Redemption Duet (Aces High MC - Cedar Falls Book 0)

by Christine Michelle

  “You did?” He asked in surprise.

  “I did, but you can only have it once your mommy says it’s okay.”

  “Momma!” I put the kid down and he was off and running after screaming to get Soph’s attention. “Popwee made me spetial cookies! Can I eats them?”

  I had to hope that my sister acted right today. If I could cross my fingers in the way of old superstitions and get away with not being seen by anyone else doing it, I would have. Knowing my sister, the day was not going to go by without her inserting her opinion at some point. ‘Just not at the beginning of the day!’ It was like a chant in my head repeating in a hurried cadence while Poppy took the time to unpack the special cookie before we managed to make our way over to where my sister and Bender were standing. Soph did not appear happy to see us, and the chant in my head quickly deflated and died as we approached. This was probably going to happen. I glanced around to see if Chief was here yet, because if my sister insulted Poppy, there was no way he was going to let it go uncensured. Not that I would want him to.

  Brantley helped cut the tension a little when he spoke up. “Momma, can I haz a spetial cookie pweeeez?” Bender laughed before offering up an apologetic look. He knew what was about to happen too. Fuck. I was about to just grab Poppy’s arm and pull her away before shit could go down, but then she was talking, and being so sweet. I had a moment’s worth of hope that my sister would see how genuine she was and keep her mouth shut.

  “Whenever you’re ready for him to have that,” She offered as she held the special cookie out that she had made for my nephew. Then she smiled at Bender as he addressed her and held his hand out to shake.

  “We already met when you moved in, but I’m Bender. This is my old lady, and Smoke’s sister, Sophie. This little guy is Brantley.”

  “Thanks again for helping move me in,” Poppy told him before turning her attention to my sister. “I’m Poppy.” My sister was pulling a bitch card and didn’t bother taking her hand like Bender had. “I’m Chief’s sister,” my woman added, in case there was any confusion. Bender and I both stared at Soph, willing her to behave.

  “Sorry,” Soph finally spoke, and I just knew she was pulling her shit together and was going to act right. “I was just confused by you showing up with my brother since you’re married and all.” Then again, I had been wrong about Soph before.

  “Are you fuckin’ kidding me, Soph?” I asked my sister through clenched teeth, about to rip her a new one right there, until I felt a small hand clamped down around my arm and took in the delicate shake of Poppy’s head. She didn’t want this scene to play out here where everyone was tuning in to the drama. I reigned in my anger and let her handle the situation since that was what she seemed to be asking me to do.

  “I am still married. I’m in the middle of a divorce at the moment and, while I would love that it was all over already, my ex is being a pain in the butt and trying to stall in order to get money for the sale of my family’s home and lands.” She offered up her business to my sister even though she didn’t have to and I was both proud of the way she was handling it and embarrassed that she had to stand here spilling her dirty laundry where anyone could hear because my sister was being an asshole.

  “He’s a brother in the club,” Soph managed to get out. The message clear, even in her hushed tone.

  “Yes, he’s with the Sierra High Chapter,” Poppy explained needlessly.

  “Why would he need your family’s money?” Soph asked, not understanding.

  Poppy’s shoulders hitched up and down. “I don’t begin to understand anything Walker does, so I couldn’t tell you. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if my brother’s around yet,” and with that, my woman was making it clear she’d had enough of my sister.

  “Poppy,” I called out to her as she started walking away. “I’ll be right behind you in a minute. Chief’s at the pool tables.” I’d clocked him walking in, just before Soph started in on Poppy. Once I thought my woman was far enough away, I turned back to my sister, not willing to spare her feelings since she had been more than okay with putting Poppy on blast the way she had. “What the fuck is your problem?”

  “I – I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t like that you’re with her, or that she decided to latch on like a fucking leech the minute she got in town,” my sister hissed, her brief moment of feeling guilty quickly forgotten.

