“Hello?”
“Hey, Roadkill, it’s—”
“Topaz!” Roadkill answered. “Where the hell are you?”
“We are in the little town, St. Xavier, Hack knows the place. We’ve found a harbor,” she turned away, even using the code word for hide out she needed to stress the urgency without triggering the waitress. “Ran out of gas and you know I have that shift in a few hours, was trying to be there on time, but we forgot to fill up.”
“We? Wait, is Onyx with you? What the hell happened?” Roadkill remained calm on the phone.
Topaz appreciated it, as her nerves were shot and needed the anchor Roadkill provided. “Yes he is. You know how I pretend to know all the backroads.” She smiled at the waitress. “We’ll be waiting. There’s a small café in the middle of town, we’ll stay close.”
The waitress eyed Onyx as she poured the coffee.
With all the damage to his head, Topaz couldn’t help placing her hand on his cheek where his eye was swollen and he wrapped his arm around her. On the phone, she could hear Roadkill talking to someone, but the words were muffled.
“Okay, I checked with Hack, he said Freaky and Mountain are on another run. They’re out in your direction. I’ll call them.” Roadkill disconnected.
Topaz looked down at the phone and knew they were within a few hours of being rescued and it felt good. She still worried that they would be found by ACT UP. She turned to Onyx, “Let’s go outside.” Passing the phone back to the waitress, she smiled and said, “Thank you.”
“Are you guys hungry?” The waitress smiled softly. “I can offer you breakfast.”
“Uh, no. We’re fine.” Topaz lied as her stomach grumbled in protest.
“It’s on the house,” the waitress offered.
A chill ran down Topaz’s spine as she immediately became suspicious. Why was this waitress being so nice to her? Fear of putting her trust in anyone outside of the Steels right now, had her paranoid. The more she thought about Glen and Stimpy she knew she served one of them at least a beer. Never seeing the danger. “Really, we’re okay. We’ll just wait for our friends.” Topaz turned to him and nodded. “Thanks again for the phone.”
He clutched her upper arm and halted her progress toward the door. “Maybe we should take her up on her offer.”
“Why is she being so nice to us?”
“I think she realizes we’re in trouble. Let’s ask her.” Onyx turned around.
The hard limp when he stepped made Topaz’s heart clench as he returned to the counter.
“Why are you offering us food?” Onyx asked and leaned on the counter.
“Your jacket,” the waitress said. “You’re a Steel right?”
“Yes ma’am,” he replied, straightening his shoulders a bit.
“They helped out my sister, saved her life,” the waitress said leaning in a bit close, then glancing toward the couple of other patrons. “I just wanted to return the favor.”
Topaz took a deep breath of relief. In the last three years, hundreds of women and children had been helped by the Steels and today the cut on Onyx’s back was now a lifeline.
“We’d love to have breakfast,” Topaz said. “Whatever you have.”
Onyx walked toward a booth and took a seat, his back to the wall and eyes with clear sight lines of the kitchen and the front door. The exhaustion and pain evident in his every movement.
“He fought hard for you,” the waitress said. “Took a good year, but my sister’s now better. You will be too.”
Topaz wanted to argue, tell the woman she wasn’t a rescue, but what did it matter. Onyx had fought hard to save her. Topaz gave her a slight smile then sat across from Onyx, leaning across the table she covered his hand with hers. “I guess I should never judge a book by its cover. She’s nice. She also thinks I’m a rescue.”
“Shit, we both are at this point.”
“Hey, she’s giving us breakfast on the house and we have a few hours to wait for Freaky, so we might as well eat.”
An expression of gratification showed in his eyes.
Topaz liked this side of Onyx. She couldn’t help but feel safe in his presence. Thinking back to when they were tied up the first time, she hadn’t been worried, more annoyed by the situation. With Onyx behind her, she knew in her heart, she was safe. “Think we can enjoy our food and breathe for a moment?”
“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “I think we’re good for a bit.”
The waitress brought over their plates and set them down on the table. Then plopped an ice pack in front of Onyx. “Don’t worry sexy,” she said with a wink. “Chicks dig scars.”
