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I quietly watched Ivy from where I sat at my foster mother’s dining table. Margreet had her best china laid out for today’s lunch. Sunday lunch was a tradition in our family for as long as I had lived with her. I’d only missed five lunches in that time, but Ivy had made it to every single one. She and Margreet had a special bond. One I loved to watch, which I did now as I drank a beer.

They sat together on the couch, talking excitedly about something they were doing together next week. It was the first time in a week I’d seen Ivy light up. Since I’d wrapped my hands around her throat and lost my footing with her. We’d hardly connected during the last seven days. She’d pulled away, I’d been busy with club stuff, and I hadn’t trusted that we could get through a discussion about it without ending up in another argument. So, I’d kept my distance.

Skylar wandered into the room and plopped herself on the chair opposite me. Sliding a piece of paper across the table, she asked, “Can you please help me with this?”

I took the paper from her. Dropping my gaze to read it, I said, “Mum or Nik can’t help?” It was an assignment about her family.

“Mum said I had to ask you about some of it. The stuff about you.”

I met her gaze again and nodded. “Yeah, okay. When’s it due?”

“In two weeks.”

I’d given my full attention to Skylar so had failed to notice Ivy walking my way. It wasn’t until she ran her hand across my back and said, “We can stay after lunch and do it,” that I noticed.

Our eyes met. The warmth I found in hers took me by surprise, and I returned it. Fuck, we needed this today.

Looking back at Skylar, I said, “You wanna do this today?”

“Hell no, but Mum said I couldn’t leave it until the last minute this time.”

“Skylar,” Mum said in a warning tone as she joined us, “don’t use that language please.”

My sister pulled a face. “King swears all the time. It’s not fair that I get into trouble for it when he doesn’t.”

My lips twitched as I tried not to chuckle. The hell I’d caused Margreet as a teen had equipped her with the necessary mental and emotional tools to deal with any misbehaviour from her other foster kids. She’d been tough as nails from the day I met her, but after raising me, she’d learnt how to be smart about it, too.

“He doesn’t swear in my house,” Mum said as she tied her apron, preparing to finish cooking the roast lamb and vegetables for lunch. Her gaze landed on me. “And he knows the rules and what will happen if he does.” She looked back at Skylar. “Same as you do, young lady. Your decision to use that word just now has earnt you a half-hour deduction of your television time today.”

Skylar groaned as she slouched in her seat. “That’s not fair! That wasn’t even a real swear word!”

“Don’t argue with me, child,” Mum said as she bustled into the kitchen. “You know full well that word is not permitted in our house. If you keep arguing, you’ll lose another half hour.”

As Skylar’s mouth opened to argue back, I reached across the table and placed my hand over it. “Enough.”

She shot daggers at me, but she shut her mouth and did as she’d been told. Snatching her assignment sheet off the table, she shoved her chair back and grumbled, “I don’t need your help anymore,” before stomping off towards her bedroom.

I leaned back against my seat, my eyes meeting Ivy’s. She’d taken the seat next to me. “And you want kids?” I wasn’t convinced we could handle them. Hell, we could barely handle our own relationship. Adding children to that mix could end us.

A slow smile graced her face, and she leaned into me, hands curving around my neck. “I don’t just want kids, I want your kids. You’re going to make the best father.”

If we weren’t sitting in my mother’s home, I’d have pulled her onto my lap and kissed the fuck out of her. Instead, I brushed my lips across hers and said as quietly as I could, “We’re never doing a week like this again, Ivy. This radio silence almost killed me.”

She swallowed hard and nodded as her fingers splayed across the nape of my neck and threaded through my hair there. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered.

I placed my hands on her legs before slowly running them up her thighs. It was a good thing she had jeans on, or I’d have seriously struggled keeping myself out of trouble. “I’m taking you home after lunch, and we’re talking this out. And we’re not doing anything besides talking until it’s sorted.”

Her brows arched. “Umm, it’s not just me who has trouble keeping their hands to themselves.”

