“It could be worse, son,” Walter muttered as he guided him up the porch steps. “You just remember that, it could always be worse.”

“It couldn’t,” Jase slurred, suddenly feeling a whole lot drunker than he had only moments ago. “I fucked it all up, everything, everyone. I made a holy fuckin’ mess.”

“Don’t be blasphemous in front of your mama, now.”

The door opened just as they reached it and standing behind the screen was Jase’s mother. Unlike Walter, Doreen had aged gracefully. Her long gray and white hair was still thick with curls, her delicate features remained intact despite the many wrinkles that had taken up residence over the years. And her eyes, his favorite feature on her kind face, were still as big and as blue as ever.

“The prodigal son returns,” Walter announced flatly.

Her expression was a mixture of happiness and sadness, her eyes filling even as she tried to smile. “Jason,” she said tearfully, pushing open the screen door and holding out her arms.

“He’s covered in his own mess,” Walter grumbled.

“I don’t care,” she snapped. “He’s my son.”

His father had to help him up the remaining step, and then he was in the house, the smells of home enveloping him as his mother’s arms wrapped tightly around him.

Jase couldn’t help it, he broke down, because apparently that was what he did now, he cried. All the damn time.

“Shhh,” she said, hushing him while rubbing his back. “There ain’t nothing wrong that we can’t fix, you hear me? Nothing wrong that we can’t fix.”

He didn’t believe her, but he didn’t mind the comfort either.

Guiding him to the bench in the hall, she helped him sit before sinking to her knees and starting on his boots.

“No, Mama,” he said, bending down only to get swatted away.

“Gimme that vest of yours,” Walter said, already pulling it from his shoulders. “Coat too.”

About to hang both up on the coat rack, his father turned back to him, his brow raised. “Deuce know you’re here?”

Jase shook his head. In fact, no one knew because he had no idea where his cell phone was. Probably in his room at the club where’d he’d last seen it. Lot of good it did him there. He could only imagine Deuce’s face when he tried to call him and found his phone in his room.

“All right then. I’ll be givin’ him a call while your mama does whatever it is she’s doin’.”

“Don’t tell him everything,” Jase called after him.

“I won’t,” he yelled back. “But Deuce is a smart man, pretty sure he’ll be able to fill in the blanks.”

Jase sank back against the bench, feeling another wave of worthlessness slide through him.

“Jason?”

“Hmm?”

“Jason, look at me.”

His energy quickly waning, Jase used every last bit of it to straighten his neck and look at his mother.

“You’re a Brady, aren’t you?”

Oh, fuck him in the ass with a goddamned fork, it was the Brady family speech.

“Yeah, Mama,” he muttered. “I’m a Brady.”

“And what do Bradys do?”

“Beer, barbeque, and rodeo?”

“Jason . . .” His mother’s tone was that of a warning, and Jase fought the urge to roll his eyes.

“Bradys love each other,” she snapped. “Bradys show respect for one another. Bradys work hard, Bradys are honest, and Bradys do their best.”

“Mama,” he said. “I’ve fucked up every single one of those at one point or another, some more than once.”

“Last one,” she continued, ignoring him. “What is it, Jason?”

Swallowing back the quickly forming lump in his throat, he looked off down the hallway to where he could see his father talking on the old rotary phone. He couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he could only imagine what Deuce was telling him. The thought of them swapping stories made him cringe.

He turned back to his mother. “Bradys forgive each other.”

Smiling, she gave him a quick pat on the knee, finished pulling his boot off, and then went to work on the other.

“The girls won’t forgive me,” he whispered.

His mother didn’t even bother looking up. “They will,” she said. “They’re Bradys. And Jason?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t you dare curse in my house again.”

Chapter Fourteen

“Details,” Eva whispered, leaning across the kitchen counter. “I want them.”

It had been almost two weeks since my arrival in Miles City, and the first time coming back to the clubhouse since Hawk had been brought home. This morning I’d woken up to Tegen and Cage and their usual bickering. Unable to stand one more second of it, I’d quickly showered and dressed, made sure Hawk was comfortable, and made a mad dash to the clubhouse.

At first I was glad to find Eva hanging around and, always happy to spend time with her, I’d offered to make us both lunch. Until she’d begun badgering me for information.

Now, I was just annoyed. Unlike Kami, I wasn’t easily able to divulge the details of my romantic life, not even to the woman I considered my best friend.

Trying desperately not to blush, I feigned interest in the salad I was preparing in order to continue ignoring her.

“Sheesh, Dorothy, you’ve got to give me something. You have that big and sexy man laid up in bed, and I know you’ve kissed and made up. Cage said so.”

“What?” I shrieked, slamming the wooden spoon in my hand down on the counter. “He’s been spying on me?”

Eva jumped upright and did a strange celebratory dance that consisted of her shaking her backside and waving her arms in the air. It looked awkward and downright awful, and I made a mental note to tell her to never ever to do it again.

“I knew it!” she squealed, still dancing. “I knew it!”

“You tricked me!”

She shrugged as she grinned, and I sighed in defeat.

“Fine,” I said shortly. “We’ve . . . kissed. That’s it.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered dramatically. “Dorothy, what am I going to do with you? Who am I going to live vicariously through? Kami isn’t having sex and you’re not either, and my life consists of a cranky toddler, a twelve-year-old who thinks she’s twenty-six, and a husband who takes heart medication.”

