“Dixie?” Bear asked, trying to catch up. “You raised us all to be stubborn.”
His father’s eyes moved between the three of them. “I raised you all to be men, and we raised Dixie to be a strong woman. But she’s as stubborn as your mother. I want more for her. Don’t you see that? Every damn time I tell her she can’t do something, what does she do?”
“She blows it out of the water,” Bear said.
“Exactly.” He limped to within inches from Bear. “I respect your grandfather’s wishes, but I also respect your sister, no matter what you believe. Do you want Dixie to spend the rest of her life in a bar? Around drunken men? Don’t you want more for her?”
“More? Hell, yes. But Dix loves working at the bar and the shop. She doesn’t want to work for anyone else. Have you ever asked her what she wants?”
Bullet stepped up beside Bear, arms crossed, face serious. “What do you want?”
“I want what’s right,” Bear answered. “I want Dixie to manage the project, and whatever else she wants to handle.”
Bones came to Bear’s other side. “No. What do you want? For yourself?”
The question slowed him down. He pushed away the guilt, forcing the truth. “I want to continue at the shop, and I want to work with Silver-Stone designing motorcycles. I’ve paid my dues. I’ve run the bar since I was barely eighteen. But I’m thirty-three, and I’m in love with Crystal. I don’t want her sitting alone at night while I’m working at a bar. Family comes first. Always. She’s my family now, too. That’s what I want, and that’s why I’m selling my shares of the bar to Dixie. The bar is her dream, not mine, and she has earned the right to manage it.”
The muscles in Bullet’s jaw clenched repeatedly. He stepped closer to Bear, and Bear held his breath, waiting for him to cut loose about how what he wanted didn’t matter. But he refused to stand down. Not now, not ever again.
Bullet put a heavy hand on his back and faced their father. “He sells, I sell.”
“Mine’s already a done deal.” Bones held up his phone, on which was a text he’d sent to Dixie ten minutes ago. You can have my shares, too. Love you.
Bear felt the earth tilt on its axis.
Their father scrubbed a hand down his face, eyeing his sons. “Stubborn motherfuckers. All four of you. No one’s selling a damn thing. You think Dixie means it when she says she wants the bar? Then she’ll have it. I thought I could push her toward something else without having to actually force her out of the family business, but not because she can’t handle it.”
“Right. Because she’s a woman,” Bear said with disgust.
“Damn right because she’s a woman. She should work someplace where there are no drunk guys or late nights. She’s my daughter. Would you want Crystal working at a bar until two in the morning?”
“Hell no.”
“Well, son, maybe one day you’ll understand why I’ve done what I’ve done. But she’s your mother’s daughter. I’ve been trying to get your mother to stop working at the bar for years.”
“You don’t want Red working at the bar?” Bear asked. “But you’re all about family doing it all.”
“Damn right I am.” His father stood up taller. “I know you boys won’t let anything happen to the girls when they’re at the bar. But that doesn’t mean I like them working there. Why do you think I pushed Dixie so hard in college?”
Bear shook his head. “I’m so fucking confused. Why didn’t you just tell her?”
“Oh, yeah. That would go over well with little Miss I Can Do Anything My Brothers Can Do but Better.” Their father tugged at his beard. “This was the only way I knew to get her to see the light. But she and your mother are two peas in a fucking pod.”
“Pop, you let us believe you were a chauvinistic asshole.”
“Hey.” Bullet elbowed him.
“It’s okay.” His father gave Bear a hard look. “Better that you think I’m a chauvinistic asshole than Dixie think I don’t want her in the family business at all. That girl’s tough as nails, but she’s also as sensitive as a hair trigger. She can see how I am about protecting our girls, and that fits in her mind as who I am. But hearing I don’t want her in the family business for any reason? That would break her heart.”
He rested his cane against his leg and set a hand on Bullet’s and Bones’s shoulders, staring at Bear. “Get your ass in here. I don’t have three hands.”
Bear stepped into the group hug.
“When your grandfather turns over in his grave,” his father said, “that’s on your shoulders.”
“Thanks, Pop.”
“No, Robert. Thank you. You held this family together for so long, I forgot it wasn’t your job.”
The recognition he’d spent years telling himself he didn’t need made Bear’s heart feel full to near bursting.
Bullet broke away from the embrace. “Don’t tell him that shit. He’s going to get a big-ass ego.”
Bones cracked a smile. “Going to get?”
“I’ll kick his ass and take care of that.” Bullet slapped Bear on the back so hard he stumbled forward. Bear cocked a fist, and the three of them fell into a fake fight and ended up laughing.
When he walked out the door half an hour later, his father called after him, “Lunch, Sunday. Bring your little gal,” and he knew life as he’d known it had changed.
For the better.
Chapter Twenty-One
“COME ON, BABE. They’re not going to care what you wear. We’re just having lunch,” Bear called into the bedroom.
“Just one more minute, promise,” Crystal called to him. It was Sunday and they were meeting his parents at their house for lunch. She’d gone shopping with Gemma and Dixie Friday night and picked out a pretty wine-colored spaghetti-strap minidress with tiny off-white and black flowers. It was more feminine than she was used to, but she’d liked how she’d felt in the dress for Gemma’s wedding, and she wanted to explore that side of herself a little more. She paired it with black biker boots, a few long silver necklaces on black strings, and silver bangles, making it look edgier, but she was still a nervous wreck. Of course, that had less to do with the dress than it did with having lunch with his parents.
“Babe?” Bear appeared in the doorway. His lips curved up and his eyes blazed a trail from her head to her toes. “Hot damn. You look gorgeous.”
She fidgeted with the hem of the dress, thinking about how easy it was for guys to pick out their clothes. Bear always wore jeans and a T-shirt, with his leather vest thrown in most days. His tattoos were like permanent accessories. “Are you sure? Is it too girly?”