CULVER: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel

by Jackson, Meg

  On the other hand, Boon certainly wasn’t just a friend. He was…something else. Something in between. The best way I could sum up exactly how I felt about Boon, how I’d felt when he sent me that text, was that I was excited beyond all reason to fall in love with him. I could feel it had already started to happen, and I was ready for it to happen.

  As soon as the words left my mouth, I looked to Boon’s face, trying to see how he’d react. He didn’t look crestfallen. He didn’t look dejected. He looked…cold. He wasn’t looking at me, but at my father. I wanted to explain more. I wanted to tell them both: I’m confused! I could love him! If you’d let me, Dad, if you’d let me, Boon, I could love him!

  “Please, Daddy, stop,” I finally managed to say, more tears leaking from my eyes. And then my father deflated. Like a balloon, he just seemed to lose all the air and strength in his body at once. He didn’t drop his eyes from Boon’s, but he did drop his gun. His shoulders slumped. He shook his head.

  “Kid, you must have had some sorta traumatic brain injury on that hog of yours if you thought coming around here was a good idea,” Dad said at last. Boon’s shoulders dropped as well as he relaxed, no longer the target at the end of Dad’s shotgun. “Now, I suggest you get on that death machine of yours and ride it as far the fuck away from Missoula, Montana as you can get before you drown.”

  With that, and nothing more, Dad turned. He strode towards Mom and I, who were huddled together, both sobbing, and grabbed us, pushing us ahead of him into the house. If I wasn’t so shocked already from everything that had happened, I would have been shocked by this rough treatment. Dad never laid a hand on Mom or I. Looking back once more before falling across my doorstep, I saw Boon, head hanging for just a moment before rising again and looking, defiantly, at my father’s back.

  That look scared me almost as much as anything else that had just happened.

  That look made me think that maybe I hadn’t been behaving very intelligently. That maybe I’d been downright stupid. Maybe I’d dragged my friends, my family, into a dangerous situation. After all, Boon was a member of a freaking biker gang, for god’s sakes.

  His tattoos weren’t just there to look cool.

  He didn’t ride a bike for fun.

  This wasn’t a hobby.

  He was trouble.

  And I’d walked right into it, given him everything, been led on by his cute smile and strong arms and deep eyes. He got me high, and I made out with him in a bathroom. Suddenly, that story didn’t seem cool or edgy or fun. It seemed downright…stupid.

  I began to panic as my family filed into the house. What if he comes after me, what if he comes after my dad, what if…

  I remembered that I was still holding whatever it was Boon had slipped into my palm. In my frenzied state, I didn’t even bother looking at it, just slipped it into my pocket.

  “How did you meet him?” Dad asked, turning to face me as I stood in the hallway. He didn’t look angry anymore, just…confused? Maybe a little angry, still, but mostly sad and confused. I struggled to breathe, never mind speak.

  “Hugh, give her a minute,” Mom said, coming to my rescue. She threw her arm around my shoulders, curling me in close. I closed my eyes and let my head rest against her, feeling her breathe, steady and deep. How can moms go from freaking out to perfectly calm so quickly? How are moms so good at doing whatever the situation calls for? I know for a fact that Mom was not, in fact, feeling very calm at that moment. Despite the steadiness of her breathe, I knew that, inside, she was as strung up as I was. But she managed to keep it all under wraps. For my sake.

  “Vegas,” I finally managed to sniffle. My father rolled his eyes so hard he must have caught a glimpse of gray matter.

  “Vegas? Vegas, Samantha? You met him on your girl’s trip? Jessica, I knew we shouldn’t have fucking let that happen, Jesus Christ, and you gave him your address? Where the hell did you meet him in Vegas? Did you guys go to a goddam biker bar?” My father was about to launch into one of his famous tirades: a steady flow of words that could go on for hours, days even, if left unchecked.

  “Bill, you were the one who suggested Vegas,” Mom said, coming to my defense once more.

