~oOo~
By the time he felt like he had his head under control, his hand was a bloody mess—he’d forgotten that he’d cut it on the horse trailer. It seemed like that had happened days ago, not hours. Cleaning up the bag and the mats and then re-bandaging his hand went some way toward finishing the job of getting him calm. But his head was still full of ragged edges. So he did what he did when he needed something he couldn’t have. He went out to the bays and uncovered Bart’s ’67 shovelhead.
It was a beauty, white under black, gleaming like it was straight off the showroom floor. Too pretty to ride regularly, it spent most of its time stored here in the bay. All of its time, since Bart had gone to California. The last time it had seen the road had been the last day he was in Signal Bend.
They’d built it together, starting with a box of old bones. Bart was—what? Sixteen, seventeen?—when they started. Fuck, that was fifteen years ago. Nolan was just a baby.
And Havoc was getting fucking old.
He pulled out his personal cell and called Bart’s personal. It rang several times, and Havoc was about to hang up rather than leave a voice mail, when Bart’s groggy voice answered. He’d obviously been deeply asleep.
“You okay, Hav?”
“Yeah. Just needed to talk.”
“What? You sure you’re okay?” Bart’s voice was clearer, but quiet, like he was lying in bed next to his sleeping wife—which he most likely was.
“Yeah, just…yeah. Is it wack to want to be friends with a kid?”
“What are you talking about, brother?”
“There’s this kid, he’s fifteen. No dad around. I like talking to him. It’s stupid, but he reminds me of you, I guess.”
“I don’t think it’s wack. There’s a whole, like, charity based on it—Big Brothers?”
“Yeah, I know that one. I guess I’m not role model material.”
With a quiet chuckle, Bart offered, “Depends on who’s judging.”
“His ma. She hates me.”
“Since when do you care what a chick thinks?”
Havoc thought about that. Since never. “I don’t know.”
“You sound weird, my brother. What’s going on? You got something for the kid’s mom?”
“No! Fuck!”
Bart laughed. “Okay, man. Okay.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
When Nolan got up, hung over and pale, and still very much not talking to her, Cory tried to offer him breakfast. He just grabbed a banana from the tiny counter, said “I’m going to do the cleanup,” and left. She let him. There was no point in talking to him until he’d gotten his own head clear, and she couldn’t imagine what trouble he could get into at ten o’clock in the morning.
And his clubhouse escapade last night wasn’t the only big thing she had to worry about this morning. She was, once again, out of work—the very day she’d finally put together enough money to rent a place to live. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
But how could she still work there after last night? Even setting aside what Havoc had done—getting Nolan totally, out of his mind, wasted, despite knowing that she didn’t want him there—she’d gone completely mental. There was no coming back from that. There just wasn’t. Especially since she’d quit, and in spectacular fashion.
She’d heard Nolan leave the RV. She hadn’t been surprised. He was angry, and he walked when he was angry. But then he was gone for a long time, and a thought pushed in around the edges of her head. They were only a couple of miles from the clubhouse. Nolan wouldn’t…would he?
Once the thought was there, it wouldn’t leave her. All she could see was her little boy in that place, alone, because she’d refused to go with him. She imagine all sorts of wild stuff. She’d paced the tiny living space for a while, trying to trust her kid, but finally, she hadn’t been able to stand it anymore. She’d left a note, in case he really was just out walking and came home while she was gone, then she’d grabbed her keys and driven to the clubhouse.
It had been as bad as she imagined—the room was dark and reeked of weed and cigars. People were passed out or in writhing, naked snarls. A couple of guys were playing a video game right in the middle of it, but she could tell neither was Nolan. She’d stood there, unnoticed, scanning the room, seeing neither her kid nor Havoc.
Just as she’d been about to decide that he hadn’t come to the clubhouse and was out walking—which still worried her, but in a different way—Havoc had turned a corner and stood there, holding her clearly fucked-up kid by the scruff of his neck.
