As it was, Meggie had the distinctly uneasy feeling, her husband was planning dire retribution. He wouldn’t tell her because he wanted vengeance. As usual, she’d tell him to overlook Kendall’s actions for Johnnie.
Meggie understood that the excuse was old. It also gave Kendall license to do whatever she wanted.
Meggie only hoped Christopher wasn’t planning her death and then making it look like an accident. He’d said no, when she asked him weeks ago, then changed the subject. A big, old red flag that he was indeed planning something.
Meggie had already vowed to herself if Kendall even looked at CJ wrong, she’d be sorry.
“You ready to fuckin’ go?”
She nodded, then a thought occurred to her. “What…are you going in the store?”
“No, baby,” Christopher answered irritably. “I fuckin’ came here for you.”
He knew her location because he tracked her via her telephone, her car, and her wallet.
“I’m heading home.”
“I’ma be right the fuck behind you, baby.”
“Everything is going to be fine.” As she spoke, she realized her nausea had lessened.
Christopher’s smile didn’t reach his eyes as he nodded. She knew he was thinking of a way to satisfy them both.
The coming months promised to be busy. Christopher would want to fix her issues to make everything easier for her.
Hopefully, whatever method he came up with wouldn’t be needed, and she’d conquer her fear on her own.
Chapter Seven
“I didn’t raise no scary bitch, Roxanne!”
Roxy winced as her mother yelled those words through the phone. It had been several days since the argument with Knox. She knew he was staying at the club because Mortician had come to pick up some clothes for him. Knox was a stubborn motherfucker, determined to have things his way.
Roxy, though, was just as stubborn. He wouldn’t make her change her mind about having a double wedding with Bailey. He could pout, stomp, and kick. She wasn’t entertaining any of it. It was too fucking selfish on his part to want to shut her daughter out.
But she missed Knox so much. In the evenings and on weekends, they did everything together. They loved each other’s company. They loved each other’s bodies.
She glanced at the ring on her finger. Cherished antique or cursed motherfucker?
The ring meant a lot to Knox, prioritizing its specialness over her than stupid fucking superstitions.
Yet, how the fuck had their relationship suddenly become so contentious? She should’ve been calling her mother to bring her up to speed on wedding plans for a ceremony that, in Roxy’s mind, was six months away. Such a short period was cutting it close to plan the type of wedding Bailey dreamed of and Knox required. She and the girls should’ve started discussing food and alcohol and bachelorette parties and music and flowers and…everything.
Instead of going to shops with Bailey and the other women, Roxy wrote down ideas to be decided upon later. This morning, she’d almost given in and called Knox. But she feared that meant she’d be conceding to his wishes, so, instead, she’d called her mother, Pearllene.
Her response was to fuss and cuss, and accuse Roxy of allowing fear to rule her.
“I’m not afraid.” Roxy gritted the lie. Truth be told, she didn’t want another marriage to fail. “I just don’t want any man thinking he can run my life.”
The only man who hadn’t tried to turn her into something she wasn’t had been K-P. He’d accepted her for her.
“No, you don’t want to face the fact that you got a man that love you,” her momma challenged. “He love you for you. Just like Kaleb Paul did. Just because you failed at three marriages already don’t mean you’re not destined to find true love, baby. If he don’t want Bailey to have a wedding with you, so be it. It’s that motherfucker’s wedding, too. He got a right to say what he do and don’t want.”
Her lower lip trembling, Roxy swallowed. “I didn’t want a big wedding. I only agreed for Bailey’s sake.”
“You must really love Knox,” Pearllene said, not addressing Roxy’s comments. “It’s not like you to be such a pathetic, sniveling coward.”
She sniffled.
“Is that tears I hear?” Pearllene asked in outrage.
“Maybe,” Roxy answered, her cheeks flaming at her mother’s tone.
“Lawd, Jesus, girl, you’re gonna send me to my grave. If I die, you’re gonna be all alone. Your daughters got their own lives, even Bailey. And Duke, that little motherfucker, been hating on you for months.”
