Page 75 of Resilience

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

More than two weeks.

That was how long Sam had been away when the whole charter finally convoyed back to Tulsa. They arrived on a clear, crisp fall afternoon, and all the family who’d stayed behind was ready to greet them like returning heroes.

By now, everybody knew that Athena and Sam’s relationship had ... changed. Athena hadn’t quite figured out how to describe what had happened between them. Everybody who heard seemed perfectly content to say their relationship was now more—they were more than best friends, or they weren’t only best friends anymore. But she didn’t like to say it, or think it, like that. Being best friends wasn’t something incomplete. There was no more it could be. It was not an only thing, either. They couldn’t love each other any more than they always had. It was simply that now there was a new physical dimension, and an exclusivity that was new.

It wasn’t a more, or an only. It was an also. They were best friends, as they’d always been. Now they were also lovers. Or would be, if he would get his ass home.

The Bulls weren’t stopping at the clubhouse first but at Tulsa County Hospital. The convoy included an ambulance; the club was bringing Uncle Gun home. So the welcoming party met them there.

As the club roared onto the hospital campus, everyone waiting went out to stand under the long awning over the sidewalk. There was a bustle of excitement; their men—and some of their women—were finally home, after all. But the bustle was more subdued than it would have been if the riders could have gone straight to the clubhouse.

Athena had been privy to enough conversation in the past two weeks to know that the Bulls had left Laughlin pretty much the second Gunner’s doctors had said they would approve it—but that didn’t mean they’d waited until those doctors were comfortable with him riding so far in an ambulance or setting up in a motel room each night on the way. They’d wanted him in their care for at least another week.

But Gunner wasn’t having that. He was desperate to get home. He had weeks more to go in the hospital, and the Tulsa Bulls had to get back home. He hadn’t wanted to be left behind. So they hadn’t left him behind.

In formation, they all swung into the curved drive that provided the drop-off at the Emergency entrance. Aidan and Larissa, holding hands with Grammo, stepped out in front.

Maverick and Eight Ball rode out ahead of the ambulance; the rest of the club rode behind. Willa’s SUV, carrying the old ladies, and the club van brought up the rear. Sam was in that van.

As the riders dismounted, they went to their families. There were fiercely emotional hugs, but everybody was, for the moment, quiet. Athena moved down to the edge of the group as Sam climbed out of the van. He was smiling right at her.

He looked perfect. Strong and healthy and like himself, except for the white strip of bandage on one side of his neck.

“Hey Frosie,” he signed as he stepped onto the sidewalk.

Athena simply raised her arms.

He came in and swept his strong arms around her, holding her to his chest as he lifted her from the ground.

She cupped her hands over his cheeks—his beard had grown in full again!—and kissed him.

Kissing Sam now was a wholly new experience, even from their other kisses. Their first few, that night under the stars, had been a little strange and awkward, as they navigated newly understood feelings and set aside ideas about who they had been to each other. Not brother and sister anymore.

Now, two weeks later, they’d been apart the whole time, but in that time, they’d settled in more to how things were—how maybe they’d always been meant to be. Athena was completely comfortable in the notion that Sam was her person in all ways. He said he hadn’t been imagining all the things they would do together now, but Athena certainly had. Thinking about Sam helped erase Hunter and cool her rage so she could function around it.

And now he was here, and already she felt better. Stronger. Calmer. Happier.

They ended the kiss together, coming to rest forehead to forehead. “I missed you,” Athena signed in the small, private space between their bodies.

Sam’s hands were full of her, so he mouthed the words back to her.

He’d lifted his head to do it, and Athena noticed the white bandage again. She set her hand lightly on it.

“I’m okay,” he mouthed, still as unwilling to set her down as she was to be set. “I promise. Stitches come out in a couple days.”

Athena nodded. Sam looked off to the side, toward the rest of their family—and then he set her down. “They’re pulling Gun out,” he signed.

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