Chapter Eight #2
CJ hurried from behind the bar. Once he reached her, he knelt in front of her and hugged her. “It’s okay, Mom. I don’t know what happened, but Dad will handle it.”
Meggie returned her son’s hug, drew in a deep breath, and pulled away. “He doesn’t need to know right now.” She looked at Mortician. “Talk to Nyx. Tell her that her life depends on how much sense she can find. If it happens again, I’m telling Christopher to take care of her. Am I clear?”
Mortician nodded. “Yeah, Meggie girl. I’ll make her understand.”
CJ poured peroxide onto gauze, took her hand in his, and tended to her knuckles.
The silence lasted a couple of minutes .
“Mom, when you say take care of her, do you mean like normal?” Ransom asked. “Like make her leave?”
“Or do you mean the way the Blonde Viper would?” Ryder added. “Like—” He slid his finger across his throat. “That type?”
“That’s exactly—”
“Wait, Mom!” Axel slapped his hand over her mouth. “Evidence. We don’t want you charged with meditation murder.”
“ Pre-meditated , big head,” CJ said, standing again.
The door opened and the absolute silence told Meggie Christopher had arrived, even before he walked to the table, anger furrowing his brow.
“Break a nail, Megan?” Johnnie chuckled at his own lameness. “That’s why the boys are surrounding you?”
Christopher sat in his seat and glared from Johnnie to her. Behind him, Digger smirked, back because he was SAA and Christopher had arrived.
Potter almost ran into the main room, hurried behind the bar, and grabbed a setup. Blowing like an out-of-shape runner, he brought the bucket of beers to the table and sat it in front of Christopher, who still looked ready to spit bullets.
Meggie sighed. “I can explain—”
“Fuck, Johnnie bruh, where you found this Channing lookalike?” Digger said, prompting her to turn and look.
Sure enough, a dead ringer for Channing Tatum swaggered her way. Dressed in suit and tie, he was tall and beefy. The expensive material of his trousers stretched over his muscled thighs. He headed to her and held out his head.
“You’re Megan Caldwell?”
Nodding, Meggie accepted his hand and shook, then pulled her hand away. Her damaged hand remained in her lap, out of sight. “You’re at a disadvantage. You know me, but I don’t know you.”
“I’m Easton Love,” he said. “Mr. Donovan and I had lunch earlier today. He mentioned you’re looking for a financial advisor. I’m an accountant by trade, in need of a side job. Or, if you like my performance, you can become my main priority.”
Christopher growled.
Meggie felt as if she were in the twilight zone.
First, the bikers’ disrespectful flirting and now this stranger’s.
Maybe, because of what happened earlier, she was aware of Easton hitting on her.
Ordinarily, these situations went right over her head.
Brett, her old advisor, had been quite blatant, so she’d had no choice but to put him in his place.
“Holy fuck!” Rebel exclaimed, walking to the table. She set her bookbag on a chair and gaped at Easton Love. Digging into the pocket of her blazer, she pulled out her wallet. “Since you’re an imitation, I’ll give you two dollars to dance to Pony .”
Meggie giggled at Rebel’s impertinence.
Easton winked at Meggie. “I might do it for ten, but only at Meggie’s request.”
Her sons and her husband weren’t amused. Rebel, though? A smile lit up her face.
“I don’t have my purse,” Meggie blurted.
Christopher growled again and she winced. That hadn’t come out right.
“I’ll spot you a ten, Momma,” Rebel said.
“This is Easton Love, Reb.” Meggie shook her head at her daughter, silently telling her to tone it down. “He would like to be my financial advisor. Easton, this is my daughter, Rebel.”
“You’re going to hire him, right? He obviously has a brain.” Rebel indicated him with a sweep of her hand. “Brawn.” She pointed to his face. “And beauty.”
“What the hell?” Diesel said, joining them, too.
She frowned at the bruise on his cheek, but he didn’t notice her concern.
He glared between Rebel and Meggie. “He can’t be your financial advisor, Aunt Meggie. He might take advantage of you because of your partiality to a certain celebrity.”
Meggie frowned. “That isn’t—”
“Fuck off, Diesel,” Rebel interrupted. “You don’t get to decide.
Besides, fuckface, you, Daddy, CJ, uncles, brothers, cousins, and motherfuckers not only drooled over that bitch but Nyx and her coven, so fuck you and back off.
Momma has to regularly sit and watch these bitches around my father.
You’re not fucking stopping her from having her own eye candy. ”
Rebel had a point. Meggie had fought for Rebel to have the same rights as her brothers.
Obviously, Meggie’s determination to have fairness for her daughter rubbed off.
