How About No (Bear Bottom Guardians MC 3)

And we weren’t the only ones there. All the boys from the club were standing outside, on Bayou’s front lawn, in a loose circle. All of them wore their cuts—their MC leather vests that declared them Bear Bottom Guardians—and looked intimidating as hell.

My eyes searched the small cul-de-sac that Bayou lived on, and I saw that I wasn’t the only one watching.

Nope, there was a young woman out on her front porch, sitting on her porch swing, drinking what appeared to be sweet tea. She was staring unrepentantly at the group, though her eyes followed Hoax as he split off from the loose circle of men and came out our way.

He winked at me as he opened my door, and it was then I realized that at some point while I’d been staring, Wade had exited the vehicle and gotten Capo out.

“Miss Landry.” He winked.

I smiled at Hoax.

“Do you know why Wade’s mad?” I blurted.

He was literally the only one out of the bunch who was wearing something besides a black t-shirt and blue jeans. He’d changed it up with a red shirt and blue jeans.

His arm flexed as he extended his open palm out to me.

“Can’t say that I do,” he answered. “He called us all here to explain, though, so maybe you’ll only have a little bit longer to wait.”

Lord, I hoped so.

A brooding Wade was an unhappy Wade, and anything other than a happy Wade was hard to be around.

I took Hoax’s hand and dropped down from my husband’s lifted truck.

The moment my feet were on the ground, I pulled away, which gave me a perfect view of the woman on the front porch across the street and her narrowed eyes aimed directly at me.

“You have a fan club,” I told Hoax as I reached back inside the truck for my half-empty water bottle. “Do you know her?”

Hoax hummed in agreement. “She’s the nurse that I saw last week when I went to the ER for something. I didn’t know she lived there, otherwise I might’ve visited Bayou a whole hell of a lot sooner.”

I snorted with barely contained laughter. “Something for your arm?”

His eyes went wonky for a second. “No.”

It was so final that I realized he most certainly did not want to talk about his problem.

“Landry, baby. Come here.”

Wade’s lovely voice slid down my spine, and it took everything I had not to shiver.

Skirting around Hoax, I headed for Wade where he was standing in the loose circle, the one that had pushed out a little bit when Wade and I had arrived to allow us room to stand as well.

I swallowed as I met each man’s curious eyes.

There were five men there in total.

Hoax—who was the most recent one that I’d met. Linc and Rome, who I’d never said anything more than hi to over the course of Wade’s and my separation. Bayou, who gave me a warm welcoming smile. Ezekiel—better known as Zee—with his colorful tattoos. And finally, Castiel, a man who worked with my husband and who hadn’t said a civil word to me since I’d left him.

I quickly looked away from that particular pair of eyes and smiled back at Bayou.

“You have a new injury since I saw you last,” I commented.

There was a new laceration that was right underneath his left eye that looked like it hadn’t felt really good to get considering the cut also had a large bruise surrounding it.

“Had a young man think it was okay to start a prison riot yesterday," he calmly replied. “I convinced him differently.”

I snickered and leaned into Wade, who wrapped his arm around me and resituated his weight so that he could better accommodate me.

“Your hand looks good,” Castiel said.

I felt my stomach sink.

I really, really didn’t want to talk to Cass. He was the most welcoming in the beginning, but definitely the worst in the end.

“Yeah,” I flexed it. “Still can’t feel the back of my hand, though.”

I didn’t look him in the eye, and I felt Wade shift.

I looked up at him to see him frowning down at me.

“What?” I whispered.

He opened his mouth to reply, but Bayou interrupted him.

“So why are we here, Wade?” Bayou rumbled. “My fuckin’ face hurts.”

I snorted and turned back to see Bayou gently prodding the skin to the side of his hurt eye.

Meaning Bayou didn’t want to be standing out talking when he could be ignoring everyone and everything.

Wade’s gaze shifted down to me once more, then he sighed.

“Yesterday I was made aware that Landry was being harassed by a woman who was upset that Landry got Capo and she didn’t,” Wade started.

At the mention of Capo’s name, the dog shifted his weight and leaned into Wade’s other side. All attention turned to him for a few seconds and Capo started to growl.

Wade sighed, and I turned my face away, just as the others did.