Gentle On My Mind (Reapers MC: Pema Chapter Book 1) Page 17

  After we finish our morning workout, everyone heads in separate groups to breakfast. Violet sticks close to the kids as usual. They aren’t judgmental like adults. Even overly sensitive Io finds Violet to be perfect.

  “I’m making omelets,” Vaughn announces before claiming the twins offered to help.

  Avery scowls hard at our amused father. “That is not how anything went down.”

  “Daddy’s senile now,” Savannah says and sighs dramatically. “Traveling really does a number on him.”

  “I’m on vacation,” Raven announces and relaxes into a chair. “I want to be served.”

  “What should I do?” Bjorn asks me.

  Rather than wonder why he thinks I’m in charge, I shrug and move to where Violet pours almond milk for the kids.

  “I grew up drinking goat milk,” Bjorn announces, and I realize he feels left out.

  “My niece has goats,” Vaughn says. “Do you know Tucker’s daughter, Scarlet?” he asks Bjorn, who nods since he remembers everyone’s names. “She and my niece, Phoebe, have a farm in Conroe. They started a business selling goat milk, soaps, and cheese. Wait, did you already know that? Am I having a senior moment?”

  Bjorn looks awkward and might not understand the term “senior moment.”

  Either way, I throw him a lifeline by sharing, “We had a goat when we were growing up, but he attacked Nevaeh and had to be sent away.”

  “He was a regular Black Philip,” Raven says, always believing the goat was evil. “Tried to steal my sweet Nevaeh from the world.”

  Avery and Savannah snicker, likely over the “sweet” part. Nevaeh isn’t a hellion like the family’s baby, Sylvie, but she’s a ballbuster who starts arguments when bored. She’s currently a bartender at the Ellsberg clubhouse, Whiskey Kirk’s. I’ve seen her instigate brawls just so she has something to do by breaking them up. Yeah, sweet isn’t the right word to describe my younger sister.

  “Nevaeh is soft and sugary sweet at her core,” Raven says, stirring up trouble like her second youngest daughter enjoys doing.

  Falling into her natural dramatic mode, Savannah cries, “Oh, good gravy, she called Pollux a crotch goblin!”

  Avery grunts. “She said the same about Io.”

  “Well...” Savannah mutters, but Avery refuses to take the bait.

  Raven just keeps egging them on by pointing out, “As her older sisters, you should be patient with Nevaeh.”

  “She’s an adult.”

  “Barely.” Raven waves her hand around and stands up. “When you three get your act in order with those omelets, let me know. I’m going to explore the hotel.”

  I catch Violet’s expression when Raven says hello to Io and Pollux while passing by. Nothing for my woman, huh? Well, it’s time for Raven’s second son to set a few ground rules.

  I follow my mother, holding back just enough so she won’t notice I’m on her tail. She walks through the back office, circles around to the lobby, and heads to the stairs. I catch the door closing, silently moving behind her. Raven likely hears me when one step on the stairwell creaks. On the second floor, she looks over each room’s designated name.

  “The ‘Gone With The Wind’ room,” she mutters and then frowns when I stop hiding in the shadows. “Why are you following me?”

  “You know.”

  “No, I really don’t. Is this because I let your father cook? You should know he’s a modern man, capable of handling kitchen duties.”

  Ignoring her attempt to distract me, I ask, “Why are you dodging Violet?”

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re not subtle.”

  Messing with her long blonde hair, she mutters, “I’m allowed to own my feelings.”

  “True. Then, own them by explaining why you can’t accept her.”

  Once her hair is up in a sloppy ponytail, only minutes from falling apart, she sighs. “Of all my sons, you’re the most practical. I hoped you’d find a woman suited to your demeanor. Violet is sweet, but she’s not practical.”

  “She’s the woman I fell in love with.”

  “I know, but it takes time for people to win me over,” Mom says, heading for the stairs and likely looking for allies.

  “It’s been a year,” I say, following close behind. “We ought to admit you can’t be won over by Violet. Can’t you fake it?”

  “I am faking it.”

