Checkmate With Bishop: A Hellions MC Novel (39 page)

“Hey, Dory!” Chuckie called from across the forecourt and as I slid out of my SUV.   I watched as he came towards me.  “Can I give you a hand?”

I nodded, not only in response to Chuckie’s question but also in agreement with my thoughts.  Yeah, the club had changed.  But the biggest part that had settled both me and  my heart had been with their attitude adjustment towards women.  I’d never, not once in the time I’d been back around them, been treated with anything other than the utmost respect.  “That’d be great.  Although I think I might’ve overdone it with the decorations.”

“A dude only turns sixteen once,” Chuckie shot back with a smile and a shrug as he went to open my tailgate.

I heard the creak of the clubhouse door and saw Carly and Jillian coming my way, smiling huge.  “Namaste, bitch!  Need some help?”

“Thanks!”  I shaded my eyes and took in the two Honeys as they sashayed their way towards me.  How they managed to walk in such high-heels that were currently paired with short-shorts was still a mystery to me.  “I appreciate you coming early.  There’s just so much to do to get ready…”

“Don’t sweat it, pretty girl,” Jillian said, giving me a hug before reaching for a banker’s box marked ‘decorations’.

“Always willing to help out one of our own,” Carly murmured after giving me a squeeze. I watched as she looped a crap-load of carrier bags on both wrists.  “Chuckie and Sierra got here first.  She’s already got the meat going in that special marinade shit she does.”

“Carmi and Lock said they couldn’t get here until ten,” the tall auburn-haired beauty continued, her voice not sounding strained in the least in spite of the heavy load she was carrying.  “The other Honeys said they’ll arrive later, that it’ll  be closer to eleven because of the kids.”

I nodded and grabbed a stack of stuff to carry before Chuckie moved towards the remaining bags and boxes.  “I’ll bring in the rest,” He assured me with a wink.  “What time will Bishop get here?”

“He was just waiting on Dare to arrive when I left.  They were going to the storage place and should be here shortly,” I answered over my shoulder as I followed the undulating but thankfully fully-covered butts of Carly and Jill as they stepped back to the clubhouse where Sierra was thoughtfully holding the door open.

I leaned into Sierra as I passed in order to accept a hug from Chuckie’s new young wife.  Both Hellion and Honey alike had been surprised when the former marine had brought a civilian to a bar-be-que for the first time and even more so when he’d popped a ring on her finger after only six months.  But the fact that she, like me, hadn’t become a bona-fide Honey hadn’t fazed anyone a bit.

“What’s the latest head-count?” Sierra asked, taking a couple of my bags to ease the load.

I rolled my eyes.  What had started out as a small party of maybe ten teenagers had expanded considerably.  “Close to seventy-five.”

“Now that’s a fucking party!” Carly whooped before shooting her by then empty arms over her head, her hands locked in the position of rock-horns. 

I turned so I could back my way through the swinging café doors into the kitchen, my eyes worriedly going around the ‘bar’ area of the clubhouse hoping that we’d found away to accommodate everyone.  It’d been Stan who’d pointed out the advantages of basically having two parties going at the same time with the teenagers and younger Hellions in the forecourt while the others, especially those with small children, partied in the clubhouse.

“But we’ll fucking be working the grill outside, mama.  That’ll give the brothers an excuse to keep an eye on all the motherfucking hormonal doings.”  I’d just stared at Stan after he’d spoken until he’d had the grace to look away as if he also remembered how we’d snuck from more than one Hellion party for our own bit of ‘hormonal’ fun as teenagers.  “But I’ll have the bros do random sweeps of the equipment shed, just in case,” he’d uttered before turning away.

We’d just unloaded all the bags and boxes, had just started sorting through what decorations needed to be inside and which ones to hang around the driveway when I heard the pipes of two more bikes pull in.

“It’s Dare and Bish,” Jilly announced from her place at the sink, her eyes trained on the window.  “Ooh, and here comes Mel and Lulu.”

Carly, who had an armload of banners, went to look over Jilly’s shoulder.  “Shit, look at her!  Five months along and you can’t see any trace of her bump!”

“But her heels are lower,” Sierra offered. 

I glanced out the window in order to throw in my two-cents.  “As is her neckline.”