  I grabbed hold of her arm and yanked her further into the corner away from prying eyes and Bender took the cue, moving Brantley to the bar to eat his cookie. “Let me clue you in, little sister. Not that you deserve to know shit about my life or the decisions I make considering how you just behaved, but Poppy didn’t latch onto me. It was the other way around. The minute I met her; I knew. I knew she would be the one to rock my fucking world, and I wasn’t wrong. Neither of us can help the timing of when we met, but I promise you this, if we had met when we did, or five days from then, a year, or even a decade later, the results would have been the same. Never in my life felt a pull like that to another human being on this planet, and then when we talked, and everything just clicked into place like we’d been doing it for our whole lives – hell, maybe longer – I knew I wouldn’t be letting her go. Even when she was skittish and gave me the ‘it’s too soon, let’s just be friends speech.’ So, you wanna get up on your high horse about someone being a leech and not showing signs of letting go, then you better point that accusing finger of yours at me, and only me. If you’re worried about Poppy still being married and me going after her anyway then you go stand in Chief’s corner and start asking what my intentions are toward his sister. Because of me, she will face all kinds of scrutiny, and that ain’t fair to her. Hell, you just proved how unfair it is, but I’m selfish enough to want to keep her in my life, and just pummel anyone who has anything bad to say about her or us.”

  “What are your intentions?” My sister asked cautiously.

  “I intend to make her my woman, my family, and everything else along the way that you can think of. That fuckwit in Georgia didn’t appreciate what he was throwing away because she didn’t belong to him, and he probably knew that all along.”

  My sister rolled her eyes at me. “They were married for what? Ten years, Smoke? You can’t just make statements like that.”

  “I can, and I did, because it’s the truth. A man knows. He knows when a woman is too good for him, not good enough, or the perfect fucking fit to the puzzle that is his life. She’s my perfect fit, and I’d bet you anything he felt like she was always too good for him.”

  “That doesn’t say much for her,” my sister offered snidely with a wrinkled nose.

  “You mistake that shit, Soph. I don’t mean she felt that way. I mean he did, and that’s why his insecure ass was off looking at other ass. He was waiting for the ball to drop and her to get wise and leave him.” I pointed to her husband who was watching us warily from across the room still. “That man there, he knew you were his perfect fit. He snatched you up, and to this day, you can still see it in the sap’s eyes when he watches you. Even when you’re being a bitch who is completely out of line, he still thinks you’re his perfect piece that completes his puzzle.”

  Her lip wobbled a bit and I knew I’d made my point. “You really feel that strongly about her? It hasn’t been that long.”

  “How long before you knew Bender was it for you?”

  She glanced over at her husband and smiled. “I knew I was going to marry that man the first time we were introduced.” She laughed then. “Long before he knew it.”

  “I should fuckin’ hope so!” Bender was a few years older than me and they had met for the first time when I brought my sister and brother around to a club family cookout just after I was patched in. She was still in high school then and not even legal. He had to be about 24 or 25 at the time. “There’s a goddamn 10-year age gap between you.”

  She waved that off. “More like nine and a half,” she argued.

  “Anyway…” I attem
pted to redirect her.

  “Yeah, I know. I get your point. I’m sorry, okay?”

  “No, it’s not. You just embarrassed her, and she was already insecure about how everyone here would treat her since she’s already gone through becoming a pariah back in her hometown. Not to mention that you’re my sister, and it has to make her feel even worse about just being my friend, let alone anything else right now, considering my own family jumped her shit about all the things that have been plaguing her.”

  “I said I was sorry,” Sophie countered again.

  “Yeah, but you’re saying it to the wrong fuckin’ person.”

