I didn’t either and didn’t get the chance to comment on it because something took my attention and I turned my head the other way.
There I saw a man Logan had introduced me to earlier called Tack.
He was looking at the redhead, too, and you could tell he didn’t like the way she treated her daughter either.
Not at all.
“Naomi’s Tack’s old lady,” Logan said, and I looked back to him to see he now was gazing down at me. “Loves his little girl like crazy so don’t see that lastin’.”
“What?” I asked. “Her treatment of their daughter?”
He nodded. “That and if he can’t put an end to it, then what’ll end is Naomi bein’ his old lady.”
“Good,” I murmured, looking back to Naomi who was bent over Tabby, wagging a finger in her face, her own expression like thunder.
I watched, wondering what the kid had done. She was just talking to us, and I hadn’t been keeping tabs on her, but before that, she was just talking to other people.
The finger wagging stopped when suddenly Tabby wasn’t standing in front of her mother, head tipped back, face pale, lower lip quivering.
Instead she was in her father’s arms, and without a word, he turned and walked away.
Watching it, I decided I liked Logan’s brother Tack.
Naomi stared daggers at their backs, visibly huffed, and then stormed off in the other direction.
I decided I didn’t like Tack’s old lady, Naomi.
“She’s it,” Logan stated, and I looked to him again.
“What?”
“Naomi. She’s it. Only bitch a’ the bunch.” He bent toward me. “All the rest, all good. Good folks. Good family.”
He wanted me to like them.
I smiled, twisted, and leaned in to him so my breasts were brushing his stomach.
“There’s always one.”
He cupped my jaw, eyes to my mole, and muttered, “Yeah.”
I’d learned what Logan’s eyes to my mole meant and I liked what it meant.
But I had a few things to say.
“I like that there’s kids here,” I told him quietly, and earned his gaze.
His warm, happy gaze.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“This isn’t what I expected of bikers,” I admitted.
And it wasn’t. Sunny day. Grill fired up. Table groaning with food. Coolers filled with ice and packed tight with bottles of beer and cans of pop. Loads of people around. Kids in the mix.
I didn’t know what I expected, but something this laid back and friendly was not it.
“Lotsa different kinds of families, Millie.”
I nodded.
He was right and it appeared, away from the one he left behind in Durango, he’d found a good one.
And the fact that was what he’d do, find a family, said a lot about him, all of it good.
I leaned deeper in to him and dropped my voice even more. “Thanks for bringing me here, Logan. I don’t want this to sound corny because I mean it. But I’m honored you did.”
The warm tunneled into his eyes, going deep.
“Means a lot, beautiful,” he replied.
I grinned and lifted a hand to curl it around his wrist. “Good.”
Finally, he bent, touched his mouth to mine, and I let him.
“Yo! Low, Millie!”
Logan lifted away and we turned our heads toward a brother I’d met called Black who was manning the grill.
“Burger. Dog. Brat,” he shouted. “Call it now, they’re goin’ fast.”
“What you want, darlin’?” Logan asked me.
“Brat!” I yelled to Black.
“Got it!” he yelled back. “Low?”
“Burger and a dog,” Logan replied.
Black lifted his chin and turned back to the massive half-barrel grill.
“Fresh ones.”
This was muttered from our sides and I looked to the man introduced to me as Big Petey, a guy probably in his forties, an older member of the Club, which was definitely multi-generational, just as he slid the warm bottle of beer out of my hand and put a cool one there.
He grinned at me and winked while he did it.
Then he, too, jerked up his chin to Logan as he did the same with Logan’s beer.
“Black kicks ass with a brat, baby, good call,” Logan said before lifting his fresh beer to take a draw and turning his attention back to the grill. “Then again, he kicks ass with everything.”
I shifted so my side was pressed to his and lifted my own bottle, saying, “Awesome,” before I took a sip.
“Gotcha!”
I looked to my left and saw the brother called Boz with a camera he was lowering after obviously just taking a picture of me and Logan.
I hoped, if I asked nice, he’d give me a copy.
Our first photo.
It had just been taken but I couldn’t wait to see it.
“Too pretty for that brother, Millie,” Boz declared as he gave Logan a joking take-that look and me a grin. He turned only to stop and lift his camera to take a picture of a dark-headed boy who was racing after a dog on the tarmac between the Ride store, the Ride garage, and the Chaos headquarters.
“Don’t eat all those, Chew,” snapped a woman I had not yet met, who was not too far from us at another picnic table, one that was laden with food. “They’re Low’s favorite.”
“He’s a grunt. He gets the dregs,” the brother I did meet, called Chew, replied, doing it with a mouthful of deviled egg, two more of which he had in the palm of his big hand.
“He’s got his girl with him, moron,” she returned. “Grunt or not, all Chaos got manners.” She planted a hand on her hip and challenged, “Or am I wrong?”