“Yep. Zach. He’s a year and a half. He’s out back with his dad. Mav’s back there, too.” She slid off her stool. “Come on. I’ll take you back.”
“Hold on, love,” Mo had emerged from somewhere. Probably the kitchen. “Mav’s in the ring.”
“Right. That’s a problem?” Willa turned back to Jenny to ask the question.
“Not for me. Not really, but...” She indicated Kelsey, still in her arms.
“Right,” Willa repeated, this time with a true air of understanding.
“I’ll go get Leah,” Joanna offered. “She can take care of Kelsey.”
“Wait!” Jenny’s head was spinning. She’d been afraid to think too hard about what to expect of seeing the old ladies again, afraid that they’d all hate her, but even the thoughts she’d allowed herself had not remotely gone like this. Willa was a Bulls old lady. It didn’t even matter how Mo or Joanna or Maddie felt, or who this Leah person was, because Willa was in her corner. She had been before, and she would be now.
But Kelsey still didn’t know any of these people. “Kelsey. All these nice ladies are family, just like Eight Ball and all your other uncles. This isn’t Miss Willa, she’s Aunt Willa. And this is Aunt Joanna, and Aunt Maddie, and...Aunt—”
“Zach calls me Grammo. I like it.” Mo’s voice rested on a filament between hostile and welcoming, like the edge of a storm front.
Asking her daughter to call Mo Delaney ‘Grammo’ was a far bridge indeed. Then again, she hadn’t thought twice about Kelsey calling her father Granddaddy, and he was a crap human being. At least Mo was loyal to the people she loved, and loved them fiercely.
“What do you think about having a Grammo, pix?”
Kelsey screwed up her face. “Is that like a Grandma?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t have a Grandma.” She turned to Mo. “Are you nice?”
Mo smiled, warm and sweet as fresh-baked cookies. “I believe I am, love. Are you?”
“I believe I am, too,” Kelsey echoed. “Do you want to be my Grammo?”
Mo came forward and held out her hand. Jenny wasn’t sure, but she thought her eyes sparkled a bit more than normal. “I think I’d like that very much, yes. Would you like it?”
Kelsey put her hand in Mo’s. “Yes, please. Maisie has a grandma and a grandpa, and they’re nice and make me grilled cheeses and pickles. I have a granddaddy, but he only sits and watches television. Do you make grilled cheeses?”
“I do, in fact. I make other things, too. Do you like brownies? I made brownies today.”
“Uh huh. I like brownies and cookies and cake and ice cream and pudding and cookies. I don’t like pie ‘cuz it falls out.”
Mo tossed a question in a glance at Jenny. Understanding, and grateful for the sort-of ask, she nodded, and Mo held out her other hand. “Well, then, let’s get you a brownie. And some milk.”
Kelsey went to her without hesitation. Jenny watched Mo carry her daughter toward the kitchen, chatting sweetly with her. She’d never seen Mo in grandmother mode; it was a side of her she liked. Maybe being part of the Bulls wouldn’t be so hard after all.
Willa put her hand on Jenny’s arm. “C’mon. I’ll go back with you. Maybe Mav and Gun are done beating each other up by now.”
“Was this a fun thing, or a work-out-their-beef thing?” It could also have been a Gun-needs-to-feel-bad thing, but Jenny didn’t know if that was still a thing or, if it was, how much Willa knew about it.
“Just for fun.” Willa laughed. “Because what’s more fun than getting punched in the face?”
Jenny laughed, too. Their men were not like other men.
~oOo~
Leah was Gunner’s old lady. Gunner. That train wreck of a human had an old lady. Not old at all—young. By the look of her, maybe still a teenager. But she was wearing a pretty engagement ring, and Jenny could see her ink showing under the neckline of her top.
Gunner had an old lady. Rad had Willa, and a blond little boy he was carrying on his shoulders. Dane and Joanna’s girls were in college now. More than merely the décor had changed in the clubhouse.
