Ace of Hearts (Blind Jacks MC Book 3)

by J.C. Valentine

  South Dakota had some archaeological digs going on locally, and of course the Black Hills was famous for the fossil freeway tours that brought hundreds of thousands of tourists to the state every year. Finding a new dig site was exciting, even if it was in an area that had been heavily excavated in the past.

  Her phone rang and, since the ringtone was Ace’s, she grabbed it happily.

  “I got your e-mail about the local dig. Tell me more.”

  “A farmer down in Pennington County has property that butts up against the national park. He was bulldozing near the side of a hill and uncovered some interesting fossils.”

  “You mean out near the badlands?”

  “It’s nowhere near the national monument. Mr. Farrington owns almost six hundred acres. It’s pretty secluded and has been in his family for years. His father passed on some years ago and he moved back to make a go of the farm.”

  “What are you expecting to find there?” he asked curiously.

  “Crustaceans from the Cambrian Period, I imagine. That’s what we usually find in that area.”

  “You mean like clams and shit like that?”

  Barbara chuckled. “Yes. I know it’s not all that interesting for most folks, but some of us get really excited about finding new fossils.”

  “You’re setting up the trip for Saturday, right?”

  She nodded. “I thought we could leave early and make a day of it.”

  Ace’s smooth voice rumbled, “Sounds good, count me in.”

  “We’re meeting at the college and taking a van,” Barbara said, forcing her excitement she felt that he’d actually be going down, so she wouldn’t make a fool of herself.

  “That’s a little too much like real school for me,” Ace said, shooting down some of her tamer fantasies. “I’ll be following on my bike.”

  “You’re not claustrophobic are you?” she asked, concerned.

  “Nothing like that,” he dismissed. “Young people just get on my nerves sometimes. I don’t want to be packed elbow to elbow with a bunch of them.”

  Barbara heard someone talking in the background and Ace said hastily, “Sorry, professor, I gotta run. Catch you later.”

  “Take care, Mr. Strond.”

  “You, too, Ms. Reynolds.”

  Smiling, she ended the call. Checking her e-mail on the off chance that one of the students had changed their mind, she wasn’t surprised to discover so few were willing to give up a Saturday to dig for fossils. A knock at her door a moment later drew her from the computer.

  Pulling it open, she saw David standing sheepishly on her porch with his hands in his pockets. Anxiety flooded her body and her hand tensed on the doorknob. “What do you want, David?”

  “I wanted to apologize for my behavior last week.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’m sorry. Things got out of control, and you know that’s not me.”

  “Apology accepted. Now please leave me alone.”

  Looking genuinely perplexed, he asked, “How can you go from sleeping in my arms every night to not wanting to know me?”

  Taken aback by his question, she responded honestly, “If you’ll remember, I wasn’t sleeping in your arms every night. That only happened on the nights you chose to come home.”

  “I came home almost every damn night, so don’t go acting like I was splitting my time between the two of you. It wasn’t like that.”

  Taking a deep breath, she chose her words carefully. “You have it in your head that because you spent most of your time with me, took me on vacations with you, and spoiled me with expensive gifts that I should be happy to stay put and consider myself lucky.”

  “I was always so careful about taking good care of you.”

  It was clear that he honestly didn’t get it. “Where in our wedding vows did it say you could crawl in and out of other women’s beds, as long as you were real nice to me? I must have missed that part.”

  “Why do you care so much about the affairs?”

  “I married you because I loved you and I thought you loved me too.”

  A frown creased his expression. “You thought that because I slept with another woman here or there that meant I didn’t love you?”

  “It became increasingly obvious that I wasn’t what you wanted. If I was enough, you wouldn’t have been cheating.”

  “I can give up the other women.”

  “Too late.”

  “I kept telling myself that you were just making empty threats and that you’d never leave me. When you left, I told myself that you’d be back. My first thought after getting served with divorce papers was that you were bluffing and would never go through with it. I signed, thinking you would chicken out and come running back to me.”

  “None of that is true. When I said stop, I meant it.”

  “You don’t regret leaving me, even just a little?”

  “Honestly, I regret not just walking out the door the very first time I discovered you were cheating. Instead, I stayed. I’m ashamed of all the begging and pleading I did, trying to get you to stay faithful. I feel stupid for thinking that you would change. We both wasted a lot of time on a relationship that was doomed from the beginning.”

  His head came up and his expression turned shocked.

  Sighing, Barbara unloaded the information as unemotionally as possible. “Did you ever wonder why I left that day and not the day before or the day after?” When he didn’t answer, she continued. “You forgot to close your e-mail account. I saw the valentine she sent you. I clicked open your messaging center and it was all there in black and white.”

  “Jesus, I’m sorry.”

  “All day long, while you worked, I read the conversations you had with those women. I can’t believe it took seeing how you talked about me to them for me to finally get it through my thick head that you honestly didn’t love me.”

  “But I do love you.”

  “I’m not sure you understand what love is, David. The reoccurring theme in all your chats was how simple I am, how you can hardly stand having a conversation with me, and how unsatisfying our sex life was for you.”

