both want both, but most of all, we both want Dad’s cut,” Dutch shared. “And Ma won’t say which one of us Dad would have wanted to have what.”
“If your father was here, he’d give you his cut, Dutch,” Hound’s deep voice sounded immediately. “And he’d give Jag his bike.”
I was not surprised Hound came to the same conclusion I did. I was also not surprised that Dutch took this without reaction but Jag took it trying to hide being pissed, which meant disappointed.
“If he knew he’d end when he did, though,” Hound kept going, “he’d have made it clear to your mother that you should get the bike, Dutch, and Jag would get his cut ’cause he’d feel it, he didn’t have more time with his youngest boy. And he’d know you’d become the kind of man who’d get that.”
Okay, now that was just uncanny.
And now I was noticing Dutch was having trouble holding back his reaction and Jag looked relieved.
“It was up to me,” Hound continued, and my gaze shot to him because he’d never said dick about what he felt if it was up to him.
He did, always, what he felt Black would do with the boys.
He’d never given his own opinion.
“Way you manned up early to look after your ma and your brother, you’d get Black’s cut and Jag,” Hound’s attention moved to Jagger, “you’d get his bike. It might suck, son, and it might not seem fair. But you think hard on it, you’ll understand that circumstances gave your brother two more years of your daddy but not at a time when he could get what he needed outta that. At a time when the time would come when he’d need to step up in a way a boy wouldn’t have to if he had his father. And you didn’t have to do that. You got to be you. So in one way, your brother earned that cut. In another, it’s an expression of gratitude for the brother he was to you that you’d give it to him. Sayin’ all that, Black had a shit-hot bike. So you aren’t exactly getting a bad deal.”
God, God.
I hated it that I so totally loved him and he was standing right there in my own goddamned living room demonstrating one of the reasons why when he was such a huge, motherfucking dick.
It occurred to me I was glaring at him so I stopped doing that, fortunately just in time to feel my youngest boy’s eyes come to me.
“Ma?”
I looked to Jagger. “I’m not in this,” I said, and when his expression grew impatient, I carried on, saying, “But Hound speaks sense.”
Disappointment slid to devastation and my stomach clutched before Jag did what the blood in Jag’s v
He turned to Dutch and said, “You take Dad’s cut, man. I’ll take his bike.”
Dutch gave him a beat before he asked, “You sure?”
“No,” Jagger answered immediately. “But Hound’s right. You earned it.”
Something came over my eldest son’s face that settled low in my gut in a beautiful way, and I knew from the vibe Jagger was now giving off that he saw it and felt the same thing when Dutch murmured, “Thanks, Jag.”
“You become a brother and ride my ass as a recruit more than the other brothers, I earn my own patch, I’ll kick your ass,” Jag returned. But I knew from the tone of his voice he felt the extent of his brother’s gratitude, it meant a great deal to him, and he knew this was the way it should be.
Still, he was going to give him shit.
And there it was.
Brothers being brothers.
Dutch just grinned at him.
And again there it was.
Proof, if my oldest wanted to be a player, panties would be dropping all over Denver.
I looked to the ceiling.
“We done here?” Hound asked.
I looked to him and again had to fight back my glare.
“Uh . . .” Jag started.
“Just—” Dutch began.
“We’re done here,” Hound decreed and honed in on Jagger. “Men are meeting in a coupla hours. Be at the Compound. We’ll call you in after we vote.” And with but a glance cut sharply through the boys, though not me, he ended it, saying, “Later.”
Then he strolled across the living room toward my front door.
He’d fence me in with his bike, and probably did, since he had no problem parking it right behind my side of the garage, and I’d never said anything to him about that.
It wasn’t the time to say anything about that, because I had a feeling this would be the last time he’d ever be in my house.
No.
It was the time to say something else.
“Eat cookies,” I ordered my sons. “I’ll be back.”
And with that, I marched out behind Hound.
I knew he had to know I was following him after I opened and closed (okay, slammed) the front door he’d already been through.
He still didn’t even hesitate as he walked through the early March Denver sunshine to his bike, not even turning to look at me.