Page 140 of American Hellhound
He smiled and kissed the top of her head. “That’s my girl.”
She had a soft spot for strays and lost causes, too – Mercy was one himself, after all.
~*~
Whitney was sitting at Ava and Mercy’s kitchen table when Ava let them in; she jumped, hand going toward her purse – good girl, Maggie thought – and then relaxed with a deep breath when she saw who it was.
She picked up her coffee cup and stood. “Hi.”
“Sorry we’re late,” Ava said as Maggie followed her inside. “Mercy’s not going to be able to come home.” Maggie could hear the frown in her voice.
“Is everything okay?” Whitney asked, expression worried.
“Fine,” Ava sighed. “Just…” She shrugged. “Club stuff.”
Whitney nodded, mouth pressing into a line. She hadn’t been around as long as the rest of them, but she knew exactly what “club stuff” meant – anything and everything.
“That bulb on the corner’s getting dim,” Ghost said as he trooped in.
“Yeah, Mercy’s gonna replace it,” Ava said.
“Where are the bulbs? I’ll do it now.” Ghost was still in his boots, shrugging back into the jacket he’d started to take off.
“It can wait,” Ava said, sounding tired. She pulled down mugs and a box of tea bags from the cabinets.
“Nah, it needs doing. Ladder still in the garage?”
“Baby,” Maggie said, the same moment Ava said, “Dad.”
“You want it to be all dark back there?” he asked with a scowl, waving toward the yard. The door was still open, wind carrying raindrops in to splatter against the mud room tiles.
“What I want,” Ava said, tired eyes flashing with annoyance, “is for the kids to stay asleep. And if you open the garage door, drag that rattly-ass ladder out, and cuss at a light bulb for fifteen minutes, they’ll all wake up. So no, Dad, I don’t want you to change it. Mercy can deal with it tomorrow.”
Ghost’s scowl was rapidly going from dad-angry to president-angry. He opened his mouth to respond – no doubt to say that they had no idea when Mercy would be home to take care of the bulb because there was a spooky hitman kid grafted to his hip at the moment.
Maggie slid between them. “Whitney,” she said with false brightness, “Tango followed us over. He’s out waiting to follow you home now.”
“Okay.” She sent Maggie a relieved look. “Night, everyone. Ava, call if you need my help tomorrow.”
“Yeah, thank you,” Ava said, the fight going out of her as she slumped back against the counter.
Ghost walked Whitney out to her car and Maggie pushed her daughter away from the sink with a hip check, started filling the mugs with water. “He’s trying to be a good dad and take care of you,” she said for what was probably the ten-thousandth time in her life as a mother. “Don’t fuss at him.”
Ava gave her a look. “Doyouwant him waking up the kids?”
“I love them to bits, but no. Just…cool it a little. And he should too,” she added before Ava could protest. “You react the same way to stress – like father, like daughter.”
Ava wrinkled her nose.
Maggie wondered, as she made tea – as she was doing more and more often lately – if the new baby would be more like Aidan or Ava. Or maybe neither. A little hellraiser? A sweetheart? Both? At times she imagined a rowdy boy with motorcycle dreams, at others a girl who wanted to go to school in California and run a fashion magazine. Or maybe a sweet boy with her blonde hair and non-club aspirations. A softhearted young woman who fell in love young with a Lean Dog. The thrill of it was: she didn’t care. She loved every possibility.
But at times, moments like these when the wolves were at the door, she wished for this baby to go live its own life, away from the club, and all the dangers it presented.
They made tea with lemon, Ghost resisted the instinctual urge to change the lightbulb, and the babies all stayed asleep. Ava peeked in on them, asked if they were okay – “The fold out sofa sucks, I’m sorry” – and headed off to bed.
The fold-out did suck, but Maggie had slept on worse.
She turned onto her side and snuggled into the space Ghost had left for her in the cradle of his arm, her head pillowed on his shoulder.
