The girls turned their attention from the empty doorway back to Shade. Their smiles quickly faded.
“Are you okay?” Josie asked, both looking and sounding concerned as she took in his injuries. She cringed and hissed when she studied the side of his head closely and then his leg. She then perched on one side of the bed and Maddie sat on the other.
Shade wasn’t sure Rick would like that.
Rick could fuck right off.
“He gonna give your mom shit?”
“Probably,” Maddie said with a laugh. “He’s very protective of us. But he’s really a big teddy bear. All rough on the outside with a gooey soft center.”
“He’s lookin’ out for you girls.”
“Yep. Ever since Dad died,” Josie said.
Shade stared at Chelle’s youngest. Ever since Dad died.
No wonder why their father hadn’t been around. Or was never mentioned.
“Good he stepped in,” Shade mumbled, now wondering how long ago Chelle lost her husband and the girls lost their father. The man in the picture.
“How did this happen?” Maddie asked.
Shade gave them the same story he gave Chelle. “Got jumped outside a bar in Williamsport.”
If Chelle didn’t believe it, she didn’t say so. She also didn’t ask why he was at a bar in Williamsport when the club owned Crazy Pete’s in town. Most likely, she recognized it as bullshit. He was just relieved she didn’t push for the truth. At least, not yet.
But then, she’d been keeping the info about her dead husband to herself, too. While it sucked that the girls no longer had a father, it didn’t suck for Shade to know that there wasn’t an ex-husband around to make things messy between him and Chelle.
Rick was bad enough.
“Cops get them?” Josie asked.
“Them?”
“Yes, there had to be more than one, right? To take down someone like you?”
What the fuck was Josie talking about? “Like me?”
She waved a hand toward his cut. “You belong to that motorcycle gang right outside of town, don’t you?”
“Club,” he corrected her. “Ain’t a gang.”
“Either way, how cool!” She popped off the bed and ran her fingers over the patches on the back of his cut. “Can I try it on?”
Say fucking what? “No.”
Josie gave him an exaggerated pout. “Why?”
“One of the rules of a club. No one wears your colors but you.”
“Your club has rules?” she asked in awe.
“Yeah.”
“Cool.” She returned to the bed to sit on the edge again. “I’ve seen your club riding through town and also at Dino’s. I didn’t realize you rode with them.”
Probably because he usually wore sunglasses, a skullcap and sometimes a bandana over his face. His hair was always pulled up, too.
“Some of them are really hot,” Josie continued. She wrinkled her nose. “Not Dutch, though, he’s old enough to be my grandpa. But I should’ve guessed you were one of them with that badass bike of yours. When you’re better, can you take me for a ride?”
“Anyway,” Maddie started, ignoring her younger sister. “Why did Mom put you in this room?”
He frowned. “Where was she gonna put me?”
Maddie shrugged. “In her room.”
Oh fuck. Where the fuck was Chelle? “Your mom back yet?”
“No. Why are you in here instead of her room?” Maddie asked again. Again sounding just like Chelle when the woman was determined to get an answer.
He muttered something he seemed to be saying a lot of lately. “Ain’t like that.”
Fuck! Chelle needed to get her ass home and deal with her girls’ questions.
“We know she has the hots for you,” Josie said with her voice lowered.
“And we know you have the hots for her,” Maddie added, her smile getting larger.
He didn’t like that smile, either, and he hoped to fuck Rick wasn’t standing outside the door eavesdropping. He seriously didn’t want to have to stab the fucker in self-defense right in front of his nieces if he went after Shade.
“We can tell,” Maddie said matter-of-factly.
“She’s never looked so... I don’t know... happy... no, dreamy... no, satisfied before.” Josie leaned in. “Not ever. The only thing different in her life recently besides losing Pumpkin is you.”
“Both of you have been hiding whatever has been going on between you,” Maddie accused him.
What the fuck. “Your mom home yet?”
Maddie ignored his question. “All those nights she’s suddenly been ‘busy’ when she’s always been a homebody? Please. And when she finally comes home she has a look of bliss on her face, is wearing a smile like she has a dirty secret, and smells like she just showered. And I know she’s not going to the gym.”
He swore his heart had left his fucking chest and was now pounding in his head directly under his stitches. “How d’you know?” he asked Maddie, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.
“Because I followed her one day. I saw exactly where she went. She was going to do cardio but not the type you get from using a treadmill. The type you get when you go horizontal,” Maddie said, wiggling her eyebrows. “And, funny, how the motorcycle parked in front of the same room that she went in to,” she put a finger to her lips and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, “looked exactly like yours.” Her gaze swung down and held his.
Neither of them blinked for what seemed like forever. Finally, he broke. “No shit.”
“No shit,” Maddie echoed.
“You’re giving Mom the business, aren’t you?” Josie asked with an excited look in her eyes.
Jesus fuck. “Your mom home yet?”
Maddie ignored his question. “Well, whatever you’re doing keep it up. I haven’t seen her this happy—or satisfied—in a long time.”
“Ain’t like that,” he said weakly.
“Mmm hmm,” Maddie murmured.
“She’s been helpin’ me.”
“I bet,” Josie chimed in.
“Look. She’s been helpin’ me. Ain’t lyin’ about that. That’s all it is.”
“Riiiight,” Josie drew out. She winked at him. “Helping. In a motel.”
“We didn’t want anyone to know—”
“That you two are having sex,” Maddie finished.
No, that he couldn’t fucking read. And, yeah, that him and Chelle were having sex. He wasn’t admitting either one of those things to them.
Both girls got to their feet.
“We’re going to tell Mom it’s okay if you stay in her room. We don’t mind. We’re both old enough to deal with her having a man sleep over.”
“We’ve been wishing she’d find someone for a long time.”
“She’s been lonely since Dad died.”
“Right? I keep telling her to get on one of those dating apps.”
His gaze ping-ponged back and forth between the sisters. This was not a conversation he wanted to be a part of. “It ain’t like that,” he mumbled again.
Both ignored him again.