Not Acceptable Red Eyes MC Romance Series - Book #3)

by Blair Grey

  “Where’s Anne?” I asked, and I could hear that the heart rate machine had picked up on my rapidly quickening heartbeat. I remembered it all, being in that abandoned building, with her on one side of me and Braxton on the other. Guns pointed at both of their heads.

  She couldn’t be dead, though, could she? I had jumped in front of the bullet before it could hit her. My shoulder wouldn’t be throbbing like this unless I’d successfully managed to intercept it.

  Unless the bullet had gone right through me and taken her as well.

  “Relax,” Ray said, putting a hand on the side of my bed. “We wouldn’t all be sitting here if Anne weren’t doing okay. This was just a bit too much for her. She needed to go home and get some rest.”

  “But she’s okay? She’s not hurt?”

  “She’s okay,” Braxton confirmed. “A few bruises, but not even a scratch from a bullet.”

  I fell back against the bed, feeling exhausted by the strength of the relief that flooded through my body. “Good,” I said, closing my eyes. Then, I turned to look at Braxton. “And you?”

  “Also not even a scratch,” he confirmed. “And before you ask, yes. The Mambas are no more. I killed the two in the room, and while you were in surgery here, I went after the other guys, the ones we had dumped before. Killed them with their own guns.”

  He sounded proud of himself, and I supposed he had a right to be. He had saved us all.

  “You were right,” I suddenly remembered, knowing he would preen even more when he heard those words. “You figured out that Jason was the rat. Before I ever even suspected it.” Maybe I didn’t give him enough credit sometimes. Maybe I had grown so used to cleaning up his messes while we were growing up that I hadn’t realized how much he had matured in recent years.

  Braxton grinned at me. “I’m never going to be the leader that you are, but I’ve learned a few things from you over the years,” he said.

  There were smiles all around at that.

  “So how close was it?” I asked, prodding at my shoulder. I grimaced, biting back a groan, and retracted my hand.

  “Put it this way: an inch lower, and you wouldn’t be here today,” Ray said, and I could tell he was preparing for a lecture.

  But Neil gave him a look. “Don’t you dare give him the same talk you gave me when I jumped in front of that bullet to save you,” he said warningly. “I know it was stupid, and I know that being family doesn’t mean that we all have to pretend we’re heroes. And I’m sure Landon knows the same and that he’s never going to do that again.”

  I smiled, and Braxton laughed. Ray looked sheepish. “I was just going to say that I told the two of them to come home and that they’d damned well better listen to me next time.”

  “Well, hopefully I’ll never be in need of their services again,” Neil said. He and Ray shook hands. “Consider the debt repaid.”

  Neil left, and Ray sat on the end of my bed. “I know it was selfish of me to ask you guys to come home when I did,” he said. “To tell the truth, I never should have sent the two of you in the first place. I’m glad that you’re both going to be okay.”

  “Ray, I think this is the most emotional that I’ve ever heard you be,” Braxton said teasingly.

  “Except for when he did that toast at Belle’s wedding, maybe,” I reminded him with a tired grin.

  Ray wasn’t laughing, though. Instead, he was just as serious as ever. Maybe even more so. “There’s something that the two of you need to know,” he said.

  “I’m listening,” Braxton said, slowly sitting back down in his chair.

  “There’s no easy way to say this, but I’m your biological father,” Ray said. He paused. “It would have killed me if anything had happened to the two of you.”

  Braxton and I both stared at him. “How?” I finally managed to ask.

  “I didn’t want you two to grow up the way I did, with MC business around you before you could even walk or talk. I wanted you to be able to make your own choices. To have some semblance of a normal life.” He paused. “I know things weren’t always easy on you when you were younger, but I was afraid things would have been even worse if you had grown up with me. I was too young to do things properly back then.”

  “Does Belle know?” I asked.

  Ray shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “I know that it’s a lot to take in.”

  “It’s not really,” Braxton said, lifting one shoulder and letting it drop again. “You were always there for us. I guess there’s a part of me that’s not very surprised.”

  “Same,” I said, my voice hoarse with emotion more so than with dryness now.

  Ray smiled at both of us. “I’m going to stay here in Florida until you’re healed up,” he told me. “And then we’ll all go back to New Mexico together. How does that sound?”

  “Great,” Braxton said.

  “Yeah,” I echoed.

  I knew the time had come and that I needed to go back. I had no choice, right from the start. My whole life was in New Mexico. My whole family. My family, not just the MC, because Ray was actually my father. I was still trying to wrap my head around it.

  But through all of this, I was still thinking about Anne. There was a reason I had jumped in front of a bullet for her. There was a reason why I had gone to such great lengths to make sure that she was safe. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was losing something special with her by agreeing to return to New Mexico with Ray and Braxton.

  On the other hand, what was I supposed to do, though? I couldn’t just stay here in Florida. Even if I wanted to, which I wasn’t sure that I did, I knew that Anne probably didn’t want me to. This may have grown into something more than friendship, but that was before she found out that I had betrayed her. Before she found out that I was part of Red Eyes and that I had gotten her caught up in a mess that ended with her held at gunpoint in an abandoned building.