Mum cut into our conversation when she called out from the kitchen, “Zachary, I need your help in here, please.”

I kept my gaze trained on my woman as I called back, “I’ll be there in a minute.” Then to Ivy, I said with fierce conviction, “I love you.”

With that, I stood and headed into the kitchen. The tension I’d carried with me for the last week hadn’t eased completely, but it had lifted somewhat. I didn’t feel like I was drowning in the ocean while ten fucking sharks circled me, which was how I’d felt while Ivy refused to come near me. I’d do everything in my power to ensure we never went through that again.

Mum lifted her chin up towards the top of her pantry. “Can you please get that sugar down from up there?”

“Why do you put it all the way up the top?” It beat me why women did anything half the time, but it seemed like sugar should live on a lower shelf.

Her lips flattened, and she placed her hands on her tiny hips. She may have been short and little, but Margreet King wasn’t a woman to mess with. “Don’t give me grief, Zachary. You know I don’t use sugar very often.”

“I wasn’t aware of that fact,” I muttered as I grabbed the sugar down for her.

“Thank you.” She took it from me. “I’ve spent the last three months cutting it out of our diet as much as I could. Skylar’s behaviour has improved dramatically since I did that. You should consider doing the same. The amount of sugar you and Ivy consume in soft drink is probably enough to kill you both one day.”

I rested my ass against the counter while I watched her add a small amount of sugar to the batter she had in a mixing bowl, making fuck knew what. Probably her famous shortbread biscuits. Whatever it was, it would be good. That was a guarantee whenever Mum cooked.

Crossing my arms, I said with a grin, “Well, if it’s not the smokes or any of the other sh— stuff, it’ll be the sugar that’ll get me in the end.”

She shook her head while hitting me with the frustrated look I seemed to encourage. “I love you, but boy, you test me. I don’t know why you won’t give that filthy habit up. I’ve prayed to God ever since you took it up that he’ll find a way into your heart and convince you to stop.”

Fuck, she’d been praying for a long time then. I’d started smoking when I was sixteen.

“King quit smoking?” My other sister’s voice floated into the kitchen, and a moment later, her dark eyes found mine. Settling against the counter next to me, she nudged my shoulder with hers. “I don’t suppose you have a spare fifty you could lend me.”

“Annika!” Mum looked up at her, horrified. “What do you need fifty dollars for?” She puffed out a breath in an effort to blow the stray hair that had fallen across her face. The only thing it achieved, though, was to shift the flour from her nose. The hair continued to bug her, but her hands were busy in dough.

I chuckled as I leaned across and moved the hair off her face, tucking it behind her ear. “What seventeen-year-old doesn’t need fifty bucks, Mum?”

“Your sister does not require money for anything, so don’t you be giving it to her.”

Annika scowled at our mother. “Why do you always do this to me?”

“Always do what?”

“You never let me have anything!”

Hurt flashed in Mum’s eyes as she watched her daughter. Not only had Margreet fostered us all, but she’d also adopted the three of us along with our brother, Axe. She’d gone without many things to give the four of us the kind of childhood none of us would have had otherwise. I knew from conversations I’d had with her over the past few months that Annika was pushing her harder than either Axe or I had. “It’s a girl thing,” she’d said. “We’ll get through it.” But by the expression she wore, I wondered how battered she’d be by the time they did get through it.

Before Mum could reply, I stepped in. “That’s not fair, Nik. Mum’s given us everything.”

Irritation flared in Annika’s eyes as she turned her angry glare towards me. “This has nothing to do with you!”

“I’m fucking standing right here in the middle of it. I’d say it has something to do with me.”

“Zachary,” Mum chastised, “enough with the swearing, please.”

Annika barely allowed her a word in before launching a tirade at me. “I’m sick of you always butting in and trying to take over. You’re not the dad of us, okay?”

“When you treat our mother like shit, I’m gonna step in. Deal with that. And stop being a bitch to her and start being grateful for what she does for you.”

