by Jessie Cooke
“I’m going to go over some of the common reasons why a parolee can be found in violation, okay? Write it down or record it if you must. I don’t want you saying later that I didn’t tell you something.”
Yeah, definitely not hot any longer. “Okay.”
“Your residence, and in this regard Dax Marshall’s residence or clubhouse or wherever you sleep, can be searched at any time of day or night without reason and without a warrant. If you want to leave the county, it has to be approved by me, and I’m sure you can guess that an approval from me won’t come easy. I want you to have a job by the end of the week and if not, then enroll in school full-time. If you quit your job, get fired, drop out, or get kicked out of school you have five days to notify me. If you change your residence, you have five days to notify me. You will obey all laws and that extends to paying your parking tickets and not littering. Do you understand all of this, Cody?”
I’m not a fucking moron. “Yes.”
“Oh, another thing. You were convicted of manslaughter using your fists and feet. So, no fighting, no knives, guns, or weapons of any kind. This extends to your residence, so when you get back to that compound you might want to have a talk with Mr. Marshall.”
“I’m sure Dax doesn’t have any weapons on the property,” Cody said, suppressing a smile. What he was sure of was that with so many felons on the property, he kept them well hidden.
She snorted and said, “Look, I’m not here to bust your chops. What I’m here to do is: number one, protect society from dangerous criminals and number two, help turn you into a productive member of that society. Sometimes, and I’m not saying this applies to you, people come to me in their twenties or thirties and I’m the first disciplinarian they’ve had outside the prison walls. They have no idea how to integrate into society, and the ones that don’t follow my rules don’t need to worry about it because they end up right back behind prison walls. With that being said, if I were you I’d do my best to find someplace else to live. Because in my experience there is no such thing as a fully legitimate motorcycle club.” Cody didn’t say anything to that and after a long, hard stare at his face she said, “You can go. See you same time next week here, unless I decide to visit you in the meantime.”
Cody got up and left, and on his way out to the bike, he couldn’t help but feel like he was still in some form of prison with people telling him what to do and how to do it at every turn. He wondered if that ever stopped, and he wondered how long he’d be able to stand it if it didn’t.
9
Cody was mentally exhausted when he got back to the ranch as well as sore from both of his long rides. He was also starving. He went straight into the kitchen to see what he could find to eat and he found Macy’s father, Tank, standing at the stove, cooking something that smelled like heaven.
“Tank.” It was late, and Cody had been hoping to grab a snack or some leftovers and get to his room without having to talk to anyone. He hadn’t seen Tank since he got back, so he’d have to make at least a little conversation with him to show him the respect that he was owed as an old-timer and Macy’s dad.
Tank turned and looked at him, and Cody could see that it took him several seconds to place him. “Miller. I heard you were back.”
“Yep. Almost a week now. Can I grab something out of the fridge to eat? I’m starving.”
“Sure. I got some stew here just about ready too.”
“It smells good. What’s it for?”
“My turn to cook for the gathering tomorrow. I’m gonna barbecue up some steaks and all the fixings, but the weather’s been a little cold so I thought some stew might be nice too.”
Cody kept a straight face, but it was hard. Tank was a big guy, not just in height but in build. Cody remembered him as being muscular at one time, but now he was just big, with a belly that protruded out over his pants and threatened to skim across the floor if he bent over. No one that saw him outside of the club would ever guess that he’d say things like, “A pot of stew would be nice.” Most people didn’t spend a lot of time talking to Tank because he was such a grumpy, unpleasant old codger; but because Cody had been sniffing around Macy for so many years, he had come to find out that Tank wasn’t your average biker. He was college-educated and according to Macy he came from a middle-class family in Boston. He’d been badass in his day, but he’d never lost the ability to articulate like a college professor.
“What’s the gathering about?”
“Got some out-of-towners stopping by—a crew out of West Virginia, I hear.”
That was interesting. Cody sure wished he knew what that was all about. Tank didn’t sound like he did either, and Cody knew enough to know that even if he did, Tank wouldn’t be willing to share it with him. “Stew sounds good,” Cody told him. He went over to the cabinet and took out a bowl and brought it back over to Tank. Tank took it and ladled it full.
“There’s some bread the girls made this morning on the counter over there.”
“Thanks.” Cody took his bowl, grabbed a piece of bread and said, “I thought I’d take it to my room and eat—I’m pretty tired.”
Tank didn’t say anything until Cody reached the door. When he got there the old man said, “You know she cried every day for months after you got locked up.”
Cody stopped in his tracks. The image of Macy…sixteen-year-old Macy, no less—crying for him every day went straight to his heart and cut like a knife. For some reason his mind went back to the first time he ever saw her cry. They were both ten years old and even though he hardly knew her at all then, it had stuck with him. “I wasn’t thinking,” he said. “I was so upset about Keller…” Upset was an understatement. He had been out of his mind with grief to the point of not being able to think about anything other than doing to those men exactly what they had done to his brother. He hadn’t gone looking for them to kill them, but he hadn’t cared if he did. Most of all, he hadn’t thought about who else his decision to avenge his brother’s death was going to hurt.