  “I didn’t give him my address, Daddy, I swear,” I said, wiping tears from my eyes. “Are we gonna be okay? Why did you do that, Daddy? What did he do?”

  “Just…go upstairs, please, Samantha, for now,” Dad said, sighing, looking defeated. I stayed put, not willing to leave until I got some answers. The panic had subsided to a dull, throbbing ache. Later, I’d know this was shock. At the time, it was all I could do to think straight. I was tired and angry and upset and hurt and curious all at the same time, but all of those feelings were just below the surface, just out of reach.

  “But…” I sputtered, but knew better than to protest further. Dad’s eyes had fallen on me, and I knew there was no arguing. Breaking away from my mother, I slowly shambled up the staircase to my room. For some reason, as I went, I thought about the day my parents had planned: a sunny, summer barbeque by the pool. The thought broke my heart into a million pieces. And I ruined it, I thought, finally reaching the top of the stairs. I looked down behind me; Mom and Dad both were staring up at their daughter: their beloved, straight-A, “saving it for marriage,” daughter.

  I’d never been so happy to be sent to my room.

  ~ 17 ~

  S.O.S., I tapped with shaking fingers on my phone, sending out a distress call to Becky and Alicia. Within seconds, they’d both responded.

  Coming over now, Alicia wrote back.

  Be there in ten, was Becky’s response.

  No, can’t, stuck in room, skype?!?!?! I shot back. I turned on my computer and opened Skype; they were both online already, and soon we were set up in a three-way chat. They could see, from one glance I’m sure, how upset I was. As I told them the whole story, from the text to the showdown to being sent to my room, their jaws dropped.

  “Holy shit, Samantha! How did he find you?”

  “Wait, your dad threatened him? With a gun?”

  “Do you know where he is? You gotta talk to him,” Alicia said. Becky’s face scrunched in reaction.

  “Alicia, what the hell are you talking about? You gotta stay far, far away from him, Samantha!”

  “Guys, I…”

  “No, no, I mean, we met him, too, Becky, I mean, he showed up at her house, what kind of guy does that unless he…”

  “Um, a serial killer?! A psycho, that’s who, Alicia! Samantha, if your dad…”

  “Your dad let him go, so obviously he’s not a murderer, girl…”

  “Alicia, you are the worst! Samantha, you CANNOT go looking for this guy, he’s bad news.”

  “He’s totally in love with you! So he’s got a past? Who doesn’t? Sammy, you absolutely cannot let him leave without…”

  “Guys, guys, I can’t, right now. Please, stop. I mean…he could be dangerous, like really dangerous! Or he could just be…I don’t know! Please, just everyone stop talking for like five seconds,” I finally managed to blurt out, breathing heavily. They were like physical representations of my own torn mind: what I wanted, and what I knew was right.

  There was silence as Alicia and Becky paused in their ranting, both looking into their webcams with concern.

  “I’m sorry, I know, this is like…way much to deal with,” Becky finally said. Alicia nodded.

  “You don’t have to decide anything right now. Maybe you should talk to your dad first?”

  “Yeah, talk to your dad. See why he reacted that way. Then…well, then you can figure out what you wanna do,” Becky said, her voice loaded. I could tell she was really trying hard not to leap down my throat again. I could also tell that she was trying not to say “I told you so”: she had been the only one who’d ever suggested what I was doing with Boon was wrong.

  “Guys…what if I really screwed up? What if…”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong, Sammy,” Alicia interrupted.

  �
��You were just having fun and getting to know someone. You made a decision and you enjoyed it and you couldn’t have known that all this was going to happen,” Becky said, nodding in agreement.

  “You should never feel bad about something like that. I mean, you totally impressed me, going after what you wanted like that, and even if it ends in a massive crash and burn, you’ll always have my respect, girl,” Alicia said with a smile. I found myself grinning along. It was amazing, no matter how bad things looked, that my friends could still manage to put a smile on my face. I loved them for that.

