Integrity Has No Bounds

by Ryder Dane

  John kept his eyes on the battle blinded man and backed himself up slowly to the bar. He backed into a barstool and quickly looked to see if he’d violated anyone’s personal space. He was here for information, nothing more—and hopefully nothing less. The man siting on the stool next to the one he’d bumped into was giving him an unfriendly look. His cut had a president patch and John nodded to him and introduced himself.

  “I’m only here to ask where I can find a man by the tag of Rolf, I’m not here to cause any problems or interfere. Baron would have called, but there’s not exactly a directory of phone numbers for MC clubs, I can give you his cell and you can get confirmation from him if you want.”

  Trencher eyed the motherfucker who had the balls to waltz into their clubhouse like he owned the fucker. “What business do you happen to have with Rolf?” He ignored the sound of glass shattering behind him.

  John looked at the men congregated near the wall, then looked at Trencher. “My woman is his daughter, I think she’s here, or headed this way. Time to take her home.”

  Trencher looked ready to burst out laughing and shook his head. “Are you familiar with the James family?”

  John shrugged his shoulders. “I know Stevie and Viking, Stevie calls him Harry. I’ve heard stories about the old man but I’ve never met him. I’m just here to collect my woman.”

  That statement caused Trencher to laugh, and it took a few minutes for him to calm enough to talk. “Do you see that big son-of-a-bitch that’s probably finished with his fit about now?” He waited for the nod from John and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “That is Rolf, and the lady standing right here next to me, the one with the gun in her hand? That’s June Bug and Stevie is on the other end of the bar. The women of that family are as wild as the men.”

  He started laughing again as John’s mouth hung open for a minute. His lips shut and his eyes narrowed.

  He hadn’t bothered to look at the women standing on the bar when he’d come in. He’d registered that someone was standing there but seeing the gun in the older woman’s hand trained toward the men standing on the edges of the room made him look around to see Stevie standing five feet from her mother in an identical stance and with gun in her hand.

  This wasn’t his Stevie, this was a glorious Amazon biker chic princess. Seeing the way her vest cradled her tits made his cock stir in interest. The low riding jeans showed her pierced navel. She wore the same dangly sapphire blue jewel that hung from its curved ring. His lips had been there just a few days ago. The creamy skin that showed under the vest and above the waistband was maybe two inches, and he loved seeing it for himself, but he looked around to see who else was looking at his woman.

  A skinny Prospect and two older men were watching her watch them and they were grabbing their crotches and gesturing for her to come on down off the bar and play with them.

  He was torn between beating some gawking fuckers’ heads in and dragging her happy ass down from her perch himself. He stepped around broken chairs and a body that was lying in his direct route to the woman he considered his own.

  He stood directly in front of her and she finally looked down at him.

  Stevie had been nervous standing there, but she would rot in hell before she let her parents down by not standing against the family’s enemies. Her father was still prowling, looking for his adversaries and when she looked down, John was there. He was so handsome, so sexy wearing his leathers, the way the chaps cradled his crotch made her stare at that small space remembering what was hidden from her view behind the denim and leather. His hands were on his hips, and the look on his face was a mix of pissed John and turned on John. She wondered what he was mad about, and the big question was what was he doing here?

  She lowered the gun in her hand and he reached out to pull her hand down to take the weapon, and he was so focused on her face and body language that he barely registered the roar behind him.

  Too late, he saw Stevie’s mouth open to say something to the man who grabbed him from behind and slammed his head into the wooden bar. John knew what was happening, but his eyes closed and his body crumpled to the floor.

  Stevie screamed at her father to stop, but he was still in his haze of battle and she didn’t know what to do, he was reaching for John again, and she set her gun down on the bar and jumped on the big man’s back. She set her long arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist, and held on for dear life. Her face was tucked into his neck as she screamed at her father to stop.

  “Daddy, stop, he is a friend, he wasn’t trying to hurt me, Daddy, please stop, you’ll hurt him. Daddy, please, I think I love him.” She was crying and was wetting his neck with her tears, but she didn’t care about looking weak or vulnerable. She was happy to see John, her heart felt like smiling every time she’d laid eyes on him since the day they met, but if her father broke him into pieces, he wouldn’t be the same thick-headed Neanderthal she cared about.

  Rolf’s hands held leather and cotton material. The soft hand that laid against his cheek didn’t move from the spot it first touched. He was slowly registering something wet on his neck and the noise of a woman crying, begging her dad to stop hurting the man she loved? He shook his head trying to clear the red fog that clouded his brain. Another woman’s voice was telling him how brave he was and how proud she was to have him as her man.

  “Come back to me, Daddy, you destroyed our enemies, it’s over now, let’s go home, baby. Momma’s tired and you need to help Stevie, she’s crying for you.”

  The man’s body dropped to the floor and June Bug was enclosed in Rolf’s thick embrace. The big man was vibrating as the crazy left his eyes. The men still standing upright in the club breathed a sigh of relief. They weren’t stupid enough to move from their places yet though, this was not a new thing for Rolf, the man was a tank when riled.

