Page 117 of American Hellhound
“I talked to Maggie. Is she your new old lady?” She smiled. “Newold lady. Ha!”
“No,” Ghost said. “Maybe. She’s…” He sighed. This nightsucked.
“She said she’s on the way,” Bonita said.
“Jesus Christ.” The last thing he wanted was for Maggie to see him like this.
“Is she the one who…” James trailed off with a meaningful eyebrow lift.
“Yeah. She’s the one.”
James grinned. “Can’t wait to meet her.”
~*~
Maggie was not panicking. Shewas not. She was just white-knuckling the steering wheel, breathing unevenly through her mouth, and shaking so hard it affected her vision. She was attempting to keep it together for Aidan.
He yawned in the passenger seat, all bundled up in his Spider-Man PJs, wrapped in a spare blanket she’d found in the linen/gun safe closet.
“Can we get pancakes after?” he asked sleepily.
“We’ll see, baby. Maybe.” If Ghost was okay, she’dmakethem all pancakes when they got home.
She pitched forward in her seat, wildly scanning the street signs ahead. She was looking for Midway…Midway…there! She took the turn too fast, the truck’s brakes squealing, Aidan saying, “Whoa!”
“Sorry, sorry.”
“Can we do that again?”
“Not on purpose.”
She searched the mailbox numbers – who was she kidding, she was panicking – and said, “Yes! There!” when she spotted the right one.
The house wasn’t anything she would have associated with an outlaw biker: a cozy blue ranch with thoughtful landscaping, warm buttery light spilling from the windows. Maggie parked behind a powder blue Crown Victoria and took a moment to gather her composure. Her hands ached from gripping the wheel so hard. All her hyperventilating had fogged the windows.
A small hand touched her arm. “Maggie?” Aidan asked, tentative now.
She took one last deep breath and forced a smile before she turned to face him.
His dark eyes were huge, brimming with fear. “If Daddy dies, will I have to go live with my mom?”
She tried and failed to hold back a distressed sound.
“Can’t I stay with you?”
“Oh, Aidan,” she said, heartbroken. She wanted to sayyes, you can stay with me, I want that, because she did. She hadn’t just fallen in love with Ghost, but with this precious boy too. And the thought of letting him go back to a mother who’d abandoned him made her sick. But she wasn’t his parent, his legal guardian, not even his stepmother. And she was sixteen. There wasn’t a judge in the world who’d let her look after him.
So she said, “Your daddy’s fine, okay? Let’s go see him.”
When they were out of the truck, she took his hand, and they went up the sidewalk like that. Maggie caught a flicker of movement at the window, and the door opened before they reached it, light flooding the porch.
A curvy brunette stood in the threshold. “Are you Maggie?” she called in the same musical, Spanish-accented voice Maggie had heard on the phone a few minutes ago. The call that had launched her heart up into her throat.
“I am. How is he?”
Aidan squeezed her hand tight.
“Oh, he’s fine.” The woman waved as if it was nothing. “Complaining. You know men – all babies.” Her gaze narrowed. “I’m Bonita, James’s wife.” She’d said the same thing over the phone, but Maggie hadn’t responded.