“I get it,” Tank said. “I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing if it had been me. But I also can’t say that I haven’t done a hell of a lot of stupid shit over the years I regret and wish I hadn’t done. I’ve got regrets I’ll probably take to the grave with me.”
Cody carried his bowl back over to the table. Tank fixed himself a bowl and carried it over too. The two men sat down and Tank said, “You didn’t know Macy very well yet when her mama died, did you?”
Cody got chills, since he’d just been remembering the day that it happened. The little girl with the long, dark ponytail stood behind her daddy’s leg with a tear-stained face as they took her mother out in a black body bag. Cody was too young to really understand it then, but he grew up hearing the talk and the rumors. When he and Macy were thirteen and going steady he’d asked her about it finally. She cried again that day when she told him about it. What had stuck with him most was Macy saying, “I don’t ever want to die alone like her. No one loved her, Cody. Promise you’ll love me forever and you won’t ever let me die alone.” Cody promised her that day he’d never leave her alone. When he went to prison, he broke that promise.
“Not well, no,” was what he said to Tank.
“Her mama was beautiful. I wanted that girl the minute I saw her. Doc’s the one that brought her in. We all waited to see if he was going to keep her and when he didn’t, she was free game. I think she went through about three or four of the guys before she made it to me. I realized pretty quickly that she was a little unstable. She acted like we were in love the morning after, and I almost had to physically take her out of my room. But you know what?”
Cody was afraid to ask, “What?”
“It didn’t stop me from using her, because that’s what we did. When she got pregnant we all wanted to deny it was ours. She was a well-used club girl by then and it could have been anyone’s baby. She insisted it was mine and refused to have an abortion. Doc felt sorry for her and let her stay on, and when the
baby was born and I saw her, I was pretty sure she was mine too. I guess I found a little bit of a heart I never knew I had that day. I agreed to do the paternity test and it turned out that sure enough, she was mine. So, you know what I did?” Cody shook his head. “I kept that baby and her mama in my house, because I wanted the kid, but I wasn’t going to take care of her. I used her mama when I wanted her and I let the rest of the guys use her when they did. I knew she’d started using the smack but I didn’t give a shit because when she was high she liked to fuck even more and she didn’t cling to me as much. When she overdosed, I was kind of relieved to be rid of her…until I saw Macy’s face. It was only then that I realized my selfishness had not only led to that woman’s death…it had changed that little girl’s world forever. To this day I can honestly say I haven’t mistreated another woman and I haven’t done anything to make my little girl cry. But at night when I’m alone, I’m still haunted by the misery I caused her, because I can’t ever take that back.”
“I’m sorry I hurt Macy. It wasn’t ever my intention.”
“I know, son. But what I’m trying to tell you in a long-winded sort of way here is to make sure you learn from it. You can’t take back the past, but you can sure as hell not hurt her again in the future. Remember that what you do affects everybody around you, and think it through before you do it.”
Cody thought about the plans he’d made while he was in prison. There was one more person that needed to suffer for his brother’s death. He wondered if what Tank was saying held true only if you didn’t do it…or if you did what you had to do and just didn’t get caught…
Cody went to sleep that night with the image of Macy crying. He slept restlessly like he had for the first year he was in prison. Nightmares of finding Keller’s body and what his brother must have gone through plagued him every time he closed his eyes back then. It had been years now since he’d dreamt about his brother and the agony tonight must have been for him. Tonight he had that dream again, only this time he also dreamt of what it was like the night he killed one of the men that had taken his brother’s life. The first few punches had felt so good, but those were really the only ones that he remembered when he was awake. He’d gone into what his psychologists at the prison called a “fugue” state at that point, and sixteen years of abuse as well as the trauma of finding his brother’s battered body took over. In the dream, however, he saw himself hitting them repeatedly. He felt each rip of flesh and each shattering of bone and he could even feel the blood as it dripped down through his fingers and ran up his arms.
He woke up in a puddle of sweat and breathing hard like he’d been running. The sun wasn’t up yet, but there was no way he was going back to sleep. He got up and showered and dressed, and quietly left the clubhouse and headed for the shop. Maybe tinkering around on his bike would help get rid of some of whatever it was he was feeling. That was the worst part: he didn’t know what it was. It could be guilt because he’d never once thought about how his actions would affect Macy. It could be grief because his heart still hurt when he thought about Keller. Or it could just be twenty-four years of anger because no matter what he did, it always seemed like his life turned out to be a big, steaming pile of shit.
10
Macy woke up in a good mood. She’d gone to pick up her wallet, and when Jimmy came home he hadn’t said anything about any of it. He was in a good mood and they had dinner, watched a movie, and cuddled and made love before they fell asleep. She almost made it through the whole night without thinking about Cody or worrying that Jimmy would find out about her slip-up. There was some big party going on at the clubhouse that her dad had been cooking all night for and that Jimmy was excited about. She wasn’t necessarily looking forward to it, but she wasn’t dreading it as much as she thought she might. She had to learn how to co-exist with Cody sometime—sooner was probably better than later.