Another arrow of pain twisted inside Roxy. Her youngest child, her baby boy, despised her. He thought she was ignorant, uncouth, and unworthy. She wondered if Knox saw her as unworthy, too. He hated her cussing and he despised her purple Navigator.
“I can drop dead in the next minute. Then, what are you gonna do?”
“Mama, you been about to drop dead for over thirty years. Would you stop already?”
“My fucking mouth. My fucking right to say whatever the fuck I want to. Besides, one of these days I’m really gonna kick up daisies. Nobody meant to live forever.”
“I know,” Roxy responded on a sigh. “It’s just that…oh, Mama, what would I do without you?”
“The same thing you doing with me, girl. Live your life. I didn’t raise a bitch that just crumple and give up because of a little setback. Whenever I die, know that I lived a nice, full life. I loved you with all my heart. And I didn’t have no regrets. When I breathe my last, I just pray to Jesus, Hamish is pumping my chooney real good.”
“Mama, I’m not going to listen to you talk about sex with your boyfriend. That’s just too damn much information.”
“When did you become such a prude, Roxanne?” Pearllene asked with disapproval. “I get sex tips from Alexia and Carissa all the time.”
Her daughters were giving their grandmother sex tips? She decided she didn’t want to know.
Pearllene’s hearty laughter boomed through the phone. “You love Knox,” she said after a moment.
“I do.”
“Then you don’t need no double wedding. I’m so surprised at Bailey. It’s unlike her to be so selfish.”
Roxy stiffened. She didn’t want to get into an argument with Pearllene, but casting aspersions on Bailey crossed a line. “She isn’t selfish, Mama. I think it would tighten our bond further if we shared the experience of planning our wedding together. Besides, it was Mortician’s idea.”
“Oh. I see. Then, why don’t you ask Knox, instead of just making that decision for him. It’s his fucking day, too,” she said for the thousandth time. “Even Mortician knows that!”
“Ask him?” Roxy protested, ignoring the last part. Mortician knew a lot. He just didn’t give a fuck about things he didn’t agree with. Whoever went against what Bailey wanted would always be on the losing end. Therefore, Mortician wanting Bailey happy should also appease Knox, since he wanted a huge fucking wedding, too. Apparently, her mother didn’t see it that way. “Why the fuck should I ask that motherfucker a fucking thing?”
“A man’s gonna be a man. You couldn’t even enjoy your new engagement before you telling the man you sharing your day. He wanted to feel like he wears the pants in the family and take control of the situation.”
“That’s exactly my point! He wants to control me. Mortician has nothing to do with that!”
“Where the fuck is your brain, child? That man knows you the last person he can control. But a man like to look at his woman and know three things: He’s her provider, the most important thing in the world to her, and that he lay down some good pipe in the chooney.”
“That’s old school shit,” Roxy snapped.
“No wonder your marriages didn’t last. Maybe, the provider part old school, but it’s relevant. I tell you, chile, you can’t handle a man for shit, if you don’t know that.”
“That isn’t true!” Roxy countered, crushed at those words. “I know how to handle men.
But, maybe, Knox feels like Duke does. I mean he hates my ride and my language and—”
“Knox love you for the strong bitch that you are,” Pearllene interrupted. “Maybe, that iron will of yours intimidate him a little. Put that together with the way he feel about Outlaw and you got a recipe for a hurt ego over that Navigator. And, fuck, Roxanne, your fucking ass cuss worse than a fucking sailor, so I understand what the fuck the man mean. You give advice to all those little girls in that club. You need to learn how to apply it to your own damn life.”
“I apply it all the time.”
“Roxanne, baby, listen to me. You smart and beautiful and lively, but you so fragile when it comes to men. You been trodding along just fine, hoping Knox popped the question, and dreading it when he did. Don’t fuck this up. Talk to him. Tell him your stubbornness not about nothing more than nerves before he call the engagement off. You want that?”
“No, of course not. I haven’t talked to Knox in three days. He’s being as stubborn as I am.”
“His shit still there,” Pearllene reminded her. “He gotta come home some time. Call him and ask him to come now so you can talk.”