A smile crept across Topaz’s face followed by a tinge of jealousy.
Onyx gave the woman a halfhearted smile before thanking her with a nod.
The two sunny side up eggs, hash browns, sausage and two pancakes triggered every hunger sensation known to Topaz. There was something about a small café, with grease traps probably last cleaned two presidential administrations before that warmed her heart. Maybe it was the country feel reminding her of Rosie’s in New Bend and the simple meals served all day long. Six at night or six in the morning, you could get a good breakfast or an egg burger if you wanted dinner. It didn’t matter.
Onyx’s plate matched hers with a few extra sausages and a third egg. He bowed his head for a moment then began to eat.
Topaz didn’t say a word while she shoveled the food in. She ate everything on her plate. The food hitting her empty belly like the doors to a concert hall had been opened to thousands of screaming fans. They hadn’t eaten anything since they were taken. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten.
With a full stomach, she smiled up at the waitress when she came to clear the plates. “Thank you, that was good. I promise when our friends come to pick us up, we’ll pay for the food.”
“Like I said before, it’s on the house. You guys helped us out, now I want to return the favor. Do you want a refill on your coffee?”
Topaz nodded.
She refilled their cups then left them alone.
“We need to get rid of that pickup?” Topaz glanced at Onyx.
“No, let the thing stay right where it’s at. Let’s go outside after we finish our coffee and wait for Freaky and Mountain. Did Roadkill give you an ETA and if they got ahold of them.”
“Um, it had to be less than an hour, or she would have sent someone from the compound.”
“Right,” he said with a nod and finished his coffee, eyeing her to do the same.
“Okay, I’m with you.” Topaz got up and followed Onyx to the door. The limp looked deeper as he stepped and her heart hurt for how bad it bothered him. Wrapping her arm around his arm, she tried to help him a little with her body’s weight.
He stopped. “What are you doing Topaz?” he asked looking down to her.
“Lean on me, I can help. You’re hurt.”
He nodded, but didn’t say a thing.
She did take notice that he leaned a little into her and it felt good to be able to help him. What they had been through had awakened something in her. She didn’t look at Onyx anymore and think of Byron. No, she was looking at him in a whole new light. He was Onyx and she was falling in love with the guy. For the last year, she’d prayed he would be an asshole, a jerk, anything to make her not think of Byron and what she had lost. Instead, he’d been kind to her, messing with her to try to break a shell and not to fuck her. Just to be treated as a human, a man and it hurt her heart that he believed she saw him as anything different than that.
Leaning against the side of the building, they waited.
Onyx kept rubbing his left thigh with a balled fist to loosen or move the pain. The whole time his eyes scanning the area, any sound from a truck or crunch from a boot.
Topaz turned to Onyx. “Are you worried that ACT-UP will find us?”
His lips thinned in anger. “No. Something tells me old Glen and Stimpy were trying to impress this ‘Carpenter’ guy. They
may have told him or one of his lackies where they were, but someone would have to notice they were gone. Then if they went to the cabin, they won’t know if we were in the cabin or if the dumbasses drove off because they fucked up. Even if they think we were on the run, we drove for an hour so we’re a ways away from them. I think we’re okay.”
“What are you mad for?” Topaz was confused.
“I’m only mad about what they did to us. Eating, resetting, knowing I’m going home allowed my mind to process. It’s hitting me like a ton of bricks. I can see them swing—” A violent shudder tore through his body and when she leaned in to console him he pushed her away. “Right now, I don’t want to be held I want my pound of flesh and it’s not there for me to get it the way I want. I’m not angry at you for anything. I’m sorry it came across that way?”
“No, you just seemed angry.” Topaz pushed forward, not wanting him to go down the trail of pain and touched his face with the back of her hand, his skin still cool from the icepack, but his eye was less swollen.
He leaned down, cupping her jaw and kissed her gently. His tongue stroked along hers, deepening a connection setting her heart off with heavy thuds. Topaz got lost in the kiss until he stopped and pulled away from her. Had it been one sided? She wondered as he stared down at her. His dark eyes distant.
