Hold On

In the six years since they’d been married, Reesee had published eight books.

She and her husband, Fin, had also given Mike three grandkids.

His daughter was happy as a clam on her farm with her husband and her brood.

Mike could coast through the goodness of life because Dusty gave that to him. His grandkids gave that to him.

But with his daughters, he was not happy.

This was because Mike had another girl, Mandy, who was much younger than her big sister.

This meant this kind of torture—his baby girls making babies—would be drawn out, prolonged.

Never ending.

Christ.

Dusty grinned, moving toward him.

“No, gorgeous.” She stopped close to him. “Rees isn’t pregnant. Though I’d never describe an impending grandchild as being a problem. This is problem. Or at least it might be in the beginning.”

“What?” he asked.

“Just going to say, I’ve made the call and preliminarily tamed the wild beast,” she declared.

This wasn’t an answer. Though it did make him mentally brace harder.

“What?” he repeated.

She reached a hand toward the counter, nabbed her tablet, looked down at it, sliding her finger on the screen, and finally her eyes came up to his.

“Brace,” she whispered.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

She turned the tablet his way.

His eyes dropped to it.

On it was an online entertainment news site.

And the headline was, “Jonas Haines of Broken Bird Marries Model Adriana Rivera in Vegas.”

“What the fuck?” Mike murmured, pulling the tablet out of his wife’s hand and reading it.



Jonas Haines, known as “No,” lead singer, lead guitarist, and founder of the chart-topping rock band Broken Bird, yesterday reportedly married his on-again, off-again girlfriend, bathing suit model Adriana Rivera, in Las Vegas.



Haines, 31, and Rivera, 20, have dominated the gossip columns for the last two years with their stormy relationship. This includes Haines’s brief incarceration for charges of assault and battery when he located a crazed fan of Rivera’s who was stalking his lady love. Charges were later dropped through a plea bargain arrangement for Alfie Birk, who pled guilty to criminal harassment and menacing and received a reduced sentence.



It’s reported that Haines’s best man was a woman. Stella Gunn of the Blue Moon Gypsies, the established rock star who gave Haines and Broken Bird their break, asking Broken Bird to open for the Gypsies before they’d even signed a record deal, stood with the rocker.



In turn, standing up for Rivera was a man. Kai Mason, Gunn’s husband and the head of an elite security agency in Los Angeles, the agency used by Broken Bird as well as Rivera personally, stood with the model.



Neither Haines’s nor Rivera’s spokespersons are confirming the nuptials except for Broken Bird’s team stating that at this time, Haines and Rivera’s relationship is “definitely on.” It’s been alleged that confirmation is being delayed in order for the bride and groom to inform their families that the wedding took place.



It’s unknown where the newlyweds are at this time; however, social media sites have lit up with witnesses at Las Vegas and Los Angeles airports stating they’ve seen the couple and also reporting they’ve boarded a Fiji Airlines flight bound for those islands for what could be nothing other than their honeymoon.



Finished, Mike looked at his wife.

“Hunter is not happy,” Dusty noted, something Mike did not need her to note.

Hunter was Dusty’s best friend’s husband.

He was also Adriana’s father.

And last, Hunter had not been a big fan of this situation for more years than No and Addie had been together. In fact, it had been since the first time he saw his daughter, at thirteen, gazing with love-struck eyes at No, who was with his band playing at his sister’s wedding.

“But I talked him down,” Dusty finished.