“Roxanne?”
Knox’s voice floated to her and she snapped her head in his direction. A gasp escaped her. His eyes were black, his nose bandaged, and his lip split. What happened to him? Oh fuck!
Mortician. He’d been upset because Bailey wouldn’t get to have her big wedding, so he’d gone and taken out his frustrations on Knox.
“Mama, I have to go. Knox is here.”
“Let me give you a suggestion. Me and Hamish use bacon grease to make his dick go in easier. But he love the taste and aroma of bacon pussy—”
“I’m not listening to this. Goodbye, Mama!”
“Remember, bacon pussy…”
Those words rang in Roxy’s ears as she disconnected the call and stood from the chair in the living room. All anybody had to do was talk to her mama to figure out why Roxy was the way she was.
Knox shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants and rocked on his heels. Besides him having his face looking as if it was on the wrong side of a battering ram, redness rimmed his amber eyes. Stubble shadowed his strong jaw. His blond hair was disheveled.
He was still one of the most beautiful men she’d ever seen.
“What happened to you?”
He shrugged.
“Mortician got to you, didn’t he?”
Knox lifted a brow. “Mortician?” he sneered. “No, baby, it wasn’t your son-in-law. It was the thug. Outlaw.”
“I’m going to talk to him. He shouldn’t have hit you over what happened between us.”
“Don’t bother,” he said coldly. “It wasn’t on behalf of you. It was because I called him out on his ignorance.”
She fisted her hands on her hips. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means Outlaw is a goddamn brute.”
“No, it means you press your luck with those boys too damn much.”
They looked at each other for a moment and grinned.
“Roxanne, sweetheart, I’m so sorry for my assholery. Of course, we can have a double wedding. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Knox, I’m sorry for being so fucking insistent. We’d just gotten engaged and I should’ve respected that.” She rocked on her heels. “Or at least a-a-asked you.” She almost choked on her words, but her momma gave good advice.
He stared at her and then burst out laughing. “My God, where did that come from. Are you sure you’re not going to go into fits for making that statement?”
Picking up a small pillow from the sofa, she threw it at him. He ducked and laughed more.
“Shut up,” she ordered, her own laughter bubbling up.
He walked to her and pulled her into his arms before claiming her mouth in a deep kiss.
“Where’d you ever get the damn idea you needed to ask me anything?” he asked between kisses.
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “From Mama. She said it’s your day, too, and I was wrong not to…” she cleared her throat… “Ask you.”
He tasted her lips again. “I thought Pearllene knew you better than that.”
“Mama doesn’t think I know how to handle men,” Roxy confessed. “She was just advising me so I wouldn’t fuck up our relationship.”
He rubbed his nose against hers. “You know how to handle me just fine. As a matter of fact, I think I need a little refresher on how well you handle me.”
She giggled, feeling giddy and happy and content. “I’m all up for that,” she murmured, grinding against him.
“Uh uh,” a voice interrupted, scaring the fuck out of Roxy. She jumped out of Knox’s embrace.
Mortician stomped forward and grabbed Knox’s arm.
“Boy, what the fuck you think you doing?” Roxy shouted, as Knox struggled to yank himself away from Mortician’s grip.
“Getting him,” Mortician answered, jerking Knox to indicate him. “He keeping his cock to himself until he put a ring on it.”
“No fucking way!” Roxy shouted. “This shit is fucking ridiculous. I don’t know where the fuck you got this in your goddamn head.”
“This shit not up for negotiating, Roxanne,” he said, his ire turning to uncharacteristic sullenness. “He might get too used to the milk and run out to pasture before he walk you down the aisle. Don’t you know nothing, man? Suppose Knox decide to string you along, get pussy, never set a date, and just jet?”
Knox glared at Mortician.
“Knox would never do that,” Roxy protested. He was too much of an upstanding man to even dream of such bullshit.
“You never know,” Mortician insisted. “Maybe, he intend to have the longest fucking engagement in history.”
“You’re an asshole,” Knox gritted before Roxy had the chance to do so.
