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“I know,” he told her gravely. “She had a quadruple scoop of chocolate in a waffle cone for breakfast.”
“With Reese’s peanut butter cup sprinkles?”
“She won’t eat it without them.”
Nicole had reached them, her heels clicking on the asphalt. Tiger squinted as the sun haloed her. “Car giving you problems again?”
“Just needs a service for a road trip. Colt wanted me to let the boys do it, but I’ve told him a hundred times you’re the only one touching this car.”
He noted the tiredness around her eyes, the tension to her mouth and slim shoulders. “Everything okay?” he asked.
She parted her lips, but hesitated. When she rested a manicured hand on Aubrey’s shoulder, Tiger turned his attention back to his niece. “Maryshka’s working this morning,” he said. “Want to go see her?”
“Yay!” Before she could bolt, Tiger snagged Aubrey’s purple top, printed with a polar bear carrying an umbrella for some mystifying reason. Kid clothes.
“What’s the rule?” he asked.
Aubrey screwed up her face, sighed, but recited it dutifully. “Go in through the office, ring the bell. Wait for Maryshka. No going into the garage by myself.”
“And?” He cocked a meaningful brow at Nicole, and Aubrey looked up at her.
“Mama, can I go see Maryshka?”
“Yes, you may. But stay with her until I come get you.”
“Okay.” She ran off after giving the elephant on Tiger’s shoulder one more pat. “See you, Hermione.”
Tiger stood up, cutting right to the chase. “What’s up?”
“Nothing that anyone can fix.” Nicole tried for weary humor, but the tone had too much pain in it. “I just wish…I wish what I always wish. That he’d done what you did. Or at least he’d come see you. I always try to get him to bring you the car or pick it up, but he’ll just have a prospect do it.”
Because no Fallen Angels club member would have anything to do with him. Which was fine with Tiger. It had to be, because it was better that way.
“I like seeing Aubrey,” Tiger said lightly. “Stop trying to fix something that can’t be fixed, Nicole. I mean it.”
She looked in the direction Aubrey had gone, her dark-lashed eyes troubled. “They’re about to do a lockdown again. The usual reason, some kind of trouble, and this time I said I’m not doing it, Tiger. I’m just not. I’m tired of me and Aubrey being jerkedaround by the bullshit between the MC and whatever they’re dealing with.”
“So what are you doing to stay out of harm’s way?” Before he could suggest some places they could go, she waved a hand, letting him know she was on top of it.
“We’re going to my parents’ place in Florida for a while.”
“Okay, good. I’ll bump you to the front of the line and get you set up for the drive.”
When Nicole put the keys in his hand, her fingers abruptly curled over his. She shifted her gaze away again, but Tiger saw her blinking back tears. Nicole was a tough woman. This was bad. Her fixed look said she wasn’t seeing anything in front of her, but what was festering inside.
“When Colt and I met, I was a different person. All of the MC stuff, it’s a part of him. His brothers…that’s a strong thing. I get it.”
Yeah, it was. He still felt the ache of it, an amputation. He’d wielded the axe that had cut off the limb.
“I love him so much,” she murmured. “But Aubrey changed things. You know?”
“You coming back?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” She tossed him a half-despairing look. “Maybe love is just as much about knowing when to say good-bye. To preserve what memories of it you have left.”
He knew that feeling, too. Sadly, by the time the “when” decision was made, the love was poisoned.
Chuck was putting the mower in his storage closet, the wheels rattling. Tiger heard the vultures take off, a heavy rush of wings that blended into the four-lane traffic noise a quarter mile from the garage. A mockingbird heralded their departure with a piercing note.
