Tack unclenched his jaw to share, “Your point is made, brother.”
“Good.”
“You don’t have a family, a daughter. When you do, you’ll get it,” Tack went on.
“I hope to fuck I will,” Shy told him and watched Tack’s head jerk with surprise, and he didn’t quite hide his look of fatherly pain. The thought of his girl as a woman was clearly something he had not quite processed, even if she had once been engaged.
So Shy lowered his voice and reminded him, “She’s not your little girl anymore, not like that. She may always be your little girl in some ways, brother, but not like that. You gave me the chance, I would have told you, this is solid. We started out and it was friends. That wasn’t what I wanted, it was what she needed, so I gave it to her. We built on that. The foundation is laid and it’s the kind that holds fast. This is it, brother. We’re livin’ together. Soon’s we can do it, we’re movin’ to a better fuckin’ place so I can provide her a decent home. I’m puttin’ my ring on her finger, I’m givin’ her babies, and when she’s laid to rest, that ring I give her will still be on her finger. I see you’re accepting this now, so you need it all and there it is. I was a part of an us and I was happy. Some motherfucker killed my parents and took that from me, so life forced me to become nothin’ but a me. Now I’m an us again, and that’s what I’ll be with my woman and the family we make until the day I fucking die.”
“Christ, Shy,” Tack whispered.
“I think now you totally fuckin’ feel me.”
Tack’s head tipped to the side. “The Club doesn’t factor into that?”
“You know you’re my family, Tack, but don’t bullshit me. You know exactly what I’m talkin’ about and you also know, you find her, you’ll give up anything to keep her. You walked through bullets to do just that and when you walked through that hail of gunfire, brother, you were not thinkin’ of Tab or Rush or the Chaos MC. The only thing on your mind was Cherry. So I also know you understand what the Club means and, when it comes to Tabby, you get me.”
Tack held Shy’s eyes.
Then he said quietly, “I wanted that for her. That other guy was a good man but I couldn’t know, way he was raised, if he would give that to her, and I wanted just that for her.”
“Then lucky you, that’s what she eventually found,” Shy replied instantly.
Tack again held Shy’s eyes. Then he jerked up his chin and stated, “Guess we’ll see if Tabby feels me, then you and me can mend fences, brother.”
“Yep,” Shy replied, and Tack’s lips twitched again.
He turned to the door, opened it, then turned back to Shy and shared, “Givin’ you honesty, thought that business with Tab over the Club was bluff. The way you bore down on her mom, I knew.”
“Rush or you speak to that bitch again, I’d advise reiterating my message, because I was not fuckin’ joking.”
Another lip twitch, then, “I think she got that, brother. Not sure anyone missed that.”
“That’s good, ’cause Tab isn’t real hip on her mom, but I don’t think she’d like what I have planned.”
“Probably not,” Tack muttered then his eyes locked on Shy’s. “Gotta say it, my duty, gettin’ you know it without me speakin’ the words but, you have a girl, you’ll understand.”
“Say it,” Shy invited.
Tack’s eyes stayed locked on Shy’s two beats then he said quietly, “Make her happy.”
Shy held his gaze as, for the first time in fucking months, he began to breathe easy.
There it was. Tack just gave it.
His blessing.
Shy took it by jerking up his chin.
It was then, Tack straight out smiled a half a second before he disappeared behind the door.
Shy sucked in a breath.
He let it out, muttering, “Jesus.”
Then he pulled out his phone to call his brother.
* * *
“I’m good, Lan, thanks. It’s cool you’re willing to come up, but I’ll be okay,” Shy listened to Tab, who was curled in the couch beside him, her head in his gut and talking on the phone to his brother. “Though, you wanna come up, Shy would love to see you and I promise, I won’t cook. Restaurants and takeout the whole time.”
Shy grinned.
There it was.
She was good.
