Page 4 of American Hellhound
Ava didn’t react a moment, absorbing the information and keeping her mask firmly in place. A Teague through and through. Finally, her brows jumped. “You only took the one test.”
“I’ve been throwing up all week,” Maggie said. “I’m sure of this.”
Ava nodded. Took a deep breath. “Wow. Okay. Wow. Congrats.” A smile twitched at one corner of her mouth. “Wow.” Then a true smile. “My own brother or sister is going to be younger than my kids.”
Maggie groaned…but she smiled.
Ava came to sit beside her.
“Your father is going to shit a brick.”
Ava chuckled. “I can already see his face. Oh my God, Mom, you can’t tell him, he’ll literally have a heart attack.”
“His blood pressureisa little high,” Maggie conceded. Then she glanced over at her daughter. “What do you think – is this more or less stressful than when he first found out you were pregnant?”
They both burst out laughing.
~*~
The party had taken a definite turn for the somber by the time Ghost returned to Dartmoor. The music was turned off and the revelers had gathered in clumps around the barrel fires. Their faces danced with leaping shadows, their low murmurs of conversation tinged with worry. As Ghost approached them, he had a distinct sense of timelessness; these could be any men around any fires, in any decade.
“Maggie alright?” Walsh asked when Ghost was close enough.
Of all the questions his brothers would ask him tonight, that was the one he could answer with absolute clarity. “Yeah, she’s good. Went back home with Ava and Merc.”
The boys nodded; they were concerned, but notworriedabout Mags. She wasn’t the sort of frail female anyone fretted over.
“What’d the PD want with you?” Michael asked.
Ghost glanced around those gathered, spotting club girls and old ladies. “We should take it in the chapel.”
~*~
“The implication being that we’d end up like the literal dead dog,” Maggie said as Ava set a glass of Sprite on the table in front of her. “Thanks, baby. Or, at least, one Teague would.”
“Clever,” Mercy said, rolling his eyes. He folded his arms and leaned back against the kitchen counter. “And clearly, there’s only one Teague that was meant for.”
Ghost.
“Clearly,” Maggie echoed. Her stomach rolled and she reached for the Sprite, took a conservative sip.
“The cops don’t have a lead or else they wouldn’t have talked to you guys,” Ava said.
Maggie nodded. “They just have one photo of him. Hoodie. Knife. You can’t tell anything about him.”
“Theories?” Mercy asked.
“You’d know better than me, honey. You boys have a lot of enemies.”
And what better way to cripple a club than to take out their president?
Her hand went to her stomach on impulse, and she took a deep, shaky breath. “Welcome to the world, baby Teague. Someone wants your daddy dead.”
Two
Mercy laughed until he choked on his own spit, even after Ava balled up her fist and punched him in the arm. “I’m gonna give him so much shit!” he exclaimed, delighted. “That sanctimonious asshole’s gonna get an earful, I promise.”
Not exactly the way Maggie had hoped breaking the news would go.
