“I pronounce you Prez and First Old Lady,” Dart calls out.
“I’ll drink to that,” Dusty quips and raises his bottle.
Lost grimaces for a second, and I wonder what’s wrong until he says loudly, “Drink to us, but raise your glasses to Smoker. He should have been here to celebrate with us.”
“He is still fuckin’ here,” Brakes protests. “It will be years before the odour of nicotine fades.”
I might not laugh like some of the others, but even I have to smile at the truth in Brake’s words. I tell my old man earnestly, “He’d be happy for us, Lost. You know that.” And I’m already planning a send-off for him that no one will forget in a long time.
“I know,” he replies softly.
“Hey, who got those patches done? ‘Cause they’re wrong.”
“What the fuck?” Dart steps up to Bones, his posture threatening. “My ol’ lady doesn’t make mistakes. You need fuckin’ glasses?”
Bones looks over at me and winks. “She got it the wrong way around. It should read ‘Lost Property’, not ‘Property of Lost.’”
He cracks up, and a number of others chortle with him. I grin myself. Then going on tiptoe kiss my man’s cheek. “He’s right. I was lost, and you found me.”
“Wrong way around, babe,” Lost replies. “I was lost until you found me. Being lost became my way of life. Don’t feel lost anymore.”
The clubroom door opens again. As everyone’s here, we all turn automatically. I freeze to the spot, disbelieving, then my feet are moving, running across the room as two people appear.
I stop right in front of them, hardly daring to credit the evidence of my own eyes. “Bethany?” I start, hesitantly.
Her eyes are wide. “Mom?” Her hands reach out and turn me, reading the back of my cut. “You? Lost? Mom!” she squeals as she turns me back. “Mom? I said you might find yourself a man, but I didn’t expect… First old lady?” she recites the words on the front. Then her hands go to her hips. “Uh-huh. I find myself a biker. You had to go one better. You’ve snagged yourself a prez.”
She can’t keep the act up. Only a second passes before her arms come around me. As always I marvel I only just come up to her shoulders, and in our normal fashion, or ever since she was a teenager and put on her growth spurt, I let myself be hugged.
“Guess that answers that question, darlin’,” Ink drawls. “Patsy’s not coming back to Colorado.”
Ah.It hits me then that she might have expected me to. “Bethany, I’m sorry. I, well, decisions were made when it seemed I’d never be able to come back. I…”
“Don’t be silly, Mom. You’ve got a new life, and I’ve got Ink.” She links her arms through that of her man. “Everything will work out. We no longer need to ring or visit in secret. We’re only a few hours flight away, and you can come stay when the baby is born.”
“Try and keep me away. But, how did you know? How did you know it was safe to come?” I realised I’d been so pleased and so shocked, I hadn’t questioned her appearance.
“Lost rang Demon early this morning,” Ink explains. “We wanted to get the first flight we could manage to get seats on. Beth couldn’t wait to see you.”
Whereas I’m a bad mom. My first thought hadn’t been to contact my daughter. I hadn’t even called.
“Mom.” Beth’s got my mom tone off pat. “If I’d just gotten myself a hot man, I’d have better things to do than check up on my adult daughter.”
“It’s not that,” I fluster. “I haven’t got my head around all this yet. It still feels unbelievable that Alder’s not out there any longer. Going to take more than a minute for that to settle in my head.”
Ink grins at me. “Now you can really enjoy living in California.”
“Bethie.”
Connor must have come up to us while I’d been fixated on Beth, trying to see whether she was showing yet. She’s not, but it won’t be long I suspect.
“Give me a hug, Connor.”
While my daughter and son, both six-foot-two hug, standing alongside Ink who’s taller, I feel petite.
Arms come around me, and I lean back into the chest of my man. “Happy?” he asks.
“I couldn’t be happier.”