“Join the club,” I said and sighed again. “My life usually consists of a seven-year-old who wants to be either a biker or a professional paint gun warrior. But lately it’s been full of my daughter and her husband who fight more than they don’t, and honestly, I don’t know why Tegen doesn’t just get a job at the local paper instead of struggling with the publishing industry. I don’t know how much longer I can take being in the same house with them. Hawk is supposed to be healing, but I don’t know how much healing can happen in a house that volatile.”

My daughter was a feisty one; there was no doubt about it. Belligerent and demonstrative would be putting it mildly. Tegen took opinionated to an entirely new level, and would fight to the death regardless if she was right or wrong. There were times I’d spent with her and Cage that I was truly perplexed by their interaction with each other. Always fighting, either yelling or refusing to speak to each other, yet at the same time they seemed to balance each other. It was an odd dynamic, but one that apparently worked.

I had to give Cage credit, though. Anyone who could put up with Tegen’s regular blowups and her usually crude demeanor either loved her fiercely or was a glutton for punishment. Knowing Cage as well as I did, I had no doubt it was the former. But even knowing this didn’t mean I wanted to bear witness to their unique way of showing their love for each other.

As for Hawk and me, there wasn’t much privacy to do . . . well, to do anything at all.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep, calming breath that did nothing to soothe my strained nerves. I wasn’t used to this . . . this . . . constant disruption anymore. I’d had a quiet, predictable life in San Francisco and now that I was back in Miles City, it was anything but quiet.

“And Hawk,” Eva added. “Your life consists of Hawk now too.”

“When didn’t it?” I quipped.

“Dooooorthy . . .” Eva purposely dragged out my name in a childlike whine.

“Evvvvvvaaaaaa . . . ,” I said, mimicking her.

“Dooooorthy . . . ,” she repeated.

“Okay, fine,” I snapped, dropping the spoon. It clattered to the countertop as I glared at her. “The truth is I haven’t had sex since Jase and I were still together, about mid-pregnancy. And to be honest, I’m terrified!”

To my surprise, Eva didn’t seem the least bit shocked by my revelation, instead she looked a little smug, as if she’d expected this answer from me. I didn’t know whether to be hurt that she’d tricked me once again, or elated that she knew me well enough and cared about me to the extent where she’d taken the time to really know me. To see past the walls I’d built around myself.

“You know what you need?” she asked. Placing her elbows down on the counter, Eva rested her chin in her palms and regarded me with a serious expression.

I shook my head. Had I ever known what I needed? Internally, I scoffed. No, I most certainly had not.

“What?” I asked hesitantly, not sure I really wanted to know what Eva had in store for me.

“Wild pussy,” Eva said solemnly.

I arched an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“Wild pussy,” Eva repeated. “You need to just take control. Forget about everything else—the past, your fears—forget about everything but you and Hawk and what you want. But mostly about what you want to do to him,” she finished with a sly grin.

“I’m not wild . . . pussy,” I said, stumbling over the last word and feeling my face heat. Desperately, I tried searching for a word that adequately described exactly what I was and came up empty. “I’m . . . dusty pussy,” I finished with a sigh, feeling ridiculous.

Eva’s face went slack as she gave me an exaggerated look of dismay. “You’re in your forties, Dorothy, not dead! So go home, kick your daughter out of the house, go upstairs, get naked, and fuck your man!”

“He can barely walk!” I hissed.

“He doesn’t need his leg for this!” she hissed back.

“He’ll need his third leg,” a new voice chimed in.

Eva and I both looked up to find Christina, Bucket’s heavily tattooed girlfriend, staggering through the kitchen’s swinging doors. Wearing only a black bra, a matching thong, and a pair of blood-red stiletto heels, she traipsed heavily across the linoleum before collapsing into the nearest chair.

Christina looked more haggard than I’d ever seen her before, with her long black hair a snarled mess, her dark makeup smudged around her eyes, giving her a raccoon appearance, and her red lipstick looking as though it had been forcefully smeared off her mouth and up her cheek.

I raised an eyebrow at Eva who, with a roll of her eyes, shook her head.

“So whose third leg are we talking about?” Christina asked.

“Hawk’s,” Eva answered, and flashed me a grin that I returned with a silent snarl.

“Oh,” Christina said, sounding bored. “Just hitch up that saddle and ride, girl, ride.”

“See,” Eva said smartly. “Told you.”

“It’s not that easy,” I protested.

“Why the fuck not?” Christina exclaimed. “I mean, it’s not as if you haven’t taken that ride before. Seriously, D, how long were you jerkin’ that joystick behind Jase’s back? Five, ten years? The whole damn time?”

My mouth fell open. I’d forgotten just how crude Christina could be. She had no filter, no reservations, and had always been more like one of the boys than any other woman associated with the club. In fact, she was a lot like my own daughter, aside from the fact that Tegen would never be caught dead parading around the clubhouse in lacy underwear and high heels.

Actually, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that most of the women associated with the club were a lot like Christina. With the exception of a few, they were hard women with battle-ax personalities, essentially strong enough to take on the kind of men who became part of Deuce’s crew.

How on earth had I ended up here?

While I might have been cheating on my husband with a married man, and later, engaging in a sexual relationship behind my lover’s back, as far as the club’s female standards went, I was exceptionally tame. A gazelle thrown into a pit of lions who’d somehow managed to survive.

Although not necessarily unscathed, but I’d survived nonetheless. Life sure did throw you some interesting curveballs sometimes.