She read his face again and went back on what she’d saidearlier.“You could still get in there, Dutch.I mean, he was reading TomRobbins last week.”
“Yeah, but now I’m that well-intentioned, clueless, whitedude biker so I’m out before I was ever really in,” he returned.
“I don’t think so.Roam told him about your dad.”
Dutch clenched his teeth.
Jules kept talking.
“Roam told him about your dad, and he picked up that book,Dutch.There are different kinds of brotherhoods, and sadly, you two belong toan unusual one.And Carlyle is not one of those smart kids who’s so topped outin brains, he’s got no room for logic.He’ll put it together that a bikerwearing a cut isn’t coming to a shelter and focusing on him because he wants tobrag over cocktails that he’s giving back to society.Just give him time.”
Dutch looked over her head, something he could do, becausethe woman was not short, but he was six two.
“Vance dropped that bug in your ear about Carlyle for areason, Dutch,” she said.
He looked right at her.
It was not lost on him they’d played him.It was not lost onhim that Vance, who was sober, was hanging at the Chaos Compound while the guyswere throwing some back, when he rarely hung at the Compound, and he wastalking about one of Jules’s kids for the exact reason he was hanging at theCompound, talking about one of Jules’s kids.
He was maneuvering Dutch’s ass to be right there in aneffort to get shit sorted with one of Jules’s kids.
Nope, Juliet Crowe never gave up on any of her kids.
“I’ll figure something out,” he said.
She smiled at him.
And taking that smile in, knowing the woman she was, theheart she had, the grit, he had no idea how old she was, he just knew she wasolder than him by more than a decade.
But if she was not married to a man who she made clear washer heartbeat, and the mother to their three kids, Dutch would want in there.
Permanently.
He nodded, muttered some words of farewell, and moved out.
His phone rang as he made his way to his truck.
He pulled it out again, saw it was Jagger, and felt afrisson of disquiet slide up the back of his neck.
Three calls in less than an hour, that wasn’t about goingout and tying one on.
It could be their mother.Hound.Their little brother,Wilder.Any brother, really, in Chaos, their woman or one of their kids.
This on his mind, he took the call as he angled his ass intohis truck.
“What’s up?”he asked.
“Hey, you busy?”Jagger asked in return.
That wasn’t the lead-in to trouble.
And regrettably, he was not busy.
Though Jag could need or want anything, most of thatsomething Dutch wanted no part of, so he didn’t share that news.
“What’s up?”he repeated.
“Listen, I’m elbow deep in a build with Joker and unless webust ass, we’re notgonnamake the deadline on thisride.And Carolyn has taken an extra shift because her landlord’s an assholeand raised the rent.Again.So we need someone to go to the airport and pick upher sister.Carolyn thought I could do it.Ithought I could do it.But we can’t get this bitch to turn over and we don’t know why, so I can’t doit.Which means I need to ask you to do it.Her flight lands in an hour.”
