I kissed her again, our tongues making fresh declarations.
Her arms wrapped around my middle. “You got the gun back?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” She buried her face in my throat. “Good.”
“You want to tell me what the hell happened around here?”
“Nina and I bumped into Mindy’s gal pal Shelley Anne at the beauty salon in town, and we overheard her bragging about partying with Mindy and Jump at the Full Moon Howl.”
“Jump?”
“Yeah, Jump had himself a good ole time with both lovely ladies. By the way, Alicia came home from her trip to Texas today, too.”
“Ah, fuck.” I leaned back against the sofa.
“Big fuck. She wasn’t too surprised, but that sort of humiliation truly sucks.” She leaned over and took another swallow of that green frozen crap.
“And what did you and Nina do?”
“We had our girl’s back, of course. Old-lady code and all.”
I eyed her. “Old-lady code?”
Jill shrugged. “It’s a minefield out there.”
She went into detail about how Mindy had gotten the gun out of the clubhouse.
I rubbed a hand down my face. “Shit. Have you seen Jump?”
“He’s making himself scarce. Alicia went ballistic, and the three of us headed for the Tingle where we found Mindy. There was a bit of a smackdown in the parking lot.”
“Jill, did you—”
“Not me. I did use my verbal skills to let Mindy know how I felt about what she’d done.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I bet you did.”
She took another swallow of her frothy green cocktail. “Mindy’s downstairs in the cellar. Your woman scorned awaits.”
I wrapped her hand in mine. “You’re all jazzed up now, aren’t you?”
She squeezed my hand. “I got angry, but this time I focused and did something about it. It felt good to stand up, fight back.”
My woman had fought back.
In that fight, do we splinter like bone or stand tall, as if we were hard and made of iron? Our bodies were made of bone, but there was iron to be found within, and each of us had to find it.
I brushed her cheek with a quick kiss. “Standing tall, baby.”
She pursed her lips. “I hate that Catch did this. I really hate it.”
“He tried to make me believe that you had done it for him.”
Her eyes shot up at me.
“I didn’t believe him, not for a second.”
Jill’s hand twisted in mine. “He called me and threatened me, saying he’d take Becca.”
“When?”
“When we were at the burger place.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
She didn’t answer.
“There’s more, isn’t there?”
She pressed her lips together.
“Say it, Jill. It ain’t gonna be nothing I haven’t heard before.”
Her wet eyes met mine. “He threatened your life if I didn’t do what he wanted. He said he’d get to you any way he could. Would start out small, like he did today, and then—”
“He ain’t going to touch me or have anyone else do it. Finger was not happy with him either. You should’ve told me. Your life and safety do not get threatened, and me and the club don’t know about it. You hear me? No matter what kind of hold he has over you.”
“He doesn’t have a hold over me.”
I tilted my head at her, my hand smoothing across her jaw. Her gaze was steady, emotional but steady. I rubbed a thumb across her cheek.
My woman.
I had to protect her with everything I had, for as long as we had.
“Are you going to the cellar now?” she asked. “Do your judge-and-jury thing?”
“No, I don’t want to see that bitch. That’s for Jump to deal with, his mess to clean up and save face if he can. I did what had to get done. Now, I want time with my old lady. You got to get back to Rae’s?”
“Actually, Grace and Tania are having a girls’ sleepover with Becca and Rae at the house. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
“I could think of a few other choice words for it.”
She let out a soft laugh and pressed her face into my chest.
BACK AT RAE’S, I quickly packed an overnight bag, chatted with Tania and Rae, and gave my daughter a big hug and kiss where I got my hair covered in homemade play dough.
I followed Boner back to his house. He parked his bike at the end of the long driveway and immediately grabbed my bag from the car.
“We got a whole night, huh?”
I smoothed my hair back, checking for more dough bits. “A whole night.”
I glanced up at the massive stone chimney rising over the cedar siding–paneled house, which was nestled on a green hilly slope, the hill joining the low mountains farther in the distance. A deep porch wrapped around the front, and that incredible bay window was prominent in the center.
Boner unlocked the thick wooden door and pushed it open. He took my hand and brought me inside where he punched a series of numbers into a security-alarm panel on the side of the door.
“I need to get in the shower. I’ll take your bag up. You relax. Be back down in a few.”