  I walked away from my sister then, more than a little disappointed in her. She’d never been blatantly mean to people that I’d seen before, but the way she had treated Poppy was unacceptable. I attempted to shake it off and went to the bar to nab a beer before I headed over to where Poppy was hanging out with her brother by the pool table. By the time I got to her, half of my beer was gone and I had managed to shake off or bury most of the residual anger I was carrying. That shit didn’t belong to Poppy, and I didn’t want to run the risk of it coming out in front of her. I just had to hope that Poppy was going to behave better than my sister had. If she didn’t, I couldn’t blame her though.

  “Food’s up out back. You want to go grab something?” I asked before reaching out and taking her hand in my own. I didn’t know what it was about the woman. I hadn’t been very handsy with Julie when we were together. Sure, we touched, but we never really did the hand holding shit. I used to think that was too high school to bother with. Now, I was starting to see that it just meant that you enjoyed another person you couldn’t help but try to be connected to them in every way possible.

  Once we got outside, I slowed, giving Poppy a chance to take everything in. She seemed to be soaking in the gloriousness of the multi-tiered decking we had built out here as well as looking to see where she might need to fill a space. I never thought about it before coming here tonight. She wasn’t my old lady, because she couldn’t be right now. She also wasn’t here as Walker’s old lady or even Smoke’s sister. Poppy was the girl I brought along with me. Considering the hierarchy of women around a clubhouse, it had to be confusing to her as to where she fit in. I pulled her over toward the food thinking we’d just grab some plates, have a seat, and relax when Jewel sashayed her ass my way.

  “This your new woman?” She asked in a snide tone I didn’t much appreciate. I would have thought Phoenix, our lone-wolf nomadic brother who claimed her, would get her shit under wraps at some point but he didn’t seem to be having much luck. She still dressed like she was trying out for best club whore of the year with part of her boobs visible. I wasn’t one to judge, and maybe he liked his woman showing her body to everyone, but had Poppy been here with half her tits hanging out the bottom of her shirt I’d have her in a room, over my knee, showing her what happens to bad girls who don’t know how to behave.

  The worst part of Jewel’s approach was the very visible snub she was giving Poppy by not even acknowledging her. “Poppy is my woman. She’s also Chief’s sister,” I informed her while offering up a bit of glare that told her she was treading on thin ice. “Be nice, or we’ll have problems. Don’t care who your dad or your man is now.”

  Jewel was brought into the club as a whore to service the men. The problem with that was she refused to do the older guys. If they were above 38 or so, she wouldn’t touch them. All hell broke loose when the club confronted her, threatened to boot her out on her ass, and she spilled the beans. Her mother had once been a club whore for Aces High MC too back in the day. She’d managed to get herself knocked up, and instead of using it to anchor the brother to herself, she fled without telling anyone they might have become daddy. Then, her crazy-as-fuck mother sent her to work the same job in a clubhouse where her own father might end up… I shivered just thinking about it. At least her mom had been kind enough to tell her to avoid the older men at all costs. The woman was evil incarnate, using Jewel’s position to try to help clear her drug debt. Bitch ended up dead, the secret came out, and now Jewel had both a father and an old man out of the situation. Hopper drew the straw on fatherhood while Phoenix ended up seeing something in her damaged soul that appealed to him. He claimed her, and they only rarely came around the clubhouse since he was nomad and they traveled a lot.

  “Don’t mind her,” Cindy – Hopper’s old lady – was telling Poppy after Jewel walked away. “That one has always had a bad attitude. She didn’t grow up in the club thanks to her no-good momma. Didn’t have much of a good influence for the same reason, so make no mind.” Cindy held out her hand. “I believe we actually met a few years ago when you came up for an event. I’m Cindy, Hopper’s old lady.”

  The rest of the afternoon went pretty much the same way. People remembered Poppy, even though she hadn’t been around here much before. It seemed for those people she had interacted with previously, she managed to leave a big impression – most of all on Ghost who stole her sweet rib recipe. Sophie played nice after her, Brant, and Bender came to sit with us at a table and, finally, things were feeling good. I hated my family being at odds. I’d had that drama with my brother over the Julie situation for years. I didn’t want to live with it again. Then again, I didn’t want to lose Poppy over my sister’s inability to separate rumor, gossip, and reality.