“Right,” she whispered. “Thanks, Lan. You wanna talk to Shy again?” Pause then, “Okay, I’ll tell him. Later.” She touched the screen, lifted her head, and looked at him. “Lan says he’ll call you later.”
“Cool,” Shy muttered.
She tossed the phone to the coffee table, settled with her head on his gut again, and aimed her eyes to the TV.
His girl took her fall this morning but, as was their way, Chaos as a whole cushioned the landing.
Not surprisingly, there would be no vote. Shy took call after call from brothers who wanted to mend fences. He didn’t make them work too hard. If it was just him, he’d be thinking on things. Even respect and loyalty to Tack and thus, in a twisted way, Tabby didn’t take away the fact not one single one of them took his back. Right now, he needed smooth for his girl. Time would pass and they’d again earn his trust.
Or not.
Tab had sorted things out with her dad, and when she called Shy to tell him she’d talked with Tack, it sounded like it lasted about five seconds before it was all good. He was not surprised about this. She loved her old man, and he’d led the conversation with sharing he’d wasted no time and flown the white flag with Shy. Shy had told Tack he was good if Tab was good. She was good because Shy was going to be.
She’d talked to her grandfather and explained that she couldn’t get off work. He, too, had been cool, asked her schedule, and told her he’d plan the funeral when she had two days off. Shy and Tab were going to fly down for the funeral and fly back up the next day.
She’d met Cherry for a drink after work and that was also good. Again, not a surprise. He knew Cherry didn’t have it in her to be a bitch, hold a grudge, or fuck with a good thing. And she and Tabby had a good thing.
The only person she had not patched things up with was with her brother Rush. He’d called repeatedly and she hadn’t taken his calls. This was a surprise.
“I’ll see him at the funeral and deal then,” she’d muttered.
It was time, Shy decided, to push her to deal with the situation with Rush.
“Babe, you gotta call your brother.”
She lifted her head from his gut, twisted her neck and looked up at him. “Shy—”
He cupped her cheek with his hand. “You lost family, both of you. Do not let this fester.”
She held his eyes a beat, two, then she whispered her admission, “He said things about you.”
“I don’t give a fuck. He repeats ’em and doesn’t get over shit like everyone else is doin’, you got a case to be pissed and hold a grudge. Now, you both lost your grandma. He doesn’t have a woman. He only has a sister. Honest to God, is my girl gonna take that away from him now?”
She licked her lip.
He hauled her up his chest to touch his mouth to hers.
When she lifted her head away, she was grinning a sexy little cat-got-her-cream grin.
“You pull that shit now deliberately, don’t you?” he muttered.
“Actually, no, but it’s a good idea,” she replied, still grinning.
He ignored her sexy grin and looked in her eyes. “Rush,” was all he said.
She held his gaze. Then she murmured, “Oh, all right.”
“Call him now,” he ordered.
She rolled her eyes and muttered, “Righty ho, boss.”
He grinned, then he rolled her to her back in his lap and took her mouth, leaving her clutching his shoulders and panting when he lifted his head.
His eyes went to the mark he put on her neck that morning then to her eyes.
“You get off the phone, you thought the day started good, I’ll give you an ending you won’t fuc
kin’ believe.”
“I foresee my forgiveness phone call to Rush lasting all of thirty seconds.”
Shy burst out laughing. When he quit, he saw she was smiling up at him.
And it hit him.
All of it.
Waking up to her. Going to bed with her. Making love to her. Eating with her. Laughing with her. Kissing her. Going shopping with her, and when she was in a store and wandered away, he saw her looking over the racks, looking for him, and when he came to her at her back, she’d turned to him, looking lost, and leaned into him the second he got there, suddenly found.
Jesus, he had it.
All of it.
“I never dreamed any fuckin’ dream,” he whispered, and the smile faded from her face as tears filled her eyes.
She understood him.
“Shy—”
“Didn’t dream it, saw it, waited my time, and then you gave it to me.”
“Shy,” her voice broke on his name.
