Chapter 7
SEVEN
Don’t ever be scared to cancel plans with me. I probably don’t want to go anyway.
—Holly’s secret thoughts
HOLLY
I was staring at the brand-new kitchen in my new apartment, with all of my stuff not only around me, but unpacked and in place, and wondering how my life had changed so quickly.
Yesterday, I’d been in my apartment wondering what was next for me.
Today, I was some thirteen-year-old’s bitch.
“Are you ready?” DeeDee asked.
She was literally the biggest railroader I’d ever met.
So much like her dad, it was funny to see the two next to each other butting heads.
Denver hadn’t helped me pack.
He’d shown up for ten minutes, packed all the boxes that were too heavy for us to get, and had left to go grab some oil for the fish fry.
When the girls and I had gotten to the ranch, he’d helped me unload all the boxes into my new apartment while simultaneously frying fish.
Now, I could hear the music and laughter downstairs as I hesitated to go down there and mingle.
The only good thing was that I knew Nettie would be here.
“Are you sure that…”
DeeDee grabbed my arm and all but tugged me downstairs.
The smell of hay and horse hit me as soon as the door closed behind us.
“I love that smell,” DeeDee sniffed.
“What smell?”
I blinked at Joe that’d arrived with her arms full of Froto.
“Hey, there’s my baby!” Nettie cried as she walked up to Joe who was giving Froto a bottle.
“You can’t have him,” DeeDee declared. “He’s moving in with Holly.”
“Is he now?” Nettie’s eyes sparkled with mirth. “Can we share custody?”
“You have your own baby coming soon,” DeeDee pointed out. “We don’t.”
“What about Joe?” Nettie pointed out.
“Joe doesn’t count,” DeeDee countered.
Nettie snickered. “What about when y’all go on vacations and stuff, can I keep him?”
“That sounds like a fine deal.” DeeDee nodded, but whispered quietly so only I could hear. “We don’t ever go on vacations, so this is going to work out perfectly.”
My lips twitched up at the corners, which was when Denver came around the corner of the apartment’s stairs and asked, “Are any of y’all going to eat? The guys are starving.”
“Y’all can eat without us,” Nettie pointed out.
Denver rolled his eyes. “You know women and children eat first here.”
I looked at all the ladies around me who seemed to know what was going on.
“This is ridiculous.” Nettie caught my arm in hers. “Come on. They seriously won’t eat until we’ve gotten our plates.”
Denver grunted and led the way to the tables that were loaded down with food.
Every single woman and child I saw had their plates and were sitting there eating.
The men were all hanging around drinking beer, but they were eyeing the food like it was their next best friend.
“They started this tradition with Sorcha,” Nettie said as she helped herself to so much potato salad that her plate bent. “Try this. Sorcha makes it. It’s divine.”
I got a healthy amount, loading up my plate with so much food that I knew there was no way that I was going to eat it all.
“Thank Christ,” someone said.
I didn’t know who it was.
He was one of the newer members of the Dixie Wardens MC.
But he was tall, like a Viking, and had what looked to be a permanent scowl on his face based on how the lines between his eyebrows never moved out of their puckered position.
“That’s Odin,” Nettie said as she guided me to a table that had other women already at it. “Ladies, this is my good friend, Holly. She works with Boone.”
“Nice to meet you, I’m Mable.”
I knew who she was. I also knew who Birdie was, Mable’s sister.
It was hard not to know them.
They’d caused a lot of drama in the town over the last six months.
“I’m Bernice.” The woman smiled with warm eyes. “I’m Creed’s sister.”
“Nice to meet you, Bernice,” I said.
I turned to the last woman at the table.
“Hey, Sorcha.”
Sorcha, the middle of the Windsor children, smiled. “Hey, darlin’. How’s working with my nephew going?”
If she only knew how little I’d wanted to work with Boone in the beginning.
But, had I gone with my first instinct of staying the hell away from Windsor Animal Hospital, I’d been in a much different situation right now.