“I need to keep my head in the game. I wish they would hurry.”
“It won’t be long,” she said taking a step back. “Roadkill said they were in the area.”
“Yeah, she did. But did she talk to them or were they on their bikes and didn’t hear the phone?”
“That’s a possibility.”
A loud rumble had both of them breathing a sigh of relieve as a pair of motorcycles crested the ridge of the highway.
It took everything in Onyx to not drag Topaz into the middle of the road and toss her on the back of a bike like a pony express horse. Instead, he took Topaz’s hand in his and squeezed.
“Thank the lord,” he said as relief washed down his back. Never in a thousand years would he have thought the sight of Freaky and Mountain rolling into town would bring him joy. He grabbed Topaz’s hand, squeezed and repeated the praise. “Thank the lord.”
Stepping away, she headed toward the street. Lifting her hand, she flagged the two bikers down as if the men couldn’t pick them out in the one shady place in a town with less buildings than there were houses on his block growing up.
Freaky and Mountain pulled up to them and shut off their bikes. Freaky dismounted, running his fingers through the flop of brown he sported as he walked up to them. “What the hell happened?”
“Fucking ACT UP took us from the alley behind the restaurant…” Onyx paused realizing he had no idea what day of the week it was anymore. “It was at least a day or two ago.”
“You know we have rooms behind the stage right?” Mountain added giving Topaz a wink, sending a hard jolt of jealousy down Onyx’s spine as he dismounted. “Ya all right there Sarah?”
Now the jealousy hit a level higher than he wanted to admit as he glanced over to her. Mountain had patched over after the take down of the Roadkillers in Berrington. The man was one of two men larger than Onyx, the other being Hollywood. But Hollywood only had an inch on him. Mountain on the other hand earned his name honestly at nearly six-ten and well over three fifty the bearded lumberjack was accepting his extended prospect status for now. But Onyx wasn’t sure if he wanted to be the one to kick his ass out, he’d seen him rack two-twenty-five about thirty times in the makeshift weight room at the clubhouse. There were professional linemen that couldn’t do that.
“Just words for me, Mountain,” she replied and glanced at Onyx. “Onyx took the brunt of it.”
“They held us in a cabin,” Onyx continued using every ounce of self-restraint to not pull Topaz into his arms, bend her over with a deep ass kiss and point to the men afterward. Freaky wasn’t the issue. The man was halfway down an aisle with Dreamer. Mountain on the other hand, that might take a discussion. Hopefully, Red had the drugs necessary to get him back to as close to a hundred percent as possible and to make it a fair fight. “We escaped and called. Now get us the fuck out of here please.”
Onyx didn’t feel like they needed a debrief. They wouldn’t fully understand where he was coming from and chit chat was for the Hoez and Ol’ Ladies. All he wanted was to get back to the clubhouse and plan what they were going to do about this.
“That’s fucked up dude. Are you okay to ride?” Freaky adjusted his leather jacket and zipped it up before looking at him. “You will have to ride with me unless you need a vehicle?”
“We have a truck, but its diesel, almost on E, and smells like ignorance, racism and beer,” Onyx said.
“Fresh air would be better,” Mountain replied as if from experience. “Topaz.”
“If it gets us back to the clubhouse faster I’m good.” Onyx put is bad leg across the bike and sat bitch behind Freaky. It wouldn’t do any good putting a Hoez behind the claimed man when a free one was available. The unspoken rules from the women who wore patches claiming ‘Owner and Operator of’ a man they usually rode behind.
Mountain moved around the side of the café and Freaky shifted in front of Onyx to pull his Glock.
Ice ran down Onyx’s spine unsure if he had the fight in him he needed. Deflated in the fact if he needed a gun it wouldn’t be his, but another man’s he’d be using.
When the man dropped to a knee at the corner of the building, Freaky turned back toward Onyx, both men confused by the randomness of Mountain’s movement. Sure, him on a knee would be eye level to most men, but still.
