All the Sky (Signal Bend Series)

by Fanetti, Susan

  “Good. We can’t sit back and just assume that the men can do it all. We have to claim our place in this world, too. It’s not a world I ever would have thought I’d end up in, but now it’s not one I ever want to leave. Where Show is, I am.”

  Cory understood that. “Yeah. It’s home. More than I’ve ever had before.”

  ~oOo~

  When Shannon left and the house was quiet, Cory realized…that the house was quiet. It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. Had Nolan already gone to bed? She checked his room—not there. If he went on a walkabout, she’d break his other damn leg. She was no longer feeling nearly as mellow about his nightwalking—since the last time he’d done it he’d ended up in a ditch, almost dead.

  She went outside and saw that Havoc’s bike was parked in the drive and the garage lights were on behind the closed garage door. Crossing the yard to the side door, she peeked through the window.

  Havoc and Nolan were in the middle of the room. Havoc was squatting, and Nolan was sitting cross-legged on the floor. They were surrounded by metal and rubber pieces; they appeared to be sorting. Then, off to Havoc’s left, she saw a skeleton—two wheels, a rusty frame, and a battered gas tank.

  A motorcycle. A pile of rusty junk. Either way.

  She opened the door.

  Nolan looked up and grinned. “Look what Havoc gave me, Mom. ’72 Sportster. We’re gonna rebuild it together.”

  Havoc had not told her of this plan. Another major life decision for which she had not been consulted. She sighed and looked down at Havoc, who was watching her over his shoulder.

  “It’ll take us a long time to get it right, working on it when we have time. Years. But when it is, when it’s ready, it’ll be beautiful.”

  She surveyed the scene—from the dopey grins on both their faces to the scattered pieces of rusty danger on the concrete floor. It seemed to her to be an apt metaphor—her son sitting with the best father he’d ever had, cooing over the pieces of a motorcycle that had obviously lived a very hard and dangerous life. The two of them bonding together over making it whole and bright.

  She met Havoc’s eyes. “When he’s ready. Not before.”

  He smiled and nodded. “And it’ll be beautiful.”

  EPILOGUE

  Jesus fuck, the kid could scream. Havoc unwound an arm from Cory and leaned forward over her, swatting at the baby monitor as if it had a snooze button. He only succeeded in knocking it off the nightstand. And then Cory was scooting out from his hold and sitting up.

  He sat up, too. “I’ll get him.” She’d been pretty run down since the baby. The least he could do was bring the kid to her.

  But she turned and rubbed his arm. “No. I’ll feed him in there. You just got to bed a couple of hours ago. Go back to sleep.” She stood, set the monitor back up on the nightstand, and left the room.

  Luke was still screaming like his hair was on fire, and Havoc turned the monitor down to a whisper, then puffed up his pillows and turned onto his back. Cory was right—he should sleep. But his head was turned back on, and there were thoughts demanding to be thought. It had been a long night.

  They’d been running weed now for almost a year, still trapped in bed with the Perros. After the run that had cost them three men, and Len his spleen, things had settled back down into the regular rhythm, at least for the Horde. That debacle had exposed cracks, though, in the cartel machine. Nobody was happy working with the Perros. The Horde had signed on not knowing the true source point. The money was excellent, but the Scorpions, the Brazen Bulls, the Horde, and the Wayfarers, the crew most eastward on the line, all had lost men to the Perros’ jittery trigger fingers and rabid sense of justice. The crews were already—or had once been—allies, before the cartel. Those bonds were beginning to set harder. Sam and Isaac had even come to a steadier, stronger truce. A strong enough alliance of crews against the cartel might succeed in breaking clean.

  If they were all willing to stand up and put everything on the line.

  Alone in his marital bed, listening to the sounds of his wife changing and feeding his infant son, Havoc had doubts. But he couldn’t afford those doubts—just by working for the Perros, whether they had intended to or not, they’d already put everything they had on the line.

  He thought of his sister. Sophie.

  Martin Halyard was in the Perro Blanco inner circle; that much they knew to be true. The only chance Havoc could see to collect on the debt of his sister’s murder came if they were able to bring the Perros down. And the only chance they had of that was if an alliance was forged—and held—of the clubs conscripted into working for them north of the border. That was the Horde’s primary objective these days: forging that alliance, and keeping it off the Perro radar. All of it was risky as shit. Like nothing they’d ever done before. Ever.