  “Thanks…I needed that,” I said, breathing normally for the first time since Boon had shown up.

  “Of course, Sammy. You know we’re always here for you,” Becky said, leaning in and smooching the webcam.

  “Talk to your dad, then call us! Is it really bad that I’m kinda pumped on all this drama?” Alicia asked, a sly smile on her face.

  “YES,” Becky and I answered in unison.

  “You’re a total bitch,” I said, laughing. Alicia shrugged and leaned in to the camera, also pretending to kiss it.

  “Whatever, I love you,” she said. “Now go talk to your dad!”

  As I signed off, I wondered if I should give Mom and Dad a little more time to hash it out. In the meantime, I figured, I could pace my room and think about every worst-case-scenario in the world. I knew that I’d drive myself crazy just sitting in my room alone, so I made the decision to at least try. I slipped out of my room quietly and hovered near the top of the stairs. I could hear Mom and Dad talking, loudly, from downstairs.

  “She deserves an explanation, Bill. Whatever went on between them…”

  “Jesus, Jillian! How can you even bring that up! When I think of our Samantha getting involved in that…that…”

  “She’s 18! She’s going to meet boys. She’s going to like boys. She’s going to like the wrong sort of boy sometimes. You, of all people, should know what a guy like that can do…”

  “Don’t you ever compare me to that scum, Jillian. I might have had a rough side when you met me, but…”

  “A rough side? Honey, you better make an appointment to be checked for early dementia. If I recall, you spent the better part of junior year in a cloud of smoke…and most of senior year in the drunk tank!”

  “This isn’t about me, Jillian! This is about our daughter making eyes with some biker trash! And not just any biker trash, the fucking son of the man who…”

  “How old do you think that boy was, huh? Do you really think he even knew what was happening then?”

  “Well, he’s old enough now to know to stay the hell away from good girls like Samantha!”

  “Okay, okay, I’m not saying I’m crazy about the idea either, honey, but you can’t blame her. Or him! Boys like girls! He followed her all the way from Vegas! I mean, does that sound like a guy who wants to throw Samantha away like a used Kleenex?”

  “I don’t care what he wants to do with Samantha; he’s never going to have anything to do with her ever again!”

  “Stop!” I finally said, my heart beating fast. The voices stopped. I tip-toed down the stairs, which was silly, since they obviously knew I was there, but I felt like I was an intruder in my own home, breaking and entering their conversation. “Please, just stop.”

  Mom and Dad stared at me at the bottom of the stairs, mingled expressions of confusion and concern on their faces. I stared back, trying to look grown up, trying to look like I could handle it.

  “Just…please, tell me. I…I need to know. I’m afraid, Daddy,” I said, stuttering over my words, making eye contact with my father. I needed him to know how important this was to me, that it wasn’t just some crush gone wrong. I knew that telling him I was afraid (which I was) was my best shot at getting him to talk. Daddy could never let me go around feeling scared. And this time, he knew, telling me that he would “take care of everything” wasn’t going to cut it.

  I was too old for that now.

  I think, now, when I look back on it, that moment was all about that one realization: I was too old for a lot of things. I was too old to be kept in the dark. I was too old to not take risks. I was too old to entrust my safety with just my parents. I was growing up. I was making my own mistakes. A look of sadness came over my father’s face as he seemed to contemplate all this. Then he nodded.

  “You’re right, Samantha. You deserve to know what that was all about,” he said, glancing at my mother, who gave him an encouraging look.

  “Come,” he said, gesturing to the living room. We filed in and sat down, Mom and Dad on the couch, me on the loveseat facing them. I twiddled my fingers in my lap. I wanted to hear, I didn’t want to hear.

  It didn’t matter what I wanted anymore.