“Zachary!” Mum raised her voice in a way she didn’t often do. If there was one thing she was known for, it was her ability to run a family without the use of yelling. She was a gentle woman who usually got her point across with calm but firm discussions. Right now, though, she appeared completely flustered, and I had to wonder just how much hell Annika had been giving her.

I raised my hands, signalling my surrender. “No more swearing. I know.”

Mum exhaled a long breath and started to say something, but Annika cut her off.

“I’m not being a bitch. I just wish she would think about letting me have the clothes I want rather than clothes from the thrift store.”

Mum untied her apron, a look of complete defeat on her fifty-year-old face. Glancing between us, she said, “I’m disappointed in the both of you today. I don’t ask for much, but what I do ask for is respect while you are in our home. Lunch is ready, but I need a moment or two to myself. When I return, I expect you both to have yourselves under control so we can discuss our problems in a more civilised manner.”

In other words, she needed to pray.

And we needed to sort our shit out.

After she left the room, I turned to Annika. “You know she can’t afford the clothes you want, so why are you giving her so much hell for it?”

Six months after I’d come to live with Margreet, her husband died from a severe asthma attack, forcing her back to work. Raising four kids as a single mother meant there wasn’t a cent spare most weeks. Neither Axe nor I had ever asked her for more than she gave, but I finally understood why Mum and Annika were clashing so much.

My sister’s face crumpled into a mess of tears.

Fuck.

I was far from capable of dealing with this, but I pulled her into my arms and gave it a shot. “Nik, what’s going on?”

She clung to me and cried for a good few minutes before looking up at me. “You don’t understand what it’s like for me at school. The girls are so bitchy, and because I don’t measure up to their standards, they pick on me every single day. It’s been like this since the middle of last year, and I can’t take it anymore.”

Her tone concerned me. It sounded like she was ready to give up. No fucking way would I allow that. “What do you need?”

That seemed to throw her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what will it take for you to feel confident enough to get to school every day this year and get the shit done that you need to get done in order to not fuck the rest of your life up by failing?”

Her shoulders slumped and she moved out of my embrace. “You can’t fix everything for everyone, King. This isn’t the kind of situation where you can just make a few changes and poof, it’s all good.”

I crossed my arms and planted my feet wide, ready to do battle with her. “Tell me what you need, Annika, and I’ll make sure it happens. Sure, shit won’t ever be 100 percent the way you want it to be, but there’s gotta be some things we can do that will allow you to take care of business.”

She threw her arms up in the air. “Oh my God! Take care of my business? What does that even mean? Is that biker talk or something?”

“Let me help, King,” Ivy said, moving next to me. She didn’t like to step on toes, so she usually stayed out of arguments, but I was fucking glad for any help she wanted to offer.

Thankfully Annika loved Ivy. “Please tell him that teenage girls are the meanest humans on the planet and that this is the kind of problem that even the almighty King can’t fix.”

Ivy smiled, but she didn’t give Annika an inch. “I’ll agree that teenage girls are mean, but you should never think that your problems can’t be worked on, Nik. A few fashion and beauty tweaks, and you’ll be fine. And I can tell you how to make them happen without costing the earth.”

That caught Annika’s attention. “Really?”

Ivy nodded. “Yes. Trust me, I’ve been through all the same stuff with my mum. I know the ways around this.”

I wasn’t sure why my offer of help didn’t result in the same level of excitement as Ivy’s, but however the fuck we got there didn’t matter. The main thing was that Annika had her arms around Ivy, a huge smile on her face, and those defeated shoulders were gone.

Thank fuck.

My gaze met Ivy’s in appreciation while I jerked my chin towards the kitchen door. “I’ll be back soon,” I mouthed. In other words: you sort my sister out because I have no fucking idea how to do that.

I went in search of Mum, finding her on the wooden bench in the garden she loved. She sat with her back hunched, hands curled around the seat gripping it tightly, head down. Everything about the way she sat led me to believe she wasn’t doing so well.

