I grin as I think back to that night. I left my tomahawk in Carl’s head. I knew the Vipers wouldn’t use it to get me convicted of murder. It wasn’t murder. It was two men facing off each other in the ring. A ritual that hearkens back to the days when all of us lived in small tribes, when honor meant something, when men followed a code, lived by it, fucking died by it. Even though Carl wasn’t an honorable man, in a way he respected the laws of leadership. And that made him a good leader, albeit a dark, even evil one. I don’t have any regrets about my beloved ax finding its final home in that asshole’s skull.
“The Vipers probably have it framed in their trophy room,” I say with a grunt, scooping one of our three babies out of the triple-rockers that are well-shaded from the summer sun. “And when our babies are old enough, I’ll tell them the legend of Hawk and Carl too.”
“Um, you’ll do no such thing!” Helen says firmly, standing up and storming over to me. But she breaks into a beautiful smile when she sees me with our daughter Hannah.
“Fine,” I say, reaching my other hand down and lifting my son Hercules out of his rocker. I hold him up and look him in the eye. “I’ll only tell Hercules. Right after we get him inked up for the first time.”
“Our son is not getting tattooed!” Helen says. But then she bites her lips when she glances down at my shirtless body that’s tanned as hell, tattooed as fuck. “Well,” she says, blinking and shrugging. “Not until he’s eighteen. Assuming he even wants one.”
“Eighteen months it is,” I say with comic seriousness, cradling my two babies in my big left arm so I reach for my third child, another beautiful baby girl that we named Hilda, after Helen’s mama. (Hercules, of course, is named for my father, the great hero of myth and fantasy, I told Helen. I think she believed me . . ;))
“I can’t win with you, can I?” Helen says, sighing as I somehow manage to get my arms around my curvy wife along with all three children as well.
I pull my family close and glance up at our little blue house out in the suburbs. We chose a smaller house with a lot of surrounding land. Though soon we’ll have to upgrade, because Helen mentioned yesterday that she didn’t get her period last month. I ain’t no scientist, but I think I know what that means.
“I’m gonna have to spank your mother’s tasty bottom for that sort of disrespect,” I whisper to my newborn babies as Helen gasps in mock horror. “Also, I’ll probably have to fuck her in the ass more often now that she’s pregnant again. You get it, right, Hercules?”
“OK, I’m calling Child Protective Services on your biker ass,” Helen shouts, blinking fifty times in shock.
“What? They don’t understand English yet, do they?” I say, shrugging and laughing at the same time.
And then I just keep laughing as Helen goes off on me, and all I hear is laughter as I spin my family round and round, stare up at the sun like I don’t give a fuck if it makes me blind. After a lifetime of darkness I’m loving being in the light, fucking addicted to being in the light.
But there’ll always be a touch of darkness in our lives, I remind myself as I see my curvy, voluptuous, newly pregnant wife shrug in resignation and then wink at me as she walks over to a carefully cultivated patch of grass in the shade of a walnut tree.
The sun goes behind a cloud as if nature is agreeing that a little bit of darkness is part of it all. I put my children back in their rockers and pull down their sun-shades. They might not remember what they see here, but this ain’t gonna be a scene for the family.
This is Mommy and Daddy alone.
Husband and wife together.
Just a man and a woman . . .
A botanist and a biker . . .
And a happily ever after.
Curvy for Him: The Botanist and the Biker (Curvy for Him Series Book 8) Page 8