Looking at me, Christopher shook his head. “No, Ripper doesn’t break his promises,” he said, but his quiet tone and solemn expression told me he was still worried.
“It’s going to be fine,” I said softly, using a tone of voice I hadn’t used with him since he’d stopped coming to me for every little thing. “Ripper will be here.”
As if on cue, the rumbling growl of a motorcycle could be heard off in the distance. When the noise grew closer and louder, it became clear there wasn’t just one motorcycle but an entire army of them. Christopher and I watched as, one by one, the Hell’s Horsemen pulled up behind us on the street, Deuce riding point.
Christopher turned to me, his eyes wide with surprise. “Did you do this?”
I couldn’t help but grin. “I wish I could take credit for this, but it was all Deuce’s doing.”
Christopher shot me one last look before we jumped out of the car to greet the new arrivals.
As Deuce was removing his helmet, Eva was already sliding off the back of his bike and hurrying toward me. We hugged briefly before parting and she slipped her hand into mine, a smile on her face.
“Everyone came,” she said, nodding over her shoulder at the Harleys lining up on the street. She was right, they were all here: Deuce, Mick and Adriana, Cox and Kami, Ripper and Danny, Cage and Tegen, Dirty and Ellie, Bucket and Christina, Danny D. and Danny L., Worm, Anger, Tap . . .
Even Cox’s son Devin had come, the spitting image of his Cox in his youth and on the back of his bike was his girlfriend, Deuce and Eva’s daughter, Ivy. She too was a young woman now, and a beautiful combination of both her mother and sister.
They were all here and seeing them here in a show of support for their fellow brother and friend warmed my heart in ways I would never be able to express with mere words.
“Do I look okay?” I whispered, gripping Eva’s hand tighter. “I dyed my hair last night, but I swear the gray hairs are coming in faster and faster.”
I’d done my best to look as good as I could without going overboard. My hair was freshly dyed its natural color, my makeup was minimal, and my clothes were new yet still casual.
“Stop,” Eva said with a laugh. “You look beautiful. And don’t talk to me about gray hair.”
Although beginning to feel more anxious than excited, I realized my mistake and laughed as well. Eva, not caring enough to dye it, had far more gray hair than I did, and because her natural color was so dark it showed far more than mine. But even at her age she could still be found in ratty old band T-shirts, jeans that had gone out of style in the 1970s, and Chuck Taylors on her feet. Despite nearing her fifties, she was still just as unique and beautiful as when I’d met her all those years ago when she was only twenty-two.
And I couldn’t have asked for a more supportive and loving friend.
While Deuce might have insisted on purchasing a house for Christopher and me, it had been Eva who’d helped me more than anyone. At her insistence, I’d finally gotten around to getting my GED and afterward, a job at the local florist. Now I was working on obtaining my associate degree, albeit online and with a great deal of my daughter’s assistance.
I might be in my fifties, but in my opinion there was no time limit when it came to bettering yourself. As I often told myself when feeling discouraged, it was better late than never.
Sadly, that same line of thinking wasn’t one my family shared with me. While my sister and I had reunited on well enough terms, my parents and I were still estranged. Even though a part of me would always feel the sting of losing them, I had a new family, one who accepted me despite my faults.
“There he is!”
I wasn’t sure who saw him first or who announced his arrival, and I didn’t care. All I cared about was the sight of the man himself. Still far off in the distance, a figure could be seen coming down the walk. Although I couldn’t yet make out his features, I knew it was Hawk from the distinct limp in his stride. Despite the continued medical attention he’d received in prison, his leg never did heal correctly.
As he grew closer, slowly approaching the main gates, the crowd on the street fell silent. Searching for Christopher among them, I beckoned him to me. Releasing Eva’s hand, I looped my arm through my son’s and waited.
When he was close enough for me to see the gray in his short beard and sideburns, close enough for me to see he was wearing the clothing I’d left for him, close enough to know that he was looking directly—and only—at me, my stomach filled with warmth, exploding quickly throughout the rest of my body.
Still, I wasn’t under the silly notion that readjusting to life together would be an easy transition. Hawk had lived behind bars for nearly eight years, and whether he would admit it or not, living in prison was much like experiencing an ongoing trauma, and with each visit I’d seen the toll it took on him. His only glimpses of the outside world were through the people who took the time to come and visit, to ensure he remained a significant part of their life on the outside, and I’d done my best to see that had happened.
But at the same time, I knew there would be conflict. Voices would be raised, tears would be shed, more likely between his son and him than between him and me. But I was determined to make it work, and ready to take on any additional obstacles that life decided to throw our way. Hawk had waited for me while I’d shut myself away for years, and more than deserved me giving him that same courtesy.
After all, what kind of a life was a life without someone to enjoy it with, someone to grow old with, without someone to love.
It wasn’t a life I ever cared to know again.
Suddenly the lights atop the gates lit up, a bell and a buzzer both sounded, and my breath hitched as Hawk walked through the slowly opening gate. When he was free and clear and the gates began to close behind him, he surveyed the parade on the street with a grin on his face.
“I’m FREE!” he shouted, thrusting his arms up in the air.
With a roaring shout, the boys shot forward across the street, circling and engulfing Hawk. It took several long minutes for the reunion to calm, but when it did, when the men began to disperse and Hawk emerged from the group wearing his cut, still holding Christopher’s arm, I stepped forward into the street.
“Irish!” Ripper yelled. “Go give your old man a fuckin’ hug!”
Hawk’s gaze shot to Ripper. “You gave my boy a nickname?”
“He did!” I called out, smiling. “They all did!”
Ripper shrugged. “Figured Irish was better than Russian, yeah?”
Releasing his arm, I gave Christopher a little shove. “Go say hi,” I said softly.
He looked down at me, then back to Hawk who was just standing there, waiting for Christopher to make the first move.
Despite having seen each other throughout Hawk’s prison sentence, I knew this moment had been a source of anxiety for both of them. They’d both grown so accustomed to their respective places—Hawk parenting as best he could from prison two states away, and Christopher growing up having accepted that this was the extent of his relationship with his father, and used to being the man of the house—that neither of them knew exactly how to act when the moment came that they were thrust back into each other’s lives.
Just as I was beginning to worry that neither of them were going to make the first move, Hawk edged forward. And once Christopher saw that Hawk was walking toward him, he took a step as well. And although it was at a snail’s pace, Hawk with his limp and Christopher full of apprehension, when they finally reached each other, Hawk pulled him into a hug that Christopher instantly returned.