Train's Clash (The Last Riders Book 9)

by Jamie Begley

  “Yes.”

  Once they were outside, she stared wide-eyed at his motorcycle as if she had never seen one before. “You’re not driving the truck?”

  “No. Where are we going?” He got on his bike, holding his hand out for her to take.

  “To my studio. The road there is even worse … We can walk.”

  “Get on. I’ll go slow,” Train promised.

  Peyton took his hand, faltering as she got on behind him. Then she hesitantly placed her hands on his sides.

  “Hold on,” Train warned as he started the bike, turning it around in the yard before he went in the direction she pointed down the rutted road.

  She was right; it would have been quicker to walk since it took them ten minutes to get to the trailer that was set off from the road. He had expected it to be the same as Peyton’s, but it wasn’t. It was much larger and newer, and definitely in better shape; that’s for damn sure.

  “You use this place as your studio?”

  “I know. Killyama wants me to live here and use mine as the studio,” she said as she got off the bike.

  He followed her to the door of the trailer. It didn’t have a front porch; stone steps led to the doorway. Peyton went up the steps first, unlocking the door, then Train followed her inside.

  The outside wasn’t the only difference between the two trailers. The trailer he entered was much more open and modern than Peyton’s. Peyton’s had a small booth for guest to eat at, whereas this one had a table with six chairs, the living room had a sectional couch that could easily seat many, and it even had a fireplace which Peyton easily flipped a switch to start. Train tried to hide his expression from her knowing eyes.

  “I’m more comfortable in my home. I feel guilty this one’s going to waste.”

  “It’s not wasteful if you’re using it.”

  “I made the master bedroom my studio. It’s this way.”

  They walked down a hallway that was big enough for two people to walk side-by-side, leading to a door at the end.

  Peyton reached for the doorknob but hesitated before opening it. “Killyama is the only one who has been inside. I’m trusting you, Train. I don’t know why … but I do.”

  “Anything I see or hear will be just between us. I give you my word as a man of honor.”

  A wry smile curled her lips upward. “Honor? That means different things to different people. I hope it means something to you.”

  He nodded. “It does.”

  She gave him a searching look. She must have been satisfied with what she saw reflected in his gaze because she opened the door, stepped inside, and allowed him to enter.

  Train leaned against the doorway, taking it in. The pieces he had asked to buy were there. The pictures hadn’t given justice to the magnitude of seeing them in person.

  “Rae never liked taking pictures, even as a baby. She would cry or make faces every time I tried. It was easier to get her to pose for me. Sometimes, it took several sittings to get the look I wanted to capture.”

  Rows after rows of sculptures replicating Killyama showed her growth from a child to the independent woman she was today.

  “They’re beautiful.” Even the word spoken out loud didn’t describe the beauty of the sculptures she had created. It was as if each piece had caught that part of Killyama that she didn’t want anyone else to see. All the bravery she had shown when she had saved Lily and Winter’s life was there, her sense of humor that always brought a smile to his lips, her stubbornness that drove everyone crazy. Train stared at them all, not touching as he took his time walking past the shelves until he came to the end.

  “I just finished that last week.”

  “May I touch it?” he asked gruffly.

  “Yes, just be careful.”

  He nodded as he picked it up gently.

  “It took me several days to figure out which material I wanted to sculpt it out of. I usually do bronze, but I had a piece of emerald green soapstone that called to me.” She gave a nervous laugh. “I know it sounds silly.”

  Train couldn’t get any words out. Cradling it carefully, he stared down in awe at the expression she had managed to capture.

  “You can have it if you want it.”

  Train raised his head at her offer. “Yes, I want it. I’ll pay for it. How much do you want?” The emotions he felt weren’t easy for a man like him, but the sculpture he was holding made it impossible to keep them in check.

  “I couldn’t take your money.” She gently took it out of his hands before going to the window and letting the morning sun hit it. “Rae was talking about you when she posed for this. I know she loves you. She may not have told you, but she does.”