I sat next to her, noticing for the first time the worn dress that hung from her tiny frame. Fuck, how had I missed her struggle? I’d been so wrapped up in the club and my problems with Ivy that I’d neglected the other woman I cared for most in the world. In that time, she’d not only been dealing with a teenage girl, she’d also been through a falling out with her closest sister.

“I’m sorry about before.”

She looked up at me, surprise clear in her eyes. It wasn’t often anyone got an apology out of me. “Thank you,” she said softly, her voice laced with exhaustion.

“You need a break from the girls.”

Her chest rose and fell as she took a deep breath. “I can afford neither the time nor the money, Zachary. And besides, your sisters need me. I can’t just take off on a holiday whenever I feel like it.”

She might not have been my birth mother, but we shared the same stubborn streak. I readied for a fight. “One week. I’ll pay for it and stay with the girls while you’re gone. Ivy will help. She’s in there now helping solve Nik’s problems. If she can manage that, she and I can manage them for a week.” At the pursing of her lips, I added, “I’m not taking no for an answer, so don’t even try to argue with me about this.”

The time that passed between my offer and her response felt like forever. She watched me silently for the longest time before gazing out at her rose bushes. A few birds landed on the birdbath next to the rose garden, drawing her attention there while cold wind sliced through the air scattering chills over our skin. And all the while I thought about my life before her, which only added to the bite of the wind making me cold.

I’d had six month’s experience with the foster care system and the streets by the time I landed on Margreet and Dale King’s doorstep. While those six months hadn’t been anywhere near as bad as living with my parents, they’d been fucked up. Three sets of foster parents who didn’t know how to handle an angry nine-year-old boy, one filthy cop who’d handled me in ways a cop never should, and a fourth foster father who’d tried to beat the anger out of my system added another layer of damage to that already inflicted by Carl and Lois Brown, my biological parents. To say I’d been filled with mistrust was an understatement.

Dale had been a good father in the time we had before he passed away, but it was Margreet who found a way to connect with me. Compassion, love, and patience were things I never knew until I met her. I hadn’t the first idea of what those words even fucking meant before her. She showed me and taught me how to love. And although I wasn’t the best at it, I was far better than if she’d never been my role model.

Turning to face me, she murmured, “You were my most difficult child.”

I wasn’t sure where she was taking this. “And?” That wasn’t news to me, so why voice it now?

She placed her palm on my cheek. “And look at you now.”

My thoughts faltered, and my breathing slowed. Carl and Lois had fucked me up to the point that I didn’t know how to accept kindness, and although Margreet had done her best, I still didn’t know what to do with it most of the time. My mind was conditioned to expect and deal with cuts, bruises, beatings, burns, broken bones, and unimaginable other shit. Cruelty was the currency I dealt in. My brain misfired when presented with anything else. Sometimes I figured it out; sometimes I refused and clung to the familiar.

When I didn’t reply, Mum nodded and said, “I’ll go away for a week. Perhaps I’ll go see Janet.”

“No, I’m getting you a room at that resort in Port Douglas that you’ve always wanted to stay at.” Janet, her sister, was a lazy bitch. She’d take advantage of Mum.

Her eyes widened, shocked. “That resort is far too expensive, Zachary. I’ll just find a motel on the Gold Coast. I can lie on the beach all day and read.”

I stood, and with a shake of my head, I said, “Nope, you’re going to Port Douglas.” And I don’t give a flying fuck how expensive it is. She deserved it. Hell, she deserved so much more, but I wasn’t a man who engaged in battles I figured I couldn’t win. A week was all I knew I could push her for.

As I walked away from her, she called out, “Don’t ever believe those voices in your head. They’re wrong.”

I paused for only a moment before continuing. She knew about the voices because I’d shared that information after I’d lived with her for a few years. I’d volunteered that the voices had helped me survive Carl’s abuse, that they’d helped me understand why he inflicted it.

That I deserved it.

That I was a bad person.

I didn’t hear the voices these days, and I didn’t believe that I’d deserved Carl’s abuse. Not anymore. But I did know I wasn’t a good person. She was wrong about that, not me.