  “Then, can’t you fake it like you would if the person you were trying to convince mattered?”

  Opening the door on the main floor, she shoots a frown over her shoulder. “Mav, give me a break, will you?”

  “If you can’t fake your feelings, why should I fake mine? I’m a practical man, after all.”

  Pausing near the kitchen, Raven narrows her eyes. These are the moments when my parents are faced with the type of people they’ve created. Vaughn and Raven wanted free-range children. They let us embrace our passions and natural personalities. Well, this is me expressing myself.

  “Don’t try to intimidate me.”

  “If you think this is me being intimidating, you haven’t been paying attention during my twenty-six years on this earth.”

  “Vaughn, your son is a stinker!” she calls out to my father, who is wowing Bjorn, Violet, and the kids with his omelet skills.

  Without missing a beat, he replies, “I’m too elderly to help, babe.”

  “That man,” Mom grumbles and then places her hands on my chest. “Maverick, I love you. You’re my favorite son.”

  “Only because the other three aren’t around to hear you say that.”

  “Well, yeah, duh.”

  I allow a little smile as she softens her gaze. “I worried about you finding someone suited for your very specific personality. I just hadn’t expected that someone would be Violet. I’m adjusting. That’s my right. Don’t pressure me. Know your place. Behave. Submit. You know all the stuff I forgot to teach you to do when you were growing up.”

  Exhaling, I place my hands on hers against my chest. “There’ll never be anyone other than Violet. Women didn’t truly interest me before her, and they won’t interest me if I lose her. This is my one shot at love, marriage, and creating a family. Violet is to me what you are to Dad. So, when you’re adjusting, keep that in mind.”

  Raven’s expression changes as she listens to me speak. Gone is the quiet stubbornness and annoyed patience. I see her realizing I’m a man incapable of loving most people. I don’t have the heart to let just anyone in. Violet isn’t a project I’m working on or a damsel in need of saving. She’s my woman. If I don’t have Violet, I’m spending the rest of my life alone. Mom finally gets what she’s been denying for months.

  And just like that, something clicks inside Raven Hancock Majors—wife, mother, grandma, sister, friend, hippie, roller derby enthusiast, and former cage fighter. Violet’s health and happiness is the key to mine. Anyone who threatens my broken love is a danger to the Majors family.

  Right then and there, Raven chooses to love Violet Navarro.

  THE GHOST

  The quiet days bother me if I’m in the wrong mood. Other times, I prefer having nothing to do. I was worse right after O’Meara died. I felt like I had to keep busy, be productive, prove my worth. Without a list of expectations, I got nervous. Shelby finally explained I didn’t need to always clean, cook, or care for the children. I could read or study or stare at the wall.

  “Life isn’t about accomplishments,” she said during those early weeks when we were still feeling each other out. “If it was, most of us would be losers. No, life is about experiences, big and small. As long as you enjoy your day, it doesn’t matter if you spent it eating potato chips and watching ‘Young Sheldon’ reruns.”

  Today is perfect for downtime. Maverick is working. Io and Pollux are focused on our guests. Savannah and Avery talk over renovations for the Idyllwild house. I have no idea what Bjorn is doing.

  In my hotel room, I curl up next to the window facing the road and read a biography. After a
few hours, I practice my Spanish and consider what language I want to tackle next. In middle school, I learned French. Then, I switched to Spanish to improve my work options. With college admission applications no longer an issue, I’m learning for myself and no one else.

  Before lunch, I sketch like I did as a teen before O’Meara twisted my fingers so much I often lack pencil control. I don’t help the healing process by biting my hands when I’m upset. That’s something I’ll work on. For today, I want to focus on what I’m doing right.

  Part of building a new Violet is preparing to join the roller derby Avery and Savannah are organizing. Heidi likes the idea of getting physical. Vi says as soon as she loses the baby weight, she’ll start training. Stella seems nervous, but she still wants to try.

  But none of us non-Majors women are great at skating. That’s why I practice every day, both in and out of the hotel. When the weather is nice, I skate to the park and use the pathways to work on my speed and control. On cold, wet days like this one, I use the lobby to do laps.