  Train felt the fragile thread of hope strengthen.

  “Do you know why she would have stolen my friend’s key?”

  She shook her head. “No.” Then she briskly set the sculpture on a worktable that had some drawings. “But yesterday morning, Hammer and Jonas came by and told me they were meeting Killyama. They didn’t want to come inside, so they stayed out on the front porch until she arrived.” She rubbed her temples with her slender fingers as she recounted what happened. “I was in the kitchen, and I couldn’t hear much …”

  “What did you hear?” Train moved nearer to the table.

  “She was begging Jonas not to tell her something about The Last Riders.”

  Train felt his stomach clench in dread. The Last Riders kept a lot of secrets. One in particular that could destroy the whole club was buried a mile away from the clubhouse, on more property they owned. There was no way Hammer or Jonas could know about it, because it was only known by the founding members. None of the other brothers knew about it. Razer, Shade, Knox, Lucky, Cash, Rider, Viper, and Train himself would kill anyone in a heartbeat who tried to expose that secret.

  Cash and Shade had found the spot when they had searched for Gavin after he had gone missing. Afraid he could have been lost or hurt, they had searched the entire mountainside, finding the two huge moss covered rocks that the men had to squeeze through to come out on the other side and into a large plain surrounded by rocks on three sides and the mountain at its back. The men had come to the conclusion that it must have been a crater that had been filled with time.

  “Did you hear what Jonas said?” he asked.

  “No. They went to Hammer’s SUV and stayed there for almost an hour. When she came out, she went to her car and left. Hammer and Jonas came in to eat lunch, but they acted like everything was okay.”

  “Thank you for telling me.”

  Peyton looked like she wanted to say something else, yet she couldn’t make up her mind.

  “I know you’ve only met me one time, but I keep my word. You can trust me,” Train assured her.

  “I hope so. I won’t be the only one hurt if you break your word to me.” She straightened her shoulders like she was bolstering her courage. Then she walked to one of two closets in the room.

  He didn’t move, intuitively knowing she didn’t want him to see what was inside as she slid the closet door open. However, he couldn’t help seeing more shelves of tiny sculptures.

  She pulled one from a shelf, bringing it back to the worktable and setting it down next to the one of Killyama.

  As Train stared down at the man’s face, it took him a minute of admiring the piece before he actually began to realize the face was familiar to him. He tried to place who it belonged to, but he couldn’t.

  “Who is this?”

  “Maybe this will help.” Peyton went back to the closet. “Rae doesn’t let me keep anything of his around. She doesn’t want to see it.” She reached up to the top shelf, taking down a scrapbook, before coming back to the table and shoving her drawings to the side.

  Opening the book, Train was floored at the image staring back at him.

  “Major Timothy Cooper,” Peyton said.

  “I know who he is … He was in the SEALs. I never served with him, but anyone who’s a SEAL knows of him. He’s the one
who inspired hundreds of men to join the Navy. He’s won medals that are almost impossible to win.”

  “He’s Rae’s father.” She flipped the next page over. It showed the major holding a crying baby as Peyton looked lovingly at the man who showed no pride or affection for the tiny infant he held. “I met him when I was sixteen. I had gone to stay with my aunt and uncle when my mother was killed in a car accident.

  “I was jogging one day when a man tried to drag me off the path. Timothy stopped him. He helped me home and stayed with me until my aunt could come home.” She ran a graceful hand over the picture; love in every brush of her fingers. “I became infatuated with him. I saw him several times when I went out jogging, and he would stop to talk to me. He would walk me home”—she looked up from the picture, blushing—“and I invited him inside.

  “I didn’t know he was still married then. Truthfully, I was so in love with him I don’t think it would have mattered, anyway. He told me he was separated from his wife. Then, when he was selected to become one of the president’s pilots, he admitted he was getting back together with her, that the president wouldn’t allow any unmarried men on his team. That’s what he told me.”

