Page 68 of Out for Blood

They ran into my arms, even Shauna, and hugged me so tight, I could feel the pull from my bruised skin.

“I missed you guys,” I said, breathing in the soft almond-smelling shampoo they always used. “Were you good?”

“Yes!” Ryleigh said, excitedly. “I love it there, Ma. It was so much fun. Tee and Bridget were so cool, and Sloane is like the best cook ever.”

She was so excited that all of her words were running into each other. Shauna rolled her eyes.

“It was okay,” she shrugged her shoulders, but I knew she’d had a good time.

“What’s that on your eye?” I asked her, holding her head to the side. A black wingtip was protruding from the side of her eye, and she was wearing fake eyelashes.

“Don’t be mad, okay,” she said, pulling her face away from my hand. “Bridget totally let us go shopping, and she’s so good at wingtip makeup and mascara.”

“That’s not mascara, Shauna, they’re fake eyelashes.”

“Didn’t you say they could have tattoos?” Hawk asked, smirking from the bar. “And you’re worried about fake eyelashes?”

I glared over at him until he started laughing. Shona knocked him upside the head, to which he groaned.

Good.

“Whoa,” Shauna backed up. “Was Cooper really going to shoot us?”

I turned back to see him standing there in the doorway, shirtless still, and his gun by his side. He put the gun down the back of his pants and came over to sling his arm around my neck.

“Only if you keep screaming like a banshee,” he said, placing a kiss on my temple. “My boys have hangovers this early in the morning. Give them a minute to wake up.”

“Well that’s not a very fatherly thing to say. Aren’t you our new daddy now?”

The clubhouse fell silent, waiting to see what he would say. I, myself, was curious how he would handle it. To his credit, he didn’t tense up, but that lazy shit-eating grin appeared on his face as he straightened.

“Hey, only your mother can call me Daddy.”

The entire clubhouse burst into laughter as Shauna and Ryleigh both looked over at him in horror.

“I am fuckingscarred,” Shauna exclaimed. “Scarred for life!”

They both left the clubhouse and moved outside, horrified, as I laughed into Cooper’s chest. His warm embrace as he circled me with his arms gave me tingles up and down my back.

“You keep doing that, and we’ll definitely scar them more,” he whispered in my ear.

“Go away.”

He kissed my forehead and moved back to the room. There was something primal in me at the sight of seeing him walk away with that gun tucked into the back of his pants.

“Down girl,” Orla laughed from the bar.

I flipped her the bird and moved out to go and talk to my daughters. I finally had my family back, and Neal was behind bars. Maybe, just maybe, we could have something here.

When I got outside, I looked over to see Ryleigh walking around the compound, in her own thoughts, but Shauna was talking to Chains.

Sweet Jesus.

That girl was enamoured.

I made my way over to them and just as Chains noticed me, he sat upright and Shauna turned to face me.

“I’m just talking, Ma,” she said, rolling her eyes.

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