  “Ten years ago…geeze, Samantha, you were eight. Ten years. How did…” Dad got a glassy look in his eyes, his sentence trailing off. Mom coughed, bringing him back on track. I knew that part of it was for show, just Dad stalling telling me the story. Dad sighed.

  “Ten years ago, I was a police officer, just a regular cop. There was a fellow on the force with me, named Giordino. Danny Giordino. He was a good guy. We never talked much, weren’t close, but you know. Cops are family. He bought rounds at the bar. He had a wife, no kids. Young, same age as me. A whole world in front of him…”

  Dad seemed to get lost in the story again, in his memories.

  “He coulda been Sheriff, I guess,” he finally said after a long moment. Shaking his head as if to rid himself of the thought, he continued in a no-nonsense tone.

  “We had some trouble back then with a group of bikers who’d rented out one of the hotels. Bad guys. This was in the 90’s, and there were all sorts of ATM scams, still are, but worse back then before we had the technology to stop some of them. These guys were stealing money left and right, credit card fraud, identity theft. Plus, they had something going on with a couple local dealers, slinging heroin.

  Samantha, this was serious business. Serious, serious business. We waited for months to dig up enough dirt on them to put the leader away, if not the whole horde. But, you know, things just moved slowly. Trying to gather evidence, trying to make a case that would stick. These guys were as smart as they were bad.

  But we got them, finally. We had enough to make it stick. We got re-enforcements to come up from Billings, got ready to swarm the hotel, take ‘em all down. But when we got there…

  I don’t know how they left without anyone noticing. I mean, those bikes make a lot of noise, you’d think someone would have noticed. But no one did…the hotel was empty, Samantha. They’d cleared out. The only thing left? Two bodies. Dead bodies. One of them was one of their chicks, a worn-out looking gal, couldn’t have been much older than you. Poor thing was probably doomed from birth. Worst case of meth mouth I’ve ever seen.

  And the other body was Danny Giordino. He was…I’ll just, I’ll never forget it. It’s one of those moments as a cop when you realize how…how dangerous it all is. You were so young, Samantha, and I saw that body, and I thought, what if I never see my little girl grow up?” Dad was welling up now; I felt like my heart was breaking.

  Have you ever seen your father cry? It’s something most people would be a lot better off never seeing, I’d wager. I felt my own eyes filling with tears, saw my mother’s head hanging low, as we sat in silence.

  “Two bodies. One cop, one woman. We couldn’t tell, from the way the bodies were splayed out, who’d shot who. We knew she didn’t shoot him. He might have shot her. We didn’t know. We didn’t know how he’d gotten there, either. He wasn’t on a call. He was a good cop, though. And I think…

  Well, I’ll tell you what I think. I think he went there to try and save that little boy. See, the woman, she was shacked up with the leader of the group. Their president, so to speak. Tank Culver,” Dad said, his eyes now growing cold. The name shook me. I knew that was Boon’s father. I didn’t need Dad to finish the story; I had all the pieces now, could figure it out for myself. Bu
t I wanted to hear him tell it. Tell me. Make it make sense.

  “Real name John Culver. Biker name Tank. He and this woman had a son. That young man,” Dad said, his tone growing darker with each word. “That young man you’ve been…fraternizing with. I recognized him. He couldn’t have been more than 12 at the time, but I recognized him. After Giordino, I studied all our surveillance for days. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I think Giordino went there to try and get her and the kid out before the place got raided. So they wouldn’t have to see…”

  Dad trailed off. We sat in silence, the ticking clock the only noise. Finally, he sighed again.

  “I know it’s not his fault, what happened to Giordino. I know that, Samantha. But he’s bad news. Boys like that, they grow up bad, and they only get worse. If he’s got half the piss and vinegar in his blood that his dad had…I think that’s who did it, by the way. I’m pretty sure, it was John Culver. Who else? That boy’s no good. I don’t want him in my city, I don’t want him in my block, I don’t want him near my daughter,” Dad said, finishing with a stare that turned my blood to ice.