Wild Fire: A Chaos Novella Read online

  But this time, catching it in her periphery, she woke a little more.

  And in the moonlight, on his nightstand, she saw the double frame.

  The left side contained the picture of Graham Black tossing his beloved firstborn son up in the air, the toddler beaming down at him.

  The right side held a photo of Shepherd Ironside and Dutch Black both leaning into beers over the bar in the Chaos Compound, their heads turned right, their eyes aimed at Georgiana, who stood at the end of the bar holding her phone trained on them.

  Georgiana loved both those pictures, but she had to admit, she liked the one on the right the best.

  Because Dutch had a particular look on his face in that photo.

  And it was beautiful.

  * * * *

  Dutch

  “Stupid snow,” Georgie groused to the side window of his truck.

  “Babe,” he replied, amused.

  “At this rate, I’m not gonna ride on the back of your bike with you for maybe, I don’t know, forever.”

  He loved she wanted on the back of his bike.

  He was not a fan of the fact it had been either cold, or snowing, since they met so he could not put her ass there.

  Mostly, he loved how this had become an obsession of hers after he told her how his father had never put another woman’s ass on his bike except his mother’s.

  Graham Black waited until he found the right one. And when he found her, she was the only one who rode there.

  And Dutch could not tell Georgie he’d never had a woman on the back of his bike, because he did not know this story until after he’d done that.

  But since he’d learned it, he’d ridden solo.

  Though he told her, the minute that option was open, her ass was there.

  And the obsession began.

  Through these thoughts, he laughed then he said, “I think you’re being dramatic.”

  “Whatever,” she muttered.

  “It’s Christmas Eve. We’re gonna have a white Christmas.”

  “Whatever.”

  “And Wilder loves snow.”

  She made a huh noise.

  She adored his baby brother.

  So he knew that’d get her.

  And it did, since she quit bitching.

  Her adoration for his brother was further proved when he parked next to Jag’s truck in his ma and Hound’s driveway.

  And she wasted no time grabbing one of the bags of their presents (they had three, two of them filled with shit for Wilder, and that was enough proof right there, but it didn’t end there), this as well as the bag stacked with three tins of Christmas cookies she made.

  And she hightailed her sweet ass to the front door.

  It was open before they got there.

  By Jag.

  “Please, fuck, tell me you brought some of those butter cookies,” he said as greeting.

  “Jagger Black!” his mother could be heard shouting from inside. “Watch your mouth around your little brother.”

  Grinning unrepentantly, Jagger stepped aside to let them in, divesting Georgie of all she was carrying, even if she tried to protest. Though, one of the tins held her butter cookies, because she knew how much Jag liked them, and Jagger probably knew that.

  Jag getting her hands free was a good call.

  “Georgie!” Wilder squealed as he raced into the room.

  He hit her so hard, if Dutch didn’t put a hand to the small of her back, she’d have gone down.

  “Yo, bro,” she greeted, her hands smoothing back his messy dark blond hair.

  He tipped his head back. “It’s Christmas Eve! Santa’s coming!”

  “He sure is,” Georgie agreed.

  And he sure was, because there was another bag of presents, not only for Wilder, in the truck. Presents Dutch had been forced to promise he wouldn’t bring in that he was going to go back out and get when the time came.

  Presents that were from “Santa.”

  He’d informed her the adults knew there was no Santa Claus.

  She’d replied, “Santa only dies if you let him, and file this away, bad boy, I am never, ever gonna let Santa die.”

  Since she was so cute saying that, Dutch didn’t push it any further, not even to tease her.

  “C’mon.” Wilder grunted as he pulled at her hand. “Daddy and me are wrappin’ Momma’s gift and you gotta help ’cause Daddy sucks at it.”

  “Boy,” Hound warned from the mouth of the hall.

  “You do. You suck at it, Daddy,” Wilder declared.

  “You’re right, son, I do,” Hound agreed. “I’m not talkin’ about that. I’m talkin’ about the words you’re usin’.”

  “Well, how do you say someone sucks at something when they really, really suck at it?” Wilder demanded to know…loudly.

  “If you two don’t give me granddaughters…I…will lose…my effing…mind,” Keely, standing in the door to the kitchen, declared Georgie and Dutch’s way.

  “Momma said effing!” Wilder screamed with glee.

  His baby brother was his usual hilarious.

  But Dutch was thrown.

  It wasn’t that Keely had not accepted Georgie. She had. From that first night.

  It was that she’d been holding back.

  Maybe because of how Carolyn did Jag dirty.

  Maybe because she sensed Dutch was going through some shit.

  Maybe it was just a Ma Thing.

  But this was the first indication she’d given that she was all in.

  “I hate to tell you this, Wilder, but I’m not too hot at wrapping presents either,” Georgie admitted.

  “I bet you’re better at it than Daddy,” Wilder shot back.

  Probably couldn’t argue that.

  And Georgie didn’t.

  Giving Dutch a look, she let herself be led away.

  And it was not lost on Dutch that Wilder, who used to worship him, hadn’t even looked at him.

  So she did that with Dutch saying, “I stole your cat, you stole my brother. This is not even.”

