Mercy’s brow furrowed, which caused her to wince. Her hand flew to the side of her head and her fingers probed beneath her hair. Her gaze shot back to Larry. “You! You brought a gun into a preschool, and you hit me with it!”
When the cops arrived, I handed over Larry’s gun and Mercy gave them her statement before they took Larry and Sheila away. By the time we got the school locked up, it was almost two p.m. and six bikers and a couple of women had shown up. They’d stopped in long enough to check out the scene and tell Mercy they were heading over to set up. To set up what, I had no idea.
“We should take you to urgent care and get you checked out,” I told Mercy, not for the first time.
“We can’t.” Mercy adjusted the bag of frozen peas she was holding on her head. “We have something a lot more important to do this afternoon. Besides, you already checked me out, and I trust you.”
I wished she wouldn’t say shit like that. Knowing she trusted me made me want to take care of her all that much more. “I’m not a doctor and I don’t have any equipment here to give you a thorough evaluation.”
“I’m fine, Landon,” she assured me. “My head hurts and I have quite the souvenir forming on the side of my head, but the majority of the damage is to my pride. I should have dodged or jumped back or something. I wasn’t expecting him to come at me that quickly. But I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“Well, you’re not going home alone,” I replied.
“You’re right. I’m not going home at all. At least, not yet. Come on you two, or we’ll miss it.” She tossed the bag of frozen peas in the trash and took off.
I looked at mom and asked, “Do you know what’s going on?”
“No. You sure she’s okay?”
“Her memory’s intact, her speech isn’t slurred, she said there’s no ringing in her ears. She said she’s a little nauseous and has a headache… she probably has a low-grade concussion. I’d feel a lot better about it if we could get her to a doctor,” I replied.
But, since Mercy clearly wasn’t going to agree to a doctor appointment, we followed her to the townhouse complex that bordered the school. Families were pouring out of their units and meeting in the center, under some sort of a gazebo. There, we found a black man in a Santa suit, helping a bunch of bikers give out gifts to children while a few women handed out food boxes.
“What’s all this?” Mom asked Mercy when we finally caught up.
“The help we’ve needed,” Mercy said, her smile beaming.
One of the bikers approached her, holding out his hand. “Good to see you again, Mercy. Is everything okay with the cops?” he asked.
“That man you and Blade helped me out with on Friday showed up again, but it’s all handled now.” Mercy looked past him to the rest of the group. “I can’t believe you pulled this off. You guys even put together food boxes. This is so great.”
The biker glanced at me.
“Oh, sorry,” Mercy said. “I’m a little out of it right now. Let me introduce you. Landon, this is Link, the president of the Dead Presidents Motorcycle Club. Link, you met Beth in my office. Landon is her son.”
“Right, the 68Whiskey.”
Mercy arched an eyebrow. “The what?”
“Combat medic,” Link replied, holding out his hand to me. “Good to meet you, man. You home on leave?”
Even without Link spitting out my job code, I would have known he was former military. I could see it in the way he held himself and the way he seemed to watch everything and everyone in the area at once. I shook his hand. “Yessir.”
“Served in the Army myself, tenth Special Forces Group. Same with Havoc.” He pointed at the man in the red suit. “Er… Santa.”
“Santa’s a nice touch,” Mercy said, smiling at the dark man in the red suit. “I’m surprised you got anyone to dress up with such late notice.”
“Are you kidding me?” Link asked. “They all wanted to be Santa. They arm wrestled for it.”
Mercy laughed. “A bunch of bikers arm wrestling for the right to dress up as Santa. That has to be one of the best things I’ve ever heard.”
Link nodded. “They’re good guys. A little rough around the edges, but they’ll do anything for kids. Don’t let the rough exteriors and tats fool you, they’re a bunch of softies.” Link turned his attention back to me. “How long are you in town for?”
“I fly out the last day of January.”
“Well, here, let me give you my card.” Link pulled out his wallet and offered me his business card. It had the same logo that I could see on the backs of the vests of the men behind him: Abe Lincoln’s skull with a bullet hole through his top hat. “We’re all vets, and we’re always looking for brothers to join. Can’t tell you how valuable it would be to have a 68W in the fold. You should give me a call when you get out of the service. We’ll have a beer and talk about the club.”
I hadn’t given much thought to ever getting out of the service, but now that Mom and I reconnected, the idea of coming home for good no longer made me cringe. “I’ll do that,” I said.
“I should get back to it.” Link gestured at the activity behind him. “Can’t let them have all the fun.”
He went back to work, and Mercy, Mom, and I lingered, watching several families brought to tears by the generosity of the bikers. It didn’t take long for all the gifts and food boxes to be handed out. After shaking hands with the rest of the bikers and their women, we began our walk home.
“How are you feeling?” I asked Mercy.
“Amazing. I still can’t believe they did that.”
“I meant your head.” Actually, I’d meant a lot more than that. No matter how hard she was trying to play it off as nothing, she’d been attacked in a place she perceived as safe. There was no way in hell she was okay.
“It hurts, but I’ll live.”
