by A. J. Downey
“Come here,” he demanded and wrapped me in his embrace, holding fast, holding tight, and kissing the top of my head, breathless with his own emotions.
“I don’t know what happened,” I said shakily, and he massaged the back of my neck through my curls.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “It just matters you’re safe. That you called, and that I got here and that you’re okay,” he said. We both shuddered at the thought of what could have been.
I stared out the windshield at all my uncles and my dad swarming my car on its side in all their black leather. I blinked at the taillights and realized I’d been pushed all the way around, that I had been facing back the way I’d been coming.
“Do you remember anything about the truck?” he asked me, and I nodded.
“It was a big Chevy Silverado, an old one. Really old, gray with peeling paint.”
“Shit,” he said impressed. “You get a license plate with that?”
“Not the whole thing,” I said. “Just the first letter, an ‘A’ and the last number, an ‘eight,’ I think.”
“Damn, baby. That’s good. That’s real good.” He sent a text and then tossed his phone back up on the dashboard to hold me tight again.
Archer came our direction with my backpack over his shoulder and my gym bag in his opposite hand. He opened up the passenger-side door of the club truck and asked, “You alright?”
“I’m okay, I think I’m okay,” I stammered out, and he nodded.
“Taking these things with us, you ain’t got room. Your dad and the rest of the boys are gathering up your spilled presents. Okay?”
“Okay,” I murmured.
“Thanks, man,” Sage said, and Archer shook his head.
“You don’t thank me for shit like this,” he said tersely. “Ever.” Then he shut the door on us.
That was Archer, though. Some things, when it came to the club, were a given. This, I guess, was one of those things.
I sniffed, my eyes starting to leak again when the guys all turned, shut the doors on my car, and my dad with my purse across his chest and Trigger holding the gift bag with all its small boxes in it around it’s middle, headed this way.
“Come on,” my dad grunted, hoisting himself up next to me. “Let’s go.” He put his arm around me and I cuddled into his side while Sage put the old truck in gear and slowly and carefully turned us around on the road.
“I’m sorry, Daddy.”
“Nothing to be sorry about, baby. Nothing to be sorry about.”
“I can’t believe they just left me,” I said. “They didn’t even get out of their truck. They just left…”
My dad’s arm tightened around me and his mouth set in a grim line. I glanced at Sage and the set of his mouth was equally grim, a muscle in his jaw tightening.
“Don’t you worry none about that, baby. Let’s just get you to your mother.”
My mother was absolutely freaking out when we walked into the club’s general room. She practically leaped out of her chair where Dante, Evy, and a bevy of the other ol’ ladies were trying to comfort her.
“Mom!” I cried, and we latched onto each other desperately, hugging and crying it out.
The rest of the guys came in with my stuff a minute later and Rush called out to Sage, “Where you want this stuff?”
Sage looked at me and I looked at him, giving him a nod, and he jerked his head. “My room.” They followed him, disappearing into the dimly lit hub and turning down his hallway.
“Enough, woman. Jesus, God, Almighty. Let our girl go. She needs to get warm.” My dad took my mom into his arms and she cried into his cut. Dante hugged me next and walked me toward the hub while everyone either watched me or went to my mom.
“You okay?” he asked, and I nodded just a little too fast.
“I’m okay,” I murmured, and he nodded and let me go.
“I got Mom, you know how she gets.”
I nodded.
“Love you, Sis,” he said, and I smiled.
“I love you too, Bro.”
Telling the people you loved that you loved them was important.
I went down Sage’s hall and paused outside his room. The door was cracked and I heard Rush say, “Data’s looking now. With the power out, a lot of computers he would normally go looking in are down.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Dray said. “If I have to, I’ll give Marcy’s boy a call.”
“You think he’d help us out?” Trigger asked.
Archer harrumphed. “Hell yeah. On something like this? No doubt.”
“Archer taking up for a pig?” Rush said with a grin. “You all sure I’m not dead or dreaming.”
I could hear the scowl in Archer’s voice when he said, “That’s not funny.”
I knocked, as much to curb any argument as well as to keep myself out of club business and any trouble.
Sage opened the door and said, “Eedee, baby, you don’t ever have to knock on this door.”
“Glad you did,” Dray said with a half-frown that was ruined by his raised eyebrow. One look at me and he knew I’d heard. I played it cool.
“I didn’t want to interrupt anything,” I said gently. “I just need some dry clothes.”
“Shit, yeah, let’s get you into a hot shower,” Sage said and he came to me, wrapping me in a hug.
The other guys filed out with random looks for both me and Sage, mostly of the variety that they were glad I was okay.
I looked up at Sage once they were gone and said gently, “No matter what happens now, just don’t get caught.”
I had absolutely no love or pity for whoever had been in that truck. The fucking asshole.
He gave me a half-smile, leaned down, and kissed me.
I didn’t need the heat of a shower to warm me up, but considering Sage was joining me? I didn’t want to put any kind of kibosh on the idea.
We gathered fresh clothes, comfortable things like flannel pajamas and stole down the hallway with towels and shower stuff to the bathrooms off the hub. Sage shut and locked the door behind us and turned, edging past me carefully to turn the spigot on the tub to get things going.
