His grandfather had captured the kid and carried it, struggling and bleating, back to the worried mommy goat by its back legs. The similarities didn’t escape him, and even though he tried not to, he began to laugh. He blurted a giggle, then another, and another three or four, accompanied by a twisting jerk attempting to get away, even if it meant he fell on his noggin. I’m a kid, he thought and blurted a giggle again. She swooped him upside right and snuggled her face into his neck, blowing a wet raspberry on his skin and making him giggle again. “Stop,” he yelled with a laugh, and was surprised when she immediately did, setting his feet firmly back on the floor.
“I’ll stop doing this if you stop apologizing for things that aren’t your fault.” She squatted down, looking him in the face. “Cereal is cheap; we can buy more. As for the paper? Well, seems to me that I scared you with my crazy aunt voice, so if anyone’s to blame, it’s me. But, cereal is cheap, baby. Shoot, Hoss back there?” She pointed over his shoulder, and he twisted to look up at the man.
“Hossman can eat nearly a full box at one sitting.” Hoss smiled and snorted a laugh, shaking his head negatively, still busy at the sink, and after looking at him for a long minute, Sam turned back to his aunt.
“Okay, maybe not a full box,” she amended. “But he can eat a lot. And the paper? If I had a bird, and had a house, and kept that bird in a cage in that house, the paper would line the bottom of that cage in that house, so the bird in that cage could poop on the paper. That’s how little I care for the paper.”
He was staring at her, so he saw the shift in her expression, signaling she was serious. “I care about you. Not the paper, not the table, not the cereal, and not my raggedy old shirt.” She smoothed out the wrinkles in her shirt from where he had been sleeping in her lap. “I care about you, Super Sammy.”
“And Mom? Do you care for Mom?” He watched her face as he asked the question, and was amazed again by the transformation in her face. She went from happy-silly to crazy-happy, and he could see it. It shone from her, like a flashlight through thin covers after dark. She loves Mommy, he thought with joy, and could feel a smile on his face in response. Mac loved Mom like a daddy or a friend, and loved Sam like a granddad. But Aunt Mercy loved her without needing a reason, without anything other than love. No narrowing descriptions, no qualifications, just a whole passel of love.
“I love your Mom more than…ice cream.” She nodded, her head moving up and down fast, and he giggled.
“More than vanilla shakes?” he asked, and she nodded enthusiastically. “More than…candy?” He grinned; he loved candy.
“Yep,” she responded, “I love you and your mother more than candy, ice cream, vanilla shakes, chocolate, and bubble gum all rolled together into a big ball.” Hoss made a noise, and Sam turned to look at him, steadily staring into Hoss’ dark brown eyes, waiting.
“Just sayin’, she means it. I can see she’s sincere, Sam. She likes chocolate a lot, too. But I can see your pretty Aunt Mercy means what she says there.” Hoss nodded seriously, and Sam turned back to look at Aunt Mercy.
“I like you, too.” Sam rubbed the tips of his fingers with his thumb and then reached up to cup her face like Mom did with him when she wanted him to pay attention. His breath hitched when he invoked the words Mom used when she was super serious. “No lies.” He waited for her nod and then continued, “Mommy needs you. She’s tough and figures all kinds of things out all the time, but she hasn’t had anyone who liked her since Mac.” There was a noise behind him, and he turned to see an irritated scowl on Hoss’ face, his lips twisting sideways, nearly hidden by his beard.
“Mac?” The man made the one word a question, and Sam frowned at him.
“Our friend in Birmingham.” He offered, thinking even if Hoss was scary, at least Mac had to be safe from this man, because Birmingham was so far away he couldn’t imagine going back. It was days away—wake-ups away.
“Not your Daddy?” Hoss asked in a gruffly fierce voice, and Sam frowned again.
“No, my Daddy is a good guy. We just try not to bother him very much.” He nodded, repeating the words Mom had told him more than once. Now Aunt Mercy made a noise, and he turned back to see her lips twisted like she had licked something that tasted bad, like a deodorant stick. “Mac is a friend.” He bent to look at Hoss again and saw he was grinding his teeth together. “Are you Mom’s friend?”