Jimmy took off ahead of her; he said he had some business to take care of. When she was ready she went over. The clubhouse was full of bodies, a lot of them wearing vests that said “Irish Mayhem” on them. The club girls were there and some of the women that starred in the porn movies that the club still made on the side. Macy wove her way through the sea of bodies and found her father in the kitchen along with Angel. They were bickering over whether or not the cornbread was done. When Angel saw her she said:
“Macy, honey, look at this cornbread and tell your father it’s not done.”
Macy was intimidated by Angel. Most of the club girls were too. She was the one woman who had landed the man every one of them had fantasized about being chosen by. Dax was MC royalty, but more than that he was just this huge presence that radiated everything a woman ever wanted in a man as soon as he walked in the room. Macy had a huge crush on him when she was a little girl, but she was way too young to ever be put into his rotation of women before he met Angel. Once Angel walked into his life it was as if every other woman disappeared, and that only made him that much more attractive to them all. Angel was beautiful and smart and classy, and despite the rocky way she’d come into Dax’s life she seemed to calm him—and when Dax was calm, everything on the ranch ran more smoothly. Everyone treated Angel with respect…if they knew what was good for them…and most of them deferred to her every whim. Now Macy was looking at the cornbread that she thought looked perfectly cooked and wondering if it was okay to disagree with the queen of the club about baked goods.
“Well…” She cut her eyes over at Tank. He was smiling. He knew what she thought and he was finding humor in the fact that she didn’t know what to say. “Well, Angel, by most people’s standards I suppose it looks under-cooked. But Dad and I kind of like it that way.”
Angel rolled her eyes and smiled. “I should have known better than to ask a daughter to go against her dad. I used to always take my dad’s side.” Macy had heard stories about Angel’s family and the fact that her dad was killed by one of Hawk’s men. She noticed like everyone else did, that there was a slight tension in the room every time Angel and Hawk occupied the same space. She wondered if she could be in the same room with someone she felt responsible for killing her dad. She doubted it. She wasn’t anywhere near as sophisticated as Angel.
“That’s my girl,” Tank said. “Where’s that old man of yours?”
Macy shrugged. “Talking to Dax about something, I think.” She looked around the kitchen at all the food. “Wow, you two have really outdone yourselves.” There was fried chicken and barbecue ribs, mashed potatoes and gravy, and corn on the cob and squash casserole and chili beans, and her dad’s famous stew. It made her hungry just smelling it all although it was a little too early for so much food for her taste. She thought it was funny how Angel always insisted on helping Tank cook when they had a big shindig. Most “old ladies” thought they were way above that sort of thing and left it to the club girls. It seemed to make Angel happy, and not many people got along as well with Macy’s father as she did. He was kind of an old grouch most of the time to everyone but her. Macy knew that he regretted a lot of things he’d done in his life, and once he even told her that he wondered if his medical issues were his punishment for living a life of sin. It had all turned him into an unpleasant old man, and she thought sometimes that if it weren’t for his job as head cook for the club, and her, he might feel like he had nothing left to live for.
“I think we made enough food for an army,” Angel said.
“It looks like there’s an army out there,” Macy said. “Who are these Irish Mayhem guys?”
Angel shrugged. “Dax said the club is doing some kind of business with them. I leave all that to him these days.” Macy wondered if that was hard for Angel, considering that she’d only met Dax because she’d been sent in undercover to bust him. Macy smiled at her, kissed her dad on the cheek, and said:
“I think I’ll go find Jimmy. I just wanted to say hi.”
When she got back out to the clubhouse, it was even more crowded than it had been only a few minutes earlier. S
he stood behind the bar and tried to find Jimmy. He was so tall that he was usually easy to spot, but she didn’t see him. What her eyes did land on as if they were magnets and he steel, was Cody. He was looking at her too and when she looked at him, he didn’t turn away. His intense hazel eyes locked onto hers and for a few seconds she felt like she couldn’t breathe. She was so focused on him that she didn’t notice Lucy, one of the newer club girls on the ranch, watching her.
“He’s so hot, huh?” She turned then. Lucy was sitting on one of the bar stools. She was wearing a white halter top and a tiny little barely-there black leather skirt. She had on thigh-high black boots that laced up the front and her long black hair hung down straight to her waist. She was cute, but Macy thought she’d be cuter if she toned down the make-up and didn’t dress so slutty.
“What’s that?” she asked her.
“Cody Miller. He’s hot.” Macy wondered if she truly didn’t know about their history. Lucy hadn’t lived on the ranch before Cody went to jail, so maybe not…but the way the club girls talked, it was hard to believe.
“Yeah, he’s a good-looking guy. Have you seen Jimmy?”
Lucy had a big crush on Jimmy when she first got to the ranch. She was only sixteen and Dax was already really pissed off at the guy that had brought her, so none of the guys were paying any attention to her then, much less Jimmy. She flirted with him relentlessly, but when he kept shooting her down, she seemed to finally give up. She and Macy were friendly when they saw each other, but there always seemed to be a little bit of tension there and Macy thought it was residual hurt feelings over Jimmy.
“No, but I can’t take my eyes off Cody.” Macy almost rolled her eyes but she told herself again that she had to get over him. He wasn’t hers to be jealous over and besides, she didn’t think Lucy was his type.