“Damn it all.” Brodie seemed to take it the hardest, and crazy as it was for the cracked-in-the-head dude, his icy blue eyes were damp. “Fucking sorry, man.”
“Don’t be treating her any different next time you see her.” I firmed my stance. “She’ll probably cut your balls off if you start acting like you pity her.”
“One class act lady.”
“Respect.”
“Shiloh rocks, Handsome.”
“I gotta jet. Now,” I said, making for the elevator so I could grab my shit from the room.
The MC dudes hustled right along behind me.
“You don’t think you’re going without us, do you?” Tail asked, shoulder to shoulder with me.
“I don’t need an armed escort.”
“We did it for Ronnie. We’re doing it for Shiloh.” Boomer punched the button for the elevator, telling it like it was.
Chapter Twenty-One
Maximum Pain
I COULDN’T RACE BACK to South Carolina fast enough. That one call from Shy had shaken my shit up. Would anything ever be easy for one of our women?
During the high-speed ride from Jacksonville to Charleston, I couldn’t shake my Retribution brothers either. They met my every tight turn, ripped their throttles to keep up with me, and punched down as the road spread before us. Brodie became my constant shadow, Tail flanking my back.
My head in the crapper several hours later, I rolled up to the hospital parking garage, all in a lather.
The dudes roared their bikes to a stop beside mine, easily taking up four spaces in the dungeon of the building with Tucker parking Bo’s Hummer across the way.
“I made it safe and sound. Y’all can go now.” I started digging out my phone to get Shy’s room number, stomping toward the elevator, almost breaking into a run.
Tail hustled beside me. “Yeah. Don’t think so. Your old lady’s sick, so we’re gonna be here for her just like we were for the doc.”
A crazy amount of emotions collided inside me. These fucking guys. Who had wives, kids, fiancées, almost-baby-mommas—and not to forget the four Doberman bitches leaving nose prints on the Hummer windows as they watched their new daddy’s every move. In response to Tuck’s on-the-road SOS, some friends of his pulled up just in time to take over dog duty.
All of us were dusty and sweaty, tired from the road and our previous night’s raid, but my crew was sticking right beside me.
For Shy.
I nodded, because my voice wouldn’t work anymore.
“Besides”—Tucker rubbed his belly—“I got dibs on her Jell-O if she hasn’t eaten it.”
“Yeah. Y’all are the wind beneath my wings and all that shit,” I muttered.
We bundled into the elevator, possibly scaring the shit out of the well-dressed, middle-aged couple headed up.
“How do.” Boomer dipped his head with a smile, trying to play the friendly, but only serving to highlight the scars near his mouth and on his dark eyebrow.
The couple shrank back, the woman clutching her purse to her chest.
Tail bent forward. “Hey, we ain’t gonna rob you. This dude’s girlfriend”—he thumbed a finger back at me—“has cancer. Just here to visit her.”
“Oh!” The lady’s mouth popped open. “Our daughter has cancer too.”
As soon as her fingers flitted to her throat to tangle in the double strand of pearls I recognized her.
Fuck me.
Great first—not really the first—impression to make on Shy’s folks—Thomas and Justine.
I slid forward. “Mrs. Lockhart? Mr. Lockhart? It’s me. Maxwell Rush.”
Looking big and badass and road-weary. Wearing my MC cut, leather pants, and the twin gauges in my ears.
“Maxwell?” Mr. Lockhart held out his hand hesitantly. “It’s been a long time.”
I met his palm. “Sure has.”
“You grew up.” His eyes narrowed into hard beads targeted on me.
The last they’d probably known about me was the jail time I’d gotten before I’d dropped all the way off the Charleston high society grid.
“Your girlfriend, is she doing okay? Because Shiloh has—” The doors dinged open on the oncology ward before Mrs. Lockhart completed her sentence.
Christ. They have no idea about their daughter and me.
We all tromped in the same direction, toward Shy’s room.
Mr. Lockhart opened the door.
My heart leaped into my throat.
Mrs. Lockhart turned to frown at me with an ahem expression on her face.
Sending a last look at the black-dressed dudes lingering in the corridor, I stepped inside.
“Max!” Shy called to me from the bed.
Relief washed right over me when I saw her. She was a little pale and hooked up to an IV, but she was alert and smiling as she held her hand out to me.
Unfortunately her folks weren’t all too happy to find out my girlfriend with cancer was none other than their daughter.
“What’s the meaning of this, Shiloh?” Daddy Lockhart’s jaw tensed into a locked-tight position.
“Oh!” She kept staring at me, and I realized she’d never seen me in full biker gear before.