They weren’t from the ladies.
They weren’t from Judge or Deacon.
No.
They came from Cage.
They started almost two weeks ago. About a month after she left.
The first one was a picture of what looked like a nursery. Her own room was the simple caption.
Two days later came a closeup photo of Dyna about to bawl. She had the red face, the trembly bottom lip and the big fat tear ready to spill over. That text read: She needs you.
That one tore out her heart.
A few minutes later: I need you, too, with a selfie of an unsmiling Cage attached.
The next day she got a picture of Dyna smiling.
The next day brought: She had a whole conversation with me this morning. He included a few seconds worth of video showing Dyna chitchatting away using nonsensical noises. The video was just long enough so Jemma wanted more.
A few minutes later came the following message: Can’t stop thinking about you. A selfie of him holding his daughter, his expression serious.
The day after, she only received a photo of a fresh tattoo that included the words “Born to Ride” in a ribbon woven around the letters in Dyna’s name. It was a closeup so she had no idea where he’d had it added to his body. She didn’t know why that particular photo touched her so much. It simply did.
She wasn’t sure if she looked forward to each text, or dreaded it. Each one tugged at her heart in a different way. When a text notification came in, her heartbeat would skip and her emotions would be like a roulette wheel. She wasn’t sure where they would land.
Every damn day she warred with herself. Whether she was right for leaving. Or wrong.
She misses you had come in with a photo of Dyna crying again.
Those killed her. It made her want to reach into the phone, grab her baby and hold her close. To soothe her. To make things better.
The text a few minutes later simply said: I miss you.
Then, this morning as she was getting ready for work, steeling herself for what was to come, knowing today would most likely be Susan’s last day...
Two texts lit up her phone, one right after the other.
You’re her world.
You’re my world.
No photos had been attached to his messages since the last one with Dyna crying.
She missed those photos. She needed to see them.
She was tempted to text him back and ask for a photo of Dyna happy. With a smile on her face.
She had needed it this morning to start her highly emotional day.
But she was afraid to respond. To ask anything of him.
So, she didn’t.
But today, the tragic loss of a loving, beautiful and kind woman reminded her of something important...
Life could be cut short unexpectedly. The time spent with the ones you love was never enough.
Any time you had with them shouldn’t be wasted.
She learned that when Walt died, but ignored it all of these years. When she shouldn’t have. When she shouldn’t have taken time with her family for granted.
Time with Lottie, with Judge, with Deacon. By avoiding coming home, by letting her past rule her life, shape her decisions, she’d been missing out on what some others only hoped to have.
Family. Love. Support. Devotion.
She was done with the texts.
She had a call to make.
She downed the rest of her wine for courage and did just that.
Epilogue
Coming Home
With a frown, Cage jogged up the steps to his house and stopped at the landing, taking one last look at the empty stone driveway. Empty except for his sled.
Where the fuck did Tessa go?
Her Mazda was gone and she hadn’t told him she’d be taking Dyna anywhere. Not that he cared if she did, he didn’t, if he knew about it.
He had made sure her vehicle was safe before she began hauling his kid around. Her Protégé might be old but he’d worked on it until it was in tip-top running condition. The twenty-year-old couldn’t afford anything nicer, especially with what Cage was paying her to be his house mouse and help with Dyna. Which was not a damn thing.
Not a week after Jemma left, Tessa had shown up. With dark brown hair in soft waves skimming along her jawline, big brown eyes and naturally pouty lips, everyone with a dick—except those with an ol’ lady who wanted to keep theirs—had paid attention the day she walked into The Barn.
Until they found out who she was.
Suddenly that interest didn’t remain so obvious. It turned more into his single brothers sneaking appreciative peeks when their prez wasn’t looking.
Turned out most of his brothers, including Cage, had no fucking clue that Tammy—Buck’s former ol’ lady and Trip’s mother—had remarried after fleeing Manning Grove all those years ago and popped out two more kids.
Trip’s half-siblings—a brother and a sister—were unrelated to Sig since Sig and Trip shared the same father while Trip, Tessa and the prez’s younger brother shared a mom.