We may not have been a conventional family, but I dared anyone to tell us there was a family out there who loved harder than we loved.
I pulled into the yard, chuckling to myself when I saw Deeks and Eric tussling on the top step of the porch the minute they saw us, each desperate to get to Harriet first.
She was the princess of a king, and boy, was she going to use that to her advantage when she was old enough.
For now, though, at just five months old, she took it all in her stride, loving each and every man who let her grab hold of their beard so she could yank away at it as much as she wished.
“Me. No, it’s my turn. Get out of here, you old fool,” Eric said as he opened the back door, pushing Deeks out of the way with his ass, his face coming to life the minute he saw his granddaughter kicking away in her chair in front of him. “Hello, baby girl,”he cooed, using the most ridiculous voice I’d heard a grown man use.
“Goddammit, Tucker, you—”
“Hey!” Eric cut him off, pulling Harriet out of her chair and propping her up in his arms as he turned back to Deeks. “Remember what Ayda said. There’ll be no bad language in front of the baby.”
Deeks was practically bursting with anger by the time I’d gotten out of my car, walked around it, and slapped him on the back.
“Don’t worry, Deeks. She needs her diaper changing soon. We both know Eric can’t handle that S. H. I. T.”
Deeks grumbled something that sounded like a cuss word before he shook it off and stepped closer to Harriet, his eyes alive as he lifted a finger to her tummy and greeted her with a tickle.
I watched them walking her toward The Hut, and I found myself turning around to the gates of the yard when a tourist bike flew down the road, the thunderous sound of the engine grabbing my attention.
A flash of Ayda walking through those gates all those times she came to clean our club’s shit up to pay a debt to me she didn’t really owe, and the defiance she wore every time she did it had my face falling. I’d treated her like shit because I feared what she could become, but, like she always did, Ayda had managed to break into my iron heart without me even realizing it, her quick one-liners and her beautiful eyes making me weak for her.
“You’re quite the confusing creature, Ayda Hanagan.”
“Me?”
“You.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m the bleakest person around. I’m an open book.”
“Is that really how you see yourself?”
I shook away the idea of her not knowing who she was and what she was capable of, the warmth of even those early memories making me smile in disbelief as I walked through the yard, up the steps of the porch, and I pushed open the door to The Hut.
Inside, Harriet was circled, with Eric holding her proudly while Slater, Jedd, Rubin, Kenny, Moose, Ben, Deeks, and yes, Howard Sutton, all cooed around her, their voices high pitched as they made her smile grow, each of them laughing when she laughed—happy because she was happy, too
Tate was soon walking out of the corridor, wearing nothing more than his gray sweats as he waltzed forward, a cocky, arrogant son of a bitch now. His body had grown even more, the muscles of his chest and shoulders expanding to make him appear manlier than he’d ever been. He may have been a moody teenager, but the minute he saw his niece, his face lit up, and he was in among the men, removing her from Eric’s arms and claiming her in his own. I watched him as he bounced her up and down, asking her who her favorite uncle was, while Rubin chipped in with a witty comeback.
I’d never grow tired of seeing them this way.
Sutton caught me staring with a stupid grin on my face, and he stepped out from the circle, walking over to me in his uniform like the old cowboy he used to be.
“You’ll never have to look too long and hard for a babysitter,” he said, coming to a stop in front of me.
“I think the real problem will be keeping these lot away when we want some privacy.”
“That too.” He laughed, looking back at them all as the noise of Harriet’s laughter grew before he turned back to me. “So, I have some news for you that I thought you might wanna hear.”
“Yeah?”
“Come on.” He tilted his head toward the door and beganto walk out onto the porch. I followed him, walking over to the railing and leaning against it, the same way Sutton had done.
The two of us looked over the yard as the Texas sun beat down on our land.
“Thought you should know that Walsh has messed up on the inside already.”
I frowned, turning to study Sutton’s face. He seemed lighter these days, too. More settled in his skin and less likely to start firing at random targets just to prove a point. “What do you mean?”