“Would if it made any fucking sense.”
“It is easier in the context of an engine?”
“Only if I can put my hands on it and feel how it’s supposed to be. And at least an engine doesn’t twat me round the head with a belt if I get it wrong.”
I pursed my lips, suddenly as rattled as Nash seemed to be by more than the pain in his leg. “How long until your child is born?”
He blinked, startled out of a daze. “Ten days.”
“You are ready?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you are a practical man. If you are worrying, it is for something in your head or your heart. Surely you are not worried you will be a bad father?”
“Nah.” Nash shook his head, his hands restless for the cigarettes he no longer smoked. “I’ll be grateful for the chance to fuck it up.”
“You are worried about Orla and the birth?”
Nash’s only answer was a distant nod, and I could not help him. For all he and his lovers had shared about Orla’s pregnancy, which was not a great deal, his concern was as valid as the sleep Cam had lost to fretting over the fate of his only sister and her unborn child.
“The old one tells me he has been manifesting with runes and sage.”
At that, Nash smiled, lightening his handsome face. “Rubes loves all that.”
“Like his tattoos?”
“Some of them.”
“And what of yours? You have Catholic words all over your skin, but the mention of any god upsets you.”
Nash’s humour faded. “How’d you know that?”
“Honestly, Saint told me. I have never seen it myself.” And it had been something I’d allowed to be buried, but Cam had told me what Viktor had shared with him on the road, and it had got me thinking about this man more than I was used to. About myself too, perhaps.
I was good at reading men. At seeing the things that had made them the way they were without them having to tell me. It concerned me that Nash’s abusive childhood had passed me by.
Not just you. Cam did not know either.
I wondered if Locke did. If it mattered when Nash was so focused on the future. If there was more for me to learn from this honest, kind-hearted brother than he had already taught me.
In any case, his body language gave me every cue I needed to change the subject. “I received Rubi’s email about the fields. What do you think about it?”
Life crept back into Nash’s sky-blue gaze. “I like it. If we can pull that shit off, it’d be a dream come true. Cam said it’s up toyou, though.”
“Me?”
Nash peered at my laptop screen, grimaced, and looked away. “You’re the numbers man.”
“Rubi can count. So can the queen. You do not need me to tell you this...venturewill make or break you.”
“You don’t think we can do it?”
“On the contrary. As a collective, I think you can do anything if you work together. But that is what it will take, no? Cohesion. Trust. Courageandcaution.”
“Sounds like war.” Nash stretched his leg, massaging the muscles around his knee. “But I think I understand. This shit is on Cam and Rubi, right? If they can’t get along, the whole thing is fucked.”
“Indeed. And they will need to do most of the work while the rest of you are busy raising your children. But think of the reward. By the time you have a little McGovern under your feet, this empty land, combined with whatyouwant for the Crow territory, it could be the start of the club’s legacy.”