  Peyton had been a sixteen-year-old who had been taken advantage of by a man Train and others had respected. If the gossip had gotten out, his career would have been destroyed.

  “I still remember that day. I’m ashamed to admit I begged him not to leave me. I told him I was pregnant and didn’t know what I would do. My aunt and uncle didn’t know about our affair. They didn’t want me there, much less help me raise a baby.” She flipped over another page.

  “He bought the trailer and the land to put it on. Timothy promised, when he could, we would be able to see us more. He was worried about anyone finding out. I didn’t care, as long as I didn’t lose him. I was willing to do anything he wanted.

  “When he came to Jamestown, I thought we could go places and do things together, but Timothy was always worried about someone finding out, especially when Rae grew older and started calling him daddy. He would smack her hand every time she did and make her call him Timothy.”

  She lifted her lashes. “You can’t hate me any more than I hate myself. I can’t justify to myself why I let that happen. I had no friends or family by then—my aunt and uncle had died from cancer. I was so afraid Timothy would turn his back on me and Rae that I tolerated things I never would have done now that I’m older.

  “Other than when he smacked her hand, he never touched her in anger … or affection. Rae adored him. She would stare out the window when I told her he was coming and wait until he got here. As she grew older, his visits came fewer and fewer.

  “One day, when Rae was in school, Hammer and Jonas came with Timothy. He told me he wouldn’t be coming back anymore, and Hammer and Jonas would help us move into a small apartment. I broke down. I didn’t want to leave my home.

  “The next day, Hammer and Jonas told me that Timothy had changed his mind, and we could stay. After that, we saw Timothy even less—maybe twice a year—while Hammer or Jonas were here every other weekend.”

  She flicked through page after page filled with pictures of Rae as a young girl. “She was an outstanding student. She would show Timothy her grades when he came, doing everything she could to make him proud. It was never enough. When she was little, she even told Timothy she wanted to go into the military like him when she grew up. He talked her out of it, saying she didn’t have what it took to be a soldier.

  “She was in sixth grade when the school band was asked to the inauguration. She kept saying the new president wouldn’t care if Timothy was married. She kept believing that we would be a family. I tried to tell her it wasn’t going to happen, but she just kept telling me, ‘You just have to believe, Mama. I do.’

  “When she came home from that band trip, the little girl who had left came back a young woman I didn’t know.” Suddenly, sobs tore from her lips. She pressed a hand to her mouth from crying aloud again. Train put an arm around her shoulder as Peyton gathered herself to continue. “She never told me what happened. Jonas did—they were there also. He said the students had filed in line to shake the president’s hand, and Timothy was standing where they had to pass him. When Rae tried to take his arm and talk to him, he moved away as if he had never seen her before.”

  “The bastard is lucky he’s dead.” Train’s harsh voice had Peyton crying harder.

  “You want to know the sickest part? I didn’t tell him to go take a flying leap the next time he came. We just pretended it didn’t happen. Except, Killyama would find a friend or go to Hammer’s to stay the night or whole day when he came, and she wouldn’t come back until he left.

  “The day he was killed by his wife, she laughed. She laughed so long and hard that Hammer had to take her to emergency room. They said it was hysteria. They had to give her a sedative to calm her down.”

  “I remembered when he was killed,” Train said. “It made all the papers. He was coming home from a mission, and his wife was sitting on the steps when he came through the door. She shot him six times.”

  “Yes.” Peyton nodded. “Killyama … By then she was grown, and they hadn’t talked in years. I didn’t handle it well. Even though I didn’t spend much time with him, I missed him so badly that I’m ashamed to admit I turned to drugs. By the time Killyama found out, I was an addict and kept using them every chance I had. I refused to stop, sneaking out to get some during the middle of the night. She even took my car away so she would have to take me everywhere. When she was gone, I would walk to somewhere the dealers would meet me.

