Never Ever: Book One Perdition MC (14 page)

When she was all done with her rant, she could tell Top was
trying not to lose his mind laughing. He handed her a clean, folded up bandana from
his pocket that smelled like smoke, Old Spice and leather, which made a few
more tears squeeze out because it reminded her so much of her dad. Top pulled
his hand down the tuft of his beard and sat back in his own chair, clearing his
throat and doing his best to lick the smile off his lips, but he couldn’t lick
it off his eyeballs. He thought this was funny as shit. “Fifty grand, huh?
That’s a lot of cake to just be
throwin
around.”

“I can afford it.”

“Tell you what, it’s his turn on rotation to take a job, and
I was letting it slide, on account of the developing situation between you two.
But I got a few cases on the back burner he can take.”

“Thank fuck, I was going to poison him to keep him in bed or
on the pot.”

He was still laughing by the time she stalked out of the
compound. She went to the grocery store because she wanted ice cream, and when
she got home Roar was on the phone, pacing back and forth on her porch with
Squatch
comically following back and forth. “Top, come on.
Can’t Saint take this? Or Meeks?” She walked by him with her arm load of
groceries, and he scowled at her before leaping to get the bags, “No, but-
“ Whatever
argument he was making with Top, he was
losing.  “I’m trying to remodel the house…how much? Shit, that’s a lot of
cake. Yeah, shit. Fine, I’ll be there.” He hung up while she was putting
groceries away, staring at his phone in his hand, clearly torn with indecision.
“What’s up?” She hoped her tone was as nonchalant as she wanted it to be, “Top
needs me for a job.” He grated, and she nodded while she opened up her new tub
of mint chip ice cream, “How long will you be gone?”

“Week, if the skip plays nice. Two if he doesn’t.”  

“Okay. I guess the remodel can wait.”

“No, I want it done,
asap
. Fuck,
where’s that contractors number?”

She smiled into her ice cream, thanking god that Top liked
her and then turned around to frown at Roar skeptically. “What?” He scowled and
made a huge deal about how the remodel had to be done, now. So that it would be
done by the time the baby came. A huge deal, as in, they argued about it. And
at the end of it, not only did she get seriously fucked, she got her
contractor.

She sat on the porch and watched the contractor and his crew,
Top sitting next to her in one of the rocking chairs he’d brought over. He’d
come over to check on her the second day Roar had been gone, and again on the
fourth day, both times she’d made him dinner and enjoyed his company. Today was
day six, and she was glad for the company. Truth be told, she’d gotten so used
to having a bad ass in her space again, the quiet was difficult, and Top
distracted her from it.

He wasn’t the hard, scary man Roar had made him out to be,
though she knew he could be just as hard and cold as any hurricane when he
needed to be. She discovered that he was an
ex Army
vet, a former drill Sargent in a past life, a widower with a penchant for
meddling in the lives of the men he’d come to call his family. “So how many
times a day he
callin
you?” He slurped the marigold
tea she’d made him, glancing sideways at her while she smirked into her own
cup. “Morning and night.”

“Things
goin
good with the kid?”

She smiled while she used her big toe to push the rocking
chair back and forth, rubbing her hand over her
stomach, that
seemed to get bigger every day. “Yeah. Except now instead of waking me up at
5:45 to puke, he tap dances on my spleen while I’m trying to sleep.” Top
chuckled, shooting her belly a curious glance, “You pick a name yet?”

“Lyon, with a Y.”

Top grinned hard, chuckling as he set his chair to rocking.
“Bet Roar got a kick out of that.”

“Did
he
ever.”

“Lyon Morningstar. Catchy.”

She drew in a sharp breath when her kidneys took a good
whallop
, shaking her head when Top asked if something was
wrong. “He likes his name. Every time we say it, he wiggles around.” She took
his scarred, rough hand and pressed it to the side of her belly, smiling when
he got a goofy look on his face to feel the kicks and wiggles. He patted her
belly and went back to sipping his tea. “First baby this club is
gonna
see. After all the fighting, all the struggles and
the hunts, the shit some of my boys have had to wade through. It’s good.
Turning a corner. Downside is, this shit always comes in threes.” Now she
laughed and set to rocking again, enjoying the sight of her house expanding,
her life expanding. She’d have a family here. A place for friends to gather. A
place where laughter and love would flow free and easy.

She sat there and acknowledged for the first time, that she
really owed Susan for hounding her until she put her foot back into the pool of
her old life. No, the
stream, that
had had major rocks
thrown into it, trenches dug out that had taken her far away from that original
flow. But it was correcting itself, slowly but surely. And speaking of, “Last
time I talked to Susan, she said she was on a job with Pike. Couldn’t tell me
where or why. You know anything about that?”

Top just nodded and rocked, not saying a lot for a long time,
and she could sense that he was thinking hard. So she left him to it, was
patient, though it was definitely a chore. Thank god he didn’t make her wait
too long, “Pike specializes in cold cases. Him and Saint, patient bastards that
go after shit and hold onto it till they get what they want. Took Susan with,
cause he didn’t know how long he’d be gone, doesn’t like
bein
away from that silly bitch,” Top said that last bit with affection, and she
began to realize that it wasn’t just his boys he looked after and cared for.
Their women, once those boys had a woman who gave him sweet, who did right by
him and made him light up with happiness, they had Top’s love too. He loved for
his boys, to be in love and happy. Such a softie where it counted. “Chips off
the old block,” She murmured, and Top grunted at her with a lift of his brow,
“Your boys, haven’t met one of them yet, who wasn’t a stubborn bastard that
liked asking questions and meddling. Clearly, they learned from the best.”