He looked into her blue eyes swimming with tears, feeling her fingers digging into his shoulders, her weight in his lap, the smell of her hair, the taste of her still on his tongue.
Yes, he fucking had it.
When he was twelve he lost it.
Now he had it again.
All of it.
Everything.
“Call your brother,” he muttered. She pulled in a breath through her nose then nodded.
She then lifted up and touched her mouth to his, one of her hands sliding into his hair so when she pulled back, she held him at the side of his head.
“Love you, darlin’,” she whispered.
“Love you too, honey.”
She grinned a wobbly grin and broke from his arms as she rolled off his lap.
He listened to her patch things up with her brother.
When she was done, he turned off the TV, took her hand, guided her to the bedroom, and gave her what he promised. An end to the day that was exactly what he intended it to be.
Unbelievable.
Chapter Fifteen
Lucky
One month later…
I stood out in the cold, a beer in my hand, next to a steel drum filled with fire giving off a wave of heat. I felt an arm slide along my shoulders and I tipped my head just in time to hear Landon, who’d claimed me, say, “Jesus, Tab, what’s goin’ on with that? It’s like a hippie hookin’ up at a Tea Party rally.”
My eyes went to where his were aimed and I saw Lanie and Hop, not quite hidden by the steps that led up to the office that they were behind but mostly hidden by the dark of the November night. She looked glamorous, as usual, her glossy, thick dark hair gleamed even in the distant fire and floodlights. I’d gabbed with her earlier and saw she was casual for Lanie, wearing jeans, but her killer, expensive boots, elegant sweater, and the pashmina she had wrapped around her neck screamed class.
Hop, on the other hand, was in beat-up, faded jeans (that still looked good on him), a black thermal, and his battered cut, a black leather jacket with the Chaos insignia on the back. His dark hair was overlong and falling in his face, and his kick-ass, biker mustache that ran thick across his lip and down the sides of his mouth needed a trim. Something, knowing Hop for ages, I knew he’d get around to when he felt like it, he had a classy dame in his bed or not. This could be the next day. This could be next month.
I watched as they talked, then Hop suddenly grabbed Lanie and I held my breath when he kissed her, hot and heavy.
I had to give it to her, she struggled.
For about five seconds.
Then her arms wrapped around his shoulders, he arched her further into the shadows, twisting his torso so I could see nothing but the indistinct Chaos emblem on his cut, and I knew they were going at it.
My eyes darted around the forecourt of Ride, where we were currently engaged in the eating and drinking portion of a Chaos hog roast. The raising-hell portion would come in about half an hour after the pig was decimated and there were more bottles passed around than plastic cups being filled from kegs.
I spied Dad, his eyes pinned to the stairs and thus Lanie and Hop, and his eyes were narrowed.
Uh-oh.
My gaze moved, and I located Tyra talking with Dog’s woman, Sheila, and she had her back to the couple.
Shoo.
“Don’t know, sweetheart, but thinkin’ that right there flies in the face of all that’s holy,” Lan muttered, and I burst out laughing.
Through my laughter, I saw him grinning down at me.
I kept laughing even as I felt something warm hit my belly, my eyes wandered from his, and I saw Shy fifteen feet away, standing with Boz, Roscoe, and Bat, looking at me, his lips curved up, his face, clear in the floodlights, happy.
His brother and his girl were getting on and just with something as simple as that, all was right in Shy Cage’s world.
Knowing that, one could say all was right in mine too.
Suffice it to say, Landon had been true to his word. The time it took for me to prove to him that he trusted me with his brother didn’t last long. It happened close after all hell broke loose with Chaos.
As for me, I knew I’d fall in love with my man’s brother when Shy, Rush, and I hit Denver International Airport to fly down for my grandmother’s funeral, and Lan was at the gate. Shy hadn’t said a word, probably because he knew I’d try to talk him out of Landon taking time out of his life and money to buy a plane ticket in order to be with me during what the Cage brothers thought was my hour of need.
