by Joy Blood
And wait.
And wait.
Until I’m certain he isn’t going to come back and just left me in some strange town with a man restrained in the truck of the car until a sharp knock on my window makes me jump out of my skin.
Remarkably, I suppress the scream I want to let out and look up to see Gin standing outside the door. Once again, I roll down the window to hear him bark out another order. “I’m driving. Scoot,” he says, pulling the handle to open the door. Quickly, I scramble over to the passenger seat, which is easy because of the bench seat in the old car. He tosses a large duffle into the back, mindful of where my daughter’s sleeping, before he gets inside. His massive body makes the space shrink.
“Where are we?” I chance a question as he turns my lights back on and puts the car in gear.
“Bender. Need to fill up, then we’ve got some road to cover. You and the kid up for it?” he asks as we start to move.
“Suppose we’ll have to be.” I shrug.
He doesn’t talk anymore as we drive through the town and stop at a gas station to fill up the car, to which he came back with two bags overflowing with junk food. Junk food that now has come in handy as Tanya has woken up saying she’s hungry.
I’m still lost as to where we are, but I do know I slept for a sizeable amount of time because when my daughter woke me to say she was hungry, the sun was coming up behind us, making me come to the conclusion that we had switched directions sometime in the night.
Looking out the window, all I see is a flat landscape, sparse clusters of trees, and some sizeable hills in between. “Mommy, I need to go potty,” Tanya whispers, but before I can answer, Gin is talking.
“Just up ahead, kid. Can you hold it?” he asks, flicking his eyes to the review mirror to see her answer with a small nod.
“She’s a little shy.”
“All good,” he says, then starts to slow the car, turning off the cracked highway and onto a gravel road. He takes several turns before we go down a hill and come to a small cabin with a few trees scattered around the area. “This is it,” he announces, parking right in front of the building. “Take her in and get settled. Should be everything you need in there, except food. Take the bag in.”
“All right. Tay, are you ready?” I ask in the most enthusiastic voice I can muster. “Let’s go in and see what’s inside.” Tanya jumps up and down from her seat, already having unbuckled, and impatiently waits for me to open the back door.
I grab the bag of junk food and take her inside, forgetting to ask about a key to open the place. When I turn back to ask Gin, he’s already driving over to another small building that looks like a garage. I continue to watch him as he gets out of the car and pulls up the door to drive the car inside. “Well, maybe it’s unlocked,” I mutter, going for the knob, which turns easily. The door swings open, and we walk inside. The sound of the shed door slamming on the ground startles me, and I turn back, finding no Gin, just the building. All quiet again.
“Mommy, look!” Tanya lets go of my hand and runs inside the cabin, making me chase after her.
“Tay, you can’t just go running in,” I call out, following her in to see what she’s so excited about. A tall fireplace greets me as I get farther inside. One of those beautiful red brick ones.
“It’s a Santa Claus chimnimny,” she says, her pronunciation of chimney the same as it was last Christmas. I let out a chuckle and nod.
“It is, isn’t it?” The cabin is cool, and I can only imagine it probably gets even colder at night. I absently wonder if there’s any wood cut to start a fire. We walk farther into the cabin and find two rooms. Two small rooms. Maybe the size of a typical walk-in closet, if that. They each house a small bed, already made. There’s a small bathroom in between the two doors leading to the rooms, and the kitchen has one of those old water pumps positioned over the sink.
I help Tanya get situated over the toilet, locate a couple rolls of toilet paper on a shelf, and hand her one before walking out. I take another glance around the place before placing the bag of goodies on the small countertop in the kitchen area.
There is a table pressed up against the wall with two chairs accompanying it. Arranged in front of the fireplace is a couch similar to one my parents inherited after my grandma passed away. The brown flowers and small buildings printed on the fabric are almost identical to the one we stuck in storage until Mom had a garage sale a year later.
