I jabbed myself in the chest. “Tell me why I couldn’t know the truth about my mother!”
Preacher let out a hard sigh, and his chest let out a painful-sounding rattle in response. “I will, I will… but I gotta tell you the rest of the story first.”
My eyes bulged, and my grip on the bedrail tightened. I was about to let loose a string of curses when a familiar hand appeared on my shoulder.
“Fuckin’ breathe,” Deuce whispered.
I shook my head furiously. “But he—”
Deuce grabbed my wrist, pulled me out of my chair, and dragged me across the room and into the bathroom. Glaring at me, he kicked the door closed behind us and folded his arms across his chest. Regardless of his age, my husband still painted a formidable picture—his height, his breadth, and the way his eyes could turn bitterly cold in an instant, sucking all the warmth from the room.
Not that I was intimidated. “Move,” I demanded, gesturing angrily.
His arm muscles flexed, causing the dragons tattooed on his forearms to twitch restlessly. “Not a chance in hell, bitch. You need to calm the fuck down first. You start yellin’ at your old man now, you’re gonna regret it later.”
I mirrored his stance—arms crossed under my breasts, legs spread apart—and scowled up at him. His lips twisted, and dimples appeared.
“Put your fucking dimples away!” I hissed. “He lied to me for my entire life! Not just about my mother, but my grandparents too! I thought I could do this, but now—” I threw my arms up in the air. “I feel like I don’t even know my own father!”
I went from shouting to crying in the span of two heartbeats and collapsed to the cold floor with my face buried in my hands. Of course Deuce was right—I couldn’t lash out at my dying father, couldn’t let him leave this world thinking I was angry with him. Even though angry was exactly what I was. Furious, even. Confused, too. And a whole lot brokenhearted.
“You can do this.” Deuce’s voice was firm, yet soft. “I’ve seen you weather worse shit than this and still come out swingin’.”
I peeked up at him through my hands. “Worse than finding out everything I knew was a lie? Worse than losing my father?”
Deuce only stared down at me, stone-faced, those beautiful blue eyes of his suddenly ice-cold and swimming with ugly memories.
“Never mind,” I quickly whispered. Wiping my eyes, I took several shaky breaths. I could do this. I could get control of myself and walk back out there and do everything in my power to ensure Preacher’s last days were good ones.
Getting to my feet, I pressed a hand to my throat. “Deuce, the kids? Did you—”
“Taken care of. They’re all on the next flight outta Billings. First thing tomorrow.”
“Everyone is coming?”
“Every last one of them little assholes and all the damn fools they married.” His eyes began to smile. “My grandbabies, too. They’re all comin’.”
I lurched forward into his waiting arms and sagged against him.
“I should be able to do this,” I cried softly. “I’m a grown woman. Our daughter is practically grown. And I’ve got stepchildren with babies of their own. I should be able to keep it together!”
“Didn’t really care much for my old man,” Deuce said, chuckling darkly. “Hardly knew my mom. I think the closest thing I had to a real father was Blue. And darlin’, there wasn’t a goddamn thing on this Earth that could have kept me together when I found him sittin’ there dead. Not a fuckin’ thing.
“It ain’t gonna be easy,” he continued, “But I know you, Eva, and you’re gonna be just fine. You know how I know?”
I looked up to find his eyes on me. “How?”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “’Cause I’m gonna make damn sure of it.”
Tears welled in my eyes. Sheesh. I’d seen perfect couples before—like-minded people who shared the same interests and hobbies and who complemented each other in every way.
Deuce and I weren’t that—we fought just as much as we loved, and to this day the hard times still occasionally outshined the good times. But despite it all, I was unable to recall a time when I wasn’t either fascinated by him, turned on by him, or in love with him.
We were special, me and Deuce. All his sharp and jagged edges may not align perfectly with mine, yet I loved him anyway.
All my grief and guilt, all my shock and sadness, and all my anger suddenly took a very different path. Reaching up, I grabbed hold of Deuce’s face and crushed my mouth to his.
For a full ten minutes, we kissed each another with more passion than either of us had put into a kiss in the last five years, a fact I’d only just realized.
Children, grandchildren, and an entire club’s worth of lives to constantly care for and worry about had begun to dull what had once been such an ever-present and intensely demanding sexual connection. And wasn’t that always the way of things? Life happened, and then happened some more, and kept happening until you were so caught up in life itself that you forgot to actually live it.
• • •
It was Eva who broke their kiss, and Deuce reluctantly let her. He let her because he knew if they kept going like this, he was going to pull her pants down and bend her over the fucking sink.
Breathing hard, she pressed her forehead to his chest. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
He smiled at her. “Someone dyin’ sure has a funny way of makin’ everyone else want to get up quick and start livin’, don’t it? And darlin’? Don’t you ever be sorry for fuckin’ kissin’ me.”
Still clinging to him, Eva looked up at Deuce, her big gray eyes storming with emotion. And Deuce stared down into them, into the eyes of the little girl who’d charmed the shit out of him, the teenager who’d gotten him shot and the woman he’d fallen in love with. He still felt the same way about her; it didn’t matter how much time had passed. Take away the fine lines that had taken residence on her forehead and beside her eyes, the strands of gray intermingled among her dark brown waves, and she was twenty-two again… and he was still too goddamn old for her.
“We could ride home,” he offered. It had been far too long since she’d ridden on the back of his bike. And he was only now realizing just how much he’d missed having her there.
She nodded slowly. “I’d like that.”
“Good.” He released her with a hard slap on her ass. “Now go get some air. You’ve been locked up in this room with him all fuckin’ day.”
Eva started to protest.
“I’ll sit with him,” Deuce growled. “You go get some air, go smoke a damn joint. Fuck, bitch, just go do somethin’.” He opened the bathroom door and shoved her gently toward the hallway. “Go. I’ll call you if anything happens.”
Deuce waited several minutes, ensuring Eva was gone, before coming to stand at Preacher’s bedside. Preacher’s eyes were closed, his shallow, labored breaths echoing noisily throughout the otherwise silent room.
Gripping the bedrail, Deuce stared down at one of the most powerful men in the criminal underground. A man who’d crafted his own signature execution styles. A man that other men had both feared and envied.
He didn’t look like that man anymore.
“Preacher,” he said. Preacher stirred, but his eyes remained closed.
“Preacher,” he repeated, louder. “Everyone knows Deluva Sr. was hit by a fuckin’ truck on the Long Island Expressway. So how’s about you tell me why Joe is accusin’ him of puttin’ your parents to ground?”
Preacher’s eyes flew open, as did his mouth, and Deuce wondered if getting straight to the point had been a bad idea. The last thing he wanted to do was give his already dying father-in-law a heart attack.
“What did you tell Eva?” Preacher hoarsely demanded. “What the fuck did you tell her?”
Deuce shrugged. “Nothin’ yet. But if you ain’t gonna tell her, I sure as fuck will.”
Preacher’s sunken features contorted with anger. “Don’t you threaten me, asshole. You think you know what you’re talkin’ about, but you don’t. There’s more to it—there’s some shit I gotta explain first.”