Leah and Rad stood almost side by side near the boxing ring in back. Zach, a toddler in tiny jeans and cowboy boots, cheered and yelled when his father did, like he knew what he was watching. Leah cheered, too. She seemed into it, watching Gunner and Maverick trade blows.
The guys were into it as well, and Jenny couldn’t help but smile. She’d never enjoyed watching Maverick fight when he went out to the streets to meet up with shady men in shady places. The rules were slippery in those fights, and the men often beat each other until one simply couldn’t get up anymore. That was hard to watch even though Maverick had usually been the one still standing. But she liked watching him fight here, with his brothers, when they weren’t trying to really hurt each other. They sparred, but without pads, and they laughed and trash talked all through it and always hugged it out at the end.
That had been one of Delaney’s rules, and it probably still held: when brothers fought each other, whether it was play or conflict resolution, they couldn’t leave the ring until they’d hugged it out.
She liked watching fights like this because she didn’t have to worry, and she could simply focus on her man’s amazing body, every muscle tuned to perfection, as he moved about the ring, all grace and fluid motion. The big bull head on his back, still his only ink, twisted and snarled, glimmering in his wet skin.
If Maverick and Gunner had been in the ring since before she and Kelsey had arrived, then they’d been fighting at least fifteen, maybe twenty minutes—and they looked it. Both were soaked in sweat, their bodies red from blows and from exertion.
He hadn’t seen her yet, so she waited for the right time, when a distraction wouldn’t get him flattened, and called out, “Mav!”
He didn’t seem to hear her, but Gunner did and ducked Maverick’s next blow. He held out his taped fist, and Maverick turned. His grin at seeing her glowed brightly in his flushed face.
The men hugged, and they came together to the ropes. Maverick ducked through first.
“Hey, babe.” He pulled her close, and she didn’t resist his sweaty embrace. “You came.”
“I told you I would,” she murmured so only he could hear. He shifted and tucked his head on her other shoulder. “We’ll leave before it gets rowdy, but this is...this is okay. Hey—I started my period this morning.” She wanted to get that out right away, and this was a way to do it almost privately but without chance for a big talk.
He pulled back and stared into her eyes. She could see that he was disappointed, but he smiled again. “When we try again, it’ll be the right time. Not a mistake.”
She nodded and pressed her cheek to his damp chest. That was the best response she could have hoped for.
Willa had gone to Rad and their son when they’d come outside. Now Rad called out, “I hear you and Willa were friends already, Jenny.”
Jenny sent him a sincere smile. She felt better about Rad now. Today, she might even be okay with Eight Ball. Maybe. “Yeah, I guess we were. You’re a lucky man, Radical.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“What?” Maverick cocked his head at her.
“Willa was working when I had Kelsey. She stayed with me and helped me have her. Seeing her here was...bizarre. And wonderful.” There was more she wanted to say about that, but not here, and not now.
“We’ve never talked about her birth.”
No, they hadn’t, but Jenny guessed they would do so soon. Again, however—not here. “We will. You should put a shirt on now, though. Kelsey’s inside with Mo, and she’s been antsy to see you.”
“I’m glad you didn’t bring her out here. I don’t know how to tell her about this.” He nodded toward the ring. Big old Ox was climbing in, and a skinny young guy with short blond hair was taking off his kutte and t-shirt. Ox was older, in his mid or late forties, probably, but he was a massive brick wall of male flesh. That kid was going to get wad
ded up like tissue paper, even in a friendly spar—and Jenny could see that he knew it. He must have been a prospect, or a new patch, because he was being hazed.
“Go easy on him, Slick!” Simon yelled, laughing.
She turned back to Maverick. “Yeah...we’ll have to figure that out. ‘Daddy likes to punch people’ isn’t exactly in line with the lessons she’s been learning about kindness and peace.”
Maverick laughed—he was really happy, and Jenny caught his vibe. It was good to see him like this: the best of him. She felt good. Standing in the back yard of the Brazen Bulls clubhouse, a place where she’d never been comfortable, she felt happy and warm and welcome. That was weird. But good.
He gave her a smelly squeeze and changed the subject. “So, Kelsey’s with Mo? That go okay?”