The bathrooms were a lot nicer since the club had remodeled them. Clean and new, the pipes all replaced with new so the water pressure, well, we actually had water pressure now. It’d been the big summer project around four years back.
Sage hung up our clean clothes on the hooks set on the walls, and our towels on the bar nearest the tub.
He then set to work stripping me down. I let him, still shaken, and winced when he hissed at my hip and in a few other spots where it was already coming up purple. I guess I had bounced around a little more than I had thought. I knew my hip had checked the center console in my car pretty good. That was the biggest and nastiest looking bruise, and truth be told, I didn’t think it was going to be too bad. I was just pale as a mothersmurfer, so everything showed.
He gently unclipped my hair last. I had a pewter barrette holding half of it back from my face, setting it aside on the sink counter.
“Get under the water, get it to where you like it. I’ll be right in behind you.”
“Okay.”
I turned up the heat and stood under it soaking it in, my feet going to pins and needles, my fingers doing the same as they warmed. Sage got in with me and it was still a little startling, you know, being naked and seeing him naked, too… but it wasn’t uncomfortable. He came to me, hands on my ribs, just above my hips, higher on the one side so as not to touch the blossoming bruise under my skin.
“Kiss me,” he ordered gently, and I turned my face up to his.
He kissed me as though he were a dying man and I were his last breath and I realized, as calm and together as he had sounded on the phone, he wasn’t. He had been well and truly freaking the fuck out on the inside. I never would have guessed in the moment, but now…
“Thank you,” I whispered, and he cradled me against him.
“For what?” he asked.
> “For being strong for me,” I said and felt my lip tremble.
“Don’t mention it,” he said softly. “I could honestly say the same for you. How many times have you been the strong one for me?” he asked. “Even when I pushed you away, even when I didn’t think I needed it or wanted it?”
“A lot, I guess,” I murmured.
He tipped my chin with gentle fingers and I dragged my eyes from his chest to his eyes.
“I’m sorry I didn’t see you, babe. Not right away.”
“It’s okay,” I whispered, and he shook his head.
“It’s not. It’s not, and I promise, I see you now and I’m never taking you for granted again.” I sniffed, both of our eyes misting.
I have never been so loved, or cared for by another person who was not my family in my life… but Sage? Sage took care of me that night. He washed me, he helped me to dress even though I protested. He made sure I ate and drank, and was never far from me with a comfort item. We watched a movie with some of the rest of the club and he cuddled me the entire time, tucking me beneath a warm blanket. When I grew sleepy, he took me to bed, holding me close, smoothing a hand over my hair over and over until I fell asleep.
It was all I had ever wanted, a dream come true. I just hated how scared we both had been to get us here tonight.
22
Sage…
“So, what’s your next move?” Dray asked, giving me a calculated look from where we sat in a circle in the taproom. This was a test, and it was kind of chapping my ass he was treating me like a prospect or a fuckin’ green patch. Still, I took it for granted that this might not be a teachable moment for me, but for Noah, who was graced with attendance on this one. He and Eedee had grown up together, basically the first-born son and daughter of the club.
Slice and I were the oldest, but Eedee and Noah were technically the first generation of core club kids.
“First, we gotta make sure the owner of the truck was the motherfucker driving it. We don’t do collateral damage.”
Dray smiled, pleased, and Noah sat up a little straighter in his seat. Yeah, this was for him, not me.
“Good, you got that, young grasshopper,” Reaver said, grinning at Noah.
“I didn’t think of that,” Noah said and blinked some of his long, dishwater blond hair out of his eyes. The more he’d grown up, the more he looked like his father, I guess. He knew he was Grinder’s kid, but Archer was his dad, through and through.
Archer, to his credit, just grunted and nodded.
“Say the driver and the owner are one and the same, then what?” I asked.
“Surveillance,” Noah said with a shrug. “Find out his patterns, then deliver a punishment that fits the transgression.”
“You’re learning, kid,” Trigger said with pride. Archer couldn’t sponsor Noah. It was in the bylaws, family couldn’t sponsor family, so Trigger was technically his sponsor and it was working out.
“That last bit is up to Sage,” Revelator said, meeting my eyes. “Seeing as it was his woman.”
I gave Rev a crooked grin and said, “I’m more than open for suggestions from you. You are her daddy after all.”
He gave me a malignant grin and said, “Be your daddy too, you ask nice.” He made kissing noises at me and the guys all fell out laughing.
“Better not be cheating on me, you two-bit ho,” Disney said with a grin.
“Aw, jealous? Don’t be, you’ll always be my Puddin’.”
“Alright! Alright!” Dray called, raising his hands up for order through his own laughter.
“Smoke, what say you.”
“I say, I’d love to drop that motherfucker and his truck off the Sandy River Bridge and let his ass die of exposure.”
Glances were traded around the table and a few of the guys looked impressed.
“Well,” Dray said looking to Data, “let’s see what we can’t do to make that happen, shall we?”
“Right, finding out all I can about the owner of that truck. See if we can figure out if it was him behind the wheel.”
