Page 34 of The Paths We Cross
I pat his chest. “Fine. We won’t tell you.”
He shakes his head and then pulls me in for a kiss, careful of Hazel in his arms. We break apart when a throat clears behind us. I whirl around with wide eyes and find Rowan’s dad smirking at us while his mom shakes her head with a chuckle.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Everly. I’m Kurt.”
I reach out and shake Kurt’s hand and then turn to offer my hand to his wife, but she pulls me into her arms.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” she murmurs. “I’m Lisa.”
Lisa is beautiful. She has light brown hair, green eyes and slight curves that fit her frame. I turn to the woman behind them and can easily see the resemblance.
“You must be Ella,” I say with a smile.
Ella looks like her mom, only with darker brown hair that’s cut into a long bob and her curves are a little more pronounced. She’s stunning.
“Nice to meet you, Everly,” Ella says with a smile before looking around. “Where’s Hazel?”
Lisa playfully slaps Ella on the shoulder. “You couldn’t wait a minute?”
Ella shrugs. “I want to meet my niece.”
My heart swells at her words. How is this family so accepting that they would welcome not just me, but my daughter into their lives?
Rowan steps up behind me and offers a sleeping Hazel to Ella, who accepts her excitedly. She smiles down at her as Kurt and Lisa step around either side of her to have a look. My chest aches a little at the sight of them. Especially Rowan’s mom. It’s hard to know that I’ll never have that kind of relationship with my own mother but knowing that Hazel will have a grandmother like Lisa, helps ease the sting.
We spent the rest of the evening talking and laughing. Everyone in Rowan’s family takes their turn holding Hazel until it’s time for her to go to bed for the evening.
We take her upstairs and get her ready for bed, setting up the baby monitors and coming back down to rejoin the group. We walk into the back yard and find the prospects talking to Grayson and Axel in hushed tones. My hackles immediately rise as they turn to face us with grim expressions.
Rowan leads us over to them. “What now?” He asks.
Grayson sighs. “The prospects have been keeping an eye on the Devil’s Knights headquarters tonight,” he says as he turns to face me. “They saw your mother go inside.”
26
ROWAN
Lenny walks into church at the clubhouse the next day and sets his bag down, taking out his laptop and a few folders before claiming his seat. Last night ended a little differently than we had planned, but that’s why Lenny is here today, so we can see what kind of dirt he’s dug up on Laura.
Laura is literally working with every person we don’t want her to, and it has us unsettled. I know that Everly is trying to remain calm, but I can see the freak-out lingering beneath her skin. She’s moments away from blowing up and I want to avoid that at all costs.
“Laura has been busy,” Lenny tells us. “She’s had a few meetings with Russel at his firm since we last spoke. Obviously, I can’t give you specifics of their meetings, but we know what they’re meeting about.” He slides a folder over to me and I flip it open, letting Everly see what’s inside. There are photos of her mom walking into Russel’s office with time stamps. When we’re done looking, I slide them toward Grayson and Axel, who are sitting in on our meeting. “What was out of the ordinary, was Laura meeting up with Devil’s Knights members at their headquarters.” None of us react to his news and he chuckles.“I’m assuming by your silence that you already knew about that meeting.”
“We did,” I murmur. “Although, we’re still not sure why it happened.”
“I have to be honest,” Lenny says as he steeples his fingers in front of his face. “I think she’s going to try to take down the club in order to get to Hazel.”
I clench my jaw and Everly’s hand snakes onto my thigh, giving it a squeeze when she feels my unease.
“We all know that won’t happen,” Axel mutters. “Obviously, she doesn’t know much about our club if she thinks a small club could do us any real harm.”
“Or they’ve led her on to believe that they could,” Grayson replies.
“That’s the more likely option,” I sigh. “Could they be watching court cases and know what’s happening?”
I feel Everly tense beside me, so I wrap my arm around her.
“That’s possible,” Lenny admits. “I think it’s more plausible that they’re using Russel. Well, using or threatening him. He is already in their debt, and he’s lost his son in the process. He might be willing to do whatever it takes to keep himself out of their cross hairs.”
