Chapter Thirty-Four
Aknock on the front door sent Jenna to see who was there. It had to be one of the Warriors, as if anyone had shown up at the gate for them, they would have called to get her permission before letting them in.
She opened the door, saw the pile of boxes to one side of the door, glanced at Bobby Lee headed back to the truck and turned.
“Lacey!” she called toward the back of the house.
“I’m not done yet. There are a couple of heavy ones I thought you’d want me to carry all the way in,” Bobby Lee said as he lowered the tailgate of one of the pickups the club owned.
Jenna and her sister had been here for a week.
It had been spring break, so Lacey hadn’t had to go to school with her face all bruised and swollen, but she’d insisted on going to the shop.
Jenna thought that was as much because Joker was there as it was to stay close to Jenna.
Still, it kept her sister close and kept an eye on her, so Jenna hadn’t complained.
When the packages had started arriving, Jenna protested all the stuff Roadkill and Lacey had been looking at, then ordering, but he’d told her it was nothing.
He’d assured her that he could afford it and said he got to choose how he spent his money and this was something he wanted to do.
And he liked spoiling the two of them. After that, she’d tried to keep her mouth shut, but looking at the pile of boxes on the porch, she didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to do that.
Over the last couple of days, it seemed more boxes and packages arrived every day. She’d given up even asking what was in them. Roadkill and the others were spoiling Lacey, but Jenna couldn’t bring herself to tell them to stop.
Besides, not everything was for her sister. Several times, Lacey had brought her things, usually a pile of clothes, they’d ordered for her.
“Where do these go?” Bobby Lee asked, strain in his voice as he carried a box a little bigger than a large dog crate inside.
“My room,” Lacey said. “Joker’s going to help me put them together.”
Jenna left them to figure out where everything went and take care of it, then went back to what she’d been doing, mixing up a batch of cookies.
She hadn’t had time, or the extra money for something like this in longer than she wanted to think about, even if she did all the work herself.
Today though, she had a day off and more than enough food in the refrigerator, so she decided to make some treats for Lacey and Roadkill.
Sure, she would share with the others, but they weren’t the ones she’d been thinking about when she decided to make the sweets.
She was making two types, Lacey’s favorite was oatmeal chocolate chip, and the last batch of those was in the oven.
Now, she was elbow deep in scooping up a batch of butter pecan cookies.
She didn’t know if Roadkill would like them, but she’d discovered he had a thing for butter pecan ice cream and thought he would like Mama’s cookies.
She hadn’t made them in so long, but was glad Mama’s recipes had been one of the few things they’d been able to salvage from the trailer.
Arms slid around her middle as a warm body stepped close to her back. The way he touched her, along with the scents of leather, laundry soap and just the faintest hint of gasoline, told her it was Roadkill. Without thinking about it, she leaned back into him, enjoying the way he held on to her.
“What you making, darlin’?”
“Cookies,” she said, still scooping dough.
“Two kinds?”
“Yep. Those are for Lacey,” She motioned to the oatmeal cookies laid on racks to cool. “These are for you.”’
“Me?”
“Yep.” She inhaled deeply, enjoying his now familiar scent.
They might not have been together all that long, but their time together had been intense, and she’d quickly learned to trust him.
She knew he would do everything he could to keep anything from happening to either her or to Lacey, and she knew from experience that he and the Warriors would move heaven and earth to make it right if something did get to them.
To her, that was everything.
“What kind are they?”
“You’ll have to wait and see.” She scooped a small bit into her hand and offered it to him. “Want to try?” She craned her neck to look up at him.
He frowned at her hand, as if just the idea of eating raw cookie dough was something he’d never heard of. He opened his mouth and let her feed it to him.
“What do you think?”
“The texture is weird.”
Jenna frowned. “Have you never had cookie dough?”
“Don’t think so.”
She wondered at that. Some of her fondest memories of childhood were sitting on the counter helping Mama make cookies and sneaking bites of the dough.
She knew now that Mama had known what she was doing and had allowed it.
But as a kid, Jenna had felt like she was getting away with something and getting a sweet treat.
“As soon as the last batch of oatmeal come out, I’ll put these in, then you can see if you like them better baked.”
“Hmmm. I’m not sure cookies is what I’m after.” He pressed his face against her neck, scraping his teeth along her skin.
Jenna laughed and rolled her neck. “I can’t. Not now. I have to finish scooping these out, and I don’t want the cookies in the oven to burn.” She set the spoon she’d been using to scoop in the bowl and turned in his arms. Looping her arms around his neck she gazed up at him for a moment.
“What?” he asked, looking down at her.
“Just wondering how I got so lucky?”
“Lucky?” He lifted one brow. She knew he was thinking about the last week. Dealing with the police, therapists and working on getting Lacey to a point where she could go back to school hopefully without someone staying as close as she’d had all of them for the last week.
“Yeah. Lucky.” She tilted her head until her forehead came to rest against his chest. “I don’t know what I would have done over the last week if not for you.
And the rest of the Warriors too. But mostly you.
” She held on to him and let him hold her feeling like this was the only place she wanted to be. Ever.