Phantom climbs down slower. Both hands on the open door. His eyes go to the gate first—Banshee leaning against the side of his bike at the front—then to the south access, the round pen, the kennel, the bunkhouse porch where I'm standing with a dishtowel over my shoulder.
The look on his face is the one a man gets when he's seeing a house he built with his own hands.
His jaw works once.
He tips his hat at the ranch like he's tipping his hat at an old friend.
Then he sees Rogue coming down the steps of his own cabin across the gravel.
Without a word, he walks across the gravel.
The two of them meet in the middle and stop a foot apart. They look at each other for a long second.
Phantom pulls him in. One arm around the back of his neck. Hard. The type of hug I wouldn't expect from this MC Prez.
Marlena crosses the gravel toward me.
Cal is on her hip and tears are running down her face that aren't sad or happy, and are some third thing only women who have lived hard have a name for.
She comes up the porch steps and sets Cal down on his feet beside her and takes my face in both hands.
Her grip holds firm. Her eyes go to the place at my throat where the chain used to be. They stay there a second longer than Mama Lou's did. Then they come back to my eyes.
"Hadley."
"Marlena."
"You took care of Rogue, baby."
"He took care of me too."
"Mm." She doesn't blink. Her thumbs are warm against my cheekbones. "I can see that, sweetheart. I can see it all over you."
The tears come up fast. I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep them back.
She pulls me into her chest with Cal between us. Texas-mother style, fast and fierce.
When she pulls back, she keeps a hand on my shoulder. Her eyes flick across the gravel toward Rogue and Phantom, who are walking toward the bunkhouse together with their heads bent in conversation.
She turns back to me. Her voice goes quiet, just loud enough for me to hear over Cal's babbling. "That man of yours has been quiet today, hasn't he?"
My pulse jumps. "How'd you know?"
She smiles. "I've been around men like him my whole life, baby. He's fixin' to do somethin'."
I don't speak.
She squeezes my shoulder once. "You ready for it?"
The words come out of me before I can decide whether to let them. "I'm ready for anything with him."
Marlena laughs—soft, deep, the laugh of a woman who has been waiting to hear that exact sentence from me. She picks Cal back up off the porch boards. "Then today's gonna be a good day, sweetheart. Whatever else is comin' tomorrow, today's gonna be a good day for you."
She walks off the porch toward the main house.
I stand at the railing with my hand on the wood and my pulse going at the side of my throat.
* * *
