Page 91 of The Heart We Guard
She looks up at me. “I think we’re establishing that I’m not one of those women.”
“Hey, guys,” Smoke says. “Greer. Welcome.”
He pulls her in for a hug. I know it’s platonic. I know he’s happily loved up with Quinn. But my insides overreact anyway. I want to tell him to get his hands off her. To be careful because she’s pregnant.
But I bite down on the need to rip his hands off her because she’s quick to bend down and rub behind Bones’s ears.
“We’re around the back,” Smoke says, slapping my shoulder. “It might get too cool, but at least before dinner, we can have some drinks around the fire.”
“Might be too cold for the baby,” I say.
Both Greer and Smoke look at me weird.
“Too cold for the baby?” Smoke asks. “The one who is protected by whatever clothing Greer is wearing and is actually inside her body?”
Greer looks at Smoke and laughs.
“Fine. Fuck you both. Be cold.” I stomp around back to Greer and Smoke’s chuckles. So much for being a better man.
My phone rings just as I approach the fire pit.
“Grudge,” I say when I pull the phone to my ear.
“Just found out from a contact that there’s bidding on property this side of Idaho Springs.”
“So?”
“It’s Wes Granger, Butcher.”
The name is a blast from the past. He was president of the Midtown Rebels when Wraith’s wife and kid were killed. “Fuck. I thought he was dead.”
“Obviously, he’s not. I mean, Wraith was going around…doing what he was doing. I would have put him on Wraith’s…” He lets the words hang because this is a phone call, after all. Never know who the fuck is listening in. But what he means is that Wraith is no longer going around killing anyone who had anything to do with the club.
“Your contact…did they explain why he’s buying it?”
“Not a word. But it’s a big property, Butch. You think they could be planning to rebuild here?”
“I fucking hope not. We just got rid of one fly in the ointment.” The Bratva. “Don’t want to have to deal with another one.”
“Understood. You wanna call church to discuss?”
I look over to the fire pit, where Smoke is introducing Greer to Quinn, and Raven is hugging them both.
“It can wait until tomorrow.”
“But we should put a stop to it now and perhaps?—”
“It can wait, Grudge. Tomorrow.”
Because, tonight, I’m putting Greer first.
27
GREER
If you forget for a heartbeat that the men are members of a motorcycle club, and the women consider themselves old ladies and, even worse, property, they are all lovely human beings.
Wraith is clearly a doting soon-to-be husband and it’s clear he loves being a father to Raven’s son, Fen. He talks about both of them with so much pride, it’s almost overwhelming. And Smoke only has eyes for Quinn. She’s the chattier of the two women. Where Raven is a little more reserved, Quinn fills the gaps in conversation with funny stories and comments that cause everyone to instantly re-engage.