  Havoc’s head spun. For his whole life in the club, he’d let other, better, smarter men do the thinking and had simply gone where they’d pointed him, done what was asked of him. Got good at the things they needed him to be good at. But now that he had a family, he was not content to sit back. He was finding himself to be more vocal and assertive at the table, compelled almost against his will to push back and dig deeper. If he was going to risk everything, then he had to know every detail of that risk.

  The sounds of Cory’s sweet alto rose up faintly from the baby monitor, and Havoc reached over and turned the volume back up. He loved to hear her sing to their boy. The sound soothed him almost as much as it soothed Luke. He needed soothing.

  He’d spent most of the night in county lockup, a place he hadn’t seen in all the years that Keith Tyler had been Sheriff. They’d been pulled over on their way back in after their latest run—which made no fucking sense, considering that after the run, they were clean, law abiding citizens with only registered, permitted weapons on board. They’d taken to dumping their unregistered metal after each drop—expensive and a pain in the ass, but safer.

  Still, they’d been hauled in and held for hours without charges or access to phone calls or lawyers. And then released. Just like that.

  Leon Seaver had been in the job for months. Until now, he’d poked them a few times, leaning hardest on Len, but he hadn’t caused them serious trouble. Nothing that had gotten in their way. Now, though, he looked to be staking his claim. Dom had yet to find anything strong enough to use to turn him to their side. There were a couple of cracks in his veneer of legal righteousness, but nothing they could wedge themselves into. Yet.

  The baby monitor had gone silent, and Havoc waited for Cory to come back. He wouldn’t be able to sleep until she was with him. His head would calm when he was holding her. But minutes passed, and she didn’t come back. Finally, he got out of bed and yanked his jeans on, then went out to find his woman.

  She was in Luke’s room, sitting in the big, upholstered rocker, sound asleep, her head tipped back, and her mouth open a little. Luke was lying on her chest, his head bouncing as he rubbed his little face on his hands. Havoc went over and eased his son from Cory’s hold. She sighed but didn’t wake.

  He kissed his son’s head. “Hey, Luke. Close those eyes, little bro. Let your folks get some sleep.” He’d given up the ‘Loki,’ at least for now. It upset Cory—a lot, in fact; she’d been extra emotional since he’d been born—to think that he was pushing their boy in any particular direction in life. He got that, he did. So he called him Luke. But he’d be lying if he said that, even now, when things in the club were often dangerous and might be more, he didn’t harbor a dream of putting leather on his sons’ backs. Both of them. Nolan and Lucas. His sons.

  He’d been so afraid he wouldn’t be able to find in himself the love of a father, that he’d be hard and cold and brutal. That he’d be his father. But now he knew for a certainty that that would never be true. He wasn’t sure what kind of father he’d be, or how badly he would screw up, but the love he felt was not something he’d ever be able to hold back. When his boy, still slimy and covered with white goop, had opened those
dark, dark eyes and stared hard at him, Havoc had known the kind of man he was.

  A man for whom his love for his family was everything.

  The man he’d once been had not wanted any of this—no woman, no children, no family but the Horde. The profound changes he’d undergone made no sense or rhyme or reason. But Cory had changed everything. Loving her had changed everything. She had healed scars he’d forgotten about, whose presence had shaped him in ways he had not even been aware of before her. He’d thought he’d been happy. He’d been wrong. Now, even as the club contended with another difficult time, another great enemy, Havoc’s life was brighter and bigger and freer than he’d ever thought it could be, like a long, open road canopied by an infinite sky.

  He would not fail her. He would not fail their family.

  When Luke settled on his shoulder and became heavy, Havoc laid him in his crib and watched until sleep took full hold. Then he turned and leaned over his sleeping wife.

  “Cory,” he whispered. “Wake up, honey.”

  Her eyes fluttered open. “He okay?”

  “He’s great. Zonked out. Put your arms around me.”

  She did, and he lifted her from the chair. She wrapped her legs around him, too, and he carried his wife back to their bed.

  THE END

  ~oOo~

  COMING SOON:

  SHOW THE FIRE

  The Signal Bend Series

  Book Six

  The Night Horde MC faces an enemy more ruthless than any they’ve known.

  Len, wounded and weary, seeks solace with an old friend.

  Release date: 24 May 2014