Shooting him an irritated look, Ryder shrugged. “Fine, I’m putting you back in the kiddy room.”
“Fucking fine, I’ll help.” He jabbed a finger at Ryder. “That’s blackmail, and you know it.”
Ignoring the men, Tiffany took Stuart upstairs and began making coffee for him. Hickory stayed behind with the women, and Ven went out to supervise the grave digging.
Sarah sat across from Stuart telling him cool stories about his mother when she was young. They sat for a while looking through picture albums. Stuart was quiet, despondent, and seemed more broken than she could ever remember him being, and despite their volatile history, she felt sorry for him. Leaning over the dining room table, she watched them talking in the next room.
Hickory landed on a chair at the table. “What are you so deep in thought about, Tiffany?”
“I was just wondering how it is that all the villains in my life turned out to be just regular people with extraordinary problems,” she mused.
His gaze shifted in the direction of Stuart and her mother. “I think that’s all any of us are. We’re just imperfect beings in an imperfect world.”
Tiffany sighed. “I suppose that’s true, but just for once, I’d like to run into a good old-fashioned dyed-in-the-wool evil villain.”
“I can tell you never met one,” he said, meeting her eyes across the table. “I have, and let me just say, you’re lucky to have steered clear of them.”
“I think that we should try to find him a good psychiatric hospital.”
“We sure as hell can’t leave a crazy stalker running around abducing people and holding them hostage in his basement.”
“He didn’t used to be like this, you know,” she told him. “He was real strange, awkward, and misunderstood, but I’m guessing this thing with his dad trying to kill his mother pushed him right over the edge. I was probably too close to see it.”
“If you hadn’t finally figured it out, I don’t want to think how many people he’d have abducted or what he would have ended up doing to them.”
“I think I’ll take him back with me and find a treatment center where I can make regular visits and keep up with his progress. If I leave him here, he’ll just call his dad to come and pick him up.”
“I can tell you right now that if he leaves before his treatment is complete or if the damn treatment doesn’t take, Ryder and Ven will punch his ticket faster than you can blink,” he informed her, and she knew without a doubt it was true. “They won’t risk him hurting you or turning into some kind of serial killer.”
“What you’re saying is that this is his last chance,” Tiffany voiced her concern.
He stared into her eyes and said with gravely, “Yes, ma’am, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
~ Tiffany ~
Walking down the aisle on Hickory’s arm felt strange, but not necessarily wrong. It had been a year since they arrived back from dealing with the Stuart situation. A lot had happened. Poor Stuart was still as crazy as ever, but Alyssa was now drawing her amazing, huge coloring pages for them to color on during her visits. Alyssa drew pictures of them as children and pictures of his mother from Tiffany’s explanations. The psychologist assured her that was considered therapeutic for him at this stage of his treatment.
Ryder was still as hot for her as ever. If she’d been worried about him whoring about, it had been a waste of effort. The man had turned out to be true blue. He worked hard, played hard, and was a tiger in the sack. Better yet, his club was shunning all illegal activities these days.
Even crazier, her big, sexy biker had insisted on them getting a round dot tattoo in recognition of every crazy situation they faced together. So far, she had two. It was weird how his club traditions worked. In recognition of dealing with the conflict with Ace, Ryder insisted that the three of them go together to get matching dot tattoos between their thumb and forefinger. It was fun and a reminder that any situation can be resolved with enough bullets and open dialogue. Ven, Hickory, her mother, Ryder, and she had all gotten a coveted dot because of how they pulled together to resolve the Stuart situation. Stuart wasn’t stable enough to leave for outings yet, so he kept drawing his on with a sharpie for now.
At any rate, they had decided the time was now or never for making little Ryders. Tiffany had gone off her birth control and was now about twelve weeks along. Smoothing her hand down her slight baby bump, she could hardly keep the smile off her face. Her life was coming together to be beautiful in ways she could have never anticipated.
She watched Darkness’ little daughter stagger down the aisle ahead of her, throwing red rose petals. Rose was gleefully bringing up the rear, intent on managing the long train on her stylish wedding gown. Watching Ryder’s eyes light up when he saw her made all the fuss of picking it out and having it fitted worth it. Reaching the end of the aisle, they turned to face each other.
Ryder bent down and kissed her before she could stop him. “Sorry, sweetness, I literally couldn’t wait until the end.”
Tiffany had a sneaking suspicion that his overly eager neediness where she was concerned would linger on for years, if not a lifetime. He looked handsome wearing his leather cut under his tuxedo jacket. The crisp, white collar of his shirt made the black leather pop.
Looking up into his beautiful brown eyes, Tiffany knew one thing for absolute certain. Come what may, she’d love him with every ounce of her being till the day she died. If her story were a made for a television show of some sort, now would be the time when the screen faded to black and names began scrolling down the screen. However, real life was never much like the movies.
Therefore, the sound of sirens slowly drawing closer had everyone turning around. What she saw made her smile and Ryder throw back his head and laugh. Stuart had jumped out of a clearly stolen car and was sprinting across the lawn toward the canopy they were getting married under. He was wearing a nice suit and holding a hat in his hand. Sliding into a chair, he grinned at her, shoved the hat on his head, and put on dark sunglasses. Ryder waved away a couple of prospects intent on tossing him out.
Ven strolled out and spoke to the cops who were gathering around the stolen car with their guns drawn. He spoke to them a few minutes and pointed them in a different direction. The last thing bikers wanted was cops crashing their party. Smiling indulgently at her ne’er-do-well friend, Tiffany heard Ryder murmur her own thoughts on the matter.
“Every guy deserves at least one night out of the slammer every now and then.”
“It’s a recovery center for people with post-traumatic stress,” she corrected him with a smile.