“Good deal,” Dray said. “Any other order of business or whatever we have to attend to?”
The meeting wrapped up pretty quickly after that, and I followed Data to his fishbowl.
Christmas itself was right around the fuckin’ corner. Just the end of the week, and if there was a way to get this done before the holiday, I was all for it.
“What have you got?” I asked, and he shook his head.
“Looking through family, looks like this guy is older than dirt. I don’t think he was the driver. Maybe a son or grandson… nope, no kids. But he does have a nephew who has his own truck but that nephew’s son… doesn’t.”
“Winner, winner, chicken dinner?” I asked, as files swept across the computer monitor faster than I could track.
“Mmm, looks like the nephew wrote his kid off. I’m seeing a lot of shit like DUI, substance abuse arrest records. I think Grand Uncle couldn’t do it to him – strong family blood ties and all.”
“We need to find that truck and see who gets in it next,” Archer said from behind us both and I turned. Rush was standing next to him, arms crossed over his chest nodding to himself.
“Let me do that,” Rush said, and I nodded.
“Thanks, man.”
“No problem.”
“You’re family, kid,” Archer said in his gruff way. “Feel like we’ve sucked ass at making you feel that way.”
“We have sucked ass at it,” Rush said dourly.
Archer grunted.
“Guys, it’s cool,” I said and both of them looked at me.
“No, it ain’t,” Archer said simply. “Which is why we’re going with you all the way on this.”
“Merry fuckin’ ho, ho,” Rush said, and I laughed and shook my head.
“Appreciate it,” I said dryly, and I did.
Rush and I sat our asses in one of Point Nowhere’s standby vehicles on the side of the road, just up the street from the registered owner’s place of the truck that’d hit Eedee. We had the old Jeep turned off, freezing our nuts off watching and waiting. The truck was parked out front in plain sight facing us, and after a few hours this shit was getting old.
Thoughts of Eedee, tear-stained and terrified kept me rooted to the spot.
“You know, I’m getting too old for this,” Rush declared with an explosive sigh.
“Stakeout type shit?” I asked, taking a drink of the now ice-cold coffee I’d picked up hot from Eedee’s stand before I’d picked Rush up.
“Yeah, that, and running my woodshop by myself.”
“Thought you had Chandler around helping you out.”
“Yeah, his walking sticks are selling pretty good,” he said with a nod. “Got him hooked up with whatchamacallit, itsy or whatever, online.”
“Yeah?”
“Kid could go to college on bank like that.”
“Yeah? Good for you guys.”
“That’s not the point I’m making, though.”
I looked over at him and he was eying me. “You had the bug pretty good before you took off to the Marine Corps with Slice. Any interest in maybe coming back to it?”
I thought about it. “Be a hell of a lot better than fuckin’ contracting and remodeling rich motherfucker’s houses around here,” I said.
“Less steady in some ways,” Rush said, frowning to himself.
“Not like remodel work is the steadiest there ever was,” I said dryly.
“Split the difference?” he asked, and I tilted my head.
“There’s an idea,” I said. “As long as you’re cool with it.”
“Fuck yeah,” he said. “Gotta get it while the gettin’ is good.”
I nodded.
“Not like I’m hurting for money, yo. I could probably buy a house outright around here if I wanted to at this point. Living at the club is cheap and Slice and I didn’t live extravagantly or nothin’ while we were away – usually in the barracks, on base. We rented a
shithole apartment on the cheap while we were in Chicago.”
“Smart,” Rush said nodding.
“Yeah, well, I learned a lot from Nox. He didn’t think I was listening, but I was,” I said, shifting uncomfortably.
Rush looked at me, met my eyes and nodded.
“He knew you were listening,” he said. “He was proud of you.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that, and Rush didn’t have anything to offer. We sat in a comfortable silence and kept watching for any signs of life out of the mobile home up the street.
“Hey,” Rush said, slapping me in the chest. It was late afternoon, getting on toward evening.
“Oh, now he is one methed-out motherfucker,” I said, getting a look at the dude heading right for the truck. It had some front-end damage, a busted headlight and some of Eedee’s car’s dark blue paint on the fender. This was for sure the dude.
“I think it’s pretty fuckin’ safe to say, this was the dude driving,” Rush said, putting his seatbelt on.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think you’re right.”
“Think he’s looking to score?” Rush asked.
“I think so.”
“Two birds, one stone, maybe. You gotta like that.”
“Here’s to hoping,” I agreed.
We held still and waited for the dude to pass us. He didn’t even look our way.
“Let the games begin,” Rush muttered, and I turned on the old mid-nineties Jeep Cherokee that we were in. The damn thing was barely road sound and had stolen plates, completely untraceable back to the club. Rush and I both had latex gloves on under our winter ones. Insurance against leaving any trace behind.
Rush called Dray from a burner and filled him in. We were to follow, but Dray was on the fence about the potential meth angle.
“If you got an opportunity,” Rush said, “Dray says to take it. He doesn’t want this slippery fuck getting away a second time, and the meth ain’t exactly going to dry up overnight. There’ll be other opportunities to deal with that shit when the weather is warmer.”