“Mama, I’m hungry again,” Tanya says, emerging from the bathroom with a smile on her face. I once again grab the bag of “food” from the countertop and tell her to sit at the table before I dump the contents. Chips, donuts, cookies—pretty much everything I never give her greets my daughter. She grabs hold of a pack of white powered donuts and tries to open them, then hands the package to me when she can’t get it. I open it at the opposite end, hoping to keep the smashed confection inside. I do the same, deciding on the chocolate covered donuts, and sit with her at the table.
Maybe two hours later—no, probably four—Gin comes walking through the door, startling Tanya and I from our competitive game of rock, paper, scissors. Not much of a game since it became more about me teaching her how to play. That’s how bored we are. I’ve been half tempted to walk to the shed outside and talk to Gin, but when I heard the door slam again and the sound of a car driving away, I knew that wasn’t going to happen, and the feeling of being abandoned and hopeless came back in full force. I tried to keep it at bay so I didn’t upset Tanya. Now, though, seeing him walk through the door, all I feel is anger—anger I tamper down.
“Got some food,” Gin announces, bags looped in his big hands as he makes his way to the kitchen, setting them on the countertop. “Got more out in the truck. Put this away. I’ll get the rest.” His heavy booted feet stomp back out the door and it isn’t until I’m walking past the front door that I realize he says truck, not car. I take a quick glance outside the cracked open door to see a brown four door truck with a wide white stripe running along the side. My curiosity is cut off when he comes back to the door. Quickly, I go to the kitchen and start putting away the food.
“Gotta plug in the fridge. Should’a told you to do that before I left,” he says, shifting past me to get down on the floor to do just that. The hum fills the room, covering the stale silence as I go about my task.
There is an enormous food selection—eggs, bacon, hamburger, chicken. Apparently, we’ll be staying a while. The scrape of a chair dragging across the floor sounds as Tanya comes to help me. Her little body climbs up onto the chair when she has it in position. That’s my girl, independent and nosy as ever. She starts digging through the bags to see what she would like to have. A shriek of excitement pierces my ears as she jumps from the chair. “I love it!” she shouts. “It’s my favorite!” she exclaims, continuing her dance. She comes to my side to show me. “Look, Mama!” She holds out a rectangular box showing off a purple plastic tea set.
“Wow, that is pretty cool. Make sure you thank Gin.” I glance over to the man and give him a soft smile as he looks down at my daughter, then to me.
“Who’s Gin?” she asks, making me realize I haven’t even explained to her who the big scary biker in the room is.
“That’s me, kid.” Gin gets down to her level and sticks out his hand for her to shake. “Nice to meet you.”
“You have a big beard, like Santa.” She shoots him a wide smile, then, without warning, she springs forward and wraps her tiny arms around his neck, the package still clamped in one hand. “Thank you,” she says, then backs away from him before he even has a second to respond to her impromptu hug. She scampers out of the kitchen to sit in front of the fireless fireplace and starts tearing apart the box to expose the tea set.
“You didn’t have to do that, but thank you.” He gives a shrug as he stands.
“Figured she could use some entertainment. We don’t exactly have cable out here. My daughter went nuts when she got one of those things for her birthday one year. Figured y
ours would do the same,” he tells me, glancing back to her, then to me again. “Going to go put the truck inside.” He starts to walk away, but I stop him.
“What about Brock?” His brow creases at my question.
“What about him?”
“Won’t it get cold? Out there?”
“Let him freeze.”
“Gin, he saved my daughter from them. Saved me too. Why are you treating him like this?” The scowl he shoots me makes me visibly shrink away from him.
“It’s none of your fuckin’ business,” he growls, low enough for Tanya not to hear, then stomps out the door, surprisingly not slamming it behind him as he goes.
Twenty-Four
Gin
“Just going to keep me strung up in here until I die?” Brock asks when I step out of the truck after pulling it into the garage.
“Probably.” His hands are up over his head attached to a hook coming from one of the beams. His feet dangle slightly from the floor, just enough for his bare toes to reach. I took off his boots and socks so he got colder quicker.
