He went out, got on his bike, and rode home.
He parked, got off, let himself in and as he took off his cut, he walked to the plastic covered velvet couch to sling it down, surveying what got done that day.
The wall between the kitchen and living room had been torn down, making a great room that was gonna rock. The finishes had been done on the demolished wall days ago.
Now the island and cabinets had been put in, as had the backsplash tile. Warm wood. Chocolate subway tile. The low-backed, bucket-seat stools in coffee leather with chrome legs were under plastic in the living room, ready to go around that island when it was done.
They had the black granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances to put in, also the handles on the cabinets.
Then Janna’s kitchen would be done.
It didn’t match her gray velvet beachy living room. But she’d wanted her kitchen warm and the two spaces to be unique.
So that was what she got.
“Hey, honey.”
He turned at her call to see her bouncing down the hall toward him.
His gaze fell to her left hand where there was a rock that he could see, since that fucker could be seen from outer space.
“They got the tile done today!” she cried excitedly about two seconds before she threw herself at him.
Beck caught her.
“Yeah,” he muttered and kept doing it when he demanded, “Kiss.”
She got up on her toes and he felt her hair brushing his hands at her waist when she gave it all up for him.
After he got done plundering her mouth, he lifted his head.
“Where you wanna go for dinner?” he asked.
She scrunched her face. “It’ll be good when this is done so I can cook. Feels like I haven’t made you crinkle cuts in a year.”
He grinned at her.
Then repeated. “Where you wanna go for dinner?”
“Monsoon?”
He wasn’t a big fan, though the samosas and rice and kebabs didn’t suck.
But his woman loved Indian. That was her favorite restaurant.
“You got it,” he replied.
She beamed at him.
“Get your coat, baby. Weather’s good, we’re on my bike,” he told her.
Another beam then she pulled out of his arms to bounce away.
Ten minutes later, Gerard Beck was on his bike, his woman pressed to his patch at his back, and he was taking her to get her some food.
He could not say he didn’t have a care in the world.
He’d murdered two men.
He’d beat down a good woman.
He’d also aimed his club to an honorable path as well as righted three wrongs, and even if one of those wrongs was not erasing the fact he’d beaten down a good woman, he’d earned the love of another.
So he suspected he was doing all right.
And his brother might be proud.
But he knew his woman was.
So that worked for him.
Rebel
Six weeks later . . .
The cheer could probably be heard in China.
I was right there with them.
Tack was best man.
Rosalie gave the bride away and stood as maid of honor.
It was done outside Tack and Tyra’s place, up in the foothills.
In the end, it was Big Petey who looked like he was glowing the whole day.
But I couldn’t say his new wife Renae didn’t look all kinds of happy.
Rush
Two weeks later . . .
You really couldn’t give Hop shit that a vine of jasmine was brushing his hair as he sat on the edge of a bench stuffed with bright cushions, with his guitar on his knee.
Rush, with his father standing next to him, wouldn’t have thought to give shit anyway when she rounded the path and moved toward him with Diesel on one arm, Maddox on the other, while Hop sang that song.
It’d be a lot later when he’d notice the dress, which was a pale shade of pink Elvira would tell him was blush, with pretty lace at the top that dripped down into the filmy, wide skirt. He didn’t even notice the cleavage from the deep V or that she had her hair all bunched up in braids at her nape with a fat one framing her face.
All he could see was that face.
His girl’s beautiful face.
And the love for him that shone there.
Also, she was smiling like a huge fucking goof.
It was Molly, standing opposite him, that let out the first sob.
Essence kicked in with the next.
Amy’s came after that.
He couldn’t tell after that because Rebel had kissed Maddox’s cheek, then D’s, and D was putting her hand in his.
And that was when Rebel became his.
He didn’t have to say the vows.
But he said them.
He didn’t have to listen to her saying them.
But he listened to every word that came from her glossy lips.
That gloss got all over his mouth when he kissed his bride.
And it was crazy fucking surreal, bending with his girl and laughing in each other’s faces as they walked through a magical wonderland in north Denver, surrounded on both sides with really good people who loved them as pink flower petals rained down so thick they could barely see five inches in front of them.
But Cole “Rush” Allen knew, that surreal moment, with her hand tucked tight to his chest, her beautiful face laughing in his as they walked through petals was the best goddamned moment of his life.
And he knew it would be until the day he died.
It’d take a really long time.
They’d have way more than forty years.
But his last thought on earth was that in that moment . . .
He’d been right.
Two weeks later . . .
“That, boy, that. See it?” Essence whispered in his ear, where they lounged close to where he and Rebel had been married two weeks earlier in an alcove in Essence’s garden, which he hadn’t noticed on the day but noticed now, was lush with green and bright with black-eyed Susans and crawling with deep-hued lobelia and smelling of jasmine.
Rebel had been right.
Essence’s garden was magical in the summer.
But he’d helped her string her yule lights through it last winter (along with Roscoe, Speck, Dutch, Jag, and Chill, the last three now patched in, so Jag bitched at length about the whole process and the fact he no longer had to do this “lame-ass shit”). So that place could be magical in the winter too.
Rush had no clue, but it had to be two thousand strings of those bastards they’d wound around branches and trunks.
Apparently, Essence’s hippie environmentalism that meant she’d lost her mind when he’d pulled out a Ziploc in her presence, didn’t extend to Yule.
Then again, she’d made a shit ton of mead, virgin mead (whatever the hell that was, he’d taken a sip of the non-virgin shit and then switched right to beer) and she’d had her three men, her son and his family, all of Chaos, and everyone in a three-block radius over to wander her wonderland, eat homemade cookies and drink mead (and beer). So he reckoned with that kind of fellowship, she could get away with burning her part of the hole in the ozone layer.
It was no hog roast.
But it pretty much rocked.
Right then, Rebel had her ass on a poof, her back to some bark, and Tab and Shy’s brand-new, sleeping daughter in her arms.
Playboy was out on a blanket next to her, taking his afternoon nap.
Tab and Shy were passed out in Rebel’s cottage, getting a breather.
Rush and Rebel had just gotten back from their honeymoon the day before.
A honeymoon that had been on a beach.
“She’s all pink and green. All pink and green and white,” Essence shared.
Rush lazed back on the bench with all its colorful cushions, his ankles crossed on an ottoman in front of him, Essence against his side, her legs curled up behind her, resting in the curve of his arm.
And he looked.
But he didn’t see dick.
Little Tyra Wren’s eyes fluttered and Rebel cooed to her, “Auntie Essence has a loud whisper, doesn’t she?”
Wren pursed her lips and Rebel’s entire face shared how cute she thought that was.
Fuck, he was knocking up his wife as soon as he could.
“Now she’s all pink,” Essence declared happily.
He had no fucking clue what that meant.
But he didn’t care.
He had nothing to do but sit with the woman he loved, the niece and nephew he adored, and a crazy old lady who had a piece of his heart . . . and chill.