Page 108 of Forget That Guy
Even I didn’t know that.
It’d been at the back of my mind these last few days, though.
Holly was young. She’d want kids. But kids were the last thing that I wanted. At least, not brand-new babies that required a lot of work. And I didn’t want to add another to the mix that I couldn’t spare the time for.
“She told us.” DeeDee rolled her eyes. “Aren’t these things that men usually ask women when they first meet?”
Well, maybe.
But Holly and my relationship hadn’t been the most conventional.
To be completely honest, I hadn’t done much talking when I was with her. At least not at night when we had the most time. Usually, we were going at it hot and heavy. And we were both too tired to have any pillow talk.
I sighed. “Let me see what I can do about this horse and a place to read.”
By mid-morning, I had a few of the ranch hands down by the river clearing it out with the mulcher.
I, on the other hand, was on the way to the Heartsans with high hopes.
My mother was also by my side, practically giddy to get out of the house and be a part of my “let’s win over Holly” endeavor.
I wasn’t quite sure how she’d gotten involved. But when I’d gone out to my truck to hook the trailer up to it in hopes that they’d say yes, I’d found my mother in the front seat sitting like we had plans of going to their farm together.
“How’s everything going, baby boy?” my mother’s frail voice asked.
I refused to acknowledge why it was so frail.
It’d been getting weaker and weaker day by day, and that was a fact I wasn’t willing to think too long and hard about.
“You mean with the ranch?” I asked. “Or the fire?”
“Anything,” she said. “Or the dog fighting ring that you decided to break up by yourself.”
“I wasn’t by myself,” I admitted. “Thumper was there.”
“Thumper, I’ve heard, was only there because he followed you,” she pointed out. “I like him. When are you going to patch him in?”
My mother was a lover. She refused to see the bad in anyone.
She also loved the club with her whole heart, mostly because when I joined and then eventually became president, I became the center of their world. And with that world came a lot ofbrothers and my mother that refused to treat them as anything but her own.
My mother had always loved Thumper, though.
“Why do you like him so much?” I asked. “And I wasn’t planning on ever patching him in until he helped me break up that ring.”
She sniffed. “That boy is deserving.”
I frowned. “What’s he done that I don’t know about?” I asked. “Because, from my end, all it feels like he’s done is cause mayhem and bitch and complain when he’s asked to do something.”
“And what kid that age doesn’t?” she asked. “You don’t like being questioned. And Thumper has all the questions. He doesn’t follow blindly. You’re not used to that. You think your word is above all others and should be followed no matter what. But he’s good for your club. He never stops pushing for more. Also, he brings me tea and cookies almost every day when he drives past on the way home from Jawbone.”
I blinked. “He what?”
“He’s a good kid, Denver. He’s rough around the edges, but he has a heart of gold.”
I grunted. “I’ll think about it.”
“You’re lying to me,” she snorted. “You’ve already decided to patch him in with Bells.”
