Unbeloved (15 page)

“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 upri
ght 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.

“
What are you thinking about in that crazy brain of yours now, Dorothy?”

I looked up at Eva, shaking free of my thoughts, and shrugged.
“Just . . . you know, how in the world I ended up here.”

Eva smiled, one of her wide
, warm smiles that made you feel like she knew things that others didn’t. I both hated and loved that about her, the way she could light up a room with just a simple word or smile.

“
You ended up here,” she said, “because here is where you belong. It may not always be pretty, in fact sometimes life can be downright ugly, but everything happens for a reason, Dorothy. Everything.”

Her words were nearly
identical to Hawk’s, and something I’d once said to Tegen in order to ease her nerves. Although I’d never been a big believer in fate or destiny, I couldn’t help but think that maybe there was some truth to it. Even Hawk had admitted that he’d made mistakes.

Yet
. . . maybe our mistakes were what led us to where we were supposed to be all along. Was it possible that without our mistakes, we wouldn’t have become the people we were meant to be? And if we hadn’t made the choices we made, what would have become of us all?

Would we still have somehow ended up in the same place?

Oh good God, my head was starting to hurt. This line of thinking reminded me very much of my childhood, when my parents had tried to instill religion in me and I fought tooth and nail against it. I might have been very much a romantic, but when it came to blind faith, I’d always needed hard proof, something they could never give me.

But maybe love was a lot like blind faith in the unknown.
And maybe that was why it had been so hard for me to let go of what I’d known, instead of moving toward what I’d really wanted.

“
Will you two lovesick twats get your mind off your men?” Christina suddenly snapped. “You’re both making me sick.”

“
I think your excessive drinking is what’s making you sick,” Eva said dryly.

“
Speaking of making me sick,” she continued, giving Eva a pointed look. “One of you bitches needs to call that little dog off Cox before Kami comes in and sees what the fuck her man has been up to.”

My brow furrowed
. “What does Cox and Kami’s relationship have to do with you feeling sick?”

“
Yeah,” Eva added. “And since when do you care about what the boys do?”

“
Since this happened,” she said, flipping us both off. Eva and I both leaned forward for a better look. Seated on her middle finger was rather extravagant diamond.

“
Congratulations!” Eva exclaimed with a jump and a clap. “When did that happen?”

“
Last night,” she said blandly. “Damn thing don’t fit the right finger either.”

Well
, that explained the walk of shame. They must have had a very celebratory night together. And knowing Bucket as well as I did, celebrations for him usually consisted of a harem of women with Christina barking out the orders.

“
It’s easy to get it sized,” I suggested.

She rolled her eyes
. “It’s a pain in my ass. But back to my point. I don’t appreciate these little mutts sniffing out the club for our men. I told Bucket, no more girls now that we’re engaged.”

She seemed so happy
—well, as happy as Christina could seem—that I just didn’t have the heart to tell her that nobody ever sought out Bucket. His haggard appearance and his lack of cleanliness meant all his girls were usually bought and paid for. Dirty, another club member, had been the same way before his girlfriend, Ellie, had inspired a makeover, and together he, Bucket, and Freebird were three of the most unappealing men I’d ever met. Unkempt, ungroomed, usually filthy, and always acting or saying something absolutely disgusting.

“
That girl out there is spouting off to Cox about taking her out to dinner, and going home to meet her parents. Seriously, D, go look at this shit. She’s all up on him like a fucking fat little dog in heat, and I’m about to go slap her down. I’m a legit old lady now, and if I ever catch her sniffin’ round my man . . .” Trailing off, Christina pursed her lipstick-smeared lips and waved a razor-sharp red fingernail in the air. “No. Just no. She needs to know her place and fast.”