While she appreciated the support, Meggie wasn’t interested in weaponizing her celebrity crush with an accountant lookalike, who’d never match her husband’s beauty, intelligence, or swagger. Especially his swagger.
“My purse is in your daddy’s office, Axel,” she said. “Run and get it for me.”
“Okay, Mom.” Axel ran off.
“You outta your motherfuckin’ mind, Megan,” Christopher snarled, so furious his voice resembled a demon’s. “Motherfucker, you like fuckin’ livin’ you gettin’ the fuck outta my fuckin’ club.”
“Jealous, Daddy?” Rebel cooed.
The day had worn Meggie out, so she wouldn’t bother responding to Christopher or help Rebel to bait him. She smiled at Easton. “My email address is on my business card. Send me your résumé and I’ll call to set up a meeting.”
He grinned at her.
“Do you ride?” Rebel asked.
“Motorcycles?” Easton asked, nodding before Rebel answered. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
Axel ran back into the room and handed Meggie her purse.
“Why don’t you put Momma on the back of your bike and take her out to discuss the terms of your employment?” Rebel said sweetly.
“That’s why we call you the Blonde Viper,” Ryder complained.
Ransom shook his head and wagged his finger. “Messy, messy, messy.”
“We men settled this, Blonde Viper, so you don’t get to come in and make Dad feel bad. He only put the nurse on the back of his bike once.”
Pretending Axel’s reminder didn’t annoy her to hell and back, Meggie sniffed and jerked the card out of her purse. She held it out to Easton, surprised when he purposely brushed her fingers as he took the business card.
Axel squeezed between them, forcing Meggie back. “Men! Prepare for war!”
Rebel rolled her eyes. “We’ll dismember you and use your wretched little body as buckshot.”
Screaming, Axel ran behind Meggie. “Do you hear what she has planned for me, Mom? Can I use her as a bet in a poker game? I’ll make sure I won’t bet her life. When motherfuckers from the olden days lost their mortgages? Like that.”
The innocence of children. Her son couldn’t know of his great-grandfather’s horrific bet at a poker game.
As in the dark about the vileness of Logan Donovan as her brothers, Rebel stiffened and shoved her fist in the air, then pointed at Axel. “You little asshole, how about I stuff you in a vat of acid?”
“Enough!” Meggie yelled. It dawned on her that Christopher was silent.
She no longer had the energy to prepare the dinner she’d planned.
Since she’d sent a mass text telling the brothers she intended to cook tonight, she’d tell someone to order pizza and that would be that.
Once Christopher left, she was sure talk of what had happened between her and Nyx would be the topic of conversation the rest of the evening.
Meggie would tell Christopher, but she’d let everything settle down first. If Nyx behaved, Meggie would keep this evening’s altercation to herself until after Nyx’s initiation.
“You’re more gorgeous than I expected,” Easton told her quietly, for her ears alone, an unsettling intensity on his face.
Despite herself, she smiled, truly flattered. “Thank you,” she said and walked to her husband, planting herself on his lap and leaning her head against his chest.
His arms went around her, and his body relaxed ever so slightly.
“So, how’d you two meet?” Rebel asked gleefully.
Christopher tensed again. Meggie sat up and brushed her lips over his, then turned toward her kids. She smiled gently at Rebel.
“Reb, love, I appreciate your support but stop disrespecting your father. There is no other man for me. Ever. I love Christopher. I have always loved him, and I will always love him.”
Digger shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away. Johnnie pressed his lips together and clasped his fingers. At the bar, Narci, Potter, Bishop, and Torrin stared at her. Mort, always supportive, always her friend, smiled at her, his admiration clear.
“If, when you fall in love and marry, and your husband hurts you or disrespects you, I will support however you choose to retaliate,” Meggie continued.
“But Christopher didn’t cheat on me. If he had, I wouldn’t be here.
I would’ve left. Somewhere deep in me, I knew the truth.
I trust Christopher and I love him, but I could never live with him again if he betrayed me with another woman.
No matter how much it broke me, I have too much respect for myself to stay with a man who would cheat.
” She held Rebel’s shocked gaze. “Do you understand me, Reb? Leaving is better than ending up in a vicious cycle of retaliation and humiliation.”
“But he put her—”
“I know, sweetheart. And I know how much your father hurt you over that situation. How he allowed her to talk to you. It’s over. She’s out of our lives. Christopher’s buying a brand new bike—”
“I am?”
Meggie jerked her head around and lifted a brow.
“You right, baby. I just ain’t had time to go—”
“Make the time,” she ordered.
Whether she liked it or not, that bike reminded everyone she hadn’t been the only woman seated behind Christopher. Rebel had made great strides toward forgiving her father, but she still regressed. They needed all reminders of Torie wiped from existence.