  Which made her smile.

  Massive.

  But it also made Wilder stop dead.

  “Where’s Murtagh?” he demanded.

  “He’s at home, little bro,” Georgie told him.

  Wilder finally looked to his oldest brother.

  And he did that to order, “Go get him.”

  “We got enough going on without a cat in the mix,” Hound declared.

  Wilder looked up to his father. “But Daddy! Murtagh can’t be alone on Christmas! He’s family!”

  Hound looked at his son.

  Then at his other son.

  That being Dutch.

  And he did what he always did if it was within his power to do it.

  He gave them what they wanted.

  “You mind gettin’ him, Dutch?” Hound asked.

  Dutch dumped the bags he was carrying and said, “Be right back.”

  This bought him an even bigger smile from Georgiana before she took off to help his brother wrap a present, and Dutch took off to go get their boy.

  It was much later, Wilder was finally down in a way he’d stay down (they hoped), and they were all sitting around, the men drinking whiskies, the women drinking wine, when Hound got up from the couch after a quick kiss for his wife, and loped off.

  Dutch didn’t think much of it, figuring he was going to the can.

  Instead, he was thinking he was glad he and Georgie got the guest bedroom, which meant Jag had to take the couch, because Wilder would probably be up in about four hours, and the first person who would get his wakeup call would be the one who was on the couch.

  He was also thinking that he felt no guilt about the fact Georgie wasn’t super close to her family, so he and his family got her for Christmas.

  Sure, the next day, they were heading to her dad’s house for a drink and to give him, Suzanne and Carolyn some time, but Georgie promised that would last an hour, at most two (her mother was on a cruise, some
thing she did every year—a rare bonus from that broad, who Dutch had now met twice, and he couldn’t dilute it, she was such a haughty, disapproving bitch, this aimed at him, but mostly at Georgie, he detested her).

  And Georgie had let Dutch promise Keely they’d be at her Christmas dinner table, so he knew she was serious about that.

  These were his thoughts when he got early warning that Hound didn’t hit the head when he came back too soon, and Dutch felt Georgie tense against him as he did.

  Then Hound stood in his own living room carrying what looked like a very thick scrapbook for only a second before he announced, “It was Georgie’s idea and I was down with helpin’ her because what she said was right. This shit’s gotta stop. If you’re doin’ it for me, or whatever reason you’re doin’ it, it’s just gotta stop.”

  He then dropped the scrapbook on the coffee table with a loud thud and the nearly decimated plate of Georgiana’s cookies jumped when he did.

  So did everyone in the room, including Dutch.

  “Now, me and Georgie are gonna hang out outside by the firepit and give you time. Take it,” Hound finished.

  Then he reached a hand Georgie’s way.

  Jag was staring at the scrapbook like it was going to form a mouth and bite him.

  Dutch was staring at his mother.

  She was glaring at Hound.

  But before Georgie could catch Hound’s hand, Keely snapped, “If that book is what I think it is, don’t you take one single step out of this room, Hound Ironside.” Her eyes swung to Georgie. “You either, Georgiana.”

  “Woman, this needs to be Black’s,” Hound returned.

  Dutch felt his throat close and his arm around Georgie, who was nestled into him in a cuddle chair, tightened.

  “Okay, it wasn’t my place—” Georgie started.

  “It is absolutely our place. And you were right, it’s high time and was about twenty years ago,” Keely decreed, reached for the book, opened it and lifted her gaze to Hound. “The brothers help with this?”

  “Yeah,” he grunted.

  She looked down at the opened scrapbook.

  And her face got soft.

  “Seriously, your father was one good-lookin’ man,” she whispered.

  Dutch’s attention shot to Hound.

  But he just said, “That brother got all the good pussy.”

  “He sure did,” Keely agreed.

  Georgie giggled, somewhat nervously, mostly with humor.

  “Someone, kill me,” Jagger said. “I mean it. Right now. Kill me dead.”

  “Shut up, Jagger, and come sit by your momma,” Keely cooed, flipping through the pages.

  “She’s talkin’ to me like I’m Wilder’s age, so, seriously,” Jag was staring at Dutch, “kill me.”

  It was then it struck Dutch for the first time that his baby brother was at the age Dutch was when he’d lost his dad.

  But Wilder was asleep in his bed, and outside in his living room was a mom and a dad, two brothers, a sister, a ridiculously social cat, and so many presents waiting for him to open up the next morning, it was more than a little insane.

  And that was when it occurred to him that God took his dad away so they could have Hound, Wilder and all of this.

  Dutch did not know if he’d trade it to have his dad back. He did not know, if his dad knew this was what would happen, if he’d welcome that blade at his throat to give them the precious things that would come to their lives after he was gone.

  He just knew his father loved Keely, Dutch, Jagger, Hound, he’d adore Georgie because he’d know Dutch did, as well as Wilder.

  So in the end, it didn’t matter.

  This was what they had.

  And it was beautiful.

  And Graham Black would think the same thing.

  He pushed Georgie up in front of him then took her hand and guided her down on his lap as he sat beside his mother who had shifted to the middle of the couch.