Her fifteen-year-old son wasted, in the middle of a biker orgy? Cory couldn’t say it was her worst parenting nightmare—that one had to do with the side of a milk carton—but it was high on the list. Jesus. If Lindsay ever got wind of it, who knew what she’d do.
She’d lost her mind. Thinking about it, she rubbed her wrist, bruised from Havoc’s restraining grip. And now she was out of work again. That was where she needed to focus this morning. Figuring out a new job. Bonnie was being great and seemed to like having them in her back yard, but she couldn’t lean so hard on a friend forever.
She had just gotten dressed, preparing to take her little netbook to the town library for the wifi, so she could do some job hunting, when she heard a motorcycle on the road. It got loud, and then it stopped. From behind Bonnie’s trailer, she couldn’t see who it was or tell where it stopped, but she had a bad feeling, and she looked out the window over the banquette.
In a couple of minutes, Havoc came around from Bonnie’s driveway, headed right for the RV.
Fuck! She backed away from the window, until she was almost in the bedroom. He knocked, three sharp raps. She stayed where she was. He knocked again, and then put his face up to the screen, peering in.
“I know you’re in there—I pulled up next to your truck.”
Again, fuck.
She went to the door. “What do you want?”
Without invitation, he opened the door and stepped up, forcing her to step back as he came into the RV. She really wished she’d locked that fucker.
“You’re not quitting. And you are listening.”
Part of her felt like she should be relieved, but she wasn’t. She felt threatened and angry. He was such a bully. “Fuck you. Get out.”
Standing at the top of the steps that led down to the door, he crossed his arms over his broad chest. He had a bandage over the knuckles of one hand. “You need the goddamn job, and I am fucking sick and tired of trying to find good people to work that goddamn place. You’re not quitting. You’re working tonight. So just get off that.”
“What do you care what I need? And who are you to say if I quit or not? I already did!”
“Well, I don’t accept your motherfucking resignation! You quit under false pretenses!”
He’d stepped closer, and she backed off. “What does that even mean?”
He growled and slammed his fist down on the little counter. “You’re pissed at me for no good reason! Nolan went there last night on his own. As soon as I saw him, I got him out of there.”
“No, you didn’t—he wasn’t ‘out of there’ when I got there. You were bringing him from way in the back!”
With his head down, as if he were praying for patience, he gritted, “Fuck’s sake, woman! Are you just trying to piss me off? I was helping him. He had to puke.”
“BECAUSE HE WAS DRUNK!” She had a vague sense of how completely irrational she was being, but she couldn’t rein it in. She was shaking with anger and anxiety. With another step backwards—she was almost to the bedroom—she took a breath and tried for a steady voice. “Just—just get out. Get out. Stay away from us.”
He took another step toward her, then set his frame, his arms crossed, his legs widening to fill the space between the cabinets and the nearest of the banquette’s bench seats.
“No.”
Just that one word, like he didn’t need more than that. God, she was so pissed. She knew it was stupid. He was a big, violent biker who
could tear her into pieces, but that wafting sense of reason was no match for the undertow of her churning emotions, and she ran at him, barreling into him as if she could push him bodily out of the RV. “GET THE FUCK OUT!”
He barely budged. So she tried again, making rabid grunts as she tried to move him, and then his hands were around her arms, just above her elbows, and he was dragging her forward and up until she was so tight against his chest she was sure she could feel his heart beating.
His eyes narrow and his lips curled with menace, he leaned down until they were almost nose to nose and snarled, “You are way over your stupid chick head.”
And then he kissed her, his mouth slamming over hers and his tongue instantly, deeply in her gasping mouth.
There wasn’t anything he could have done that would have shocked her more. Stunned into inertia, she didn’t pull away immediately. He seemed to take that as acquiescence or maybe even welcome, and he gentled a little, one big, hard hand moving up to cup her jaw. As his force eased, she felt a familiar clutch and tingle between her legs and the sudden impulse to draw him closer.