“I been called worse, son. No pussy ‘til you walk her down the aisle.”
Mortician’s words almost touched Roxy. Almost. “No pussy for him, mean no dick for me.”
“He lucky, Roxanne. I wouldn’t want to have to chop it off.”
Knox opened his mouth to speak but Roxy shouted, “I’d fucking kill you if you harmed his cock.”
“I’m not worried about that,” Mortician said in dismissal. “Me, Prez, John Boy, Val, and Digger, all decided he living at the club until you married. You’re going to be a wife now, not just a momma, momma-in-law, and grandmomma. You can’t live in no momma-in-law quarters no more. We got to have talks with him about if he want to build on club grounds or what. Basically, we going to be too busy getting him up to what we think you deserve. He has to live at the club.”
Mortician was absolutely serious.
“Sugar, Knox is all the man I need. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“We got to toughen him up a little bit.”
“He’s fine just the way he is!” Roxy yelled.
“Helloooo, I am right here,” Knox inserted.
“Okay, if you going to be that stubborn, Roxanne,” Mortician started, still ignoring Knox, “we really don’t give a fuck about toughening him up. He’s going to treat you with respect. That mean no fucking until he make it legal.”
“Fine,” Roxy said, going along with it for now. After a couple of days, they’d tire of babysitting Knox and her, and they’d be free to fuck and do whatever they pleased. If the guys wanted to express some misplaced code of honor, she’d let them live in ignorant bliss. “I just need to say a couple of things to Knox.”
Mortician nodded, but remained where he was, holding onto her man.
“That means leave for a minute,” she snapped.
“I’m going right over there.” He pointed a short distance away, near the entrance of the room.
“I’ll be there later tonight,” she whispered to Knox, once Mortician stepped away.
Knox grinned. “I admire them for wanting to protect you so fiercely.
“It is kind of sweet,” Roxy admitted,
“if it wasn’t so fucking annoying.”
“Time up,” Mortician called.
“Later,” Roxy mouthed again as Mortician yanked Knox toward the door.
Where there was a will, there was a way. Roxy just had to show those boys that, until they tired of their game and forgot all about protecting her non-existent virtue.
Chapter Eight
“Let go of me!” Knox shouted, yanking himself out of Mortician’s grasp, halfway along the trail back to the club. Roxanne might’ve decided to go along with this insanity on the surface, but Knox wasn’t amused.
“I know you not happy, Knox, but you just have to deal with it, since you the motherfucker that first came up with a long engagement.”
“I was just annoyed. I didn’t mean that. If I had, I never would’ve proposed.”
“Oh, yeah, why the fuck did your fucking ass pop the fucking question?”
“I love Roxanne, jackass. Why else would I propose?”
Mortician stopped so fast, Knox ran into him. The club’s enforcer turned, looking very…enforcerish.
Knox stepped back.
“First, son, I’m not a jackass. Feel me? Don’t call me that again.”
“Digger, Outlaw, Val, and Johnnie call you worse!” Knox reminded him, annoyed he didn’t have such freedom.
“You not one of us, Knox.”
“You don’t say? That’s quite the newsflash for me.”
“You here, you alive, because of Roxanne. But you’d prefer not to be around us.”
“Can you blame me?” He wouldn’t bother to deny it. “You people are violent animals. When Roxanne’s around you, her dignity slips fifty notches. I’ve tried to fit in, but I will never agree with your freewheeling philosophy and criminal tendencies.”
“And that attitude, right there, is why you don’t get to call me a jackass. That’s why I believe you might decide to walk away from Roxanne when it gets close to the wedding. If you miss her, you’ll know how to cherish her. See her as a sweet woman to be protected and romanced; not a biker bitch to use and discard. I don’t trust your uppity ass. So no fucking. You’re giving her flowers and romance and respect, but no dick.” Mortician shoved a finger in Knox’s chest. “She love you but Bailey say her momma scared because she had so many failed relationships. Roxanne think marriage ruin relationships, but then, she told Bailey, she ruined what she had with K-P and she don’t want to do that with you.”
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