“Really well, actually,” I admitted. “I like it a lot more than I thought I would.”
Her smile was soft as she said, “He’s not giving you any trouble?”
“I’m the perfect gentleman, Aunt Sorcha,” Boone said, throwing his hand across his heart as if he was affronted. “I offered her a great salary, impeccable benefits, more PTO than I’ll bet she’ll use, and a great working environment. She couldn’t ask for anything better.”
“Conceited much?” Nettie asked around a mouthful of food.
He stuck his tongue out at her. “I’ll have you know, Antoinette, that I’m the best boss in the world.”
“You kiss your woman with that mouth that all that bullshit is spewing out of?” Denver asked as he sat down at the table between Sorcha and Nettie.
Sorcha yanked lightly on Denver’s hair.
“Hey, that’s my seat!” Major complained.
“Snooze you lose, Ex-Lax,” Denver muttered around a hunk of rib meat. “Who cooked these ribs? They’re fantastic.”
“Me,” Odin called from the table behind Denver.
“But that’s my wife!” Major continued to complain.
“It’s my sister,” Denver pointed out.
“You don’t even like your sister.” Major picked his wife up and sat her down on his lap.
I wondered if the plastic chairs we were sitting in were made to take that much weight.
Probably not.
Sorcha, unaffected by the manhandling, continued to pepper me with questions about work.
She then started talking about her grandbabies, and how cute and precious they were.
I looked over to Denver and asked, before I could quite think about the words coming out of my mouth, “And how do you feel about having a grandbaby soon?”
He grunted. “To be honest, I’m trying not to think about what happened, how and why, and instead pretending like she’s a full-grown adult instead of a seventeen-year-old that’s going to be struggling hard to succeed in life soon.”
I tilted my head. “You don’t think she can succeed with a little baby?”
“I think she can.” He shrugged as he took a large mouthful of baked beans.
“But I think that she just made it really hard on herself. She was talking about wanting to be a pilot. They’re gone a lot.
And the hours you have to log to become a pilot isn’t going to be super easy with a baby at home relying on you. ”
“You act like you won’t be there with her every step of the way,” I pointed out. “You won’t watch this baby for her when she’s building her dreams?”
He scowled. “When you put it like that…”
“Will it be tough on her? Sure. She’s almost seventeen.
But Joe’s literally the most mature seventeen-year-old I’ve ever met.
She used to get up with you and help you before school.
Honestly, sometimes I think she even outworked me when I was that age.
I think, out of any kid I know, she’s the one that’s fully capable of succeeding.
She may not get to do what she originally wanted, but I don’t see that stopping her.
She’ll be successful with a baby in hand and not apologize for it. ”
He sighed. “I know. That doesn’t change the fact that I worry about her.”
“Joe was never the type of girl that would miss the partying stage anyway,” Sorcha pointed out. “I mean, let’s be honest here. She spends time with Jetty, works her ass off at school, and helps on the farm. Her idea of fun was having sex in the hayloft.”
I grinned at the scowl he aimed Sorcha’s way.
“Maybe we should change the subject,” Major suggested.
“To what?” Boone asked. “This is fascinating.”
Proving that the chairs wouldn’t hold up to any added stress, Denver pushed Boone and the plastic leg of the chair snapped, dumping him on his ass.
Boone laughed all the way down.
Denver went back to eating.
“What was that all about?” Joe asked as she looked down at her uncle who was grinning up at her wickedly.
“We were talking about how you just made Denver a grandpa at seventeen,” Sorcha chirped.
I saw Denver wince.
“Well,” Joe said as she backed away. “I think I hear someone calling my name.”
She left before anything else could be said.
“Was that necessary?” Denver grumbled.
“No, but it’s nice to see that I still put the fear of God in her.” Sorcha snickered. “How’s the new cook working out?”
“You mean the one that’s trying to cook her way into Denver’s heart?” Boone asked from the ground.
“That one.” Sorcha nodded.