That’s when she pushed him off. And this time, he backed off immediately.
“What the fuck was that?” She was breathing hard.
So was he. “I—I don’t know. Fuck!”
“You need to go. I mean it, Havoc. I need you out of here.”
He stared at her, as if his dark eyes could bore into her head. “Yeah. But you’re on the bar tonight. Five sharp. Don’t make me come and drag you there, because I fucking will.”
With that, he turned and left the RV, slamming the door as he went.
Cory dropped into the banquette, her head spinning.
~oOo~
Relieved of the need to find a job right that very day, but still too unsure of its permanence to bother looking for a place to live—as she’d intended, back in the dark ages of the day before, when she’d momentarily thought their biggest troubles were behind them—Cory spent the hours Nolan was gone sitting at the banquette with her jewelry supplies. By the time he climbed into the RV, well into the afternoon, she’d made quite a pile of simple, inexpensive earrings and bracelets. She had no idea what she’d do with them all, but making them had given her mind some focus and peace.
And she needed it. Every time her whirling mind landed on that kiss—and it wanted to land there repeatedly—her emotions exploded into a shower of manic thoughts, feelings, images. So she focused on her beading and tried very hard not to think of the feel of his beard on her lips and his hand on her face.
When Nolan came in, he stood in front of the settee, looking like he had something to say. She set down her tools and met his eyes, waiting.
“I’m sorry. I fucked up.”
“Yeah, you did. But I’m sorry, too. We didn’t communicate so well yesterday.”
“Nope.”
“You feeling okay?”
His smile was small and rueful. “Now, yeah. If that’s what being hung over is like, why do people get drunk?”
She laughed. “I guess you don’t remember the good part, then.”
He shook his head. “Just talking to a couple of Horde when I got there. They were pretty close to my age, I thought. And then Havoc was waiting for me at the bathroom. And you were there. You were mad. And then I woke up here with my brain in my throat.”
He sat down on the settee, and Cory slid out of the banquette to join him. “Do you understand why I don’t want you to go there?”
For several seconds, he stared at the floor without answering, but Cory could sense him formulating a response. One of the reasons she felt she could trust him, even now, was that he was a preternaturally mature kid. He was thoughtful. And, with her, he was open. If she hadn’t come down so hard and fast at the fair, they’d have talked then, and the whole weird night could have been averted. She was as much to blame as anyone.
He looked back up and met her eyes. “I do. There was some stuff I saw when I got there that was…kinda embarrassing to see. I don’t want to be at a party like that again. What I remember is pretty gross.”
“Good.” She sighed in relief, but she could tell he wasn’t finished.
“But, Mom, I don’t get what your problem is with Hav.”
“He lives there, kiddo. All that embarrassing, gross stuff? That’s his scene. He’s not a good role model. He’s rude, he treats women like crap, he fights, and who knows what else. He’s not a good guy.”
“Isn’t that all surface stuff, though?”
“No—the way he treats people, the things he does, that all tells you about who he is.”
“Okay, well. He treats me good. He talks to me like he’s interested in what I have to say. He likes a lot of things I like. You’re the only other person in my whole life like that. I know it sounds stupid, because we’ve only been here a month.” He grinned. “And also because he’s totally old, but I think he’s my best friend.”
“Nolan, that’s not—”
“If Dad ever wants to see me again, would you let him?”
“Yeah, kiddo. Of course. I won’t keep your dad from you. You know that.”
“Do you think he’s a good role model?”
She had no honest way of answering that question that didn’t break her rule of never maligning Matt to his son.
He filled in the silence she’d left. “I know why you made him leave. The real reason.”
“What? How?”
“Because I’m not stupid. Or deaf—Aunt Linz and Uncle Alex talked about it all the time.”
Jesus, she was beginning to dislike her sister strenuously. “Nolan, it’s different with your dad.”