  Thankfully, that wasn’t the case and by the time we all went our separate ways that night the two had been getting along, and it seemed something Poppy had said to my sister changed how Soph saw things, even if only a little.

  Chapter 6

  Ghost and Leanne offered to watch Bubba for Poppy so that I could finally take her back to Pittsburgh to meet my brother. This time we were going to get more than five minutes with him before he had to run off to do whatever it was that was more important than us the last time we’d come up. At least this time, we were hanging out at his house so we wouldn’t have to deal with the puck bunnies like we had last time. My brother being in the NHL could be a pain the ass from time to time since there were always eyes on him. Everyone wanted a piece of him, and my ex had been no exception. I wondered briefly if Poppy would turn out to be the same since she was such a huge fan. I had purposely avoided telling her much about Julie and the reason we split just to see how things played out. It sounded bad, thinking about it in my head that way, but shit was what it was. I would be an idiot to say I wasn’t the tiniest bit worried.

  It turned out, I had absolutely nothing to worry about. “That slapshot in the third period was a thing of beauty!” Poppy praised my brother as we all walked up to his apartment after the game.

  Kent grinned at my woman before turning to me. “How the hell did you end up with the hot chick who actually knows hockey, and isn’t a fuckin’ bunny?”

  I cringed inwardly knowing that he considered Julie nothing more than a puck bunny who didn’t actually know all that much about hockey and, instead, faked it with him in the hopes of getting him to accept his offer. “You get to play, brother, that’s all the reward you’re getting. Leaves time for me to snatch up Poppy for myself.”

  The woman blessed me with one of her full smiles that made the skin around her eyes crinkle ever so slightly as she did. I thought I heard my brother mumble something like, “fuckin’ sap” under his breath, but I was honestly too taken in by Poppy to care.

  “Of course, you did manage to eat ice right after that slapshot though,” Chief pointed out.

  My brother rubbed his jaw, but grinned as he did it. “Worth it since we won though,” he chimed in. The guys continued talking about sports as Poppy and I watched one another. Every now and again, one of them would draw her into the conversation and I’d just take it all in and watch as she interacted with men I considered to be my brothers in different ways. One brother by blood, one by club, and the other one because our job was life and death and it formed the same type of bond between us. She managed to work her magic over the each of them every time
she spoke. Even as she gave them all her attention, she never strayed far from me, her eyes always drifted back to check in with me and give a smile of contentment or reassurance. I wasn’t sure which, maybe a bit of both, but I liked that she thought to do it. For the first time in years, it felt good to settle into my brother’s ugly ass apartment.

  That was all before I got the call from the club though. My phone went off at the same time that Chief’s did which could only signal bad things. “Yeah?” I asked

  “I know you and Chief are both off in Pittsburgh, but we need you for a while.”

  “Me specifically, or the two of us because you need numbers?”

  “You specifically,” Ghost informed me.

  “Fire?”

  “You could say that. I’m texting the address. Closer to you guys than to us. Don’t suppose any of you took a cage so that Poppy can get back on her own?”

  “Sure as fuck didn’t,” I huffed out knowing what this was going to mean. I glanced over at Chief who had furrowed brows scrunched down as he read something on his phone. “I’ll figure something out,” I told him before I hung up. There was no way I could take Poppy with us, which meant Chief couldn’t either. We were about to handle club business and if they needed my skill set, that meant it was nothing good and nothing we needed to expose my woman to. I stood and moved with Chief to the other room momentarily.

  “You going to be okay with her staying here without us?” I asked Chief. His face was turning a darker shade of his normal deeply tanned skin and his head was shaking back and forth in a negative response, though I wasn’t sure he was consciously doing it.

  “You know I’m not. I like Kent and Shep, but that don’t mean shit. They’re both strangers to her.”