  They had told me that she had gone home because she needed to rest, but what was the other thing they had said? That this was all too much for her. They didn’t just mean the waiting game here in the hospital, I was sure. They meant all of it. The fact that I was involved in a motorcycle club. The fact that I was involved in business that could get a person killed.

  What I did was dangerous; there was no denying that. I couldn’t expect Anne to understand, and I definitely couldn’t expect her to change her whole life to accommodate that.

  What’s more, I didn’t think I could handle seeing her put in the line of fire again. And it was bound to happen again if she remained in my life. The Mambas weren’t the last rival MC that I would ever have to deal with, I was sure.

  It was better, if I really loved her, to let her go and try to forget about her. That I head back to New Mexico and put an entire country between the two of us. As much as I hated the idea of it, I knew that was the right thing to do. The only thing to do.

  I could tell from the worried frown that Braxton was giving me that he had at least some idea of what was going through my head. He had known, right from the start, that my relationship with Anne was only going to end in trouble when it was time for us to go back home. Now, it was that time, and he had an idea of what I was feeling.

  I did my best to smile at them, and when that didn’t work, I faked a yawn. “You know, I’m still pretty exhausted,” I told both of them. “Is it okay if I go back to sleep?”

  “Of course,” Ray said immediately, moving back to his chair.

  “What, the two days of sleep that you’ve already had weren’t enough?” Braxton quipped.

  Ray swatted him on the arm. “We’ll be right here if you need anything…son.”

  36

  Anne

  I stared down at my phone, rereading the message from Braxton. L woke up. Doing OK. Asked 4 u.

  I was glad to hear that Landon had woken up. I hadn’t expected Braxton to actually message me when he woke up, and I’d been wondering if I would have to go to the hospital to find out if he was okay. I didn’t th
ink I could go back there, though. The other night was still too vivid in my memory. I could still remember how hard I’d had to scrub to get that blood off my hands. His blood. Landon’s blood.

  It was something that I hoped never to repeat.

  I was trying to go about life as normal, but I couldn’t seem to settle back into the patterns that I had set up. My first day at the pharmacy, I’d been so jittery that Donald had confined me to the back room the whole day and then ended up sending me home early. I just kept expecting three strangers to walk in the door. They could come back at any point.

  And Landon wouldn’t be there to protect me next time. He was still in the hospital.

  I missed him. Beyond the nervousness and the worry and everything else, what it really boiled down to was that I missed him. I had been sleeping on the couch for the past couple nights because I couldn’t bear to sleep in the bed that I had shared with him. I kept remembering waking up next to him the morning that everything had gone to shit.

  I hadn’t known that things were about to go so wrong. If I had, I might have lingered a little longer there in bed with him.

  The doorbell rang, and I froze, a dozen scenarios running through my head. It could be the police, back to ask more questions. Or it could be more Mambas—the police had filled me in on the rival motorcycle clubs—back to exact their revenge. It could be Neil or Braxton or Ray or any of those guys. They’d offered over and over again to help me out, whatever I needed, but I kept trying to tell them that I didn’t need anything, and I thought that they might have finally gotten the message.

  I missed Landon, almost as though I had lost a limb back there in that abandoned building, but I had to move on with my life. I couldn’t get involved in all of that.

  When I got to the door, though, I saw to my relief that it was Lina standing there. “Hey,” she said, giving me a big hug. “How are you doing, champ?”

  I sighed and stepped back to let her in. “You know. Been better.” I started to say that I had been worse, but I actually didn’t know if that was truly the case. I knew that at this point, my memories about the last breakup had dulled somewhat. I’d been in that relationship for three years, so it had to have felt worse than this. But right now, this felt like the worst that I would ever feel.

  Lina seemed to pick up on some of that. “Come on,” she said, steering me toward the back porch. “I brought lunch. I doubt you’ve eaten.”

  I gave her a guilty look. “How did you know?”

  Lina laughed. “I took care of you last time, too, remember? You’re predictable. Lovingly predictable.”

  I wanted to smile at that, but those muscles just didn’t seem to work anymore.

  “Talk to me,” Lina coaxed as we sat down, and she spread out the Southern-style cooking that she had brought over. Comfort food: mashed potatoes, roast chicken, green bean casserole, and coleslaw. Just what I needed. “I want to know exactly what you’re feeling.”

  I sighed. “Part of me is relieved,” I admitted. “Braxton texted me earlier to let me know that he’s finally woken up. He’s going to be okay.”

  “That’s great news!” Lina said. “If you want, we can drive over to visit him once we’ve gotten some food in you.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not a good idea,” I told her.

  “Okay,” Lina said slowly. “Tell me about the rest of it then. Because not to be a shit, but it looks like you haven’t slept in weeks, and he’s only been in the hospital for two days.”

  “I miss him,” I said simply. I paused, wondering how much I could tell her. “I know it’s silly because I haven’t known him for that long, but I guess I really thought that he might be…” I trailed off. The one. I couldn’t say that. I had thought that I had found the one once before and look how that mess had turned out.