  “Tonight, we’ll watch MacGruber,” Raven announces, startling me as I make my twentieth pass by the front desk.

  She watches me from the lounge’s open double doors. I don’t know if I should speak to her or keep moving. Is she even talking to me? I scan the lounge for the twins but find only Raven and me.

  “Okay.”

  “It’s why they want to name the roller derby team ‘The Cunthroats.’”

  “It’s the bad guy's name.”

  Raven’s brows lift. “You’ve seen it?”

  “No, but Avery explained.”

  “Well, tonight, you can see for yourself.”

  “Okay.”

  “Vaughn and I plan to go with you to the church on Sunday. You should sit next to me in case anyone starts trouble.”

  Finally, I catch on to how Maverick convinced his mom to fake as if she likes me. Though I consider telling her how she doesn’t need to go through the motions, I realize no one is helped by speaking up. Maverick wants his mother and me to get along. I would love for Raven to like me for real, but I’m happier if she fakes it than if she doesn’t.

  “When you were starting out with roller derby, how did you train?” I ask, rolling over to her.

  Raven’s eyes light up. “Back in the day, I felt as fast as a cheetah in the rink. Round and round, I would skate, dodging opponents and aiding my allies. You can’t know yet how it feels to have so many moving parts, each ready to lose control,” she says and then frowns. “Did you play sports when you were growing up?”

  “Yes. Volleyball, mainly.”

  “Then, you do have a sense of how a team learns to feel each other’s movements even without seeing them. Now, imagine moving more than ten miles per hour through it all.”

  “Are you trying to scare me off from joining the team?”

  “No, I just want you to know how good it’ll feel when you’re ready to join,” Raven says and then takes my hand and has me start skating in a circle around her while she holds on. “You need to work on your yoga poses, too. Not just building muscle, but gaining strength in your back and legs.”

  Unsure how to respond to Raven’s advice, I wonder if she’s trying to freak me out. Except she starts showing me ways to improve my form. Soon, my skates are off, and we’re in the meeting room, working on yoga moves.

  While resting on the floor, Raven casually brushes the hair away from my face. I immediately recall my mother’s reaction to when I got messy. She would insist I drop everything to fix my ponytail to avoid broadcasting to the world how I was a slob.

  The tears rise quickly. I have no control over them. I’m on edge since Raven showed interest in me. I want to please her, yet I also wish she would leave me alone. I can’t live up to her expectations. She wants me to be her, and I’ll never morph into this woman any more than I could be my mother. I only managed to be Wife to Husband because failure meant torture. Anything less, and I’m bound to fail.

  I hide my face to avoid biting my hands. Maverick won’t want me going bananas in front of his mom. I need to cry like a normal person.

  Raven surprises me by wrapping her arms around my body and forcing me to cuddle against her.

  “Why are you crying?” she asks softly.

  “I’m not good enough to be on the team.”

  “How long have you been practicing?”

  “For a month.”

  “Well, fuck, Violet, of course, you’re not ready to be on a team yet. Did you even skate before you started training?”

  Feeling stupid, I shake my head. Raven pats my back as I get myself under control.

  “I skated for years before I joined a team. But even then, roller derby wasn’t about winning. I just loved skating with my sister and our friends. That’s what your goal should be, too. You can train and want to do well, but never forget it’s a hobby. No one’s paying you to do well. Your loved ones’ lives don’t depend on you winning. It’s just for fun.”

  “I want to be able to keep up with Avery and Savannah.”

  “Well, that’s just never going to happen. They’ve been skating since they were able to walk,” Raven says, stroking my hair in a way that reminds me of Shelby. “But you can still be better than Vi and Stella. Heidi, too, I bet. Aim for something more attainable. That way, you won’t be disappointed.”

  Lifting my head, I look into eyes that remind me of Maverick. “That’s not how I was raised to think.”

  “But those people are dead,” she says without missing a beat. “Who cares what they think now?”