“It did. They worked it out that Kelsey would call her Grammo, like Zach does, and now they’re in the kitchen having brownies and milk.”
“That’s great. See? She’s not gonna hold a grudge with you, Jen.”
Jenny wasn’t yet so sure. She’d always been intimidated by Mo, even before, and Maverick knew it. He also knew that she’d had trepidation about meeting her again, and he thought he knew why. He thought it was because she’d pulled away and denied him Kelsey, the reason all the Bulls had been cold to her.
He didn’t know about the last time she and Mo had been in the same room.
October 1993
Jenny didn’t know how she could take any more. Kelsey screamed and screamed, right in her ear. She was dry, she’d been fed, she was warm, dressed in a soft sleeper. She wouldn’t sleep, she wouldn’t nurse, she didn’t want the swing, she didn’t want to lie down, she didn’t want anything but to scream and scream, so hard and loud that she was getting hoarse.
The pediatrician had asked what her temperature was, and, when Jenny had reported that it was normal, he’d told her that sometimes babies just got upset and wanted to cry.
Her baby was upset, and she couldn’t fix it. Because she was a terrible mother.
A terrible mother with a moderate migraine, threatening to get worse with every shriek. All she could do was hold her daughter and let her scream, doing laps around this house she hated, bouncing and trying to sing and be calm when what she wanted, what she needed to do was cry. Just as loud and long as her baby was. Just give in and wail.
Every time her frantic, exhausted path took her through the dining room, she glared at the papers on the table, the top and bottom thirds standing up from the folds.
Her father’s medical insurance would no longer pay for his recuperative care. He’d hit his lifetime limit. There was another policy, she’d managed to discover in the forty-one minutes of sleep Kelsey had had in the past twenty hours, one for long-term care, but the monthly amount of funding was about, at best, a third of the cost of the private facilities her father’s caseworker had called.
The last option was a public nursing home. But the Tulsa paper had run a big series of articles about the state of public homes in Oklahoma, and it was not good. Like Victorian England not good. They were understaffed, underfunded, and overcrowded. She bore little love for her father anymore, but she couldn’t condemn him to a life of lying for hours in his own waste, with bedsores eating through to his bones. She was a better person than that. She was a better person than him.
There was the money that the Bulls brought to her at the bar, but it wasn’t enough, and she didn’t trust that it was reliable—and it was for her daughter, regardless. Jenny was determined to save every single cent of it so that Kelsey would have it when she was old enough to start her own life. She would never be trapped by circumstances.
The real last option, then, was the worst, and the only: her father was coming home. To live with her. Forever. She was trapped in this horrid house, with a new baby and an invalid father. She was trapped running his stupid, shitty bar, because it was the only job that would allow her to make her own hours and be there for Kelsey and keep this sad little existence running. Forever.
“Please, pixie. Please hush. Please, please, please, please, please.” The books said to stay calm, that babies took cues from their mothers’ moods, and getting upset only made an upset baby work up more, but Jenny just couldn’t anymore. She dropped to the sofa and sobbed while Kelsey screamed on. And on. And on.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to be with Maverick, living in a pretty house with a big yard, and he was supposed to be taking care of them. He’d promised her a great life for their daughter, and for her, and for him.
The doorbell rang. Jenny stared balefully at it and ignored it. Probably Child Welfare coming to take her baby away because obviously she had no idea what the hell she was doing.
It rang again. And again. Then there was pounding. Kelsey kept screaming.
“JENNY! Open up, love!”
Oh God. It was Mo. Could this day get any worse?
She hadn’t seen Mo since the day of Maverick’s sentencing, when he’d gone away for three whole years instead of the few months he’d promised. Mo had called—a lot—but Jenny had deleted every message and hung up on every call she’d had the misfortune to answer.
She wanted no part of the Bulls or anything that had to do with the man who’d left her in this state. Fuck them all. Every one of them.
“Jenny!” More pounding. “I know you’re in there, love. Open up, or I’ll shoot my way in.”
That was no empty threat. Jenny heaved herself and her wailing infant up from the sofa and went to unlock the front door and let the Queen of the Bulls in.
