Page 6 of Moonshine Lullabies

Cy nodded. Hex handed me the keys to my bike and gave me a nod, too. I called out, “Bring back the shit to fix that front door.”

“Measure it for me,” Cy called back.

“You got it,” I shot back and the two of them disappeared through the broken door into the gathering dark.

I sighed and Tate slipped back out of the bathroom and brought me the first-aid kit.

“She’s gonna be in there a while,” he said. “She don’t know I know, but the shower is where she cries it out. She hates it when people see her cry.”

I nodded and told him, “Secret is safe with me.”

He nodded, but didn’t so much as crack a smile.

“Let me get this set up in the kitchen and then I’ll come help you,” I told him, and he nodded at me from his bedroom doorway.

“Thanks,” he said.

I winked at him. “I got you.”

He disappeared into the portal of his bedroom and I sighed, the false bravado dropping off my face as I let the worry set in, staring for a long moment at the bathroom door where his mamma had disappeared.

The Bayou Brethren sure opened up a can of whoop ass on themselves with this one. They were a wildcard, for sure, and didn’t seem to get it that timing was everything. We were a different breed, calculated. It might take us a minute, but when we struck, it was with precision and against the man that deserved it. This…

I looked around at the blood all over the damn floor and covered my mouth with my hand, rubbing across my lips and goatee.

This was bullshit, and even against the outlaw code.

You didn’t go after women and children… we had been warned, but somehow with Cy’s place bein’ way on out here? We didn’t think they’d fuck with anybody in their own backyard or fuck with the Cajun people.

Shit.

This was bad.

Looked like we needed to reevaluate some things.

CHAPTERTHREE

Jessie-Lou…

I spent a long time in the shower, letting the hot spray beat the tension outta me, and when the adrenaline wore off? I took my time bawling my eyes out some more and letting the spray wipe my tears into oblivion.

All I could keep telling myself was my son was okay, he was fine, and I was fine too – or I would be.

I just hoped I’d killed the son of a bitch and sent a message that we ain’t to be fucked with. I shuddered like I was cold, but under this scalding spray, I was anything but.

Am I alright?I wondered briefly.

I mean, I had to be. I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I always had to be fine, hold it together, and figure it out on my own. That was just the cards life had dealt me. Yeah, it was a shitty hand, but there wasn’t no sense in cryin’ about it.

A ridiculous little laugh bubbled out of me and I winced, hoping that no one out there in the rest of the house heard it. The walls were thin enough as it was in this old rambler.

I tried waiting out the blood running down my drain, but the pink kept right on coming. I winced, and the longer I stood under the spray, the more things started to sting. Eventually, I had to admit defeat and get out, drying off and wrapping my hair up in a towel while I threw on my oversized tee that I liked to sleep in and shrugged into my scruffy but comfortable robe for modesty’s sake.

I had a feeling Cypress had fucked off, leaving one of his stupid club brothers holding the bag where Tater and I were concerned. That ticked me off to no end. I took care of us before they showed up. I could take care of us now. I’d loaded my crossbow before I got into the shower and I hung it from my shoulder now before exiting the bathroom.

If I was a betting woman, I’d put even money that Collier was the one out there. He seemed eager to stick around and Hex was too high up in the club’s food chain to pull sitter duty for a brother’s loser sister and her illegitimate teenage son.

I looked myself over in the mirror before I went out and winced at the drip of blood already trying to work its way down the side of my face from my hair at the side of my head. There was already a stain at the edge of the towel and I didn’t like the look of it. I was hoping I wouldn’t need stitches.

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