His ears turned pink, and she wished she’d had her phone to snap
a picture of how totally adorable it was. He sipped his tea and rocked, getting
himself back to
badassville
, and grunted again. The
main communication of bad asses everywhere, and there was a grunt for any
occasion. That one had been a, yeah-you’re-right, mixed with a, shit-girl-quit-
bein
-such-a-pussy. “Sent them down to your old
stompin
ground on the sly.
Bein
a
couple on a blog across America tour, is pretty good cover. I
wanna
know exactly how many bodies were in the Tornado
compound, and who’s not accounted for. Some of those records aren’t online for
Nasa to hit, so
in
goes Pike.”

Her happy mood started to sour a little, and she rolled her
lips under to stem the stupid quiver they gave, because her pregnancy hormones
gave her less control than she would have liked. Made her act more…girly.
“Why?” She asked quietly, and Top reached over to fold his big hand over hers.
“Just have a bad
feelin
about it all. Have since you
sat down in my office and said someone sent you an email, the day of your wedding
to out that Nazi fucker. Since you said you weren’t sure who that one asshole
was in your dad’s crew that wasn’t dead like he was supposed to be, and you
said three out of the five safe houses you’d been told about were torched on
the same day. I hesitated to say anything, didn’t want to stir up old shit for
you,
just
because I’m a nosy fucker that likes to make
sure everyone’s ass is covered and not still hanging in a sling. But you got a
boy on the way, got a family, and you’re Perdition now. I got plans for you to
stay that way for a long time.”

Day nine of Roar being out of her hair was the day the
contractors finished laying the plumbing and her foundation, and promised to
come back the following week after it had cured to begin putting up the framework
for the addition. It was going to be bad ass when all was said and done, two
stories, connected to the existing house at two sides, with a center atrium she
could fill with flowers and have a space for the baby to play safely as he grew
up. She also had an idea of putting in an adult sized swing, after having
watched the new Cinderella on TV last night.

She’d sat on her couch with
Squatch
at her side, allowing the big dust bunny up on the furniture because truth be
told, she missed Roar. She missed waking up and feeling him give her a squeeze
before she got out of bed, or better yet, waking her up with some awesome sex.
She missed him shouting the house down from one room away when he couldn’t find
something, and the sound of his pipes roaring up the driveway. Two whole months
and he was an ingrained part of her life.

Jerk.

She was walking the nursery now, checking stock herself,
enjoying the nip in the air and the fact that since she was carrying around her
own personal space heater, she wasn’t wearing a god awful amount of layers. She
was in fact enjoying it so much, that she was humming that goofy song from the
movie last night,
Lavender’s Blue
, while thinking about Roar. She blamed
it on him that she was off in
lala
land, so that when
Todd cleared his throat to speak to her, she turned around smiling. “These men
are here to speak to you,
Miz
Nolan.” Todd said,
hopping from foot to foot a little nervously while she stared at a ghost from
her past,

 “Hey babe,”

Chapter Sixteen

Top was in his office, enjoying the thick Cuban one of his
snitches had sent him, laughing inside at how quickly Roar was making his
report, eager to get home to his woman. Boy had smarts, coming here first to
get it over with so he could spend the rest of the time with Ever. She was the
sort of woman a man gave his undivided attention to, or else
find
her boot up his ass. She reminded him a lot of his wife, in ways that sometimes
made him laugh his ass off, and other times just made him miss his bitch all
that much more. He wasn’t really listening to Roar, just enjoying his
discomfort, and the fact that he hadn’t cottoned on yet that Ever was the
reason he’d been given the shitty assignment in the first place.

 Absence made the heart grow fonder, and he was betting
on Ever having missed her old man, quite a bit. So he was kind of grinning,
smug like, when the phone on his desk rang and he frowned to bring the numbers
into focus, refusing to wear his damn cheaters in front of the boys. Why was he
getting a call this early in the damn morning from the cops? If those mother
fucking Prospects had got caught again, he was going to bury them in Everly’s
compost. Apparently bodies decomposed a fuck of a lot faster in there.
“Perdition,” He grunted, and frowned harder when it was not the voice he was
expecting. “Hey Top, it’s Ever.” She sounded weird, and he could hear the
rumble of voices and phones ringing in the background. “Why are you calling the
compound instead of my cell? You okay?”

“I’m good. Fine. I left my cell at home with my purse, I
couldn’t remember anyone else’s numbers, and Roar didn’t pick up, so I called
the compound, because I did remember that number.”

“Why’s your cell at home with your purse?”

“Roar’s not back yet, right?”

“
Sittin
right here
starin
at me,”

“Fuck,” She hissed, and his blood pressure spiked with worry.

“Talk.” He ordered, in his most no nonsense voice, and saw
Roar perk up from across the desk, eyes narrow like he knew it was his woman on
the phone.

“I um, kind of got arrested.” She muttered, then rushed on to
tell him she was fine, it wasn’t a big deal.

“We’ll be there in ten.”

“I don’t guess there’s any chance you’d leave Roar out of
this?”

“Not a single fuckin one. But that begs the question, why do
you want me to?”

“Um, you know that picture you gave me, when you were being a
big ole
meddlin
softie? The one with my supposedly
dead fiancé?”

“Yeah?”

“He’s apparently not dead, and works for ATF. Showed up at
the nursery with an FBI and a DEA agent, and I may have um, lost my temper a
wee bit. There’s some talk of assaulting three federal officers, and a few
other minor charges,”

Torn between gut searing rage and gut tearing laughter, he
pinched his nose and put his elbow on the desk to ask in as serious a voice as
he could manage. “You need bail money?” She laughed outright, “No. We’re
actually not to that stage yet? I um, asked for a lawyer and my phone call. The
desk sergeant is a sweetie and looked the other way since this is my second
phone call.”