Nausea repressed—for now—I stopped in front of him and kicked his tatty boots. “Going somewhere?”
Ranger grunted, his dark gaze hard to read through the haze of tobacco smoke swirling around him. “Shouldn’t you be shacked up with your six wives?”
“Shut the fuck up. Or call Nash my wife to his face.”
Ranger grinned. “No, thanks. I’ve seen that dude punch through a man’s jaw.”
So had I. Back in the old days when he was nothing to me but a flash of golden hair across a biker brawl and the grudging respect for his name.
McGovern.
“You okay, though?”
I refocused on Ranger. “Me?”
“Yeah,you, Lockie. Had me fucking scared for a minute.”
“I’m good.”
Ranger had awhat the fuckface as good as anyone’s. He waited me out, smoking and lounging on the bed, his features more visible than I was used to, though someone had tidied the hack job he’d done on his hair.
“Why would he do that?”
I flinched, the bunkhouse closing in around me.
Ranger, subtle as a brick, sat up and yanked me onto the bed beside him.
“Nice.”
Ranger shrugged and dropped his spent rollie into an empty beer bottle. “You were halfway down anyway. What’s up? Still sick?”
Still something. But it was nothing I wanted to talk about. “Where are you going?”
“You be offended if I said anywhere but here?”
“What do you think?”
“That you look like hell, and I’d feel bad about leaving if you didn’t have so many people around you who are a lot fucking nicer than I am.”
Not true. Beneath the gruff banter, Ranger was soft as shit for the few things he cared about. Me and Folk. Stray dogs. His old nanna. Rocco’s boys, even though he’d rather drink acid than be around little kids. “How’s Jean?—”
My phone cut me off.
I fished it from my pocket and read the message on the screen.
Kara:I’m sorry too. I just wish you’d said something instead of avoiding me for a month. We haven’t been together for years. It’s okay for you to move on.
Wow. Okay. That was an angle that hadn’t occurred to me, like, ever.
“Someone shit in your handbag?”
Bemused, I showed Ranger the message.
He snorted a low laugh. “Gotta love that woman, even if she did call me ‘that trampy man with the hair’.”
I laughed too, the knot in my chest loosening a little.
“Everyone likes Ranger.”