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“Sir! Wait! You can’t just—”
Ignoring the nurse, Maverick hurried down the hall where the examining rooms were. He opened the first one—empty.
“Sir! Stop!”
He crossed the hall and opened the second. A woman who was not his wife had her belly exposed. A man in a dress shirt, sitting at her side, said, “Hey!”
“Sorry, man.” He closed the door and went to the next.
“I’m calling security!” yelled the bitch in the flowered scrubs.
But Jenny was in the third room, her belly likewise exposed. Fuck, he loved that round little bump. “I’m here! I’m here!” He slammed his ass onto the stool beside her, grabbed her hand and pressed it to his mouth, then grinned up at the technician. “What’d I miss?”
The technician blinked.
“She hasn’t started yet,” Jenny said. “But you cut it close, Mav.”
“Sorry, babe. Rough morning.”
“Hounds stuff?”
He glanced back at the technician, who watched them with great interest, the ultrasound thing in her hand. “Yeah. It’s okay. We’ll talk later. Right now, let’s see our baby.”
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~oOo~
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“It’s big.”
Jenny laughed and snatched the grainy photo out of his hand. “It’s so little she had to draw a circle around it so we could see it.”
“What? You’re crazy. That circle is because it’s so impressive. Look at that thing. It’s a fire hose. He’s gonna walk funny.”
Rolling her eyes at him, she tucked the photo into the folder they’d given her and slid it into her purse. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?” He opened the door of the Cherokee and offered his hand to help her in behind the wheel.
“You wanted a girl, and we had a girl. You wanted a boy, and we’re having a boy. You always get your way.”
Still holding her hand, he pulled, keeping her from getting into the car. “Just lucky, I guess. Or maybe I just want the right things. Like you. You and Kelsey and our little boy. All my right things.”
She smiled and framed her hands around his face. “You’re our right thing, too.”
He bent his head to hers and kissed her. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. That’s four.”
He helped her into her seat and closed the door, then motioned for Jenny to put the window down. She did. “Okay. Caleb’s staying on you all day, until I get home. Don’t drag the guy all over creation. Get Kelsey, get home, and stay put. Got it?”
“Got it. Mav—how long is it going to be like this?”
He’d have given up a limb to have had the answer to that question. In the three months since Christmas, war drums had been sounding all over Tulsa. For the most part, the action so far was more posturing than anything. Bulls and Hounds and their respective allies all feeling each other out. Some property damage, lots of nuisance, some crimp to everybody’s bottom lines, but no serious harm to people yet. The Bulls had had two Russian runs so far this year, and they’d gotten them done. But the massive extra security was slowing them down and costing them dear. They had protection on their families, too, on kids and old ladies, and they were stretched thin. If Irina Volkov hadn’t offered some of her men to bolster security on the runs all the way to their end point, they wouldn’t have been able to manage it all.
They’d patched Wally in and brought in two new prospects in addition to Caleb Mathews, trying to fill out the roster enough to keep everybody protected and healthy and get their work done. Maverick was nervous about so much inexperience in the crossfire, but they had no choice.
He was open with Jenny about as much as he could be. Once they’d locked down for the first time, he hadn’t felt like he could evade her questions, but she was rolling with the situation like a pro.
“I don’t know, Jen. We’re trying to work through it, figure out a solution. We will. But if you trust me and let me lead on this, I will keep you safe. I promise. I won’t let anything happen to us.”
“I trust you.”
Those words were almost as powerful as the others he loved to hear.
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~oOo~
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Home late that night, well after his girls had gone to sleep, Maverick parked his bike on the driveway. The house was dark, but Jenny had left the porch light on, and he knew there’d be a plate in the fridge, his portion of the dinner she’d made, ready for him to heat and eat.
She still owned The Wayside, but she’d filled out a whole staff to run it, and she went in once or twice a week, just to check in. Jenny was a full-time mom, just like she’d always wanted to be, and she’d taken to it with gusto.
They had a perfect home and family. Everything he’d ever dreamed of.
Once the Hounds had been put down, they would have a perfect life. In the meantime, Maverick would make sure that Kelsey continued to think that everything was already perfect.
He’d been out before dawn that morning and had only managed that hour or so away from the club to be with Jenny for the ultrasound, so he hadn’t even laid eyes on Kelsey all day long. After he hung up his kutte and kicked off his boots, after he sent the prospect on watch home, before he went to the kitchen for the food and beer he desperately needed, he went to his daughter’s room and eased open the door. Miss Shorty galloped from the room as soon as the door was open. She hated to be closed in anywhere, and Kelsey badly wanted the kitten to sleep with her every night. They had an ongoing ‘negotiation’ on the matter.
Her blanket was wadded at the foot of her bed. Maverick tiptoed in and drew it up, tucking it over her balled-up little body. She sighed in her sleep.
They’d gotten the club lawyer, Percy Clayton, to help change Kelsey’s birth certificate. Now she was Kelsey Marie Helm, and he was listed as her father. Things were, as Jenny often said, the way they were supposed to be.
Maverick knew of no other way to live than to aim for what he wanted and push until he got it. He didn’t let the bullshit of any one day break him down. For Jenny, he’d learned how to cooperate, how to bring a partner in, someone to strive with and for, but his will remained unchanged. He got what he wanted because he fought for it. No matter what.
He didn’t know how to give up, how to settle, and still live. He’d given up once, and he’d just about died, even while his heart had kept beating. For his blood to really pump, he had to strive.
Right now, there was trouble in each day. He got up early, rode away from his family, and faced risk. But he wasn’t afraid. That trouble—meaningless bullshit. What he came home to every night—this was real. He’d fought hard for it. And he had it.
He would keep it. He always got his way.
He brushed his daughter’s hair from her face and kissed her cheek. “Good night, pixie. Daddy loves you.”
“That’s one,” she sighed, peaceful in her cozy nest.
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