Chapter 10
Ten
Girls with small boobs catch feelings because they have nothing to protect their hearts.
—Nettie to Boone
Boone
I was tired as hell, but I still agreed to go out to dinner because Denver’s invitation had made Nettie bounce on her toes.
I loved when she bounced on her toes.
I loved even more when she smiled, and it was genuine.
I didn’t get very many of those aimed my way anymore, and I’d do just about anything to preserve the feeling.
She caught my hand and all but skipped out to my truck.
She paused when we got out there and she saw Holly still sitting in her car, staring furiously at the wall in front of her.
Denver and I paused as well, taking in the scene.
“Go,” she ordered. “I’ll meet you there in a minute.”
Seeing as the restaurant we were headed to was only a few doors down from my vet practice, Denver and I ‘went.’ Though we didn’t go too far, just out of sight slightly of the car that Nettie was heading to.
“Is there more to the story there?” I asked Denver.
“Not really. Watched them struggle their asses off for years. Offered to buy it off of them so many times, offering way more than it was worth. When they never took it, I started taking care of the line of fence between our properties to ensure everything was in working order. Then started to feed their cows hay that I cut throughout the years. Pretty sure by the end of Cantrell’s life, I was paying for almost everything.
Think he felt bad that I never saw compensation for that.
Explained in a letter that leaving that place to Geor—Holly—was a death sentence.
Asked me to make it great again. Asked me to make sure that G—Holly didn’t get stuck in a rut of trying to live up to standards that he knew were impossible.
Wanted to make sure that I found her a job. ”
“You’re the reason I hired her,” I admitted. “I probably would’ve never given her a second look. Her attitude is pretty…hard.”
Holly was a good kid.
She was intelligent and worked hard. But she was almost unapproachable. Something that you couldn’t be when you were trying to run a successful practice.
However, she was great with the animals, and honestly, was a really hard worker.
I just wished I could give her an attitude reset.
Nettie gestured to Holly to try to start her car, and Holly did so.
Whatever was wrong with it definitely wasn’t going to be an easy fix like the battery. It coughed, sputtered, made a knocking sound and died.
“She acts like the world is out to get her,” Denver muttered as we watched Nettie pull out a set of keys and offer them to Holly.
Holly shook her head, but Nettie all but shoved them into her hand.
“She’s letting Holly take her car,” Denver mused.
“She won’t need it today.” I shrugged.
“Wonder what’s wrong with her car?” Denver questioned.
That I didn’t know.
But… “Call Courtland. He can get it and take a look at it.”
Denver was already pulling his phone out and dialing.
The phone rang twice on speaker before Courtland answered with a muttered, “Yeah?”
The sound of a torque wrench sounded in the background before Denver asked, “You in town?”
“At the shop,” he answered. “Why?”
Courtland was one of the seven men that’d moved to town after Apollo had broken them out of prison.
Like the others, he’d integrated himself into society fully.
During the winter months, he was running his trucks on the ice roads in Alaska and Canada. He made beaucoup of money doing it, and was gone from January to sometimes the end of March.
When he came home, he ran the mechanics shop he bought from an old mechanic when he moved to town.
Seeing as he’d gotten home to catch up on some of his backlog of work not too long ago, Court might not have time to look at Holly’s car.
“The new vet that works with Boone is having car trouble,” Denver said, watching as Nettie pushed Holly to her car and yanked Holly’s keys out of her hand. “You got time to take a look at it? Sounds like more than the battery.”
“You can get it down here. I can work on it.” He paused. “Tow truck’s currently in my bay right now with a fucked-up tire.”
“What happened to it?”
There was a long pause and then, “Saw Charleigh at the store when I pulled up. She was parked in a tow-away zone and I threatened to tow her car. Came out and the tire was slashed.”
There was a long moment of silence, and then we both started to laugh.
“Fuck off,” Court said, then hung up.
We laughed some more.
“What’s so funny?”
I’d seen her start heading our way, of course.
I was so attuned to the woman that there was no way that she would ever slip my awareness.
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and explained.
“You know Charleigh Kensington?” I wondered.
“Seen her around. She went to school somewhere else, though, so not as well as most.”
“Charleigh had Court as a bodyguard a year or so ago. They get along like oil and water. Charleigh parked in the tow-away zone, and Court offered to tow her car away for her, and she took offense.”
Nettie smiled when I finished the story.
“Court, being Courtland Navarro? The one that bought Pop’s Garage?”
“That’s the one,” Denver confirmed as he watched Holly drive out of the parking lot. “Come sit in the car, you can steer.”
We got it to Court’s a couple of minutes later—one of the benefits of living in a small town. Everything was close to everything. Blink and you missed it.
Court took the keys and studied Nettie. “Watched your last game.”
Nettie’s smile was small. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “You could use some work on your place kicks.”
Nettie’s mouth dropped open.
“Did I forget to tell you that Court was once a professional soccer player?”
Nettie’s eyes narrowed as she studied Court.
Then her eyes widened.
She didn’t say anything, but I knew what she was thinking.
Emory Fox, star forward of the Netherlands.
Moved to the US, got his citizenship, played for Texas City FC for all of six months before tragedy struck.
He’d killed his wife and unborn child in a drunk-driving accident.
Though, that accident wasn’t his fault.