  Finally June Bug pulled her lower body back enough for Stevie to lower her legs to the floor and let her arms relax their death grip on Rolf’s neck. She went to her knees as soon as she gained her balance, and crouched next to John’s swelling head.

  Someone handed her a plastic bag filled with ice and she didn’t bother to look up when she thanked the man. Her eyes were only for John. His face was swelling with the side of his head and she wondered if she should call an ambulance.

  June Bug was still petting and talking her husband down and wouldn’t be any help but Trencher, the President of the charter, crouched on the other side of John’s prone body while she pressed the ice on his face and head.

  “He told me he came to take his woman home, but he knew he would have to deal with your father. He didn’t know that the big guy was your father until I told him. The dumb fucker only had his sights on you once he saw you and your mom standing on the bar like that. He walked right passed Rolf to get to you.” He lifted one of John’s eyelids and could see the man had a concussion, fuck.

  “We need to get him medical help, and from the looks of your pant leg, he’s not the only one. Are you bleeding, or is it Rolf’s blood soaking your thigh?”

  Stevie looked down at her thigh and saw the blood that he mentioned. She had to swallow back a scream, it had to be her father’s blood, and she looked up to search out where her parents were standing.

  Her mother already stood at her husband’s back with his shirt wadded up into a pad that she was pressing over the wound. Her head was on his shoulder and she was whispering next to his ear.

  “I, uh, I need to get them help.” She took a deep breath to center her thoughts before turning her attention back to Trencher.

  “Do you have some way to transport them, or should we call an ambulance.”

  He grinned at her and stood. The girl was a James alright, cool as hell in any situation. He’d like to see how she reacted after the danger was past, but he had enough to worry about taking care of damage control right here. He walked behind the bar and pulled a key from the box under the bar and brought it back to her.

  He hande
d the key to her. “I’ll help get them loaded up, can you deal with the clinic?”

  Stevie nodded her head and gave him a tired smile. “Sure, I found them on the side of the road like this.”

  She got a half smile from Trencher and he signaled for a couple of beefy brothers to carry John to the van. She followed the awkward shuffling trio out of the front door, while June Bug led a still wild looking Rolf out behind them.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Stevie drove them to the hospital in the next town, and let her mother deal with her father, while she gave the admitting nurse what little information she had about John. She had to tell them that she was his fiancée so they would allow her to stay with him and gain information. His wallet yielded his license and insurance cards, and a grand in cash.

  She said that he’d fallen off his bike when he hit a woodchuck hole in the ground and hit his head on a rock. It was the only excuse she could think of to explain his injuries.

  Luckily her father was treated and released within two hours. Unluckily for her, he was clear-headed and wanted answers about her relationship to the man he’d come close to killing.

  She told him almost everything, while her mother sat with a small smile on her lips. “He’s not as smart as I thought he was though, Trencher told me that he walked right into the clubhouse and once he saw me, he walked right into the path of your sight. How dumb is that?” She burst into tears, and had her face buried in her hands, and didn’t see the look her parents exchanged.

  Rolf looked at his daughter and shook his head, yep she’s got it bad for the man. The thought made him sad, his little girl was a grown woman now.

  June Bug was smiling gently at Stevie’s bent head and turned to him, meeting his frown with her smile.

  If there was anything more certain than the sun coming up each morning, June had as much faith in her heart knowing that Rolf loved their children more than life itself. Stevie had turned into a beautiful young woman in their absence, but this developing love with the big tattooed biker gave her a reason to really smile. She leaned in close to Rolf and whispered the new hope she had into his ear. “Just think, if this works out for them, we’ll get babies to play with. Wouldn’t grandpa sound nice to hear from a little one’s mouth?”

  *****

  John was in the hospital for four days and Stevie stayed with him, talking to him, because he was in a drug-induced sleep to keep his pain levels down enough for them to drain the liquid from his eyelid and fluid that had gathered under his scalp from where the bone of his skull had cracked. Whatever they’d been giving him didn’t remove all of the pain he was feeling because he moaned in his sleep. There were times his hands raised to clutch his skull, and Stevie had to pull his hands down to keep him from hurting himself even more.

  The nurse aid that came in each day to give him a bed bath was much too pretty for her peace of mind, and Stevie didn’t know that the offender noted with amusement the scowl she gave the woman.

  Her mother had brought her a change of clothes each morning and stood guard while Stevie showered in the patient bathroom.

  June Bug admired the man lying in the hospital bed. He was handsome without being a pretty boy, and he was certainly built well. The tats were beautifully done, her only concern were the marks for the dead. There were five very small skulls on his right shoulder and two on the left. She would ask Rolf, but she hoped this John Handy was not a killer. “You better listen up, tough guy, if you hurt Stevie, this little stay in the hospital will seem like a vacation compared to the place I’ll put you.”

  On the third morning, they stopped giving him the pain meds and he began waking up slowly, as the medication wore off. He had to shield his eyes from the afternoon sunlight pouring into the room, because the light made the throbbing inside of his head become worse.

  Stevie saw his reaction and rushed to pull the curtains around his bed to block the light.

