Page 49 of Break the Barrier

I’ve technically met everyone before, but it’s a large group and hard to keep up with sometimes.

It helps that they all come into Bottle Grounds often enough that I can at least recognize faces. Dani pulls me aside with her and Quinn and the moms. I expected to help out in the kitchen, but instead, I’m handed a cold drink, and we go and sit out on the porch. The only kid who has tagged along is, of course, Quinn’s little boy, JC.

“What’s JC stand for?” I ask, settling into the seat they guided me toward and listening to the men cook while we relax. If this was the rule in this family, I was going to come to more events.

It was a nice change of pace.

“Jonathan Cade,” Quinn answers with a smile. “Jonathan is my dad’s name, and Graham really wanted to honor his brother.”

Which explained Cade.

“He’s adorable.” And he was. He was maybe four or five months old and was barely able to hold his head up for too long, but he was the cutest little chunk of a baby I’ve ever seen.

“So, Quinn, how comes the wedding plans?” Didi asks, sending me a wink when she catches my eye. I have no idea how Didi feels about me being in Logan or Lue’s life, but so far, she hasn’t said anything to me about it.

I wonder if that interrogation will come today.

Quinn dives into details of her wedding, telling us about colors and flowers and invitations. It makes me think about mine a little bit, which had been a quick courthouse thing, then heading back to his motorcycle club’s compound for a reception.

It hadn’t been fun.

The people there were rowdy and, frankly, didn’t give a crap about me or my sisters, who were too young to be there, even though it was a family event.

I ended up leaving early with my sisters, going home without my new husband.

Red flags were everywhere, but apparently, I used to be colorblind.

“What about you, Dani? Any plans?” Quinn switches the topic to her sister-in-law-to-be and Dani blushes.

“Actually, we’re thinking July.”

“July?” Sandra, Dani’s mom, asks with a shriek. “This July?”

Dani shrugs and nods her head. I admire this girl so much. She was wearing her boots, jeans, and a button-down shirt as well, and looked every bit of the cowgirl she is at heart. “We want something small. Heck, we wanted to do it in the spring, but things got away from us.”

“Well, shoot, we need to plan something!” Sandra says, rushing into the house.

I watch her go, and Dani stays where she is, casually sipping her tea. “Where is she going?”

“Knowing my mom?” Dani smiles at me, her long blonde hair flowing over her shoulders, moving gently with the summer breeze. “Crazy.”

I laugh, and when Sandra bustles back out with a large planner, CT follows closely behind her. “I grabbed the groom!”

CT smiles at Dani and goes to rest on the arm of her chair, reaching down to interlock their fingers together. “We don’t need anything crazy. Dani doesn’t want a big wedding.”

It’s sweet to see him looking out for her. To see that they’re such a unit, a team, is a dream that I never wished for myself.

Now, with Logan, who was literally saving my ass, I had this tiny bit of hope lingering in my chest that maybe he could be that other half of my team someday, too.

But I was getting ahead of myself.

18

logan

There wassomething about a Sunday afternoon. Church was out, everyone was in good spirits, the food was good, and the company was even better.

Having Thea here for me, having a person who wasn’t just a fourteen-year-old who wanted nothing to do with me once there were other kids around, was a new sort of nice that I’ve never experienced before.