Nodding slowly, Hoss looked at him. “I hope I am. I want to be.”
Shaking his head, Sam felt his mouth twisting like Aunt Mercy’s had. “I don’t think so. You yelled at her. Friends don’t yell.”
“When?” Hoss seemed sincerely stumped by the statement, so Sam answered him.
“Last night. You yelled at her to get into the car. Then you yelled some more and hit the car a bunch of times. You scared her. She cried.” Looking at Hoss, Sam saw the corners of his eyes get tight and knew he had made the man mad. Tucking his chin into his chest for a second, he pulled together all his courage and raised his head, meeting Hoss’ gaze straight on, like Mac had taught him to do. Big boys gotta watch out for our mommas and the ones we love. He heard the scolding voice of Mac in his head and, ignoring the anger he thought he had seen, told Hoss, “She cried. That’s not how friends act.”
He leaned forward at the waist, making sure Hoss knew he was serious. “She’s my mom, and you don’t get to make her cry.” He straightened and waited until Hoss gave him a single nod in response, and then he turned to look at Aunt Mercy, seeing a funny look on her face. Not sad, not happy, more like she was weighing his words against something. “I’m…I’m a little hungry.”
“Then we need to fix that,” she said immediately, standing. “Super Sammy, let’s make an Egyptian eye.”
“What’s an Egyptian eye?” he asked, following her into the kitchen, stopping when Hoss didn’t move, just stared down at him. Looking up, his voice funny because his neck was stretched so far, he said, “Maybe you could be friends as long as you don’t scare her again. ‘Kay?” Hoss squatted down, resting one knee on the floor. Sam tipped his face to follow him down and they looked at each other for a moment.
Sam thought he might like Hoss, but didn’t want to, because of how he talked to Mom. If Hoss liked Mom, it would be good, since she would have a friend. That would be good, because Sam knew how lonely it was to be without friends. In a couple of the shelters, he had met kids his own age, and the freedom found in the give-and-take of playing pretend games with no rules, just for fun, was a giddy thing.
Mostly it was simply him and her. Their terrible twosome. She thought he had made friends in skate class, but skating was work. No playing there. The classes meant she was spending money on him—on him—so he couldn’t let her down. Skate class was to get better, not joke around with the other kids. So probably, Mom doesn’t have many friends either, he thought.
“I’ll try not to, Sam. I really do hope I’m your momma’s friend. I liked her last night, and I didn’t mean to scare her. I was trying to keep her, and you, safe.” He moved, and Sam looked down, seeing words on his black vest.
“What does that mean?” he asked, pointing to the small red-and-white patch. He read the words aloud, “I sa-san-snat-snatch kisses, and vice ves-ver-verses-us-versus? I snatch kisses and vice versus? What does that mean?”
“Oh, man.” He heard Aunt Mercy behind him and twisted to look up. She had a carton of eggs and a loaf of bread in her hands and was standing stock still in the middle of the room with a broad grin on her face. With suppressed laughter in her voice, she said, “Man, oh, man. We’ll explain that one in a few years, Sammy. Now, let’s make us some”—here she used a silly, creepy voice—“Egyptian eyes.”
Five minutes later, he was again installed at the table, using the tines of a fork to smear the runny yolk of the egg over the toasted bread. Aunt Mercy had cut a diamond shape out of the middle of the bread, fried it in butter in a skillet, and then flipped it over and cracked an egg into the empty space. When it cooked throug
h enough, she slid it onto the plate using her silly, creepy voice to say, “Breakfast is served, young master. Behold the beauty that is…an Egyptian eye.”
Hoss had laughed at that, a big, booming, cheerful laugh filling up all the open space in the kitchen with happy, and Sam found himself smiling at him, even though he didn’t want to. He thanked his aunt politely as she placed the plate in front of him, nodding this time when she offered him juice. As he was eating, he overheard Hoss ask her, “Hope in the guest room?”
His head popped up, looking at the two adults standing close in the kitchen. Hoss’ hand was on her arm; he had stepped in close to her so he could speak quietly, and was looking down into her face. The look on Aunt Mercy’s face told Sam a lot of things.
