Page 88 of Toxic

And even though we hadn’t known each other that long, I really wanted that.

CHAPTER 31

Toxic

The night was going well. Everyone was drinking. A couple of the Berserker’s Rage guys had come down. Pops and Warrant had driven down together. They were planning to stay a bit longer than the rest of the guys. The sun was starting to set as everyone gave toasts. The men’s speeches were more roasts on Priest, but that was the way we did things.

“To Priest,” Smoke said, raising up his beer bottle. “Who single-handedly is trying to repopulate the Earth. How he got a woman as beautiful as Jenny to stay with his sour ass is a mystery to us all.”

Everyone chuckled as Priest flipped off Smoke, but they were grinning at each other as they each took a drink from their bottles.

Jenny’s mom, Joy, was sitting with Caitlyn in her lap, the other girls sitting around her on the bench, as she spoke with them.

Billie leaned into me and laid her head on my chest as I wrapped my arms around her.

“They’re such a cute little family,” she said, a tone of wistfulness in her voice.

She wasn’t ready for it yet, so I didn’t tell her that I planned to give her just as many kids. I might be older but there was no way it wasn’t happening. One, I wasn’t going to be able to keep my hands off her. My right hand slid down and squeezed her ass. Two, I wanted a bunch of rugrats running around probably almost as much as she did. After the last couple years of seeing my brothers having kids, and watching them grow up, the need had built up to have my own.

Sure, at first, I’d been wary of the children. It had taken some time before I was comfortable around them. But now? They were a fucking blast. You could teach them so many damn things and they soaked it all up like a sponge.

“Hi, Sweeties!”

I glanced over with a frown at where the kids and their grandmother were staring at the new woman. I had no idea who she was. They all gave each other wary glances.

“Aren’t you so glad to have a new mommy?”

Now everyone close enough to hear the woman was giving her looks ranging from dumbfounded to disgusted.

Gabby frowned. “What do you mean?” She looked down at her sisters and it was easy to see she was feeling protective of them, but also didn’t want to be rude to whoever the woman was. Jenny had been doing a damn good job instilling manners into the girls, despite our best efforts to turn them into little savages.

“Well, now that Jenny is married to your daddy, you have a new mommy,” she explained in a sugary sweet voice that grated my nerves.

Caitlyn looked up at her grandma and whispered something. She was hugged close and Joy opened her mouth to give the woman a piece of her mind, but before she could, Taylor spoke up.

“We already have a mommy.”

The woman looked confused. “But your mommy di-”

“Lady,” I barked at her, silencing her before she reminded these poor girls thatbothof their mothers had died. Caitlyn looked close to tears and it made me want to rip her head off. Losing her mother out in the desert had been pretty traumatizing for her. And the other three had their own struggles withtheirmother’s death as well. This was supposed to be a happy occasion. “Shut the fuck up before I make you.”

I didn’t give a shit who she was. She wasn’t going to come here and start trouble. That was the only thing she could be doing. She was being passive aggressive with these kids for no fucking reason other than to be a cunt. She was easy to recognize. You saw her type everywhere. The kind who liked to start shit with children because adults were too much of a challenge.

She gasped in outrage. “You can’t say that to me!”

“I can, and you keep it up and I’ll walk you off this property myself,” I warned her. Then with a smile said, “If you’re particularly un-lady-like, I’llthrowyou off the property.”

My raised voice had caused us to become the center of attention. Jenny came over with a tight smile and pulled Caitlyn into her arms, hugging the girl close. The other girls circled around her as Priest stepped in front of them all.

“Brandy,” Priest said, his voice low and dangerous. “I told you that you could come tonight if you didn’t cause any trouble.”

“I’m their aunt,” she hissed. “I should be able to talk to them if I want to.”

Priest looked over at me and I shook my head. This was Wendy’s, his ex-wife’s, sister. No wonder she was a stranger. Wendy’s parents were sweet as could be, but somehow they’d ended up with two daughters who’d been hell on them. After Wendy died, the parents had kept in touch with Priest and the girls. He said the only reason they weren’t here tonight was because they were on a vacation, but once they got back wanted to take Priest’s family to dinner.

Their remaining daughter, however, was awful. This woman hadn’t once in the years since her sister died tried to make contact with her nieces. As far as I knew anyway. I could see why Priest had allowed her to come if she’d found out about the reception, but she didn’t need to stay. Not after saying that kind of shit and upsetting the girls.

It wasn’t an accident. There had been a malicious glint in her eyes as she’d asked the girls that question. Caitlyn, and the loss of her mother, hadn’t been Brandy’s intended target, but the girl had been through so damn much. It took her a long time to even talk after Priest adopted her. The last thing we wanted was her regressing.

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