Chapter Seventeen – Meggie #2
Meggie nodded. “Call them. The more, the merrier,” she said as a text alert chimed. Snatching her phone from the pocket of her robe, she quickly opened the message.
Kendall: Can Mattie spend the day with you and Rebel? I need to be in court by 8.
“Outlaw?” Bunny asked with hope.
“No.” Meggie tried, and failed, to hide her disappointment and worry. “Kendall.”
Meggie: Of course, love. See you in a few.
“Do you want to go to the clubhouse and wait for them?”
“Maybe,” Meggie said dully.
“You won’t have to wait until they come home. You’ll be there when they arrive.”
“After we feed the kids and get Mattie settled, we can head over.”
Bunny nodded and walked out.
Meggie resumed her pacing, all types of scenarios running through her head.
Five minutes later, when Kaia led Jana Reynolds into the kitchen, Meggie was still pacing.
But the moment she saw the girl, she halted and gaped at her gray eyes and blonde hair, shocked at her resemblance to Logan, despite how pretty she was.
That wasn’t to say she didn’t see Johnnie in Jana, too.
His looks were never in question, though. Only his common sense.
“H-hi,” Jana said timidly and glanced over her shoulder at Kaia.
He smiled in encouragement.
Jana shifted her weight and looked at Meggie. “Are you putting me out?”
“Of course not.” Meggie squinted, trying to figure out why Jana looked so afraid and uneasy. “The day I spoke to you on the phone, I wasn’t in the best mood. I apologize if I made you uncomfortable.”
“It’s fine,” Jana mumbled. “You were really nice to me. Axel is, too. He let me cook.”
Meggie lifted her brows. “My ten-year-old son let you cook?”
“I-I mean—”
“Axel said Jana needed to cook so she’d feel like this was her house,” Kaia explained.
Obviously, that hadn’t worked.
Yawning, Jana rubbed her eyes.
“Were you asleep?” Meggie asked.
Jana nodded. “I hope that’s okay. D-Diesel…” Her face crumpled and she glanced over her shoulder. Again. “I shouldn’t say his name. Rebel might hear.”
What was Meggie missing? Jana was jumpy, frightened, and something else. “You’ve met Rebel?”
Eyes widening, Jana took a step back. “I was nice to her,” she blurted, then began fidgeting. “She was upset but then she was talking to me about how I should treat Diesel. I could never do what she said. He’d send me away probably. Please don’t beat me or make Kaia hurt me.”
Meggie felt as appalled as Kaia looked. “Does Diesel beat you?”
“Never! Diesel protects me,” Jana said fiercely. “He doesn’t let anyone hurt me. Not even Tabitha when she’s high.”
When Tabitha was high. Meggie turned those words over in her head. “You know Diesel’s wife?”
“We’re friends. She still wants us to fuck.”
Meggie’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”
“She said as long as Diesel’s with us, her and me, and not me alone, she’ll lick coke off my pussy.” Jana hung her head. “We’re still friends.”
“Do you like coke?” Meggie asked carefully.
Jana lifted her head long enough to flinch.
Suddenly, Meggie knew exactly what she’d been missing. She was an addict, currently coming down from a high. “I see.”
“I haven’t seen Diesel since yesterday morning,” she muttered and began to cry. “He loves Rebel.”
Meggie didn’t mean to growl. She’d probably spent too many years around Christopher. But she wanted to know what Diesel had done for Jana to feel as if he loved Rebel. Not as a brother either. “You miss Diesel?”
Wiping her cheeks, Jana nodded. “I’m lonesome,” she said around sniffles.
“So, you called Tabitha and invited her over for coke and sex?”
“I didn’t snort any.”
“She, er, licked it off you?” Meggie asked, waving her hand in Jana’s general direction.
“Yes.”
“Then you still absorbed it into your body.”
“Diesel hasn’t called me.” She cried a little harder. “And he’s going to be angry with me. I haven’t used coke in a very long time. He wouldn’t have brought me here if he thought I was a drug addict.”
“Points for him,” Meggie chirped, annoyed that flaming frigging idiots abounded in her life. Diesel was the biggest. “What did he do to make you think he loves Rebel?”
“The way he looks at her,” Jana admitted in a raw voice. “The way he complimented her. The way they interact.”
“Rebel is fourteen!”
“Almost fifteen,” Jana replied.
“And Diesel is almost dead,” Meggie snarled.
