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I looked at the eldest sister of those two children and said, “Go get your siblings out of that pen. I’ll try to get him back into the pen without him murdering anyone.”
And that was an understatement, because Sweet Baby Ray—aptly named because I wanted to smoke his ass—was a fucking psycho.
I wasn’t sure what my father had done when he’d raised him, but he’d turned into the most assholeish thing on the planet.
The only thing saving him from being prime rib was the fact that his bull juice got me a fuckin’ whack with each donation.
Honestly, I liked the program we were running, but having to deal with Sweet Baby Ray was like dealing with a live wire whipping back and forth in a horror movie. You were just waiting to get electrocuted. You knew it was going to happen, you just didn’t know when.
That was Sweet Baby Ray.
He was vindictive and spiteful and could hold one hell of a grudge.
Heading out the door, I put the hat back on my head—not a cowboy hat, but a worn-out ball cap—and took the steps two at a time.
When I got to Bumbo, I mounted him without using the stirrups and leaned over to release him from the railing.
I winced when I saw Scottie’s prized Begonias, clearly eaten, and sighed.
I’d have to answer to that later, too.
“Come on, Bum.” I tapped his flanks. “Let’s go find the asshole.”
Bum was Dad’s cutting horse and was well trained to the point that I wouldn’t have to tell him what to do at all.
Well, I wouldn’t normally have to tell him what to do when it came to any other fuckin’ animal but Sweet Baby Ray.
But Sweet Baby Ray was horrible and unpredictable, and I would rather not have Bumbo get hurt because he thought that he could handle the stubborn bull.
I found the Mercedes and Ray right where Yates said they’d be, halfway down the gravel driveway.
When I got there, I circled the back side of the Mercedes and stopped next to the door.
I gestured for Malone to hit the window, and she rolled it down just far enough that none of the dust that Ray was kicking up would get into her sweet ride.
“When I get him out of the way, I want you to floor it. He will probably follow you, because he hates the color red, but just pull right up to the house and Yates’ll help from there,” I ordered.
Malone nodded, and the moment I slapped Ray on the ass, he turned and charged me.
That gave Malone enough room to hit the gas, and she floored it down the driveway, kicking up dust, rocks and debris in her wake.
One such rock nailed Ray on the ass, and he hollered like he’d been shot.
He turned his angry, fat head and saw the red bullet heading away from him, and charged.
When you see those crazy motherfuckers in Spain waving red flags at the bulls, you truly don’t understand just how fuckin’ nuts they are until you’ve seen a bull charge in real life.
Then you realize that those bullfighters are testing fate.
Bumbo kicked it into high gear, easily catching up to Ray.
Ray came to a sudden rocking halt when he saw the cattle panels blocking his way to the red car.
Malone was standing next to Searcy on the front porch, both of them on the verge of heading inside if shit hit the fan.
I jerked my attention back to the asshole in front of me and said, “Do your thing, Bum.”
Bum did his thing, and we spent the next ten minutes corralling the dumb beast into his pen again.
Only when the pen was closed, and I was staring at the two responsible for all this mess, did I say, “I think that maybe you two should go back inside so you don’t let anything else out that shouldn’t be out.”
Kent grinned, but it was Anders that looked the most guilty.
I jerked my head at them and they ran between the fencing panels that Yates had set up to funnel Ray into his pen.
“One day, he’s going to die, and I’m going to be over the fuckin’ moon to get that backhoe out!” Yates declared as I walked toward him. “Scottie’s treating an abscess so they didn’t want to stay.”
Another car caught our attention, this one traveling much slower than the rest, followed by a couple of bikers.
When the car pulled to a stop, I was surprised to see that I knew the man that stepped out.
I’d known he was a lawyer, but it’d been so damn long since I’d seen or spoken to him that I didn’t realize he would be the one that Malone recommended.
Hell, I hadn’t realized that he had a knack for lottery winners.
I just hoped that the man was trustworthy like Malone had said, because from my dealings with him, he was anything but.
Maybe clients got his special side…
“Well hello, brother,” Harrington drawled.
I rolled my eyes and said, “They’re inside.”
Harrington didn’t spare me another glance, he just headed inside like he did it every day.
I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for my club brothers to finish coming up my driveway.
Webber, Audric—who no longer went by his club name, Detroit, since his wife had died—and Jasper.
Jasper, also known as Hush, though he sometimes refused to answer to it, got off his bike first and took a look around. “Busy out here.”
I studied Jasper’s profile.
