My spine straightens and I shake my head slowly. “No, ma’am. I would never.”
“Good.” She gives a nod which makes her look way too pleased with herself. “Now, this girl is so sweet,” she starts to tell me. “She’s a good girl which is exactly what you need since you’ve been given things far too easily for far too long. Easy is just that, and it usually lacks substance.”
A groan rumbles out of my chest as I scrub my hand down my face. Nana makes a tsking sound, and I drop my head back on my shoulders.
“She needs you.”
Something in Lorrie’s voice has me looking back at her. There’s a plea in her eyes, like she needs me to believe in this as much as she does and not because of ego. But because whoever she’s thinking ofneedsme.
Sweet.
She’s sweet.
No way. it couldn’t be. Could it?
I blink at her a few times, and something must change on my face because her eyes widen. “What is that look about? Have you met your Old Lady?”
When I swallow hard, she lets out a squeal that no one at her age should be making. Hank must agree because he lets out a sound full of annoyance.
“She works at the bakery,” Lorrie tells me.
Even though I try, really fucking try, to keep my face neutral, one corner of my mouth twitches. This time she claps and does a little dance.
“My god, woman,” Hank grunts. “You need to remember that you have two fake hips.”
She snaps her head around and throws sass at her brother, “Doesn’t that mean I should be using them to dance?”
“At least warn me. I don’t want to see all of that.” Hank shivers.
“I swear,” Nana complains, “you get ornerier the older you get.”
“I won’t even comment on what has happened to you as you’ve gotten older,” he lobs back at her.
When she turns back to me fully, she reaches out and squeezes my arm. “You’ve met her?”
“Opal brought her to family day,” I tell her.
The smile that stretches across her face is bright and filled with pride. But it’s a different type of pride than the way Warden looks at me. His look is about the club.
Her look is about me.
About the man she knows I can be.
About the life she knows I can live.
Suddenly her eyes narrow and her fingers tighten on my arm. “You better not wait too long,” she warns me. “She’s special.”
“I know,” I whisper the words. “Knew it the moment I saw her step out the backdoor of the clubhouse while being pulled by Opal into a world she wasn’t sure she wanted to see.”
“There is strength in the softness, in the sweetness.” She nods her head slowly, hypnotically. “She needs the club at her back. I don’t know what demon she’s running from, but I have a feeling he’s not done with her yet.”
A chill races down my spine and the beast inside of me clutches the bars of his cage and rattles it.
“No one is coming for her,” I snarl the words.
Nana lets go of my arm before patting my cheek with a pleased look on her face. “I’m glad to see I was right once again,” she chirps before going and sitting on the couch in the small sitting area.
Since I’ve been dismissed, I hurry into the back of the shop. By the time I’m pulling Lorrie’s car into a bay, Sidewinder is standing there wiping his hands while looking at me with an expression I can’t quite read.