Page 14 of Eagle

He might have appeared to be unconcerned to Bear, but I knew that we’d have words later. He probably hadn’t wanted to say too much in front of Drake.

The first person I looked for when we entered the main room was Jillian. Bear veered off in another direction while I continued toward the table we’d been sitting at earlier. Whenever she was around I liked to know where she was, and whom she was with. I’d been watching her for months, and had yet to make a serious move. My brothers knew that I had my sights set on her, and gave me grief for not just staking my claim yet.

My track record with women wasn’t good. Used to be when I wanted someone, I didn’t waste any time. But my last committed relationship with a woman, Mandy, had been a nightmare that had been hard to forget. The woman, who’d portrayed herself as a sweet schoolteacher, had turned out to be a psychopath in disguise. My brothers had tried to warn me, they’d seen the signs early on, but I’d been thinking with my dick. Wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

Jillian had a lot going on in her life and I wanted to take things slow. She’d just opened her own real estate office and was busy with work. She also lived with her mom, who’d been disabled in a car accident. And if I were being honest, Jillian knew that I was interested in her, but hadn’t made any moves of her own to suggest that she felt the same way about me.

So I would sit back and bide my time for a while. I’d never courted a woman before. None of my brothers did that shit. But I could see the benefits of going that route when it came to a good woman. Question was, did I want her badly enough to put in the effort? Guess time would tell.

As if sensing my eyes on her, Jillian looked across the room at me. She offered up a small smile, the same one she always offered me, and then quickly glanced away. I was about to walk over to her when my phone vibrated in my pocket, and I reached for it. A glance down revealed that it was my Aunt May. A smile automatically spread across my face because I knew why she was calling. “What’s up?”

“What’s up?!” She hated when I answered the phone that way. Especially when she knew that I knew it was her. “Is that how you answer the phone when the woman who practically raised you calls to remind you about dinner tomorrow night?”

I could hear the mock anger in her tone, I could visualize the laughter in her eyes. Aunt May had raised me. I could barely remember my mom. She’d died of colon cancer when I was four. And my dad had disappeared when I was two, so I’d never known him.

I opened the door and stepped outside to get away from the noise. “How could I forget our standing date?” I laughed.

She snorted. “I just wanted to make sure you can’t use my forgetting to remind you as an excuse not to come.”

I slapped my hand over my heart even though she couldn’t see it. “Have faith, Aunt May. I’ve been coming over for Sunday dinner my whole adult life. I’m not about to forget.” She wouldn’t let me.

“You bringin’ anyone this time?”

I shook my head at her tenacity and the question that she asked me every week. “No, I haven’t met the woman of my dreams yet.” I frowned when Leo’s face suddenly appeared in my mind instead of Jillian’s. Shit, what was that about?

Her tsking sound came over loud and clear. “You’re almost thirty—”

Which had absolutely nothing to do with anything, but ever since I’d turned twenty-five Aunt May had been hounding me to find a good woman and settle down. Hell, there was plenty of time for that. I wasn’t ready to limit my dick to one woman until I knew for sure that she was ‘the one.’ Since she was also the club bookkeeper and had been for years, she knew about the sweet tarts and their roles in the club. She knew that my needs were met, even though she didn’t approve of how.

“...and I’d like to live long enough to see you with babies.”

I’d let her go on long enough, and when she finally paused to take a breath, I jumped in. “I’m good, Aunt May. I promise you’ll be the first to know when I meet ’the one.’”

There was a pause before she said, “I don’t know why I bother wasting my breath. You be here by six tomorrow night. You hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I grinned. “Love you, Aunt May.”

She mumbled something back and I could tell that she was still frustrated with me. It wouldn’t last. Her calling me every Saturday night to remind me about dinner was a little game we played. Sometimes I was out of town and couldn’t make it, but she understood that I had commitments to the club and my business with Lynx.

I slipped my phone into my pocket and went back inside the clubhouse. My eyes automatically moved to where Jillian should have been sitting. Frowning, I glanced around the room. I caught Mac’s attention as he was walking toward her table. He must have guessed who I was looking for and motioned toward the restrooms. I gave him a chin lift and headed in his direction. The table we’d all been sharing was surprisingly empty.

“That was a tense minute,” Mac said when I pulled back a chair and sat down across from him. “One wrong word and we could have ended up in handcuffs.”

I snorted. “Wouldn’t be the first time, Brother.” We laughed briefly.

“What do you think of Rickers just showing up here?” Mac asked, leaning back in his chair.

I took a breath. “I knew the first time I met him that he was going to do things his way. He doesn’t trust us yet. Think we have a long road ahead to getting him onboard to accepting that we’re not the bad guys.”

The front door opened, and I was shocked to see Brew and Buck walk through it. Brew was wearing a sling, and he was limping, and when he got closer to the table I could see the stitches on his head. He had a huge bruise on one side of his face, and bruises and scrapes lined both his arms. I could imagine what his body looked like beneath his torn clothes.

“What the fuck, Brother? You were supposed to stay in the hospital until morning,” I growled.

He sank down into Jillian’s chair with a heavy sigh.

“Asshole doesn’t know what’s good for him,” Buck grumbled as he continued to the bar.

Brew shrugged, followed by a noticeable wince. “Hospitals aren’t for me.” His smile quickly turned into a grimace of obvious pain. “Convinced the doctor into letting me go with the promise I had a lot of help at home.”

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