We all loved Lulu, loved her vivacious sweetness but we each, in our own way, had a little bit of a problem with how pulled together the woman always appeared.  And as we’d followed her pregnancy on her blog (which was ridiculously titled, ‘Life with Lulu’) we’d all found a reason to grumble.  More to the point, if she hadn’t been so good-hearted and so much fun, we’d hate her freaking guts.

I saw Julie emerge from the backseat and noticed the girl had grown another couple of inches.  Where Lulu was stunning with her perfect grooming and rockabilly clothes, her sister-in-law Julie was simply beautiful at only fourteen.  J.R. had first pitched a bitch when I’d added her name to the ‘teenager’ side of the list but had calmed considerably after Dallas had explained that she would be acting as baby-sitter to the toddlers.  One I knew would find the young woman considerably richer before the night was through.

“Does anyone know if number one was redone?” I asked the group who were still glued to the window.   I was referring to the need to have one of the back rooms converted into something more kid friendly.

“It’s wall to wall cribs and playpens with a rocking chair and a changing table.”  Sierra shot me a glance before turning to pull a big pot from beneath the butcher block island in the middle of the kitchen.  “They even have two monitors and checked all the handsets to ensure they work.”

“What’d you wanna bet they fucking leave that room set up that way?” Carly smirked, making her own way from the window and heading towards the swinging doors.  “It used to be just a Hellion playroom and then it went to bunk beds.  Now it’s filled with kid shit!”  She started laughing as she aimed her butt at the doors.  “Just you wait!  As the Hellions age out, it’ll change to wheelchairs, walkers and those potty-chairs on wheels!”

The kitchen resounded with the sounds of laughter and which didn’t seem to die out as more and more people begin to arrive all hoping to ‘help out’ before the main event.  But to my mind it was so the Hellion brothers could check out the bike that Stan had refurbished for our boy.   J.R. actually already had his license since, on his fifteenth birthday, his present had been in the form of payment of his state approved Driver’s Education Course.  And our son had absolutely aced both the written and road test, one that had performed on one of his dad’s favorite bikes.  The conclusion of which only gave Stan more bragging rights, declaring to anyone who’d listen that even Bishop had failed on his first attempt to become street legal.

So I’d had no trouble agreeing J.R. was ready for his first set of wheels.  My only caveat was that our boy needed a job in order to kick in for fifty percent of the insurance.  And that meant I lost my shop’s Saturday helper as J.R. went to work part-time at Hellion Construction.

As the men went around to the side of the building to where J.R.’s  new bike was hidden, out by where the laundry room was situated, their women and kids came into the clubhouse.  Which had the noise level increasing until the rafters were almost shaking. 

Every time I left the kitchen to set up tray after tray of chips and dip, veggie crudités or teriyaki skewers, I was greeted with tiny voices yelling, ‘unt  Doree!’.   Even Dallas and Trey’s little Mary, the not quite a year old who’d been named after Dallas’s mom, would scream and wave her chubby little arms from her walker as I entered the big room.   With her big chocolate-brown eyes and jet-black curls, she was a little temptress, but especially loud when around Silo and Shelly’s spritely Sarah was around.  A bossy, wild child of a girl who was only pushing two, but thought she was Julie’s age.

I smiled and acknowledged the attention each and every time it was given although in that instance, I felt my heart hitch as I wished that Dallas’s mom had been around to meet her namesake.  But she’d had a massive heart attack almost a month to the day after Trey and Dallas had finally married in a ceremony that brides all over Missoula were still trying to emulate two years later.  Miller, Dallas’s dad, had fallen into a deep, deep funk that had lasted until he too had passed a few months later.  The doctor had listed the cause of death as heart failure because he’d said that it was the closest to what had actually happened:  that Miller had just died of a broken heart.

The clubhouse door opened and I heard a cacophony of male voices as the men came back in, my eyes zinging to the dark-haired scamp in a small vest that read, ‘Property of Dare’.   “Day!” the toddler yelled as he raced through all the bodies and I watched as Dare scooped his boy up and sat him on a hip, their two dark heads coming together as Dare whispered something in his son’s ear.  Since the very moment Chaz could speak, he’d always called his father ‘Day’…not dad, papa or even daddy.  But just ‘Day’.

“It’s your freaking turn to watch him, cowboy!” I heard Ryley yell from next to my shoulder.  As Dare’s head came up at the sound of his wife’s voice, I saw him nod and smile slowly. 

