Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
“Yeah,” I mutter, rubbing the side of my face. “Nicole, they’re young. They have some living to do. Before I met you—”
“Let’s not go there. If I never hear you and Twinkie in the same breath again, Dragon, it will still be too soon.”
“Okay, Mama,” I mumble, smiling.
“So, you like Lyla?”
“I’ve got to say, her dad might be an asshole, but she’d be what I’d want either of our boys to have stand beside them. She’s got grit.”
“How does she feel about Thomas?” she murmurs and that makes me let out a frustrated breath.
“Right now, I think she’d like to bang his head in. She throat-punched him so hard when she came by here that I figure he’s still feeling the pain.”
Nicole lets out a whistle and I swear I can almost hear the smile in her voice when she speaks. “That’s a feeling I know well when it comes to the West men.”
“If Thomas can manage to get his head out of his ass, she’d be a good woman for him. She won’t make it easy for him, though.”
“Dragon, are you turning into a romantic in your old age?”
“Remind me to show you which of us is old when I get back to Kentucky, Mama.”
“There’s no way they can work it out and make a relationship work, Dragon. I mean, he used her, imagining she was someone else. That’s something no woman can get over. It would have to kill something inside of you. Hell, it would destroy me,” she admits.
“And we both know that’s something you never had to worry about,” I point out.
“Yeah, I know, sweetheart,” she breathes. “What happens next?”
“Grunt’s arranged for a meeting-slash-dinner with Ford tomorrow night at his and Jasmine’s place. I don’t know if it will help, but I don’t suppose it can’t hurt.”
“You need to just bring our son home, Dragon.”
“I will, soon. I’m letting Thomas call the shots right now, Nicole. I think he has a lot to sort through in his head. He cares for Lyla—even if he doesn’t realize it. I’ve seen it in him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you know when Lyla came to the hotel, his stutter was almost calm? Like he does when he talks to you.”
“Really?” she gasps.
“Yeah. Well, it was until Lyla started having pain. I don’t think he or Lyla, either one realized it, but I did.”
“All those years of therapy and treatment might not have been a waste,” Nicole says.
“I think it has more to do with him being relaxed. He always is with you. Lyla is the first person besides you, and sometimes Kayden, that I’ve seen him at ease with—even when they’re fighting.”
“Could be. The doctors did say that him being calm and taking time to talk goes a long way in learning to control the stutter. He really needs to go back into treatment. It was helping,” she says, the mama bear in her coming out strong.
“Thomas has to be the one to decide that. The stutter bothers him more than it does his family. We don’t see it as an issue—even if he thinks we do. Right now, Thomas believes others view him as less of a man. Until he works around that, I’m not sure you can get him to agree to more treatment.”
“That’s where I don’t understand the male brain. You would think treatment to get it under control would be what he wants, if he feels like others see him as less.”
“Treatment and medication make him feel weak, Mama.”
“Quit talking like you understand him,” she growls.
“I do. It doesn’t mean that I don’t wish he’d choose different, but in my world, you’re judged on every little thing. Our crew doesn’t look down on Thomas, but that doesn’t mean the clubs we have to deal with feel the same.”
“I get so sick of this shit. Sometimes I wish you had actually given into the urge to strike a match to the club,” she snaps.
Once, way back, after being forced to let Nicole think I was dead, I did think about it. I found out my VP and closest friend, Crusher, had been lying to me. I’d hurt Nicole in ways that I sure as hell didn’t want to—but was left without a choice. Crusher lying was the last straw. I wanted to pick Nicole up, blow the club all to hell, and walk away while the flames were raging. I love the club, but there’s only so much a man can take and back then, I was way over my limit.
“You love this life as much as I do, Mama.”
“I love you,” she sighs.
“I love you, too. I’ll be home soon, baby.”
“With our boy?” she asks.
“If he chooses to come home, then yes.”
“Chooses? You think he may want to stay with Lyla?”
“He saw his baby yesterday. He said it was little more than the size of a bean, but he heard the heartbeat. Yeah, Mama. I think if Lyla doesn’t agree to come back to Kentucky, he’ll stay here.”