“She cooks great,” Boone sighed and got up. “She’s just a little too busy trying to check out if Denver’s hands and feet size correlates to his dick size to really submerge herself into the job.”
Denver got up with a grunt and went to sit at a different table.
I grinned when Boone took his seat and continued talking. “I think that she’s taken to wearing skimpier and skimpier clothing each time she comes over, too. Last week, I walked in and saw her wearing a sundress that barely covered her vagina.”
“He’s not lying, either,” Nettie pointed out. “But she makes a mean apple cobbler.”
As I listened to the group continue to talk throughout the night, my gaze strayed over and over again to the copper-colored mop of hair that was sticking up all which ways but the right one.
He took his hat off. Put it back on. Set it on the table. Moved it to his knee.
It was like the man always had to be moving in some way.
“He has ADHD.”
I blinked and looked over to Sorcha. “What?”
“Denver,” Sorcha said.
“I don’t…”
“You were watching him move.” She shrugged.
“He has no chill. Literally, some part of him is always moving. That’s part of why he works so much.
The idea of him being idle is overwhelming to him.
You should’ve seen him in school. Never in my life heard my mother raise her voice unless it came to Denver and his schooling. ”
I smiled.
Margery Winsor was a beautiful soul.
I was sure that Denver tried her patience. Especially seeing as he was the surprise of a lifetime.
“How many years between you and Denver are there?” Nettie asked the question that was on the tip of my tongue.
I couldn’t give too much away, though.
They didn’t need to know just how obsessed with Denver that I was.
“Ten years.” Sorcha grinned. “Twenty-five between him and Sawyer.”
“How old was your mother when she had him?” another asked.
“In her late fifties.” Sorcha chuckled. “Mom thought she was going through menopause. Color us all surprised when she went to the doctor to get checked out for a kidney stone, and she came home with another baby.” Sorcha raised her hand and cupped Major’s jaw.
“Denver kicked Mom and Dad’s ass. I feel like he spent just as much time at Sawyer’s and my place as he did at home.
It was a good thing that we were all on the same property. ”
Major nuzzled at his wife’s cheek. “We got our learning curve taken care of with Denver. By the time our own kids came, we were naturals and didn’t fuck them up like we did Denver.”
I snickered.
“What are y’all even talking about right now?” Hux, the second hottest Dixie Warden, asked as he came to a stop behind the broken chair Boone had once been sitting in.
“How pretty you look with your new tattoo,” Boone lied.
Hux looked at his arm where I could now see a fresh tattoo peeking out from beneath his shirt sleeve. “It is pretty badass, isn’t it?”
“It’s a lamp.”
“It’s a stained-glass window,” Hux countered Boone’s assumption.
“It’s pretty,” I said. “I like it.”
Hux’s grin was wicked as he said, “Glad someone at this table has some taste.”
“I never said it wasn’t pretty,” Sorcha pointed out.
“You said that I looked like a bad coloring book when I showed you it yesterday.”
“It’s a lot.” Sorcha shrugged. “I can’t even see your skin anymore.”
“You can, too.” Hux shrugged. “You should get one.”
“No way.” Sorcha shook her head. “Over my dead body.”
“Yet, you have no problem with your man putting your name on his chest?” Hux asked.
This sounded like an old argument.
One that they’d had time and time again.
Which, of course, made me nervous and my babbling problem came out to be witnessed.
“Did you know in ancient Rome, when two men wanted to make a pact or agreement under oath, they would hold each other’s testicles as they made the agreement? That’s where we get the term ‘testify.’”
The table was silent for a few long seconds, and then raucous laughter sounded out over the table.
I smiled, my cheeks flushing.
When I finally looked away from the table in front of me, it was to see Denver watching me over a beer bottle.
His eyes were curious and hot as he studied me for long enough that I started to squirm.
Only when he finally looked away did I take my next breath.
I would not examine how his gaze made me feel.
Nor would I acknowledge how I wanted him to stare at me like that again.