  She took his hand in hers and squeezed his fingers with her own. “Hey, big guy, I’m glad to see you’re awake.” She reached over for the Styrofoam cup of water and held the straw to his lips. “I think you’re probably thirsty, and I’ll ring for the nurse to let them know you are awake.”

  He was released on day four, feeling as weak as the day he’d been evac’t from the Middle East with an almost identical skull fracture on the opposite side of his head, and three busted up ribs. The nurses back then weren’t nearly as pretty as the ones here, and there had been no Stevie to hover over him at the time either.

  Rolf was waiting at the house when June bug and Stevie took him home with them and he was grateful for the man’s strength, even if he was the reason John was in this situation to begin with.

  After being almost carried into the house by the big man, all John wanted to do was lay his head down and quiet the throbbing to a more acceptable level, but Stevie insisted on him being put into comfortable sweat pants and Rolf assisted her with that too.

  After tucking the sheets around him and leaning over him to give his lips a quick peck, Stevie felt tears begin to flood her eyes, and she almost ran from the room. She walked past her parents where they sat at the kitchen table and kept going until she was in the carport where John’s chopper sat. Sitting on the seat, she cried until she felt a man gathering her into his strong arms.

  Rolf couldn’t stand hearing his girl crying like this, he knew that she needed to let off the stress, but this was tearing him a new asshole for being such an enraged beast. Fuck this, there was only one thing he knew that would blow the sadness away, even for the short time they would be gone.

  “Come on, Stevie, let’s mount up, time for a blow-it-off ride.” He reached over for June Bug’s helmet and plopped it over his daughter’s head and picked her up, only to set her on the bagger. He awkwardly hiked his long leg over the seat and started the bike. “I think we both need this, nothing like wind therapy to get your head straight.”

  June Bug heard the powerful growl of the scoot start up and leave, she saw that Rolf had taken Stevie for a ride and had to smile. It was almost like old times when the two of them would disappear for hours at a time when one or the other was in a snit over just about any reason, half of which she knew was manufactured just for the excuse to ride.

  She took chicken from the freezer for dinner, checked her phone for messages, and went in to check on their houseguest.

  John was sitting on the side of the bed gripping the mattress, and she didn’t want to startle him but she knew he would fall down if he tried to stand too quickly.

  “I’ll be happy to help you to the bathroom if that’s where you plan to go, but I can’t pick your big ass up from the floor. So if you plan on being stubborn about it, you’ll be on the floor for an hour or two. Rolf and Stevie are taking a ride, and you’re the lucky man that has me as his only option.”

  John couldn’t believe his bad luck, ever since he’d laid eyes on this family, his luck had been for shit. First his own stupidity for turning his back on Rolf in full battle mode, and now being forced to lean on a woman to use the damn toilet. Not just any woman, oh hell no, this one had to be Stevie’s mother. He looked up at her standing next to where he sat and nodded, resigned to receiving help from the pretty woman.

  June Bug laughed before bending down to give him her braced arm to help him balance. “You men aren’t much different, you have no idea of how many times Rolf has been in your position. He’s been shot too damn many times, one time he was smashed between a big rig and a minivan.” She stayed with him until he could grab the sink to leverage himself up and down on the stool, and left him to his privacy for the next ten minutes while she straightened the bed sheets.

  She heard the water running in the sink and waited close enough to the door for him not to feel crowded, but close enough to steady him.

  She just held out her arm for him to place his hand on for balance as they made their way back to the bed.

  “So, tell me about John Handy, I got your stats from your I
D, and Rolf called Baron from your cellphone. He said you are one of the good guys, and let me tell you that went a long way toward setting out minds at ease about you and Stevie.”

  John didn’t want to talk to the woman about himself, but if he hoped to leave with Stevie, he really had no choice. Telling her to mind her own damn business wasn’t going to cut it with this family. His head was beginning to pound but it wasn’t because of his injury.

  “I want to thank you for the hospitality.” He pushed himself up in a sitting position while she pulled the pillows up behind him for his back to rest against. He tried a smile and she smiled back. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. Yeah right.

  “Anything in particular you want to know? Let’s see, I am thirty, a Taurus, my family is not close, and I own a garage in Juanita, Missouri. I’ve been a member of the Breed for almost three years now, before that I was a State Trooper out East, and before that I was a Ranger in the U.S. Army.” He kept eye contact with June Bug while he spoke, and could read the appreciation for his candor in her expression.

  “I met Stevie a while ago, and was impressed with Viking’s little sister, but didn’t make a move on her for obvious reasons. She’s close to seven years younger than me and she was off limits to the brothers from the club. When Viking did his disappearing act, she was allowed to take over the bar, and she did a better job than he did.”

  He shifted his ass to change positions and hoped she would ask a question or something. She was giving him that “go on” look and it made him uncomfortable. For once he was happy his mom was such a distant, cold woman. If anything was in the way or had no purpose in her life , she tossed it. Knickknacks made by her kids for Christmas or Easter was included in that list of unnecessary things she tossed out after a day or two.