Professionally, I’d agree. I’d been watching her for signs that her symptoms were changing, but so far she seemed in the clear. Still, head wounds were tricky, and I worried about her not taking it seriously enough. “You sure I can’t talk you into going to the doctor?”
“Yes. I’m fine, but thank you.”
“You’re not going home alone.”
“Landon, I—”
“Why don’t you let Landon come over for a while and keep an eye on you,” Mom suggested. “We’d both feel much better if you weren’t alone.”
“But you haven’t seen him all day,” Mercy replied. “He should be spending time with you.”
“I’ll be baking pies and preparing the food for tomorrow, so I won’t be much company for him. Landon, what are you looking for?”
The question surprised me, because I hadn’t consciously been looking for anything. Subconsciously… that was a different story. Seeing Larry draw his gun in the preschool was fucking with my mind. Memories of combat zones—some with children—kept playing through my mind. I’d searched through rubble more than once, looking for anyone, any age, with a pulse.
And Larry had brought a gun into a preschool.
On US soil, we shouldn’t have to deal with this shit, but here we were. I thought about Randy and Sammy, Mom and Mercy, that little red-headed girl who jumped into her dad’s arms and cheered that Santa was coming, forcing myself to face the reality that any of them could have been killed today.
It made me desperate to protect them all, which was why I’d been unintentionally scanning the sides of the road the entire walk home.
I was watching for IEDs.
In Washington state.
And I wasn’t about to admit that shit to my mom or Mercy. No sense in letting them see my crazy and making them worry. “Found a needle on the side of the road during my run. Just watching for more. You two need to be careful on this walk. Who knows what kind of shit you’ll find in this neighborhood.”
Mom didn’t look like she bought it, but she didn’t question me, either. We stopped by the house to drop her off, and I made the excuse that I had to go to the
bathroom so I could go in and check the place for intruders. When I was sure the house was clear, we said goodbye to Mom, and I followed Mercy home. She unlocked her door and pushed it open, and when I moved to follow her in, she didn’t slam the door in my face. Either she was beginning to trust me, or she was more worried about her head injury than she let on. Deciding either reason would suffice, I closed the door behind me and took in her apartment.
The space was small but cozy and warm. Mercy shed her coat and shoes, putting both in the entryway closet before heading to the sofa where she set her laptop bag down, so it was leaning against the coffee table.
I wanted to search her rooms to make sure we were alone, but knew that kind of behavior would raise all sorts of red flags. I didn’t need her wondering whether or not I was mentally stable.
“Come in and have a seat,” she said, patting the cushion beside her as she picked up the remote.
I was still looking around, forcing myself to see the décor, and not the possible hiding spots. “Nice place. I like what you’ve done with it.”
“Thanks.” She turned on the television. “I need to unwind and be distracted for a while, and then I’ll make us some dinner. How do you feel about romantic comedies?”
Probably the same way every man felt about romantic comedies: they were a means to getting laid, basically a gateway to the panties, and men who watched them for any other reasons were pussies. Mercy was injured, and I had no intentions of getting in her panties until she was better, but she’d been through a lot and if a manhood-slaying movie would distract her from her shitty day, I’d bite that bullet.
If I had to. “You know, you’re not really supposed to watch television when you have a concussion.”
“I’m aware of that, but I have a rental that expires tonight, and I’m going to watch it.”
I didn’t miss the fact she hadn’t phrased it as a question, leaving no room for discussion. There was something to be said for picking your battles, and I could already see this one wasn’t worth fighting. Besides, it was her house and she was a grown ass adult. “Fine. I’ll watch a chick flick with you if you let me order dinner. You should relax tonight. You don’t need to be cooking anything.”
“Are you always this bossy?” she asked.
“No. You bring out my bossy side.” And my protective side. “Also, I want a volunteer packet.”
She turned, watching me as I sat down. “Why?”
Knowing I needed to tread softly, I thought about all the shit I’d gone through today and tried to put it into words that wouldn’t sound crazy. “My job… what I do in the Army… is to protect and heal. We protect our own. We anticipate and watch for threats, and we keep our brothers and sisters safe. Bold Beginnings Preschool needs protection.”
She started to argue, but I held up a hand.
“Not for you, necessarily. But for kids like Randy and Sammy. That innocence, that purity, it needs to be protected. Let me protect them, Mercy. Let me protect all of you.”
She studied me for what seemed like forever before finally nodding and reaching for her laptop bag. “All right. Let’s get you a volunteer application.”
Chapter 10
Mercy
“Just so we’re clear, you’re volunteering so you can protect the children, not me,” I said, eyeballing the paperwork Landon was filling out. “You said you want to protect all of us, but you’re really going to be there for the children.”
“I think I can manage to watch over you, Mom, the teachers, and the kids.”
“Right, but keeping the children safe is the priority.”
“It’s a preschool, Mercy, how many threats do you think it’s going to face?”
His questions provoked all sorts of thoughts that made me uneasy.
“What?” he asked, no doubt reading my expression. “What’s going on in that mind of yours?”
That was the million-dollar question. “I—” Unexpected tears stung the back of my eyes and I tried to blink them away, turning back toward the television.
