Read Online The Bare Bones (The Bare Bones MC) by Layla Wolfe - Free Book Online

of trophy old lady who had gotten him places he wouldn’t ordinarily have gone. She was highly connected in Pure and Easy society and liked to organize the club’s charity poker runs, for one. Cropper had shoved Corinne on him, and she was hot, so Ford had gone along. It was good for the club’s image.
    “Yes.” She probably just wanted more money for clothes.
    “I can’t be with you anymore.”
    That wasn’t entirely a surprise, either. Corinne wasn’t like the other old ladies. She’d never really fit in. This last week, those differences had stood out like a fire hydrant at a poodle convention. While many brothers and their old ladies, having heard about Ford’s vigil at the hospital, had paid their respects in person, Corinne had stayed away. She’d always been in downtown Flagstaff, shopping. The other old ladies had hung around the germ-riddled hospital hallways getting Ford coffee and snacks he hadn’t eaten.
    Right now Turk, Riker, and their old ladies were down at the hotel suites they’d rented, getting some rest. Tuzigoot, Faux Pas and Duji had been by, but had gone back to Pure and Easy on business. No one had expected Rebekah Quail to die so quickly, if at all. Nobody seemed more relieved than Corinne.
    Ford got into the elevator where three or so people were already standing. He didn’t care what they overheard. “You know you’re going to have to move out of the house. I’ll give you some alimony for a few months, but it’s not going to last forever. Your dad will have to take care of you again.”
    Everyone in the elevator stared at him as though he were speaking in the Crimean Gothic tongue. Ford didn’t give a shit. It wasn’t nearly as callous as it sounded. He wasn’t married to Corinne. Their relationship had been mostly for sex and appearances. Ford was sole owner of the contemporary Southwest McMansion up on Mescal Mountain with views of the red rocks that surrounded P&E, Pure and Easy. Why would he leave, and Corinne stay?
    Corinne was surprisingly easy about it. “I know. Listen, I just want you to know. You’re a really fantastic man. I don’t approve of lots of the things you and your guys do, but that’s not really my business. You’re banging hot as all get-out, I mean you’re just a smoking piece of man candy, Torino.”
    “I get that,” he said tersely, giving an old lady the stink eye.
    “But you know what the breaking point was for me? That whole Tay-Sachs thing you just dropped in my lap. I’m twenty-six, Torino. I need to have children. I can’t have it hanging over my head that one of my kids might wind up a retard in a wheelchair.”
    Ford squeezed his eyes tight with patience. “If it’s any consolation, if you’re not a carrier, which you probably aren’t, our children would not be retards.”
    At least two elevator riders gasped loudly at this.
    “Whatever, Ford. I really can’t take that risk, if you know what I mean. I need ultra-healthy kids who are going to be football stars and homecoming queens. I hope there are no hard feelings between us. I will always think of you fondly. Oh, and can I have that bronze cowboy statue in the front entry hall?”
    Ford had barely been holding it together, and now he exploded. “You can have the fucking Remington statue when I beat an impression of his spurs against your fucking skull, woman!”
    The doors opened, and those inhabitants couldn’t scurry fast enough away from Ford. Not many of them probably heard him add, “My fucking mother just died, you self-centered bitch! I’ve got more important things to worry about.” Ford pressed the END button so violently he nearly broke his thumb.
    He was glaring angrily at the phone when he stepped off the elevator and smashed face-on into someone.
    “Excuse me,” he said automatically, and stepped to one side.
    She stepped to the same side.
    They repeated this dance once more until the woman cried out, “Ford!”
    He finally looked at her, and it took a few