Page 19 of Prodigal Son

Albie really needed to spend less time at the shop and more time around here. (If only he actually wanted to.) He rapped a hand on the bar. “Call them. Tell them to come now, I don’t care what they’re doing, and meet us upstairs in the pink parlor. Family meeting.” He pulled a grumbling Fox off the stool and back toward his chest. “Send up some food, yeah?”

“Uh…yeah. Yes, sir.”

“And some goddamn whiskey,” Fox said, scowling, though he allowed himself to be towed to the staircase.

Eden, when Albie passed her, looked mildly shell-shocked. Surely she’d been here before, right?

“Come on,” he said to her and the other women. “We’ll go up and let Phil know what’s happening until the others can get here.”

~*~

It looked the same.

Eden had known Baskerville Hall hadn’t changed outwardly. She’d driven by enough times in the last few years – had maybe, if she was a few drinks in and forced to admit it, slowed down a time or two so she could turn her head and take a real good look at the building’s old-fashioned façade – to know that the MC headquarters looked the way it always had to passersby on the street. She had even, once, to her great shame, parked herself at an outdoor table at the café across the street and eaten a sandwich while she stared at the place. She’d been working a job at the time, and so her hair had been dyed platinum blonde. She’d worn big Hollywood sunglasses and a frilly dress, and no one would have been able to pick her out of a lineup. Still, that afternoon she’d felt itchy beneath her skin, sure that Fox must be inside, that he would look out one of the upper windows and recognize her at any moment. That was the thing about disguises: they rarely worked on someone who’d seen you naked, who was intimately familiar with every inch of your body. Throw in the fact that he was quite the spy himself, and, well, she’d just been asking to get caught.

So why even stop there? A question she hadn’t ever been able to find an answer to.You know, a small voice had whispered in the back of her mind.You know why you’re here.Youwantto get caught.

But she hadn’t, and after that she hadn’t tempted fate again. She’d put her head down, focused on work…and then Fox had gone to America…but that hadn’t mattered, because she didn’t love him, or need him, and she’d enjoyed a few nights with a few men, and life didn’t fucking revolve around Charlie fucking Fox, okay?

(It had, though, once. Not outwardly; just like this building, she’d always projected an unchanging sense of self, of not needing anyone.)

Because she’d worked so hard not to dwell on the past, she was somehow unprepared for the way it would feel to step back into it. To walk into the cool, dim, smoke-smelling pub run by bikers and be slammed across the face with memories. So, so many of them, each colored with an intensity of emotion she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

Get it together, Adkins.

She said, “This way, girls,” with a composure she didn’t feel and followed Albie and Fox – who tripped all over his own boots – up the narrow staircase to the first floor. Albie didn’t stop there, but went around the landing to the next stair, and they climbed again, up to the second floor. This, she knew, with its Victorian wallpaper and long hall runner, was the beating heart of the place. The parties and camaraderie happened down in the pub. But all the important business happened up here, in Phillip Calloway’s office and the fancified parlors and dining rooms that retained all their original, historic charm.

Albie took them to the pink parlor: a wide space bookended by two white marble fireplaces, the silk wallpaper a rosy pink, overlaid with velvet bouquets. A wrought-iron chandelier hung suspended over a massive round wooden table, ringed by ornate chairs. Incongruous as it seemed, it somehow suited the strange, half-blood family that ruled this chapter of the club. Learned, enigmatic, even elegant…and smelling of smoke.

“Hmm,” Vivian hummed, stepping away from Eden so she could rotate slowly, surveying the place. “Not what I expected.” Eden could tell from her tone that it wasn’t a compliment. Almost nothing she said wasevera compliment.

Albie pulled out a chair and shoved his brother into it. Gently.

Fox caught himself with his hands against the table edge and shot a bleary glare up at Albie. “I’ll thank you to take your fucking hands off me, Albert,” he said, prim and proper suddenly.

Eden bit back her immediate response: a smile. Fox could do any accent in the world – Indian, Israeli, Texan, Nova Scotian – but she’d always gotten a kick out of his Prince Phillip schtick.

But being amused wasn’t helpful now.

Albie sighed and raked a hand back through his hair, leaving it standing on end afterward. He looked tired; he’d never been as striking as Fox, more ruggedly handsome, more composed, more approachable. All the siblings had the same eyes, but where Fox’s shimmered like reflecting pools, impossible to see through, Albie’s were the gentle blue of faded denim. “You can sit,” he said. “I’ll get Phillip. Track down a laptop so we can Skype with Walsh.” He shook his head. “Jesus.” And left the room.

Axelle struck off on a slow lap around the table, eyes sliding over everything. But unlike Vivian, her expression was open and curious. She reached one of the fireplaces and ran her hand along the mantle, whistled. “Wow. Fancy schmancy.” She was so American sometimes Eden had to fight back a chuckle. “So.” She turned around and leaned her shoulders against the mantle. “This is where the London Lean Dogs live, huh?”

Vivian gave her a stern look. “And what do you know about the Lean Dogs?”

She shrugged, feigning innocence. “Hey, I’m from Tennessee. I know about the Dogs. Everybody does.”

“You’re from Tennessee?” Fox spoke up. His voice was steady, but there was a looseness in his posture that spoke to the drinks he’d thrown down back at the shop. Not a calculated sprawl designed to set someone at ease – she’d seen that plenty – but a true slouch. Fox was like a predatory feline; he was never not hunting. Except for now. She’d never seen him like this.

(No, you have, just not in a long time.)

“Nashville,” Axelle said.

Fox sent her a lazy grin. “Yeah?” That flirty tone that he used on women he might be interested in sleeping with. He didn’t use it often; he’d never used it on Eden after their first night together, when he learned she didn’t respond to it.

It didn’t bother Eden to hear it now, because that tone meant Fox was interested – but notserious. It was the serious tone that dropped panties.

Axelle sent him an unimpressed look. “Wow, you’re slick.”

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