“Michael asked me to.”
He looked well and truly shocked. “Why the hell didhedothat?”
“Because…” She hesitated, feeling sure that Michael wouldn’t want her relaying anything he’d told her to a fellow Dog. But right now, in their living room, they were not Dog and old lady, but husband and wife. She never wanted to alter the openness of her relationship with him. “He thought she might need a friend and, well, you know how he is. Where was he going to run across someone her age to try and hook her up with?”
“Michael asked you to have lunch with her,” Mercy said, disbelieving. “Michaelaskedyouto have lunch with his waitress.”
“That was the gist of it.”
“Butwhy?”
Ava sighed. “Because he cares about her. Because he thinks she needs a friend. I don’t know.”
He glanced away from her, staring out across the floor, frowning. “He’s been acting extra strange lately.”
“The strange can only get stranger.”
His gaze came back. “Well what did you talk to her about?”
“The club, mostly – nothing major, no worries. Just telling her what I think someone on the outside looking in ought to know.”
It was cute, really, how troubled he seemed by this scenario. “Are you going to see her again?”
“I think so. She said she could help me with my tragic oatmeal making.”
“Your mom could do that. I could do that.”
“Merc.” She hitched herself up straighter against the arm of the sofa. “Why is this bothering you?”
He grew reflective. “Getting involved with someone who’s involved with Michael sounds like a dangerous idea to me.”
She lifted her brows in silent question.
“Don’t ask me to make it any more specific than that, because I can’t. Holly seems like a nice girl, from what I’ve seen, but she wouldn’t be spending time with someone like Michael if she was safe to be around.”
“And what about a girl spending time with someone like you? How safe would she be?”
His face darkened. “As safe as I can keep you.”
“I think,” she said, “that’s what Michael’s trying to do, too.”
He snorted. “Who knows.”
“I ought to be mad at you,” Holly said as she set a steaming dinner of pub burger and French onion soup under Michael’s nose and deposited his whiskey in reach of his right hand. She hadn’t waited for him to order; she’d come straight to him from the kitchen, food-in-hand, her temper insufficient.
He sipped his drink and his eyes came to her as she slid into the booth. “Why?”
She gave him areally?face. “Lunch. With Ava.”
He frowned and picked up his spoon, punched a hole in the browned provolone seal over the crock of soup. “You don’t like her?”
“Of course I like her. She’s lovely.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Holly sighed. “Problems, several of them. For starters, she’s like biker royalty.”
He stirred his soup and gave her a pointed look. “That doesn’t make her better than you.”