“Well, mercy, what is the commotion in here?” Mo dropped her capacious handbag and reached for Kelsey. Jenny twisted away, but the look Mo gave her was so severe and intent that she found herself turning back and letting her take the baby.
And hating herself for the relief she felt. Even the couple of feet of distance between her ear and Kelsey’s mouth was like a cool, soothing breeze. She rubbed at the bone under her right eyebrow, the place where her headache always seemed to dig in.
She was pretty glad, though, that her daughter had not immediately stopped crying when Mo had taken her. If that had happened, Jenny thought she might have just gone outside and lain down in the middle of the street.
“Go lie down, Jenny. Close your eyes for a bit. I’ll take care of this little foghorn and give you a break.”
Jenny shook her head. There was no chance in hell that she would leave Mo unattended with her daughter. She might wake up and find them both gone.
Mo considered her, disappointment sharp enough to be contempt creasing the space between her arched eyebrows. “Fine, then. At least brush your teeth and put some deodorant on. You stink.”
Jenny had to pee anyway, so she turned and shuffled down the hall to the bathroom. She peed and washed her hands, and she was face to face with herself in the mirror. A ghoul looked back at her—matted hair, sagging skin, sunken eyes, and—the best part—stiff, round patches, about the size of softballs, on her shirt, over each boob. She’d been leaking most of the day. All Kelsey’s crying and not eating had her boobs filled to bursting.
This was her day off—haha—but it was still nuts that she was walking around at three o’clock in the afternoon in her pajamas and bathrobe. She brushed her teeth, and her hair. She washed her face and put deodorant on. Then she went to her bedroom and pulled on a pair of clean sweatpants and a fresh t-shirt and nursing bra.
Suddenly, the crying stopped. The silence after hours and hours shocked her senses. She wouldn’t have been surprised if her ears had popped.
After the initial relief of the sudden wash of peace, Jenny was overwhelmed by jealousy. What had Mo done that she hadn’t been able to do? Mo wasn’t even a mother! She stormed back up the hall and found Mo standing in the middle of the living room. Kelsey was cradled in her arms, but wrong way up, with her head lying on Mo’s hand, her belly on her forearm, and her little legs straddled over her upper arm. Mo twisted back and f
orth, rocking.
Kelsey had fallen asleep.
“What are you doing?” The accusation Jenny had intended was lost in her whisper. “You’re going to hurt her!”
Mo smiled. “This always worked for Clara. She was colicky, too. Drove Joanna nuts until she figured this out. A little pressure on her belly like this made her hurt less.”
Jenny couldn’t deal with the thought that Kelsey might have been in pain all this time. She’d read the book! It had said to watch for her pulling up her legs, but she hadn’t done that. It wasn’t pain!
Oh God, had her baby been in pain, and she’d done nothing?
Refusing to allow herself to cry in front of Mo, she changed the subject—but she didn’t move to reclaim her daughter, who was sound asleep, her breath hitching from the lasting effects of her screams. “Why are you here?”
“You know why, love. Enough is enough. You can’t cut us out. You need us, and this pretty lass is one of ours.”
“No. She’s mine.”
“And Mav’s.”
“If Maverick wanted her, then he should be with us now.”
“That’s absurd, and you know it. He would be if he could be.”
Jenny shook her head. He’d made a choice. He’d ignored her and done what he’d wanted, and she was paying the price for what he’d done. Even more, now, than she’d expected. In less than two weeks, when the month was out, she’d have her father on her back. Forever. Because of what Maverick had done.
Mo gazed down at Jenny’s little girl for a long time, swinging her gently while she slept. Without looking up, she said, “Seems to me you could use the help, love. You’re not doing such a top job on your own, now, are you?”
No, she was not. She was overwhelmed and terrified every minute of every day, whether she was pacing the house with a screaming child, or trying to run a fucking tavern with a baby strapped to her chest, or feeling guilty because she’d left her with the next-door neighbors. She was a shit mom, and she knew it.
Slam (The Brazen Bulls MC #3) Page 24