“Age doesn’t matter when true love’s involved,” Jana sobbed. “I knew he didn’t love me, but Rebel’s so gorgeous and fiery and…and…everything I’m not. He even told her about k-killing his father—”
“What?” Meggie yelled, not caring that Jana jumped. “He killed his father? His biological father?”
“While you were still away. I didn’t know why he was acting so weird.
I just fucked him. He told me later that he was missing you and knew where his father was and…
and…his mother didn’t desert him. His father left her brain damaged and…
he’s so hurt. He said Rebel told him to talk to you because he has been so upset. ”
Shocked was too mild a word to describe Meggie’s feelings.
She staggered back, stared at Jana, and blinked, unable to imagine Diesel’s devastation.
His fragile frame of mind. That didn’t mean he wasn’t a jackass.
Nor did it mean that Tabitha wasn’t turning into the problem Meggie foresaw when Diesel announced his intentions to separate from her.
Instead of coming after their money, she was targeting Jana, playing on her past—and previously unknown to Meggie—drug use.
“Don’t beat yourself up over one lapse, Jana,” Meggie said briskly. “It happens. Perhaps, you can get in to see your drug counsellor?”
“I don’t have one. I quit cold turkey. Like Diesel.”
If Meggie said Diesel’s name or anything else, she might very well sound like Satan and scare Jana.
Yes, she was concerned about whatever went on with Diesel and his father and everything he’d been told, but he just wouldn’t behave with Rebel.
And Rebel wanted what she wanted. She couldn’t see that moron was a grown man who was grooming her to his needs.
“Are y-you o-okay?” Jana squeaked. “You’re turning so red.”
Because she wanted to kill Diesel. Maybe she’d play eenie-meenie-minie-mo. If it landed on minie, she’d order his head on a pike. If it landed on mo, he’d survive.
“MOM!” Axel yelled, barreling into the kitchen full speed ahead, then skidding to a halt at seeing Jana. “Oh, hey, J. Where’s Diesel? I got to talk to him about something really important.”
Why did she have to always save stupid idiots because of how other people felt about them? Axel adored that moron. Diesel’s death would hurt him.
Axel narrowed his eyes, then straightened. “You’re mad, Mom. Who I got to blow up so you don’t leave no more and cry so much?”
On the surface, Axel took Meggie leaving Christopher as well as he could, but inside it had affected him deeply. He’d watched her suffering and set himself up as her protector. She didn’t want anything else to hurt him, so she drew in a deep breath.
“I’m fine, Sweet Pea.”
He beamed at her. “My men and I have been talking. Since CJ is potato and I’m sweet pea, Ryder has to be Pumpkin and Ransom will be Honey.”
“What about Diesel, Rule, Rebel, Jo, and Gunner?” Meggie asked.
“Diesel is Eagle. Rebel’s the Blonde Viper. CJ calls Jo ‘Squiggles’. Rule is Jesus Boy—”
“Rule is not Jesus Boy,” Meggie snapped.
“Priest Boy?”
“No, Axel.”
“I’m sweet pea, Mom.”
“Not when you disobey me.”
His lower lip trembled. “But I’m not. I’m doing nicknames like you asked me to.”
“Everything doesn’t have to be black and white,” Meggie said. “There’s a gray area. For instance, you can take your time and think of a more suitable nickname for Rule.”
“I’m a man of the law, Mom,” Axel scoffed. “Diesel says things are black and white in the courtroom. Guilty or innocent. No in between.”
Meggie wouldn’t even try to win an argument with Axel about Diesel. The odds were against her.
“Can you show Jana to Diesel’s room, Ax?”
“Sweet Pea,” Axel corrected. “You got to say that all the time, especially in front of CJ.”
“Now you’re being messy.”
“Yeah, you’re right. But that motherfucker deserves it. I don’t think you would call me potato, since CJ has had it for so long. Otherwise, that’s the name I’d want.”
“Don’t add to your brother’s stress,” Meggie scolded.
“He added to yours. If he can’t take the burning don’t jump into the candle.”
Meggie smiled. “An Axel saying?”
“Uh huh.”
“Hi five, buddy.”
After hitting his little hand against hers, Axel hugged her, then grabbed Jana’s hand. “Come on, big-big sis. Do you want some sausages? You should’ve cooked with Mom and…” His little voice faded away as he got further away from the kitchen.
“Do you need me to do anything else?” Kaia asked.
“Just get the expenses and enjoy your day off.”
Once Kaia left Meggie, she looked at the clock on the microwave. It was almost eight. Two more hours and Christopher, Diesel, CJ, Bishop, and the others would’ve been gone twelve hours.