In the shelters and parks where he and Mom spent their time, in the back alleys and shopping center parking lots, in the backseats of cars parked next to theirs, he had seen lots of things. Some of it Mom knew about, but a lot of it was confusing, and he didn’t have the words to ask. One thing he had gotten good at was being able to tell when people had spent important time around each other, when they were comfortable in a way that came from long association.
Hoss’ face had gone soft, and his aunt’s tipped up, chin lifted, her gaze to his. He could see Hoss and Aunt Mercy had an easy way between them, like Hoss liked her. Once he saw that, Sam knew it didn’t matter anymore if he liked Hoss or not. Not now, because he would never be a friend of Mom’s if he were already more than a friend of Aunt Mercy’s. “Yeah, she and Sam slept on the double in there last night. We’re going to go today and buy a single to put in the room for Sam.”
Hoss shook his head, stepping back, and the moment seemed to fracture, pull apart. Sam watched his face close down strangely when he asked, “Boy’s gonna be sleeping in there with her?”
Aunt Mercy lifted an eyebrow when she looked back at Sam then to Hoss. “Yeah, he gets a bed of his own. I’m going to talk to Eddie today about school, too. We want to get everything lined out before the semester starts.”
“Club has some furniture. Talk to Ruby. She’ll know what we have and what’s available.” Hoss stepped backwards another stride, resting his bottom against the countertop.
“If she’ll talk to me.” Aunt Mercy shrugged. “Maybe I can get Eddie to call her.”
“What the fu—hell, Mercy?” Sam hid a grin at this barely-caught correction, because Hoss nearly said one of the ‘really bad words’ Mom had forbidden him to ever utter. ‘Pain of death,’ she had said, then corrected it to be, ‘pain of soap in your mouth’ but he already knew she would never kill him just for cussin’. She could never kill him for anything. “You work for us; you’re ours. That makes Hope ours, because she’s yours. Ruby won’t kick you to the curb, not that the woman would ever do that anyway. She ain’t gonna give you any grief, Mercy. Pisses me off, the way you see problems where none exist sometimes.”
“You know as well as I do club whor—girls don’t mix with an old lady. The RWOLs are an exclusive club, even if their ranks have been growing lately.” Aunt Mercy’s voice was brittle and sad. She sounded like Mom did when she had to tell Sam something hard, something that had the potential to hurt.
“You ain’t one anymore, and everybody knows it, Mercy.” Hoss had a frustrated tone, and Sam looked up to see him scowling. Eyes on Hoss, he used the edge of the fork to cut another piece of toast, dipping it into the egg before putting it into his mouth.
He didn’t often get to see grownups fight. Even when ‘that jackhole’ Gibson was moving out, Mom hadn’t yelled, just got all frowny and tense.
“You are the only one who’s still fu—hung up on what used to be, woman.” He wasn’t yelling, but the sharp-edged tone of his voice made Sam cringe, and he knew Hoss noticed it when he said, “Aww hell, now I’m scarin’ the boy. Made him draw in on hisself like a turtle.” Shaking his head, he turned and walked out of the kitchen towards the front door, calling over his shoulder, “Gonna get you in a three bedroom. I’ll fuckin’ call Myron and Ruby myself. Dammit, Mercy, you piss me right the fuck off.”
Sam laid the fork on the plate and put his hands in his lap, bowing his head. Now he was the reason Hoss was mad and leaving. He was walking out, and Mom wasn’t up yet, so he couldn’t even tell if she wanted to be friends with him. He would have to wait to figure it out.
A warm hand caressed his shoulder, and Aunt Mercy quietly said, “He’s fulla bluster and bother, but he’s a real good man. You don’t have to be afraid of our Hossman.” Without looking up, Sam nodded, and her fingers squeezed the back of his neck. “Eat up, Sammy. I’m gonna go see if your mom managed to sleep through the drama.”
***
“No, it’s not a gang,” Mercy told her in a testy tone of voice. “It’s a club. It’s a group of men, a bunch of guys who share a passion for motorcycles. They happen to want to live a certain kind of lifestyle most other people don’t understand, and honestly most folks don’t have any desire to learn. These men have mortgages, families, jobs…they are no more or less than regular people.”