“C’mon, Gin. I ain’t the enemy here. I didn’t have shit to do with what they did to your woman. If anything, I tried to stop it.” Why does he have to mention Brit? I slam the door down hard onto the cracked cement and storm back over to him, landing a hard punch to his gut.
“Tried to stop ‘em, huh? When was that? After the first asshole raped her or the third one? Maybe it was the fifth?” I yell into his face, taking pride in the spit flying into his face.
“I was the one who pulled you off the fire,” he tells me, making my head snap back.
“You should have let me burn,” I growl, and storm out of the shed.
I know I can’t go inside just yet. Grace pissed me off when she asked about Brock and now the man has furthered my frustrations. Rock got back to me when we stopped in Bender to store my bike and grab some supplies. He confirmed what Brock had said to be true. They found a bomb tucked under our propane tank out behind the club, set to go off in exactly fifteen hours. Sage, being a former EOD, was able to disarm the weapon. Even with the bomb disabled, they were still on alert, so Rock ordered that family be taken out of town to the Siberian’s compound. Our ally. One big clusterfuck, if you ask me. But they have more security and are closer than our chapter in Rhino.
Wasting time before I have to go back inside, I find the small add-on room that holds the hot water heater and backup generator. I flick on the heater, then go to the propane tank located not too far away from the small shack and turn it on.
There’s no heat in the cabin, so I set out to get some wood split and blow off some steam in the process. There’s already a small stack, but I need the distraction. Grabbing a big log from the un-split stack, I heave the ax right through it before grabbing another one to repeat the process.
This safe house has belonged to the club for years. The club in Rhino takes care of it, being only fifty miles away. I have only come here once, probably ten years ago or so, and the place hasn’t changed much. Though, they did just recently put in that water heater.
With sweat dripping down my forehead, I decide to stop. The piles to each side of the chopping block are both up to my knees and I’m running out of logs to take my frustrations out on. I load up my arms and make my way to the front of the house, adding to the small stack next to the door. I repeat the process until I have a sizeable pile outside the cabin, then decide I can’t hold off any longer and walk inside.
I’m met with silence. The dark room I walk into is lit only by the fading daylight. Then I notice a small sliver of light coming from under a door. The closer I get, I start to hear her talking on the other side. She’s telling the kid a story until the little one interrupts. “Mama, where is Daddy?” There’s a long pause, then Grace speaks.
“He’s working on a big case.”
“When will he come home?”
“I’m not sure, honey. Let’s just go to sleep, okay? We can have a tea party tomorrow. How does that sound?” I don’t hear the little girl answer because I walk past the door and go to the bathroom to wash the sweat from my tired as fuck body.
The water heater is small, so the shower is short, just enough to rinse myself off. I grab a towel from the cupboard under the sink and grip my clothes in my hand, leaving the bathroom to go to the bedroom opposite the one Grace and her daughter are in. Inside, I find the two bags I had brought in sitting on the bed. The clothes I bought myself. She must have put them in here after unpacking. I rip open the package of t-shirts and pull a white cotton shirt over my head after pulling on a pair of gray sweatpants, wondering the whole time if she liked what I picked up for her and the kid. “Grow a fucking set,” I grumble to myself, shuffling through my jeans to find my lighter so I can start the fire up. I can already feel the night bringing on the cold as the minutes tick by.
Grabbing a handful of the split wood, I carry it inside. When my task is done, I go back to the room to grab my cigarettes and pretend not to notice that the light in the other room is no longer on.
Stepping outside, I take in a deep breath of the cool night air and listen to the sound of coyotes in the distance. I bring a smoke to my mouth and light it up, pulling the nicotine into my lungs. “You know those are bad for you.”
“So are you. Didn’t stop me from fucking you, though.” My response is quick, and I immediately want to take it back.
“I’m bad for you? Really? That’s what you’re going to go with?” I ignore her question.
