Chasing Claire (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) (9 page)

And then I looked pointedly in the direction that Jules had taken Cherry and said “And I don’t care who you take to your bed, just as long as it isn’t me.”

Reno looked at me like I had shot him.

Too bad.

I pushed past him with as much dignity as I could muster and didn’t stop until I was in my car and almost home.

Then I pulled over and threw up.

CHAPTER 16

G
eez, do you have any idea how much Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla or Pernigotti Cocoa Powder is going for these days?” Glory stared at her laptop screen.

“No clue,” I said and squinted at my own computer in outrage.

“Well, it’s a lot,” she moaned.

As I sat across the table from Glory, I did my own set of calculations. The Pay Less Buy More website for used college textbooks had been a real eye opener. If this was the
less
, I’d hate to see the
more
.

Glory and I were spending a laid-back Sunday at home together. The cool rain, which had started in the early morning, had lasted all day. A pearl gray veil of mist had settled on the lake, wrapped around the house, and made everything feel cozy and peaceful. Glory had proclaimed these kinds of days Sweatpants Sundays.

Sweatpants Sundays came with a very serious set of rules. Old sweats and T-shirts, no makeup, hair in loose ponytails, underwear optional, big fluffy socks, and an exclusive diet of carbs.

Sweatpants Sundays totally rocked.

As I sipped the perfectly brewed coffee and munched on wild berry scones drizzled with Tupelo honey, I checked the list of required reading for the third time.

Then I groaned.

“I am up to four hundred bucks, and I still have two classes to go.”

Glory didn’t look up.

“I thought you were going to check the used-book site,” she murmured around the pencil in her mouth.

“This
is
the used-book site.”

Glory sighed and nodded in sympathy while I punched in some numbers on my calculator.

My roommate was busy furiously scratching down some numbers of her own on a yellow legal pad.

“Shit, at this point I’m going to just about break even for this catering job. Maybe I can skip the truffle oil and use something else,” she said thoughtfully. Glory’s ponytail had slipped off the top of her head and her T-shirt rode one smooth shoulder. Her brows were knit together, as she chewed absently on the end of a pencil.

“Five books? Five books? You have got to be kidding me. One course and there’s five books for it?” I began to punch in more numbers.

“I wonder if it’ll make a big difference if I use portobello instead of shiitake,” Glory murmured.

“I can’t believe this! Damn! The books for the last two classes aren’t selling used.” I groaned.

Glory and I parallel-played with each other like that all afternoon. Each of us was lost in our own world.

Neither of us heard the car pull in, but we both looked up when we heard the screen door open and then slam shut. My sister stood dripping wet in the middle of the living room. She had the baby in one arm and a suitcase in the other.

Uh-oh.

“Diego left,” she blurted out. “Can I stay here?”

So much for happily ever after,
I thought.

Glory and I moved into action. She grabbed Willow, and I put my arm around my sister.

“Oh, Raine! Sure you can, honey. You know you can always stay here.” I began to fuss like an old hen.

“Your old room’s just the way you left it,” Glory sang out reassuringly. Her ice blue eyes warmed in sympathy.

“Here, let me take the baby,” I said while Glory steered Raine to the couch.

“I’ll put on a nice cup of tea.” I smiled into Willow’s sleepy eyes and kissed her head as she curled to my shoulder and stuck a thumb in her mouth. Then I started toward the kitchen.

“What?” Raine let herself be guided, but she kept looking over her shoulder at me. Then she stopped and pivoted.

“What is wrong with the two of you?” Raine volleyed a look from me to Glory and then back again.

“You two are acting like . . . Oh my God! You think that Diego and I? Really? Geez!” Her eyes went wide with sudden understanding.

Then she put her hands on her hips and shook her head at us.

“I didn’t mean he left
me
! Prosper sent some of the boys up to the north county this weekend on club business. I called him from my cell last night and begged him to send Diego along with them.”

“Why would you do that?” Glory asked.

“Let’s just say that the man is driving me crazy. When he isn’t jumping at every tiny noise that Willow makes, he’s all over me.”

Then she paused dramatically. “Look at this,” Raine said with disgust written all over her face.

Then my sister jerked open her jacket to reveal a soft blue T-shirt, and some impressive breasts. It was evident that Raine’s naturally thin body had filled out with the birth of the baby. Now front and center with her post-baby body, I had to admit it, Raine’s breasts were at least twice the size that they were pre-Willow. And that was sort of saying a lot, because small breasts did not exactly run in our family.

“Look at them! They are
huge
. And they
leak.
It’s ridiculous. And Diego. Jesus. You would think that man has never seen a pair of tits before. He can’t keep his eyes off me. He is like a kid in a candy store.”

Just then Willow started to cry, and two small wet spots began to appear like voodoo magic on the front of Raine’s shirt.

She kept talking, and I couldn’t help it. I kept staring right at those growing spots.

I could kind of understand Diego’s fascination.

“Claire? Claire! I am talking to you.” My sister’s eyes followed my gaze and looked down at her shirt. Then she blushed a deep rose and sighed.

She grabbed the baby and stomped up the stairs to her former bedroom.

Glory glared at me, and although I tried to look contrite, I just couldn’t pull it off. Glory tried to keep that glare steady, but she couldn’t do it either.

I started to giggle and then she did too.

Before we knew it, we were both knee-slapping like two drunken nuns.

“I can hear you two, you know,” Raine shouted from upstairs, which of course just sent Glory and me into gales and gales of barely controlled laughter.