Landon didn’t miss a beat. He scooped up the remote and paused the movie. “Talk to me, Mercy.”
I took a deep, steadying breath, trying to get my thoughts together enough to voice them. “Up until today, an outbreak of chickenpox or a nasty virus epidemic was my biggest fear for the school. I know we live in a rough neighborhood and some of the parents aren’t exactly upstanding citizens, but I never expected anyone to bring a gun into a preschool. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to call CPS and have a child taken away, but I’ve never had to deal with parents acting so rashly. The board is going to flip out when I make my report to them.”
“How are you doing with it all?” he asked. “You’ve talked about the kids and the board, but how are you holding up?”
“Holding up?” I snorted. “I’m trying not to think about it. Having the Dead Presidents there giving away presents was a great after-the-fact distraction. Got my mind off it for a while.”
“And now?” he prodded.
Still staring at the paused screen, I asked, “Can we just watch the movie? Maybe talk about this later? Or never?”
“No.”
Turning to gape at him, I asked, “What do you mean, ‘No’?”
“Exactly what I said. You are a strong, independent woman, and I don’t think you should let this shit turn you into a pussy.”
I blinked, trying to let that set in. “Just when I start to think you’re a pretty cool guy, you find a way to remind me that you’re really an asshole.”
He smirked. “Yep. A wise asshole who knows you shouldn’t let this shit stew unless you want to end up just like me.”
He had a point.
“Talking about it will help, Mercy.”
“He had a gun, Landon. In the preschool.” The tears were trying to come back. I took another deep breath and pushed through them. “I knew he was reaching for something, but when I saw the pistol, I just let him have it. I was so scared he was going to hurt someone.” My mind kept serving up the memory of Larry, his beady little eyes wild as he brought the gun around and aimed it at me.
He’d aimed it at me.
Yes, I was afraid for my employees, but I was also afraid for myself.
“I thought I was going to die,” I finally admitted.
“And how did you feel about it?” he asked.
I got the feeling someone else had asked him these same questions. “Scared. Confused. Unprepared.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Unprepared?”
“Yes. There’s a lot more I want to do before I die.”
He leaned closer, giving me his undivided attention. “Like what?”
“Bold Beginnings is a pilot program. We’re experimenting and finding what works and doesn’t work so we can build more of them in different cities. If we succeed, we can change more than the High Point Neighborhood of Seattle. We can help kids across the country.”
“And what about you, personally?” he asked. “What do you want?”
I thought about it for a moment. I had all sorts of wants and desires for my personal life, but none that I’d ever really voiced. Being in the relative safety of my apartment with Landon after a near-death experience made me want to talk about them. “Same thing most women my age want.” I shrugged. “To fall in love. Maybe even start a family. See if I can’t do a better job than my parents did.”
He grabbed my hand and tugged it onto his lap, running his thumb over the back of it before meeting my gaze. “We’ll make the school safer, Mercy.”
“How? We already have bullet proof security doors that Larry bullied his way through. I’m not going to turn it into Fort Knox, and I won’t let fear of repercussions stop me from making necessary decisions like calling CPS,” I replied.
“I don’t expect you to. But I do expect you to let me help you. Security isn’t my field of expertise, but I’m no slouch. And I think Link and his buddies might have some good ideas. They look like a tough bunch. We
’ll fix this. But I have to know something.” He tucked a stray hair behind my ear before hooking his finger under my chin. His eyes were heavy with concern as he studied me. “Do you always attack unruly parents with pepper spray?”
Humor twinkled in his eyes, obliterating the fear and tension I’d been feeling since the attack.
“I try not to make a habit of it,” I replied. “But when the situation calls for it, then hell yeah.”
He smiled, shaking his head at my fake badassery. “How’s your head feeling, Mercy, Pepper Spray Ninja?”
“If I was a real ninja, I would have anticipated Larry’s flying pistol of death move and gotten out of the way in time.” I gingerly touched the goose egg on the side of my head. “It’s sore, but nothing I can’t handle. I do feel like I should get some sort of badge of honor for being pistol whipped, though. Do they have anything like that in the military?”
“I think that goose egg is the best you can hope for. I’m glad you’re okay, but I’ll feel a hell of a lot better after that asshole has been tried and locked up for a while. I can’t explain how it felt to see you lying on the floor like that. Scared the shit out of me.”
His admission was far too intense for someone I’d only known for three days and kissed once. I’d made it clear I didn’t do casual sex, so he shouldn’t be hitting on me, but the concern in Landon’s eyes was anything but casual.
“I didn’t expect Larry to freak out like that. It was like he was having a seizure or something. And he was being such a baby about it; pepper spray hurts, but not that bad.”
My gaze drifted back to the television. Something had shifted between me and Landon, and it was making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. He still had a hold of my hand, and every time his thumb passed over my skin, my stomach did a somersault. He’d ordered Chinese takeout, but the more time I spent with him, the more certain I was that I wouldn’t be able to eat when it arrived.
Rescuing Mercy (Special Forces: Operation Alpha): A Dead Presidents MC Spinoff Page 10