A man driving a big rig had pulled out in front of him, and Courtland had nowhere to go but straight at it. It’d decapitated his wife, and would’ve killed Court, too, had his seat not malfunctioned and broken, forcing him flat on his back.
After the accident, they’d taken Court’s blood alcohol and found him over the legal limit.
Though Courtland had vehemently denied being drunk, or having a single ounce of alcohol, no one believed him.
Not until a year later when it was found out that he had what doctors called Auto Brewery Syndrome. A condition that ferments ingested sugars into significant amounts of alcohol, leading to intoxication without drinking.
Even after discovering the syndrome, the courts refused to hear arguments about appeals, which eventually led to Apollo breaking him out.
Needless to say, Court hated the world.
And Charleigh…well, she was going to be the one to eventually break him out of his downward spiral.
He tossed the keys into the air, caught them, then helped us push it into the bay, and waved us off without saying a word.
Denver and I were laughing, while Nettie was confused.
“What the hell was that?” she asked when we were far enough away.
“That was Courtland,” Denver said simply. “And he was in a good mood.”
The rest of the evening went really well, despite my exhaustion.
Several of the Dixie Wardens MC Montana Chapter were in attendance for the dinner, as well as Romeo and Mable.
There was Creed and Birdee, Denver and his girls. My uncle Major and my aunt Sorcha, Hux, and Gentry. Black came by for a bite to eat, but didn’t stay long because he had to get back to the sheriff’s station where he was busy with a case.
Several of the prospects were in and out, grabbing a quick bite to eat as well.
Weaver and Eddy didn’t come, having decided on a quiet night in, but that didn’t seem to bother Nettie at all.
I wasn’t joining in on the conversation too much.
I had better things to do. Like watch Nettie smile.
Watch her laugh. Watch those little lines at the corner of her eyes crease.
Watch the way her head tilted back when someone said something hilarious to her.
Watch the way her hand paused midway to her mouth with a fry when someone said something that caused her to think.
To say I was obsessed with her would be an understatement.
But this Nettie—the carefree wild child that she’d once been—was the one who did things to my soul.
I loved all the sides of Antoinette Reilley Wheeler. But this one—her smiling, happy, carefree self—this was the one that I missed in my darkest of nights. The happy that I’d so cruelly ripped away when I refused to believe my mother was torturing her.
Suddenly, her eyes went wide, and she whipped her head toward me.
My stomach twisted. “What is it?”
So attuned to her that I was, I caught her hand moving down to her belly.
Fear roared through my veins like a silent reaper, ready to steal away all the happy I’d soaked in over the last couple of hours.
She reached for my hand instead of answering and placed it on her belly.
She pressed it hard, much harder than I ever would have, and waited, her eyes on me.
Then I felt it.
The smallest of bumps.
Something that I wouldn’t have thought twice about feeling forty-eight hours ago.
We’d never gotten to this point with our Julep.
She’d never been big enough to feel before her life had been stolen from her.
No one at the table paid enough attention to us to notice the life-changing moment we were sharing, all too busy on a conversation about snowmobiles, riding motorcycles, and the summer months coming up to notice our awe.
She leaned forward and whispered into my ear, “I’ve been feeling those little gas bubble sensations for a while, but this is the first time I’ve ever felt her move from the outside.”
I was irrationally angry all of a sudden, pissed beyond all belief that this had been stolen from us once before by my own mother.
She saw it in my eyes, too. The shame. The regret.
“We can’t ever make it right,” she whispered. “But we can move on. Build a life with our new little girl.” She bit her lip, whispering quietly, “I have a name.”
My brows rose. “What is it?”
“Margery.”
The breath left my lungs.
The blow was oh so sweet. Well placed and sweet.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
“Do you think she’ll like it?”
I knew she would.
“She will love it,” I croaked, my heart aching in both agony and happiness. “Nettie…”
She looked more seriously at me. “What?”
“Grams isn’t going to make it much longer,” I admitted. “I…”
I didn’t want to finish my sentence.
But she finished it for me.
“I know,” she whispered. “You don’t know if she’ll live to see her namesake.”
Grams, also known as Margery Anderson Windsor, was my stepfather’s mother. She was the sweetest, sassiest, most hardass lady I’d ever met in my life. She loved fiercely, never let go of something that was hers to take care of, and had been lying to my face for years.
I loved the hell out of her for it.
I had never wanted Nettie to lose her.
And apparently, she hadn’t.
Apparently she and Nettie had a relationship that neither one of them had shared with me.
I was okay with that, though.
I would’ve never wanted to take Nettie away from Grams, and neither would I have wanted to take Grams away from Nettie.
I just wished we hadn’t wasted so much time.
That Grams had Nettie the way she should have—as her granddaughter when I married her.
A thought took place in my head.
Another bump against my hand, as if the baby inside of Nettie, my own flesh and blood, agreed with my subconscious’s plan.
Why not marry Nettie for real? Why not give this baby legitimacy? Why not give my grams everything that she ever wanted for me—Nettie and a baby, happy.
“What are y’all over there whispering about?” Denver asked, causing the entire table to focus on us.
Luckily my hand was shielded by the table.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want my club to know about the baby.
I wouldn’t mind it.
But I wanted to keep it to myself for a while.
I wanted to just focus on us before I brought the rest of the world into it.
Nettie seemed to be of the same frame of mind because she said, “Grams.”
Denver’s face fell.