The rain drummed ceaselessly on the roof.
“You want a drink?” Maggie asked. “It’ll be a while before the boys get home.”
“I don’t guess you’ve got any Johnnie Walker Red,” Mercy said with a hopeful voice.
“Oh, honey.” Maggie stood. “Never doubt the liquor cabinet of an MC old lady.”
**
Present Day
“He’s themayor?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Maggie stirred the bubbling pot of oatmeal and stole a taste on the end of the wooden spoon. She made a face. “Ugh. Baby, you’ve got to tend what you’re cooking. This is like oat paste.”
“No, Mom, you didn’t tell me.”
Maggie knew she hadn’t. She hadn’t wanted anything to deter her daughter’s return home.So sue me, she thought. “I know I told you he was running.”
“Yeah, but…”
Maggie turned from the stove and saw Ava sitting at the table, eyes on the front page of the local paper, expression horrified. She was still in the terry shorts and tank she’d slept in, her hair a little flat as it fell in sheets down her shoulders. It was hard – especially after they’d been apart for any length of time – to rectify her little girl with the young woman who sat before her now. Beautiful in an unassuming way, long-limbed and sure-footed and all grown up.
Yes, Maggie had known that the news of Mason Stephens Sr. finally winning office – here in Knoxville, no less – would upset Ava. And yes, she’d withheld the news on purpose, not wanting anything to discourage her baby from coming home.
Ava glanced up, her brown eyes wide with fear. “He’s not kidding around,” she said, tapping the paper with her index finger. “He’ll want blood, and he’ll come get it.”
“Tryto come get it.” Maggie clicked off the burner behind her back and moved the pot off the stove in a covert move. Bless her heart: Ava liked to cook, but she sucked at it. “What happened last night wasn’t on us.”
“Like Stephens will care.”
Ronnie, sporting monstrous bedhead, shuffled into the room, stretching his arms up over his head.
Ava half-turned to him. “Oh, hey. How’d you sleep?”
“Fine.” He put both hands on the back of Ava’s chair. They didn’t kiss, didn’t touch; they maintained a respectful distance. It was all very circumspect.
It was nothing like Ava had been with Mercy. When Ava was still just a girl, there’d been that effervescent affection. When Ava was a teen, there’d been that longing, that way Mercy had hated his own tangling of love and new, sudden attraction. Those two had never had a prayer. The energy had shimmered between them, dark and healthy in a way no one else had seen and so, so strong.
But Ava with Ronnie – that was nothing. That was Melba Toast.
Maggie waited for Ronnie to meet her gaze. “Coffee?”
“Yes, please.” As she went for another mug, he asked, “What’s going on?”
“Satan’s the mayor,” Ava said.
“Don’t give him that much credit,” Ghost said as he entered, and Ronnie nearly jumped out of his skin. “He’s not smart enough to be Satan.”
Ghost was dressed, his salt-and-pepper hair damp from the shower, his cut in his hands. At fifty, his pecs and biceps stilled filled out his black muscle shirt in a way that left Maggie’s pulse skipping. He’d maintained that post-army hardness and strength in all the years they’d been together. From the slicked-back feral charm of the twenty-seven-year-old who’d caught her eye, to the proud, stern MC vice president who graced her kitchen every morning, her love of him had become more precious and resilient as she’d grown up within their marriage, like a hard shiny pearl. The jagged passion of girlhood had evolved into something sterling and beautiful.
“Satan’s minion, then,” Ava corrected. She dropped the paper with a disgusted face and turned to her father.
Ghost shrugged as he dropped into his usual chair. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. He can’t touch us. We haven’t done anything.” Then he lifted his unforgiving gaze to Ronnie and the poor kid went rigid with terror.
“How’d the couch work out for you?”
“Fine.” Ronnie swallowed hard. “Sir.”
