“Wanna learn?”
“No.” She paused, looked across the room. “I like video games, though. Do I need quarters for the vintage arcade games? Or tokens?”
“Nope,” Geno said. “Got it set up for push-button play. Come on!”
“Anybody hungry?” Lyra asked.
“I can always eat,” Geno answered.
“Truer words have never touched your tongue,” Lonnie teased.
Cooper looked around. He saw his brothers laughing together despite the trials of the night. He saw Geneva smiling as she followed Geno and Reed over to the games. Lyra hugged her father before she turned to usher the girls to the kitchen to start breakfast. Upstairs, his woman slept, able to rest and recover because she trusted the people down here to take care of her sister. And they would. They were. Siena and Geneva were part of the club now. Part of the family.
The new charter of the Brazen Bulls MC had become of family unto themselves.Hisfamily.
He left his family to entertain themselves and went up to find his woman.
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~oOo~
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His office was dark—and, with the new sofa folded out, crowded. Siena slept in a fetal curl under his ancient, alpaca wool blanket, a relic from his father’s family that he hadn’t really thought much more of than a blanket he liked. But now it was one of his only personal possessions with any kind of history.
There were several pill bottles, a bottle of liquid medicine, three packages of Hall’s cough drops, and one of those breathing things. If he remembered right, it tested lung capacity—or exercised the lungs to increase capacity. Maybe both.
Through all this night, despite his distance from her, Cooper hadn’t felt helpless. He’d been worried and angry and frantic to get back, but he’d had a purpose: to get back.
Now, though, standing in his office watching Siena sleep quietly, seeing how her skin seemed sunburned, how the hair around her face was a bit singed, everything landed on him at once, and he felt completely helpless.
He hadn’t been here. She’d needed him, and he’d been away. Worse than that: it had been arson. If one of his enemies had set his house to burn right next door to Siena’s, then his life had almost destroyed her already.
Fuck, was this what love felt like all the time? Never being enough, never able to do enough, to keep ones’ family safe and happy? An outlaw life meant putting your loved onesindanger. He’d seen it from a distance and thought it sucked. Up close? Itfucking sucked.
He’d had a woman for only a matter of days, and already his life had nearly killed her. Yet most of the Bulls in Tulsa were married. Zach was practically married. None of them had balked at building a family in their world. Could he do it, too? And make sure they were safe and happy? How?
He’d have to talk to Siena. He’d have to make sure she saw the whole picture, as much as he could show her. And then he’d have to ask her what she wanted. He needed to know if, as hard as she tried every day to keep her sister safe, as much as she’d sacrificed of herself to do everything she could to look after Geneva, she thought being in Cooper’s life, being in the Bulls family, was worth the risk.
Later. They’d talk later. Now, he was back where he belonged, and she was there. Right now, she was safe—his life had brought her harm, but it had also brought the help.
Standing beside the sleeper bed, Cooper stripped to his underwear. Then he slid under the striped alpaca wool blanket he thought his grandmother, or great-grandmother, or some Salvadoran relation he’d never met had woven, and pulled his woman close.
She stirred and woke partway. “Huh? Oh, Coop!” Her voice was hoarse.
“Shhh,” he breathed. “I’m here. I got you. You’re okay.”
“I was so scared.” She coughed a little, then a lot more. He held her until the fit passed, then tucked her under his arm.
“Do you need any meds right now?” She shook her head. He kissed her crown; her hair smelled of smoke. “Okay. Then rest, baby. Everything’s gonna be okay.”
He held her as she drifted back under. For a long time, he lay awake, trying not to let worries and dark thoughts crowd too close. He focused on the faint rumble of their family down below and let those sounds soothe him.
Eventually, the night’s stresses pulled him into an exhausted sleep as well.