“Shit!  Swear to god this next one better be a girl!” she muttered on a much quieter note.   My eyes came back to see she was running a hand over her flat stomach that was currently covered in distressed brown leathers that had lacing instead of a zipper as their fastening.

“You’re pregnant again?” I asked out of the side of my mouth.  I didn’t want to give away the game if she and Dare hadn’t done any sort of public announcement.

Ryley nodded and shifted her beautiful aqua eyes to mine.  “Yeah.  Either that or I’ve had one motherfucking case of the three-month flu.”  She shrugged.  “Actually, the timing is pretty damn good since Chaz just turned two and is finally able to aim his little pisser into the toilet instead of hitting the floor.”

“Congratulations, honey,” I offered with a smile. 

“Better you than me,” I heard Reese call from Ryley’s other side.  “Brand is still waging an all out campaign for another but I’m sticking to my guns.  Two is enough!”

I couldn’t help laughing as my eyes sought out her twins, Nicholas and Aaron, who were then using Brand’s big body as some kind of jungle gym.  A move that I was sure was a regular occurrence for the president of HMC – Billings by the way he and his boys were laughing.

Ryley’s head shifted from her family to Reese’s boys.  “How old are they now?”

“Two and a freaking half of terrible, dual trouble.”  Reese’s voice sounded frustrated but I remembered J.R. at that age and couldn’t blame her.  Not if she was having to maintain her sanity in having two rambunctious boys going through that stage at the same time!

“Just wrap your knees around an aspirin but never forget to take your BC shot,” Ryley offered with a rueful smirk.  “He’ll just bend you over the sink, rendering the damn aspirin useless.”

“Are you speaking from experience, Rye?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely, Reesie!”

The laughter that rolled up and out of me was completely unrestrained and was loud enough for Stan’s eyes to come to me.  He was involved in some kind of deep discussion with Mel and Huff, but I watched as he excused himself and threaded his way to me as my two friends wandered back to the kitchen.  “Having fun, mama?”

I tucked myself against Stan’s side, feeling his arm loop around my back.  “I am.” 

His eyes moved from mine and I saw him looking around the big room, his gaze sticking on the poster-sized pictures I’d had made of J.R.   Ones that started when our boy was six months old and continued until ending at the picture Stan had taken at the beginning of summer.  It showed J.R. sitting casually in one of our chairs on our deck, feet to railing, laughing as he brought a can of cola to his mouth.

A perfect picture that had captured the perfect essence of our young man in his mid-teens.  A time when he was closer to being a man than a young boy.  A child that was full of confidence and verve, which I told myself was because of the love he’d been showered with every day of his life.

The picture also nabbed a slight glimpse of the last of the casts J.R. wore after his most recent surgery.  One that the ortho-specialist had said would help give him full range of motion in his wrist.  It had been a long three years for our guy in healing the damage done on that fateful day but he’d gotten through it.  Gone through the physical therapy and the successive surgeries with very little complaint.  But I guess he, like Stan and I, knew the consequences could’ve been a lot, lot worse than the injuries he’d received.

“You think he’ll like this?” I leaned my head into Stan’s neck, somehow knowing he would be able to hear me better in that position.  “I mean, I know I went a little overboard and all…”

Stan squeezed me closer and dipped his chin.  “He’ll love it.  Might be embarrassed about all the attention but since Stacia will be hanging off him, he won’t rightly be thinking straight.”  He pulled back a little and stared into my eyes where I saw a smile beginning.  “She’s got him practically swinging from his own dick with that teasing-thing she’s working.”

I pressed my lips together.  “I don’t want to know.”

“C’mon, babe.  You gotta know that our boy and that little…”

My fingers went to my ears.  “Shut it, Stan.  I don’t want to hear about it.”

Feeling more than hearing Stan laugh, caused  a one-side grin to crease my face and I softened my stance, cuddling up closer to my man and wrapping both my arms around him.  “He doesn’t need to know about mine and I sure as shit don’t want to know about his.”

“You talking about sex lives, Dory?”

Luckily, I was saved from replying as the clubhouse door again opened and I saw J.R. enter to the yells of the crowd of party-goers.  My man-boy’s cheeks took on a rosy hue and he ducked his head as he begin to move through the crowd.