  “You have to know that none of that was true. It’s just the stupid shit men tell women to get what they want.”

  “How do I know you weren’t lying to all of us—them to get sex and me to get a nice little stay-at-home wife.”

  “It wasn’t like that, and you know it.”

  “In the end, it didn’t matter. Either you were grossly unhappy with our marriage or you were a compulsive liar, willing to throw the woman you loved under the bus to lure another woman into an extramarital affair. Either way, it was a deal breaker for me. I packed up and left before you came home from work because, as far as I was concerned, there was nothing left between us.”

  “We can work this out.”

  “The bottom line is you don’t love me, nor are you the kind of person I’d choose for a friend. Therefore, the only course of action that makes sense for me is to move forward on my own and try to make something of my life.”

  “Why don’t we just meet up for dinner once a week and see how we feel in few months?”

  “No, I’m finished trying to piece back together a relationship that was never meant to be in the first place.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “You cheated on me the first week after we returned from our honeymoon. Think about that for a minute. When I was all starry-eyed in love with you, you had already moved on to having sex with another woman.”

  “This is not how it was supposed to be for us.”

  “Maybe, but it’s the way it turned out. Look, David, I’ve gotta get back to planning my curriculum for next semester. I wish the best for you, I really do.”

  “I’ll check back with you a month or two, Barb.”

  “I’d rather that you didn’t. I’m sure we’ll bump into each other off and on. This is a small town, after all.”

  Nodding, he didn’t look her in the eyes. Easing the door s
hut on the awkward conversation, she quietly flipped the dead bolt, hoping he’d stay gone this time.

  ~ Ace ~

  Shoving his cell phone in his pocket, Ace turned his attention to his disruptive friend. “What’s so important it couldn’t wait for me to get off the phone?”

  Jerking his chin toward the door, Ryder looked at him intently. “I got a bit of a problem. Are you up for a short road trip?”

  “Always, brother. What’s this about?”

  “I’ve got a life debt to pay back.”

  “I’ve got your back,” Ace said without a second thought. “Where are we headed?”

  “I’m headed to that little town where you shot me up the last time.”

  “Mission Point?” Understanding clicked into place. “You’re out to repay that man who jumped my ass when we were brawling, aren’t you.”

  “Yep, he saved my life that day. I’m a guy who repays my debt, and I don’t forget shit like that. Considering we were trying to kill each other that day, he’s probably going to freak out when he sees us together. We need to be careful about spooking him.”

  “Why don’t you just send him a letter explaining the situation?”

  “I wouldn’t know where to send it. He looked homeless to me.”

  “If he’s in a bad way, we probably need to get right on it. Mission Point is less than a four-hour drive.”

  They didn’t waste time getting on the road. Stopping to fill up their tanks, Ace rolled their quest around in his mind for a bit. The vendetta between Ryder and himself had been totally off the chain a few months ago. Ace had been told about his brother’s death back when it happened, but only learned that he was killed by a club member when he got out of prison two years after the fact. Since Joe had been his last surviving family member, Ace had taken the news pretty hard. Still raw from being in lockdown for almost ten years, Ace had rolled into a revenge spree. Ryder retaliated by tracking him through three counties, ending in Mission Point.

  As he rode back to the town where his violence had finally exploded, Ace remembered every gory detail. He’d been driving an old junked-out pickup truck. They’d traded shots a couple of times before ending up at Mission Point. Fed up with the aggravation of being stalked by his relentless pursuer, Ace had run him down with his truck. Standing over his prone body, Ace remembered gloating as he savored the moment of pumping him full of bullets. It was him at his very worst.

  Ace was self-aware enough to know that he could be a cold-hearted killer when the situation called for it. He honestly would have ended Ryder’s life that day, if not for the stranger who interceded on his behalf.

  Glancing over at the man who had become a true brother, Ace had an epiphany. Although Ryder might owe his savior a life debt, Ace owed him something very similar. If not for this man, he would have killed Ryder and been hunted to the ends of the earth by the club he’d come to love. In a way, this stranger had saved him as well. Ace had saved him from making a terrible mistake that would have robbed him of the life he now enjoyed.

  Rolling into Mission Point hours later, Ace surveyed the town with a critical eye. He’d remembered it as being pitifully small and run-down. Now it seemed much like any other small town. Maybe it was on the small side, but it was also quaint and what women might describe as charming.

  Ryder bolted in and out of different gas stations in the area asking about the homeless man. Coming out of the seventh place, Ace noticed his facial expression had changed from somber to slightly relieved.

  “Did you get a lead?”

  Jumping on his bike, Ryder nodded. “His name is Earnest Parker, and they say he got picked up by the police three days ago on public intoxication.”

  “Where the hell is a homeless person supposed to go to be intoxicated?”

  Grinning, his Sargent at Arms shrugged. “You think the cops think that shit through? Trust me, they don’t.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir. We need to verify that he’s been detained and find out his booking status. I suggest we start at the courthouse.”

  “I hope they give us the information. I’m not keen on trying to find a lawyer in this small town.”