  I frown at her words, and Raven smiles. “Baby, my mom sucks. She thinks I married a thug who kept me barefoot and pregnant so I couldn’t dump him. When in reality, I just kept having babies because making them was so fun, and being a mom felt good. Does my mother’s opinion matter? Sometimes, maybe. Usually, I don’t care. After all, this is my life, and she doesn’t get to live it.”

  Studying her, I admit, “I want you to like me.”

  “I do like you.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.”

  Raven sighs, ready to admit what I’ve been feeling for months. “I wasn’t sure you were right for Maverick, but never because I didn’t like you. It was more about him. He’s a hard man to understand. I had ideas about his future, but they were wrong. Now, I see what he needs, and I’m glad he found you.”

  I smile at her words. “Maverick is like no one else. In school, some kids wanted to be invisible, but they were always bullied or anxious types. Sort of like Max, and how she doesn’t like people paying attention to her. But Maverick wants the world to look somewhere else so he can spy on it unnoticed. I love how people can’t get a read on him, but he always figures them out.”

  Raven shares my smile. “I always knew if I had a question about what one of the other kids were up to, I could ask Maverick. Not only would he know, but he never minded snitching out his siblings. Maverick always sees the big picture. That’s why I think he’s suited to be VP, even president if he had to be. Others say he’s too quiet, but Maverick knows people and understands what he needs to keep the club strong. Just like he ratted out his brothers and sisters to keep our family safe.”

  I sense she’s telling me how he talked her into accepting me. I’m a member of the Majors clan now. If Raven and I aren’t solid, nothing else can be. Maverick seems cold, but he has the biggest heart. His family is his responsibility. That’s how he’s wired. He can’t be happy if they aren’t. He’s the same way with the Reapers.

  This is why he works so hard on our new home and is already planning ten steps ahead of this weekend’s visit to the Idyllwild church. Maverick is a man forever on a mission. Now, with his mom and woman on the same page, he can see more clearly and take on whatever challenges Pema throws at him.

  THE CHAPTER WHERE CRIME LORDS COLLIDE

  THE SENTINEL

  For the second time since moving to Pema, Colton, Heidi, and I have a meeting with the local Reapers’ m
embers. Weeks ago, we planned a family-themed get-together for everyone, but the weather postponed it. Still, I’ve met each man at the worksite or around town. With a good sense of the local Reapers, I’m certain one of them will not join us at the church.

  “Fuck that shit,” Kiefer Northam says, fiddling with a cigarette he doesn’t smoke. He waits until after the meeting to voice his concerns, which is smart. No one wants to be the guy who shits on the new president’s parade, and Colton is psyched about joining the Idyllwild church service.

  “No offense,” Kiefer continues when Heidi frowns at him, “but I can’t go waltzing into that place and smile at those people. They fucked up my family, brainwashed my woman, and left me to raise our kid alone. So, fuck them.”

  I give Colton a side-glance, wondering how he’ll handle his cranky enforcer. From what I know, Kiefer’s a loyal guy with a short fuse and decent fighting skills. He’s the kind of man we want to keep happy. I don’t sense he’s particularly close to Gunnar or Jox, though. That’s what happens without a president to organize men in a way Heidi just can’t.

  “Look, man, I get it,” Colton says, patting his shoulder. “These people are scum. I just talked to some old lady who told me about how she went to the same church since she was a kid. Her mama went there since she was a kid, too. Then, Idyllwild tried poaching this little church’s flock. When that didn’t work, a pipe burst in the little church’s basement. That didn’t scare the flock, so there was a fire. Still, the flock held strong. Finally, the elderly pastor got jumped. That was it. A little church that’d been in Pema for probably a hundred years shut its doors. But that old woman told me that she still wouldn’t go to Idyllwild. She’d organized a prayer group in her house, but slowly people stopped coming when their jobs were threatened.”

  Colton sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck. “We’re dealing with scum who pick on old people and beat up pastors and burn down churches. What they did to your family is another one of their crimes, but here’s what matters, Kiefer. We’re planning to bury those assholes on the top and make their followers submit. We’ll do to them what they did to that little church. That’s why we plan to attend their service this Sunday. Not to make nice but to show force.”