Page 15 of Rage's Heart

Then, all at once, I smeared the dough down Brooklyn’s nose.

Delighted giggles followed her squeal as she squirmed away.

“Food fight!” Emma declared, grabbing a handful of flour.

Before I knew it, we were in a full-out war, flour dusting over everything.

Brooklyn, bless her heart, was cackling so hard she almost fell off the counter. And poor Ems had cookie dough all over her clothes. Their momma wasn’t doing us any favors as she stood by laughing at us.

“Oh, that’s it,” she said through giggles, swiping a streak of flour across my cheek.

With that, Mom threw her hands in the air. “Lord help me, they’ve all lost their minds. Jack!”

At the mention of my brother, I glanced toward the living room, where ESPN was blaring. Judging by the volume of the game’s commentary, Jack was tuning us out and pretending this disaster wasn’t happening.

Fine by me.

I wasn’t in the mood for more of his lecturing.

“Take this!” Brookie said,reaching for more flour.

“Alright, alright!” I laughed, holding up my hands in surrender. We’d made a big enough mess. “Truce! We actually want to have cookies at the end of this.”

The girls giggled but lowered their weapons, dusting themselves off.

Mom offered me a rag and I gladly took it. After wiping my hands clean, I gathered up the dough that Brooklyn hadn’t catapulted across the kitchen.

“Alright,” I said, pressing the dough into a neat ball. “Now, for the best part. Shaping them.”

Brooklyn clapped. “We gots to make ‘em extra big!”

Emma tapped her chin in thought. “I might make mine a star.”

“Creative,” I praised, handing them each bits of dough to shape.

As I helped Brooklyn roll out her cookie dough, my mind wandered to a certain biker with dark eyes and a sexy smokey voice.

Did he do family dinners? Did he sit around the table on a Sunday night, listening to his people bicker and laugh like this?

I couldn’t picture it, but for reasons I didn’t want to examine too closely, I wanted to know more about him.

Chapter Five

Rage

“Where you been?” Dread called, wiping grease off his hands with an old rag as he stepped out of the garage.

“Had to pick something up.”

His eyes flicked to the truck’s passenger seat, his brow lifting when he spotted the dog. “What the hell is that?”

“A fucking responsibility I didn’t ask for.”

Dread smirked. “You brought a dog home?”

“Ran out in front of my bike last night,” I muttered, rounding the front of the truck. “Damn thing almost got us both killed.”

He whistled low under his breath, stepping closer to get a better look at Diesel who was curled up on the seat, ears pinned back like he was terrified of what came next.

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