  “One night I slipped out then came back to bed to pass out, Hammer, Jonas, and Killyama carried me out of my home and checked me into a rehab center. When I tried to leave, she told me it was the drugs or her. She told me that I had chosen Timothy over her and asked if I was going to choose drugs over her, too. I’ve been clean ever since.”

  “Can I ask you a question?” Train handed her a tissue from the desk.

  She shakily wiped her tears away. “There isn’t much I haven’t told you.”

  “Why does she mail presents so I don’t know who they’re coming from? Why won’t she just give them to me herself?”

  Peyton’s tear-filled eyes met his. “When she was a little girl and Timothy came by, she would draw him pictures he would never take with him. As she grew older, she would save her money to buy him things. The last time I remember her giving a present, she had bought him a watch. He left it sitting on the table in the kitchen when he left. Usually, I would hide the gifts so she wouldn’t get her feelings hurt, but I didn’t see it sitting there when we went outside to say good-bye. He was getting in the car when she saw he wasn’t wearing it, so she said she would go get it for him. He left as she was coming out the door.”

  Peyton flipped the scrapbook closed before carrying it back to the closet. Then she opened the second closet. Taking out a small box, she then lovingly packed Killyama’s statue with bubble wrap before putting it inside. Placing the lid on, she handed it to him.

  “Remember, you gave me you word not to tell anyone.”

  “Her father is dead; why would it make a difference if anyone found out now? She made sure no one can discover who he is.”

  “Rae doesn’t want his other children to be hurt because of Timothy’s past.”

  Train shook his head in disgust. “That’s why he didn’t want her to go into the military. He was afraid she would run into her brother and sister.”

  “Yes.” Peyton paused, then told Train, “If Rae took the key, she had a good reason. I don’t know what it was, but if she knew it would cost her you, she would never have done it unless it was important. I’m not saying she isn’t sneaky—the Lord knows that’s why I gave her that silly nickname. What I am saying is that the woman on that sculpture wouldn’t want you hurt.”

  “I agree. That’s the one thing I do know now, thanks to you. I can wait until she’s ready to tell me.” He gave her a s
mall smile in gratitude. “Can I give you a ride back to your trailer?”

  Peyton shook her head. “No. I think I’m going to work for a while. I’m used to walking back and forth between the two.”

  “If you’re sure.” He looked around the place before saying, “You should get some security. No one is close—”

  “Jonas did. I turned the alarm off when we came in.”

  “You put a lot of trust in a man you’re just getting to know.”

  “Not really.” She shrugged. “Killyama would have never introduced you to me if she didn’t trust you. My daughter is a good judge of character. Much better than her mother.”

  “I think you did just fine. You raised a woman you can be proud off. A woman I hope to marry.”

  “Good luck with that.” She smiled warmly.

  Train started laughing. “I’m going to need a lot of luck. Fortunately, luck is on my side.”

  33

  The grim-faced men entered the vacant building one at a time. It had been vacant for years before T.A.’s new boyfriend rented it for her. She had told him that she wanted it for her bookkeeping business. The numbnut must have taken too many tackles to have believed that story, but it had worked.

  “Tracker is here. We’re ready,” Jonas told Killyama. “Hammer will finish loading up the equipment after you make the call.”

  “I will. I want to talk to you first.” Killyama’s hands had been clenched so tightly she had left marks on her palms. She had been standing apart from the men as they checked their guns. “We’re wasting time, I know. I just … I need you to promise me something first. When we get there, I know one of you will want to be with me. Not tonight. Tonight, Train comes first.”

  “No way in hell! I’m sticking with you,” Jonas argued heatedly as Hammer came over.

  “I’m going to do what needs to be done, and then get the hell out of there. We’ve planned this for two weeks now. I know what I’m supposed to do. If Train gets hurt, though … If I know you both are with him, I know he’ll come out alive.”