  They headed to the center of town and looked for the courthouse. It wasn’t difficult to find, since it was one of the few prominent buildings that didn’t look like a commercial enterprise.

  Ace followed Ryder to the main desk. After no small amount of back and forth, they discovered that Parker had been arraigned and bail had been set at ten grand. It seemed like an absurd amount to Ace, but Ryder was willing to pay it, so they were sent to the superior court office to pay the bail.

  Ryder frowned. “Do you think I should get a bail bondsman?”

  “Don’t waste your time. Bail bondsmen don’t usually accept homeless clients. They’re a flight risk, and it’s nearly impossible to find them if they skip town.”

  “Freaking great. Let’s go see if I can sweet talk them down.”

  “Bail is what it is,” Ace said with a shrug. “The only person who can change it is the judge.”

  Ryder scowled. “Fucking hell, you’re just full of good news.”

  Ryder swiped his credit card at the superior court’s office and was given verification that the bail was paid. After that, they hightailed it over to the small jail to pick up their guy. The poor man staggered out the front door, totally clueless as to who had bailed him out.

  Ryder approached him cautiously. “Hello, Mr. Parker. Do you remember me?”

  “You’re looking a mite better than the last time I saw you.”

  “They pulled all the shrapnel out, and I healed up real quick.”

  “Is that why you bailed me out? ‘Cause I helped you that day?”

  “Yes, sir, it is.”

  “I can’t believe you got a bail bondsman to take my case. I called every one within fifty miles, and they wouldn’t take my case because I don’t have an address.”

  “I forked over the ten grand,” Ryder told him. “Speaking of forks, I could use a hot meal. What do you say about us grabbing a bite to eat? I’d like to talk with you about some things.”

  As they walked back over to Ryder’s bike, Ace spoke up. “He can ride with me, if he wants. I know how you are about having people on the back of your bike.”

  The man came to a staggering stop. “I know you…”

  Ryder placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “We made peace. You don’t have anything to fear from either of us.”

  The guy stared at him for a minute before nodding. “There’s a real nice diner just down the street. We can walk there in just a few minutes.”

  Ace got off his bike and followed the chatting pair. Truth be told, he was amazed at how easily Ryder managed awkward social situations. This whole thing was going along a lot smoother than he’d anticipated. Maybe it was because his friend had a more normal family life growing up.

  Siding into a booth at the diner, it took Ace a minute to realize everyone was staring at them. A waitress in a polyester dress walked over to their table, frowning. “Earnest Parker, you know you’re not supposed to be in here.”

  Their companion replied, “Now, I’m not trying to cause any trouble, Sharon. My friends just want a bite to eat.”

  Ryder slowly came to his feet, towering over the middle-aged woman. “I suggest you drop the attitude and take our order. I’m a busy man, and I’ve got exactly no time for stupid servers today.”

  “Well, I never…”

  “Don’t care to hear it, doll. You act civil, and I’ll be the best customer you ever had. Keep acting the fool, and I’m gonna get cranky super-fucking-fast.”

  Swallowing hard, the woman’s confidence began to wane. “Fine. What do you… gentlemen want to drink.”

  Without taking his eyes off the spiteful woman, Ryder replied tersely, “Three coffees, and leave the pot.”

  The woman’s attitude slowly dissolved under Ryder’s no-nonsense stare. She quickly placed three menus on the table and mumbl
ed quietly, “Yes, sir. I’ll have that right out for you.”

  Dropping into the seat, Ryder’s wary expression communicated that he was clearly none too pleased with the situation. “What the fuck do you call that?”

  “Folks around here don’t care for vagrants. I always get kicked out of restaurants and stores, even when I have money to pay.”

  “Is that why you’re a fuckin’ pile of bones?”

  Humiliation swamped the old man’s face. “Pretty much. There are a few places lenient about letting me in, but most don’t want to look at me.”

  “This is about the sorriest excuse for a town that I’ve ever seen.” Ace knew all too well how it felt to be marginalized and discounted as a person.

  Ryder shook his head. “It makes me wonder if you were really intoxicated or if they just wanted you out of sight.”

  “If I had money, I’d have used it for food not booze. I have pancreatitis, and alcohol makes me double over in pain.”

  Ace cursed under his breath. “Those stupid fuckers think they’re so damned clever.”

  Ryder’s head came up sharply. “What are you talking about, brother?”

  “It’s all too easy to make someone like our friend Earnest disappear from their wholesome little town.” Glancing at Earnest, he continued. “They arrest you on some trumped-up charge and toss you in the county jail for a few weeks. Once your case gets heard, they ship you off to some privatized state prison, and those places don’t care if you’re homeless, guilty, or innocent, ‘cause they get paid either way. It’s a win for everybody but you.”

  Ryder’s fist clinched into a tight fist. “Fucking hell, I never thought of that.”

  The waitress stopped by with their coffee and some ice water. She left a little bowl of creamers and a carafe of coffee, just like Ryder had asked. She’d clearly had a chance to recover from her encounter with the big, surely biker and even managed an embarrassed smile. “What would you gentlemen like to eat?”