“Okay, okay. Clearly, I hit a nerve. Sorry. I don’t know the terminology. I didn’t mean anything derogatory by it.” Hope backtracked quickly because she didn’t want to offend, and could see these men meant a lot to her sister. “I want to understand what your role in their club is, where you fit, so I can find where Sam and I fit.” Mercy tilted her head, a question on her face. Hope shrugged, and said, “Sammy told me Hoss said you were theirs, and it meant we were theirs by association. Sounds like something I need to understand. If for no other reason, so I don’t do what I just did by putting my foot in it, and in doing so, offend someone important to you.”
Sammy had been a little cautious with his responses when she questioned him, and she suspected there was more to the encounter between Hoss and Mercy this morning. At least Sam and Mercy seemed to have hit it off, and he had spoken without wariness about seeing Hoss, more interested in telling her about his exotic breakfast.
With a shake of her head, Mercy lifted one hand, raising her palm to Hope. “No, it’s not that big a deal. Just don’t use the word around the guys. What Hoss said was he’s going to see if he can get us a bed from the club. They have some stuff in storage, and he’s going to ask the chapter president’s wife about it.”
Hope frowned. “Just like that? They have furniture laying around, waiting for someone to need it?”
“Kinda.” Mercy poured a mug of coffee and slid it across the counter to where Hope was standing. “The club owns a house here in town, and they furnish that and some apartments for members, or other folks, like me.” She swung her hand out, indicating the apartment. “Like this place. The need fluctuates, so they store things in between times.”
“What did he mean about you belonging to them?” Picking up the mug, she blew across the top of the liquid and then cautiously took a sip, walking alongside Mercy to the couch, the two women sitting on either end, facing each other.
“I know a bunch of the members. We’re friends. I’ve been around the club for a long time, and now I work at Slinky’s.” Mercy shrugged, but a blush spread up her neck to her face.
“What does Slinky’s have to do with it?” Hope sipped her coffee again, looking at Mercy intently.
“The club owns the place.” Mercy set her cup down and twisted, glancing towards the back of the room. “Did you sleep okay?”
“Yeah, I did.” She smiled, reaching up to rub the back of her neck. “I’m still crazy stiff from driving, but it was the best sleep I’ve had in a long time.”
Turning back to her with a smile, Mercy said, “I’m glad. Means you felt safe here, and that makes me real happy, hon.”
She took a breath, then said, “Next thing to do is for me to find a job, so I can help make ends meet around here.”
“No rush on that,” Mercy said, picking up her cup of coffee. “It was a long drive, Hope. You should take it easy a couple weeks, get yourself rested up and ready.”
Hope snorted a laugh. “That’s sweet, but not realistic. I’ll start figuring out a job today. I can look online, and there’s probably a temp service or two I can call. I…I have a little cash left, so you won’t have to carry us, Mercy. I’m not at all afraid of working hard. Most of the time, I juggle two or three part-time jobs. It’s about all I can do with no schooling, since I’m not qualified for anything that’s full-time and pays enough to support Sammy and me.”
She jumped and shrieked, nearly spilling her coffee when a low, growling voice came from directly behind her. “Working two or three jobs don’t leave much time for motherin’, sweetheart.”
Twisting around on the sofa, she saw the big man from last night was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. From the other end of the couch, she heard Mercy’s amused voice, “Hossman, you gotta start announcing yourself. Stop scaring my family.”
“Sammy needs his momma.” His eyes were boring into her and she felt her shoulders tighten, drawing in. He thinks I’m a bad mother, she thought, and was immediately near tears. She swallowed hard and opened her mouth to refute his words, when he shook his head, saying, “Like son, like mother, looks like, always thinkin’ the worst. Relax, sweetheart. I didn’t mean anything other than Sammy loves his momma and wants her around. Seein’ you with him last night, it’s clear you love him, too. Working two or three jobs means shuffling shifts and daycare. Let me help you find a job that can take care of you guys, without doin’ you in.” He walked across the room and leaned forward, placing his hands on the back of the couch and turning his head to look her in the face. “Now, relax those shoulders and take a breath. I was looking forward to seein’ that little smile again.”
Hoss (Rebel Wayfarers MC Book 7) Page 6