Jasper was extremely scarred.
From what little he’d shared, he’d been in a fire that had completely ruined him for nearly a year.
He’d spent months and months in a hospital room, and at the time, they’d thought that he was a famous country singer so they’d given him the best of the best.
Which worked out well for Jasper.
It hadn’t worked out well for the country singer, who’d died.
Jasper didn’t talk about the accident much, but what he did have to say was chilling.
“Seems like I’m hosting a multi-millionaire while she figures out what the fuck to do next.” I paused, then gave them the complete story the moment that Webber got closer.
It was Audric who said, “Maybe you should explain that a little better.”
Audric was a new father, and after his wife’s death, he’d lost any and all patience when it came to anyone that wasn’t his newborn daughter.
I explained everything that was going on, and then ended with, “And then my brother showed up.”
Webber, our club president, crossed his arms over his thick chest.
“If he fucks you or her over, we’ll take care of it,” Webber declared.
I grinned. “What makes you think I’ll care?”
“Because you’re standing in front of the door protectively, as if you’re protecting her from even us,” he pointed out. “You got time to talk?”
I nodded, then continued, “Follow me to the barn. I need to grab a few more things that I’ll need to fix the fence.”
They all followed, and I came to a halt just inside the barn door and said, “Let me make sure we’re alone.”
Webber went up to Bumbo, who’d followed us in here because he fully expected to get fed, and started scratching him.
Audric went to a bale of hay and took a seat, while Jasper went to the fridge where he knew that I kept carrots for the spoiled horses.
I took a look around and spotted nobody, then came back in time to see Jasper give Bumbo a carrot.
He had four more in his hands, and I knew that he would be making visits to the rest of the horses in their stalls even though they had access to the pasture behind the barn.
“What’s up?” I asked as I leaned up against a stall door. “How’s Lottie?”
“Colicky,” he grumbled. “Barely getting any sleep.” He paused. “She’s with Laney’s parents.”
Laney was his late wife.
She’d died in a car accident a month or so ago along with Apollo’s son, Tavi.
A kid had been driving his car way too fast and had not only sailed off his side of the highway going over a hundred miles an hour, but he’d also ramped the median and plowed into oncoming traffic.
The senator’s kid had killed three people—two of which were near and dear to the Truth Tellers—that day, and had injured over a dozen more.
He kept talking before I could ask anymore.
“My problem,” Audric sighed, “is that Laney’s parents want to sue for partial custody.”
I blinked, then straightened. “And you let them have her today?”
“I didn’t want them to know that I was aware of what they were doing,” he said. “I came here because Malone was coming here. She said that we could just meet at your place.”
I nodded. “What are they thinking?”
“Apollo caught wind of it because the lawyer is on his radar for something else he wouldn’t talk about,” Audric explained. “From what Apollo was able to figure out, Laney’s parents want partial to full custody because of ‘who I am as a person.’”
I gritted my teeth. “You mean an Army National Reservist, or a plumber?”
“Exactly,” Webber grumbled. “But they’re using his Reserve status as a bone of contention, that no one will be able to watch her when he is forced to leave once a month. Or those two weeks during the year.”
“Like he doesn’t have friends,” I grumbled.
“That’s their other problem,” Audric murmured. “They’ve never liked me. They don’t like that I’m a biker, and a ‘bad one’ at that. They think that I’m a bad influence, and they’re pissed as hell that Laney’s not here anymore for them to control. So they’re going to try to control Lottie.”
“Well, that won’t happen,” Jasper said. “Hey, didn’t Gunner tell us once that his best friend was a nanny?”
“Oh, yeah.” Webber frowned. “What’s her name?”
“Sumner,” I answered. “She’s coming back home from abroad, isn’t she?”
Gunner talked about his best friend a lot.
Honestly, she was the only positive thing he talked about other than his uncle, his uncle’s wife, and his niblings.
I remembered her name because I kept calling her ‘Summer’ when Gunner got impatient with me and informed me that it was Sumner , and not to fuck up her name ever again.
“Maybe she’d be willing to help out,” I said. “If you have an established nanny for those times that you can’t be with her, then they’ll have no leg to stand on with that.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Audric admitted.
It was bullshit that he even had to think about it.
“If worst comes to worst, we’ll just take care of it the Truth Tellers way,” Webber said. “But let’s hope that it doesn’t come to that.”
Laney’s parents better hope that we didn’t have to solve it the Truth Tellers way, because they probably wouldn’t like how we solve our problems.