Seeing Lan there, I was shocked.
Lan simply gave me a hug and muttered in my ear, “Family looks after family.”
That was sweet and all, but flying to Arizona to attend the funeral of a woman he didn’t know and, obviously, seeing as she was deceased, he’d never meet?
I would understand during the funeral why he was there when I discovered what the Brothers Cage had arranged.
This was, while Rush and I hung tight and Shy gave me his support, Lan wasted no time in his approach to Mom. I didn’t know what he said. I just knew by the look on her face when he was saying it, she heard him. He lurked close to her the entire time I was in her space, at the funeral home, the gravesite, and at Gramps’s after.
His message was clear: Don’t get any ideas about being a bitch to Tabby (and she would, it was Mom’s way, even at her mother’s funeral). You do, I’ll pounce. Seeing as he wasn’t exactly small but he was obviously a badass, Mom, who could miss the most blatant of hints, didn’t miss Lan’s message.
Therefore, I endured Gram’s funeral without having to endure my mom being a bitch. She didn’t even chance throwing a bitchy look at me. She stayed well away.
That did it for me with Lan, but I didn’t know what did it for Lan with me. I just knew I’d been let in. When he called Shy, or Shy was talking to him and I was around, he asked him to pass the phone over and we gabbed. Not forever and not deep but friendly, warm, and sweet. And now that he was up for the weekend, he joked and teased, all genuine, all real, nothing watchful, nothing fake.
I knew Shy loved it.
So did I.
The good part of that awful visit to Arizona was that Shy and Lan got a chance to see their grams. We met her for dinner. I loved her on the spot. This was because she was beside herself with joy at the surprise chance to spend time with her boys and she didn’t hide it. This was also because she flirted audaciously with Rush. It was funny. She was funny, and something else she didn’t hide was that she clocked Shy loved me and folded me into the family immediately.
My grandmother dying sucked but, it had to be said, gaining Shy’s grandmother was awesome.
“Good to hear you laughin’, Tab. You been quiet,” Landon observed. I gave Shy a smile and then looked up at his brother.
“I’m good.”
His head tipped to the side and his eyes held mine. “Sure?”
I shrugged but his arm didn’t leave me. “Just shit at work,” I admitted.
??
?Dr. Dickhead,” he stated knowingly.
As an FYI, bikers were not taciturn. I’d known this my whole life. They were in the life to be who they were and do what they wanted and that included, for those of that bent, saying whatever the heck they wanted to say whenever the heck they wanted to say it to whoever they wanted to say it to. Although some could be quiet, introspective, or mysterious, most of them let it all hang out.
And I knew from him telling me and listening to them talk that Shy let it all hang out with Lan.
Therefore, it wasn’t a surprise Lan knew about Dr. Dickhead, because Dr. Dickhead had not calmed down. Gossip, proved accurate by his mood, stated his supply-room piece had called Dr. Dickhead’s wife and broke the news that her husband was a cheater. This did not go over very well and included him sleeping on the couch in his office for a week while he found a new apartment.
For me, it meant I was again, for some unfathomable reason, his target, and he’d ratcheted up the nastiness pretty significantly.
At first, I shared the misadventures of Tabby and Dr. Dickhead with Shy. Now, I did not. He was pissed, and the more I talked, the more pissed he got. Considering that my landlord simply pressed to have a twelve-month lease and Shy got up in his face, I wasn’t fired up to drive him to intervene with Dr. Dickhead, something he already promised he’d do.
So I quit talking about it.
Suffice it to say, the all good parts of Shy and I building a friendship on which we fell in love and began to build a relationship had ended. This was not to say things still weren’t amazing. It was just to say that life was life and not everything was perfect all the time.
For instance, Shy threw his clothes all over the floor, and this drove me nuts. I decided to put up with it but then, after I gathered them and put them in the hamper, Shy disappeared anytime I was going to the Laundromat.