“Hey there.” The high voice from the man at the bottom of the baritone scale usually had Freaky holstering his gun.
“This motherfucker, every damn time,” Freaky said. “Dude, seriously leave it.”
“Leave what?” Onyx asked leaning forward to see what had caught the man’s attention.
“I don’t know but I’m sure it’s fuzzy with a long tail,” Freaky said as he looked down at the kitten, Mountain was petting. “You know Creature will eat whatever mangy cat you’re trying to wrangle.”
“No she won’t,” he protested, standing with an emaciated kitten silently mewing in his massive hand. Although you could see the cat was white, with gray and orange spots, the white fur looked dingy. “Creature is the gentlest pit you know.”
Freaky shook his head and Onyx had to agree. The man was clearly insane.
Just then, the waitress came out back with a bag of trash, tossing it into a dumpster then turning to see the sight. “You’re still alive?” she asked focusing on the kitten. “Here, I thought you’d gone the way of your siblings.”
“What happened to the others in the litter?” Mountain asked with a five-year-old innocence.
“Trucks blowing down the road got at least two of them. I put out a few bits if I see them, but if I leave it out, then bigger animals come and these guys become the main course.”
“I’m taking—” Mountain lifted the kitten in the air. “Her, she’s coming with us.” The statement fierce in his conviction. “Unless she’s—”
Waving her hands, the waitress let out a little laugh. “Been seeing her for about a month. Doesn’t look like it but I’m guessing she’s maybe three months old. Ya’ll just save everything, don’t you?”
“Anything with a pussy it seems,” Onyx grumbled low, so only Freaky could hear and cackle a bit.
“Mountain, how the hell are you gonna—” Freaky’s question was answered before he could get it out.
Mountain opened his coat and tucked the kitten in the inner pocket of his leather jacket. Of course, he had to remove a secondary weapon to do it, but he seemed fine with the shift of that to his saddle bag as he took out a helmet.
“Want a helmet?” Mountain offered Topaz and she took it while poking a finger in his coat to give the kitten a head scratch.
“Don’t even fucking think about it,” Onyx snipped at Freaky whose hea
d was turned toward him indicating he might need a helmet. Sitting behind a man on his bike was degrading enough. Riding bitch had his stomach turning.
“Yeah, doubt Dreamer’s would fit you anyway,” he said and Onyx dropped his head back.
“Anyone asks, I ran behind you the whole way home.”
“Aw, come on baby, you know you wanna wrap them big boys around my waist,” Freaky teased.
“I think you should test out the ride for the cans we’re gonna tie to the back of your bike after your wedding.”
Mountain got situated and extended his hand to give Topaz assistance mounting his bike, jealously stabbed Onyx in the heart as she put her arms around, the best she could, on his belly. He didn’t like this at all. The comfort of the two of them had his dumb ass not recognizing he had real feelings for her. But to get them back to Turnabout, he would have to deal. She was unclaimed, a fact he was going to be processing the whole ride and possibly remedying when they returned.
Onyx would never forget the long ride back to the clubhouse. Balancing on the back because there was no way in fuck he’d wrap his arms around Freaky. The man could pitch the bike in the ditch for all he cared. The last thing he would be doing was snuggle. His shoulders, already damaged from being hung by his wrists burned as he clutched the sides of the bitch seat. As if he needed one more reason to feel like less than a man…all he had to do was turn his head to the right to see Mountain and Topaz.
Riding in twos next to the man he wished they’d chose the tandem style, so he wouldn’t have to catch the sight of her resting on Mountain’s back. The helmet was a simple strap on with no visor so the beaming smile on her lips had a fury like he’d never felt before racing through his body. He wanted to kill the other man, even though he had no right because he had committed no violation. It didn’t matter. Mountain would be on his shit list after this.
Joy or contentment it didn’t matter, as he wasn’t the one putting the look on Topaz’s face and it wasn’t something he wanted to see. Turning back toward the road, he stared at the back of Freaky’s head, clenching his jaw praying Topaz’s hour to the compound guess was right.
Topaz: Book 8 of the Steel MC Montana Charter Page 13