“Why? Because of DNA? He doesn’t like anything I like. He doesn’t even care about me anymore. He fucked around on you and made you sick. Why is he good enough, but Hav isn’t? Because he smiles more?”
Okay, her kid was too damn mature, too insightful. She felt absolutely no better about Havoc being in Nolan’s life—since that kiss, she felt even worse about all of it—but she was out of argument. Nolan was right. Matt was a terrible role model. He was a terrible father. He’d been a terrible husband.
She’d spent so much time trying not to let hate in her heart, trying to keep any hostility away from Nolan, that she’d let the edges wear off the truth.
But that didn’t make Havoc a good influence for her kid. He was a brutal, coarse, uneducated biker. Nolan was her quiet, sensitive boy, already struggling with a lot of anger about his life. It was one thing to let them talk at the bar while she worked. It was another thing to let them spend time together without her—especially at that damn clubhouse. And that was a best-case scenario, assuming that he didn’t get bored hanging around a kid so much and then just bail on him.
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Nolan. You’re right—he’s good to you. But that scares me more. I don’t want his kind of life for you.”
“Isn’t that my choice? And I don’t even know what kind of life I want.”
“Kiddo, it’s more than that. What if…what if he stops wanting to hang out?”
He shrugged. “That would suck. But I know what that’s like. I’d deal.”
She had her doubts about that, but now she really was out of argument. “Okay. No parties, though. Our negotiations end there.”
“Cool. I can live with that.” He turned a cheeky grin on her, his blue eyes sparkling. “For now. Maybe some day that stuff won’t be so gross, though.”
She swatted his arm. “Smartass.”
~oOo~
The bar was fine that night. A quiet, Sunday clientele, never very full. Nolan, worn out from his night of debauchery and his day of hangover, stayed home. For most of the night it was just her and Nate, one of the cooks, and no more than six or so customers at any given time. They closed at eleven on Sundays, and the place was empty before ten-thirty. When Havoc came in just before eleven, Nate had clocked out and Cory had finished all of her closing tasks except running the tape. She w
as glad; she didn’t want to be alone with Havoc for long tonight.
She was just finishing polishing the last table when he came in, so she wasn’t behind the bar. He came in and walked straight to the office, without acknowledging her in any way. Frankly, it was a relief.
As soon as the clock hit eleven, she locked the door, turned off the sign, and pulled the shade. Then she ran the tape and pulled the till. Okay, hard part next. She took a steeling breath and went into the office.
He wasn’t behind the desk, where she’d expected—hoped—he’d be. Instead, he was just coming out of the little staff bathroom, and they were face to face, only about five or six feet and the till in her hands between them. They stared at each other.
Finally, he spoke first. “You gonna put that down?”
“Um…oh! Yeah.” She took a step and set the till on the desk. When she turned back, he’d taken a step closer. She could smell the soap from his just-washed hands.
He really was…she didn’t know what the right word was. Not handsome; to her, that word spoke of a precision of style and appearance that Havoc didn’t have. He was too rough and coarse for a word like handsome. But he was hot, and he appealed to her at a primitive level she didn’t quite understand—even more so since this morning. His neck was thick and his chest and shoulders broad. His arms were corded and bulging with muscle, even at rest, and his hands were large and, she now knew, his palms were tough and calloused. His head was shaved, his beard thick and dark. His eyes nearly black eyes peered at her with such intensity now that she couldn’t help but swallow and take a step back.
He matched it with a step of his own, forward.
She needed to redirect her own ideas about what was happening, so she focused on Nolan. “Um…I talked to Nolan. He likes you, and he needs somebody to hang with who isn’t me. So I’m not going to get in the way of him hanging out with you, if that’s what he wants. Is that what you want?”
He blinked. “What? Yeah, yeah. He’s a good kid.”
That answer didn’t satisfy her. “He is. I don’t want him hurt. He’s had enough to deal with.”
All the Sky (Signal Bend Series) Page 9