  She didn’t stay seated for long.

  Hound pulled her up, sat in her place, then yanked her down on his lap.

  Jagger took the other side.

  Keely got right down to it, flipping back to the front.

  “Okay, this one, I can’t believe it, who remembered this? It had to be Millie. Maybe Rush got it from Naomi, which makes this is the only thing I’d ever thank that woman for, but this is us at the first Chaos hog roast I attended. I met your dad that night.”

  On her words, Dutch zeroed in on the first picture in that scrapbook that was just a photo of the two of them standing together. His dad was smiling down at his mom, but in hearing what she said, he could see the flirty way she was standing, and the relaxed, confident line of his father’s frame.

  “I played hard-to-get for, oh, I don’t know, all of about two seconds,” she went on.

  Dutch tore his eyes from the photo and looked across at Jagger to see Jagger already looking at him.

  What he was feeling was in his brother’s eyes.

  They had something precious now, in that room, in that house…

  And in a scrapbook.

  Jag dipped his chin.

  Dutch did the same.

  “God, you look so much like him, honey. Every time I see it, I think it’s so cool,” Georgie breathed.

  It was.

  So cool.

  His hold on her tightened.

  Then he looked again at the book and Dutch settled back, leaning into Hound.

  His woman settled, leaning into him.

  And his mother kept talking.

  He looked and listened.

  When Hound came to them, really came to them, and made them a whole family again, Christmases got good again.

  It wasn’t that his mom didn’t give good holiday, she did.

  It was just that Hound made it a whole lot better.

  When they got Wilder, especially when he got old enough to get into it, it got off-the-charts better.

  But that Christmas…

  Right there…

  Before the actual day even got there…

  It was the best Dutch could remember.

  “Murtagh, don’t eat that ribbon,” Georgie ordered.

  “Mwrr.”

  “Murtagh, don’t make me come over there,” Georgie snapped.

  “Mwrr!” Murtagh fired back, then flounced away from the tree and jumped into Jag’s lap.

  “Yeah, it sucks, but we don’t need that comin’ out the other end, dude,” Jag told him, curling him in his arms.

  “Murr-ow,” Murtagh replied.

  Jag started stroking.

  Murtagh started purring.

  “Okay, this was the night Boz got so tossed, he challenged every brother to an arm wrestling contest,” his mother said, and Dutch looked down to a photo of his father sitting in a chair, his mom draped over his back with both her arms around him, both of them looking at the same thing, laughing. “He lost. To everyone but Chew. We should have known about Chew right then, shouldn’t we have, baby?” she asked Hound.

  Hound grunted.

  Keely turned a page.

  * * * *

  Meanwhile

  Meanwhile…

  Two weeks later, in a heat snap that was not unknown during Denver winters, the first time Dutch could take his Georgie on his bike…

  Georgiana was surprised, when Dutch went for his wallet to pay, the big, frightening-looking barista said, “That’s on me, brother.”

  They exchanged a look.

  More surprising, Dutch didn’t fight it and took his hand from his pocket.

  Five minutes later, she took a sip of the best coffee she’d ever tasted.

  Apparently, it was true what everyone said: the coffee at Fortnum’s Used Books was the best in Denver.

  Dutch got his and took her hand to walk her back into the stacks, but he exchanged another glance with the biker-looking guy who was behind the book desk.

  She didn’t ask.

  If Dutch wanted her to know, he’d tell her.


  Though, from what she could read, it seemed the thing that was being communicated was that something was all good.

  Georgiana and Dutch spent the next two hours in the stacks, twenty minutes of it making their selections, the rest of it curled up together in a big chair in the way back, sipping coffee and reading.

  They walked out to buy their books when Dutch heard Georgie’s stomach growling.

  He took her out to dinner and then he took her home and right to bed.

  It would be the next day, Sunday, when Georgie won a round and talked Dutch into letting her be the one to get up and get them coffee.

  And while it was brewing, she went and grabbed the books from the mudroom and stowed them on one of Dutch’s many shelves.

  By the picture of his dad.

  She reached out a finger and touched the miniscule Chaos patch on the man’s jacket.

  Then she whispered, “Thank you.”

  After that, she poured herself and her man some coffee.

  And went back to bed.

  The End

  * * * *

  Also from 1001 Dark Nights and Kristen Ashley, discover Wild Wind, Dream Bites, Quiet Man, Rough Ride, and Rock Chick Reawakening

  * * * *

  The Stories of the Black Brothers of Chaos will continue with Jagger…

  Wild Wind

  A Chaos Novella

  Coming March 9, 2021

  Click here to purchase

  When he was sixteen years old, Jagger Black laid eyes on the girl who was his. At a cemetery. During her mother’s funeral.

  For years, their lives cross, they feel the pull of their connection, but then they go their separate ways.

  But when Jagger sees that girl chasing someone down the street, he doesn’t think twice before he wades right in. And when he gets a full-on dose of the woman she’s become, he knows he finally has to decide if he’s all in or if it’s time to cut her loose.

  She’s ready to be cut loose.

  But Jagger is all in.

  * * * *

  Prologue

  Fuckin’ A

  Jagger