Minutes later, when we heard Raine pound her way back down the stairs, we did our best to compose ourselves. When she saw us, she threw the stained T-shirt at me. It landed straight on my face, and the wet made it stick right to my nose. That sent us off on another riot of hilarity. Raine held out as long as she could, then she laughed longer and harder than either of us.

CHAPTER 17

W
hile Willow slept peacefully in the portable crib we kept for her upstairs, I watched Raine check the baby monitor every five seconds when she thought we weren’t looking. I smiled to myself. She could glue it to her thigh, I didn’t care. I was just glad to have my sister and my sweet little niece with us for a couple of days.

After having a light supper, Raine, Glory, and I worked together to clean up the kitchen. The heavy pressure system that had been bearing down on us all day had now turned into a full-blown storm. Gusts of wind blew in from the lake and forced the rain to beat angrily against the windowpanes. Glory and I had taken up cozy residence on the couch. Two glasses and a half-empty bottle of the good wine sat on the coffee table in front of us. Raine was curled up on the loveseat. Her hands were wrapped around a mug of steaming peppermint tea. And there the three of us sat, warmed by quilts, fluffy socks, and sisterhood.

“So exactly who did Prosper send up north?” I tried for a casual tone.

“I heard that Crow went, and I think that Pipe did too,” Glory volunteered.

“Crow? Really? I saw him a while ago at the clubhouse but aside from that, I hadn’t seen him in forever,” I pointed out.

“Pinky told me that she overheard Crow and Prosper talking. Word is that Crow is thinking about going nomad for a while,” Glory answered.

“Pinky overheard?” I smiled. “You mean Dolly and Pinky had a glass up against the door with their ears glued to it.”

Glory smiled, but Raine let out a small sigh. My roommate and I exchanged a wary look. Then the three of us sat in silence for a minute, each of us lost in our own thoughts.

Crow.

Now there was an interesting guy. Aside from working on his bike at the compound once in a while, or helping Diego out with the house, he really wasn’t around much anymore. And it was kind of too bad, because I liked looking at him. Who didn’t? Crow was a beautiful Apache man—a head-turning, drop-dead-gorgeous, emerald-eyed god with a body just made for sin. I had to admit, when he was around, even I paid attention.

My gaze wandered over to my sister. And for about the hundredth time, I wondered how she really felt about Crow. Diego was her husband, the father of her child, and I knew that she loved him totally and without reservation. I also knew, without a doubt, that he returned that love. That all anyone had to do was to look at the two of them together to know that they shared something that was true and lasting.

But, I also knew that a woman could love two men. I knew that a woman could make a home with one man and keep a corner of her heart for another. Our mother had been living proof of that.

It was common knowledge that while Raine and Diego were still in the
trying to figure it out
phase of their relationship, Crow and my sister had shared a brief something together. I knew that it had happened close to the time when Raine first arrived at the compound, but I wasn’t too clear on the details.

When Raine came to pick me up from rehab, she had filled me in on everything compound-related, and that included her brief, confusing time with Crow. Shame on me, because I had been too
self-involved to pay much attention. At the time, he had been nothing more than a name to me. But the minute that I put that name to a face, I regretted not having listened to the story more closely.

I had tried to coax the whole sordid tale out of her again and again.

But Raine was strangely protective where Crow was concerned and after that first time, she refused to talk about him.

From what I remembered, Crow had expressed an interest in Raine almost immediately. He knew that Diego had laid claim to her but he had bided his time. And it had paid off. Because while Diego was otherwise occupied with batshit-crazy Ellie, Crow had stepped up and taken his shot. And my sister, being confused, hurt, and otherwise pissed off about Diego, had given Crow that shot.

Honestly, I would have given him that shot too. I don’t think there are a lot of women who would have refused Crow’s attentions. When I thought about it, the attraction between the two of them made sense. Raine and Crow had a shared heritage. At a time when my sister was alone in a strange place and trying to figure it all out, it must have been a comfort for her to be able to share that part of herself with someone. The only thing I remembered for sure was how it had ended between them—with Crow telling my sister that he had a wife somewhere and a marriage that was not quite over. When Raine heard that, she did not want to hear anymore. Shortly after that, Diego and Raine found their way back to each other.

Pinky told me once that Diego and Crow had gone at each other like two jungle animals over that brief something. She said that it had been a good thing that the two of them had worked through that before Prosper had to step in.

Brothers before, they were now brothers again.

Good for them.

Except . . .

A few weeks after Willow came home from the hospital, I had driven up to visit Raine. The house was still in the planning stages then and Diego had enlisted Crow’s help with some of the surveying. As luck would have it, he happened to be just finishing up when I pulled in. As Crow and I walked toward the trailer together, we turned the corner to find Raine sitting under a tree nursing her new baby girl. A field of flowers surrounded her and sunlight dappled the ground through the leaves.

The scene was picture perfect. Serene, simplistic, and so innocently sensual that even my heart skipped a beat.

My sister’s pretty white eyelet sundress had been unbuttoned, and her breast was fully exposed except for where the baby pulled on her dark, engorged nipple. The wind had picked up the soft tendrils of Raine’s hair and settled them back down in wild disarray. At the sound of our footsteps my sister had looked up. The smile on her face faded into something tender and unknowable when Crow’s eyes burned into hers. I heard something catch in Crow’s throat and a minute later he was on his bike, speeding down that hill like demons were chasing him.

And maybe they were.

My sister’s eyes lingered on Crow until he was long out of sight.

As I watched her, I couldn’t help but think of our own mother. At that precise moment, the resemblance between Raine and Maggie just about broke my heart.

Yeah, I had a pretty good idea why Crow was not around much anymore.

“Anyone else hanging here?” I was the first one to break the silence.