“Kid sleeping?”
“Her name is Tanya. Tanya Tucker,” she says, making my heart damn near skip a beat.
“You gotta be shittin’ me. You named her that?” I say, trying to hold back my chuckle.
“I had a girl. I couldn’t name her Tucker,” she defends.
“That is funny. Fuzz always did like his country music. Kind of fitting, I suppose.” And it was. Clever too. “What are you doing out here? Thought you went to bed.”
“Why are we here? You clearly want nothing to do with me. So why go through the trouble? Why not just let us go on our way?”
“You are family. Club takes care of family. Fuzz would have—”
“Enough of that! You can’t keep using him as an excuse,” she whisper-yells. “You don’t get to drag me and my daughter clear across state lines and tell me it’s just because of some obligation you had to my dead father.” I flick my cig and take another drag before looking over to her face, her arms crossed tight over her chest. That’s when I notice she’s wearing the clothes I grabbed her and her hair is slightly damp.
“You think because we fucked a couple times I would bend over backwards to protect you? Not likely, babe,” I huff out, taking one last drag before tossing it into the gravel.
“You are such a liar,” she says, turning to leave, only I don’t let her go. I reach out and grab her arm, yanking her body flush against mine.
“What do you want me to say? That you have been on my mind since I first saw you seven years ago? Or maybe you want to know I can still taste you on my lips,” I whisper the last part across her lips for effect, then back away, letting her go. “Or how when I found out what you were going to do without saying a word to me, it felt like you ripped my heart out. My fucking heart that hasn’t beat in fucking years. Years, Grace. You came along and had to kick-start the thing only to stomp it back down.” I clench my teeth, using everything in me to not reach back out and grab her.
“I’m so sorry, Gin. I was so...I just wanted my daughter back,” she whispers through a small sob.
“I know you did, babe, and that’s another reason why I’m so pissed. I can’t be fucking mad about it. Can’t, because who picks some guy over their own flesh and blood?” I confess, wanting to reach up and brush away the tear slowly making its way down her cheek.
“You aren’t just some guy.” Her big, tear-soaked eyes hold my gaze, silently begging me to come closer. To hold her. “Gin.” Hell. I move forward, pinning her plian
t body between me and the rough wood of the cabin as I descend my mouth onto hers.
Damn right I’m not just some guy.
Twenty-Five
Grace
The rough wood of the cabin digs into my back through the thin cotton shirt I’m wearing, but I don’t care. The pain is muted with his mouth on mine. His hands on me. I slide my own hands along his chest and work my way down to the hem of his shirt, just enough for me to get my fingertips under the fabric before I start teasing the waistband of his sweatpants. The low growl in the back of his throat is a warning, telling me if I go further, he might just lose it.
I’m counting on it.
I’m not sure what has come over me. Where Gin is involved, I can’t seem to control myself. “Turn around, babe,” he instructs between kisses, moving his mouth from mine to explore my neck. The rasp of his beard makes my skin pebble with goosebumps.
My hair is down, the ends still slightly damp from the shower I took earlier—a very short one with lukewarm water at best. “Love this fucking hair,” he groans as I turn to face the wall of the cabin. He grips the strands in his hand, tugging my head back enough to expose my neck so he can continue his exploring while trailing his free hand down toward the waistline of my shorts. He is quick to pull them down along with my panties until they get to my knees where he leaves them, trapping my movements. It only takes him seconds before he maneuvers me so my backside is jutting out enough for him to slip his length into my wet folds, completely ready for him. He lets out a long groan as he bottoms out, his hand tightening in my hair. “Hold on, babe,” he grits out between clenched teeth, and wraps his free hand around my waist.
It’s animalistic the way he takes me, and I’m not sure how long I can last with him hitting all the right spots and gripping me in all the right places. I start to mewl his name when his pace quickens and his hand drifts to the juncture of my thighs to play with my clit. “Gin, I’m...oh.”