she was far too lax in the photo department. Dwayne made a few jokes about being careful not to accidentally forward dirty pictures to Reba, earning laughs from everyone, including Chloe, who answered with a sarcastic, Don’t worry. I keep those under lock and key.
When Rob told her about their annual suicide-awareness rally and mentioned that Justin was making a sculpture to be auctioned off, she realized Justin never talked about his artwork. She was curious about that part of his life and made a mental note to ask him about it later.
Reba asked Chloe about her family, and Chloe told her about Serena and a little bit about their mother. She didn’t go into much detail, but the look on Reba’s face when Chloe said her mother hadn’t always been around much told her that she understood the things Chloe wasn’t saying. Reba had a gentle, caring way about her, but her inner strength was apparent. Chloe could envision her herding a pack of wild sons and cousins who had probably run around creating havoc when they were younger, with Madigan and, she assumed, Ashley, trailing after them.
Chloe loved getting to know his family and seeing how they teased each other as much as they built each other up. His family welcomed her into their inner circle so warmly, it was easy to imagine them embracing eleven-year-old Justin and all his troubles. Justin’s parents were openly affectionate the whole evening, just as Justin was toward her, and it no longer felt weird to be close to him. It felt right and wonderful.
“Seeing you and Justin sitting together like this reminds me of when our kids were little.” Reba rested her head on Preacher’s shoulder and looked at Justin as she said, “Do you remember the first night you were at our house, sweetheart?” Reba used endearments as often as Justin did, lavishing her son, nephew, and even Chloe with them. It was clear where Justin had picked up that habit. Reba was friendly and compassionate. She listened carefully to every word everyone said.
Chloe would have given anything for a mother like her.
“I remember being pissed off,” Justin said. “I was in a new place with an older kid who hated me and a younger boy who looked at me like I was full of secrets he wanted to hear—”
“That’s got to be Zan,” Dwayne said as he took the kitten from Rob and sat down to feed it from a bottle.
That was a sweet side of Dwayne Chloe had never seen.
Justin said, “It was Zan. And then there was another boy who was probably thinking I was the perfect specimen to study and evaluate.”
“Zeke,” Mike said. “That boy has always devoured facts like they were peanuts.”
“That’s the truth. I’ve never met a smarter guy than Zeke. Then there was Mads.” Justin looked at Chloe and said, “I had no freaking clue what to do with her.”
“She had just celebrated her fourth birthday a few weeks before this ornery young man came to live with us,” Reba explained. “I’ll never forget how she looked at me with those big blue eyes and said, ‘Mama, can he be my brother, too?’”
Chloe thought about four-year-old Madigan with three older brothers who doted on her. She probably thought Justin would be the same way. Chloe wondered if he had been. “That’s a big question. What did you say to her?”
“We’d fostered kids before, and they always went back to their birth parents,” Reba explained. “Justin didn’t have that option, so I told her the truth. I said his mama was up in heaven, his father had done some bad things and was going away for a very long time, and that it would be up to Justin if he stayed with us or not.” She looked at Justin with the love Chloe had always hoped to see in her own mother’s eyes and said, “From the time our kids could understand what it meant to be a friend, they were taught about the strength and loyalty of family and that our family extended to the Dark Knights’ families and other close friends. They grew up knowing all about the biker lifestyle, even the hard knocks, and our little Mads was distraught at the thought of Justin not having anyone looking out for him. You need to know a little something before I tell you what our baby girl did about it. Before Justin came to us, she’d spent months asking for a stuffed