“Haven’t even asked the question yet, rebel Rose,” Danner griped playfully against my hair.
I pulled away from him only to readjust so I could say the words against his lips. “You ask me today, tomorrow, yesterday, any of the days since I met you when I was six years old and didn’t even know the meaning of love, I’d’ve said yes to you Lion Danner.”
“Yeah,” he said, sweet and long and slow, the way he did when I told him something worth savoring.
Then he kissed me.
He kissed me in a way that said safety and security, sexy and sensual, love and loved. He kissed me like he played music for me, more eloquently than words could accurately express.
“Yeah,” I repeated in his tone when he pulled away to place the fucking awesome gold rose on my ring finger and I officially became engaged to the love of my life. “Yeah.”
Eight years later
Bang, bang bang.
Gunfire rang out across the four acres of land behind our house, the leaves rattling on the trees as birds took flight and a few of the horses we kept let out high whinnies of protest. Saint only stared at me, laying under my feet where I sat on the back porch, ass to the swinging chair Cressida bought for our last wedding anniversary. My dog was unfazed by the sound of the shots, he knew his people were home safe and sound, that the only thing to fear was the very real possibility that my wife was turning our kids into gun nuts.
I patted my dog on the head, took a pull of my cold Vancouver Island lager and looked to my family congregated to the far back left of the porch. Harleigh Rose was bent nearly double so she could speak to a six-year-old Cash about gun safety, our little girl, too young to handle the gun herself, stood with them, a pout on her tear-streaked face, still holding onto her tantrum like only the daughter of Harleigh Rose could do.
“You’re askin’ for it, showin’ ’em how to use a gun,” Lysander said as he emerged from the house, two newly cracked open beers between his fingers. “Not sure I know any other kid sleeps with a plastic gun like it was a stuffed animal the way Taz does.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, endlessly amused by the fact that Tasmin insisted on sleeping with a bright pink water gun we’d bought her for her fourth birthday. “She’s a little badass-in-training.”
“Not sure I envy ya, man,” he said, leaning against the railing, one foot crossed over the other, thick arms folded over his chest.
He’d been out of prison for over a decade at that point, but the look of it had never left him. There were still horrors at the backs of his eyes, a careful threat to every one of his coiled movements and sloe-eyed looks, as if he didn’t know how to be intimidating, as if he didn’t even trust the world enough to try.
I hated that for him. We’d formed an unlikely partnership the last few years and now that he was going through his own personal shit storm, I was determined to take his back.
“You give yourself the chance to fall in love with a woman who’ll steal your breath away and gift it back to you the next beat, you’ll know enough to be envious,” I told him.
He laughed. “The cowboy sage sittin’ on his fuckin’ porch swing, drinkin’ a beer with his loyal companion at his feet, his woman happily playin’ with the children she gave him… yeah, man, maybe I’ll get there one day.”
He didn’t believe it, I could hear it in his voice, but I let it slide.
There came a time for all of us: Zeus, King, Bat, hell, even Nova was this side of his happily ever after and if that didn’t prove any man could fall hard in love, nothing did.
“Daddy,” Taz screamed as she sprinted over to me on her little legs, streaky blond hair flying out around her. “Daddy!”
I didn’t respond. My girl had a way of yelling for me even when I was right beside her. At first, it had concerned me, like maybe she was afraid I’d leave her or something.
It was Harleigh Rose who’d decided it was something much different, that my little girl was proud of her daddy and wanted to shout it to the world. She knew the feeling, she’d said, staring into my eyes with those huge aquamarine blues, because she’d felt the same kind of pride since I made her mine.
“When’re the others coming?” Lysander asked as Taz bounded up the wooden steps and threw herself into my arms.
I pressed a kiss into her floral scented hair. “Any time now.”
“Was a time you’d tell me the both of us would be at a birthday party with The fucking Fallen, I wouldn’t told ya you were off your fuckin’ rocker.”
“Yep,” I agreed as Taz shifted in my arms, giggling as I tickled the soft slope of her little belly.
Peels of high, girlish laughter rang out and I thought it was without a doubt the second most beautiful sound in the world.
The first was hearing her mother say her soft and sweet “Lion.”
As if I’d conjured them up myself, the roar of Harley pipes broke free on the air, a trail of dust on the horizon the tell-tale sign of the club coming up the dirt drive.
“Daddy Papa’s coming!” Taz screeched from my lap, diving off the bench and then screaming into Saint’s face. “Puppy, Daddy Papa’s almost here!”
Needless to say, my kids loved their grandfather.
“Cool,” Cash called like the burgeoning cool guy he was, his chin tipping up in acknowledgment of his sister’s freak out.
Taz ran to them, arms wheeling and crashed into her brother’s side so hard she almost fell over. Cash caught her under his arm and held her tight.
Harleigh Rose’s laugh drifted to me and I watched her long legs encased in itty bitty jean shorts as she strolled across the yard with one arm around our son and the other holding an empty, open shotgun.
Jesus, even as a mum she was hot as fuck and badass as livin’ hell.
She separated from the kids at the base of the porch so she could climb up while they jogged farther along the driveway, eager to meet the bikers rolling in over the dirt.
My woman climbed the steps, a biker chick in her combat boots at home on a farm.
I’d never seen anything so pretty.
She handed the gun off to Lysander with a wink. “Deal with that for me, will ya?”
He snorted, but there was a smile in his eyes as he watched her hips sway over to me, at her sweet ass as she bent to kiss me.
“Ready for your birthday, Lion?” she asked.
I tipped my head back against the swing to smile lazily at her. “More excited for later, when the guests are gone, and the kids are asleep, when I can fuck you bound in rope, your ass red from leather.”
“Mmm,” she hummed under the sound of the bikes as they pulled up. “Should I tell the family to turn around and go back to where they come from?”
“Nah, think your father would cry,” I joked.
I touched my thumb to the corner of her wide smile and swallowed her laughter with a kiss.
“Get your lips off my girl,” the man in question yelled as he rounded the porch with Taz in one arm and his baby girl, Angel in the other.
They were both mini versions of their mothers.
I teased Zeus ruthlessly and often about the men he’d have to beat away from his daughter. She was only eight years old, but her beauty was already so bright, she seemed to shine.