  “You must have really cared for him,” Lina said sympathetically. “I knew you and I were going to be best friends forever within days of meeting you, so I’m not too surprised that you could fall for a guy that quickly.”

  “Yeah.” I shrugged.

  “So why don’t you want to go see him then?” Lina asked, looking confused. “If he’s that important to you, I guess I just don’t get it.”

  “I can’t,” I said, shaking my head. “Lina, you know I can’t get involved in all of that.”

  “All of that,” Lina said, frowning. “Do you even know what ‘all of that’ is?”

  “No, but I don’t think I want to know, after what I saw on Friday,” I said firmly. “I know it’s probably not always like that, but the fact that it even sometimes is? Lina, I can’t live a life in danger all the time. It’s been hard enough the past couple days. You think it looks like I haven’t been sleeping? It’s because I haven’t been. How could I? I keep dreaming of that gun being pointed at my head or blood on my hands or Landon dying. Over and over again. And when I’m not dreaming about that, I’m panicking while I’m awake. I can’t do my work at the pharmacy anymore. I can’t interact with customers, and I’m so jumpy that I can hardly fill prescriptions without knocking pills all over the floors.”

  “Have you thought about going to talk to someone?” Lina suggested. “What you went through was a traumatic experience. It’s only natural that you’re still scared. But you’re tough. I’m sure you can get through this.” She looked off to the side.

  Suddenly, it occurred to me that I wasn’t the only person who had gone through this. I had been so busy thinking about Landon and my own worries over the past couple days that I had forgotten that she’d been there as well.

  “How are you doing?” I asked. “You’re not still panicking about those guys coming into your house, are you?”

  “Put it this way; I keep all the windows and doors locked at all times, even if I’m home and even if the temperature is way up over one hundred,” Lina said grimly. “But same thing, it’s all starting to fade now. Pretty soon, I’m sure things will be back to normal.”

  “Things are only going to go back to normal if I quit this thing with Landon,” I said bitterly. I shook my head. “I don’t even know if it’s over with the Mambas yet. That’s part of why I’m still so panicky. Landon led me to believe that there were more of them. That the others would be coming after me as well.”

  “Did you read the news in the paper, though?” Lina asked. “About the Mambas.”

  “What about them?” I asked.

  “They’ve caught the last of them. And they’ve verified that it was their president who died in that room. One of the guys that Landon shot. They had this whole article about how the town has been rid of the most vicious MC to date.”

  I frowned, thinking back to what little I’d told the police. Braxton or Neil or someone must have told them the rest of the story, putting a nice spin on it so that the Red Eyes guys were safe. How did I feel about the fact that they were manipulating the truth like that?

  I’d been a part of that manipulation, too, though. I knew it wasn’t Landon who shot the two guys in that building on Thursday. But I was the one who told the police that.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go visit Landon after lunch?” Lina pressed.

  “I’m sure,” I told her. “I just can’t. I want things to go back to normal. Somehow, they have to. But the only way they’re going to do that is if I stay well clear of Red Eyes so that I don’t get caught up in their business again.” I paused. “Besides, I’m sure Landon will be headed back to New Mexico as soon as he’s healed up. That’s where his family is, where his MC is based. He was only out here for business.”

  With the Mambas gone, he didn’t have business out here anymore. There would be no reason for him to stick around. That was the ending I had known was coming; I just hadn’t expected all the rest of it to come along as well.

  “We’ll just have to keep going to the gym,” Lina said. “Remember, that cute guy there who was interested in you?”

  Going to the gym was the last thing I wanted to do in the near future, but I
smiled over at her, knowing that she was just trying to take my mind off things. “We’ll figure out a time that works for both of us,” I said, even though I knew that if things kept going the way that they were going, if I kept being incapable at concentrating at the pharmacy, then it was only a matter of time until I was unemployed. Then, I’d have all the time in the world to go to the gym.

  I thought about what Lina had said before. About the newspaper story. The leader of the Mambas was dead, and the town was rid of them for good. It made me feel marginally better, knowing that at least for the time being, I didn’t have to keep looking over my shoulder, waiting for some group of three to sneak up on me. But on the other hand, it only made me worry more about Landon.

  When would he be leaving? Would he even try to say goodbye? Probably not, I realized. After all, I was the one who was refusing to even go see him at the hospital. And he had always been the gentleman, throughout this whole relationship. He wouldn’t want to upset me. He wouldn’t want to push. He would give me my space, and he would just disappear.

  And I would never see him again.

  I reached a hand up to wipe away a couple stray tears. Lina didn’t say anything, she just reached over and squeezed my other hand.

  37

  Landon

  The hospital discharged me the next day. I was still hopped up on some pretty strong painkillers, but according to the doctor, my skin was knitting back together in record time, and I’d be able to take the bandages off soon enough. I didn’t care how quickly the hole in my shoulder healed up; I was just excited to be able to get out of that room finally. The exhaustion had finally worn off, and I’d been going a bit stir-crazy despite Braxton’s attempts to distract me.

  “Hey, Dad, can you handle bringing him down in the wheelchair while I bring the car around?” Braxton asked Ray.