Highway Don't Care (Freebirds)

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  My stomach sank as his meaning filtered through my brain. He wanted me to leave.

  “I understand. You do what you have to do.” My voice quivered.

  He stood and stared down at me for a few long moments.

  Walking towards the door he said, “I will. I’m going for a ride to clear my head. I’ll see you when I get back.”

  He didn’t even give me a kiss.

  The roar of his bike broke the silence of the morning. He rode out of the back lot, and then around to the front. I could track him in my mind. I saw him turn the of the garage. Stop at the front gate to put the code in. Then he roared off down the street, taking my heart with him.

  I knew what I had to do.

  Going to his bedroom, I packed all my things and loaded them into the car. If I wasn’t here anymore, he wouldn’t have to worry about his baby. If I wasn’t here, she wouldn’t be in danger. Gone would be the danger swirling around her.

  So I decided the best thing to do was to go to the cabin. Once I got there, I would figure out my next move. I knew I had to get out of Kilgore though. This wasn’t going to work anymore, and I would have to pick somewhere that the Blue Skulls didn’t have any affiliation with, maybe somewhere up North.

  Once all my stuff was loaded, I gave a last glance around the living room. I took the ring off my finger, laid it down on the coffee table, and wrote a quick note.

  Gabe,

  I’ll let you know where I end up. Don’t worry about me, worry about your sweet girl for now. I’ll give Max updates when I can.

  Ember.

  Once the note was written, I tucked the ring on top of it, and stared for a few seconds. A lone tear rolled out of my eyes and dropped to the paper, splashing onto it and making a small watermark. That was my cue to go before I was crying too hard to see.

  I got into my car, started her up, and took off out of the driveway. Luckily Free had an automatic gate for those who had the tag reader in the window. If not, I might have ran the thing down in my haste to leave. I drove for nearly an hour before I pulled up into the old driveway. The last time I’d seen it the road was nearly washed out where the creek ran under. Max must have had it fixed recently because a brand new road was poured, and a shiny huge tube ran under the road to allow the creek to flow through it without causing any damage.

  I drove up and passed the pond, wondering if there were any fish after all these years. Most likely there wasn’t. Years ago, we used the pond as a shooting range. Daddy would toss bottles and cans and we would practice shooting, or just shoot for fun. Mom would sit back and take pictures while I shot to my heart’s desire. That had to be the thing I missed the most about them.

  I spent more time with my dad. It wasn’t that I didn’t get along with my mom; it was because my father did the things that I loved doing. Hunting, fishing, riding 4-wheelers, and shooting guns were my hobbies back then. When he died, all of that was a distant memory, along with my parents.

  Seeing this cabin brought back bittersweet memories. As I made it up the steps, a smile crossed my face as I remembered the time my uncle fell through the railing when he was drunk. Then I passed the window that my dad’s best friend shot a hole in while he was cleaning his gun. Using the key on my keychain that hadn’t been used in years, I breathed a sigh of relief when it opened the door. It never occurred to me until right then that Max might have changed the locks.

  The cabin still had the smell of the old wood burning stove that took up the majority of the living room. The kitchen and living room had an open floor plan with vaulted ceilings. Two bedrooms sat across from each other, and a bathroom in the middle of the two. It was a small, quaint retreat that held many loving memories. Today was a good day to remember those loving times, because if I didn’t have those to think about, I would be remembering the smell of Gabe’s skin, or the deep timber of his voice.

  The longing for Gabe was too powerful to ignore, unfortunately, because it wasn’t two seconds later that I started bawling and didn’t stop. Laying down in my parent’s old bedroom, I saw that Max hadn’t changed a thing since they left. The candle still sat at the bedside. The same comforter adorned their bed. My dad had had an old green plaid one for years before he met my mother, and they brought it out here as soon as they bought the cabin. It’d been washed so many times that it was smooth and soft just like a t-shirt that had been worn a million times.

  Burying my face into the comforter, I cried. I cried for my parents, for Gabe, for Gabe’s situation, and finally for the baby that I was carrying that I had no clue would live or die. This has turned out to be one hell of a week, and I didn’t think I could handle anymore. I just wanted to lay here and sleep forever. Sleep didn’t come easily, I must have cried for nearly two hours before it finally caught up to me.

  Maybe everything would look better after a nap.

  Chapter 13

  I promise to treat you as good as my leather, and ride you as much as my Harley.

  -Sons of Anarchy

  Gabe

  I knocked on Cheyenne’s door looking for Ember. I’d ridden my bike for three hours before I decided I was being an ass and needed to apologize.

  I’d seen the way she looked at me when I told her earlier I couldn’t do this anymore. I knew she was worried, but something had to give with those assholes. I couldn’t keep putting my future wife and children’s lives at stake. Luke said all they needed was a little more information on a crime ring that the gang was involved in, and nearly the whole East Texas chapter of the gang would god down. If that didn’t work out, then I would turn to the more drastic measures of taking care of the problem myself. My family couldn’t live in fear for the rest of their lives.

  I’d stopped in the office and had a sit-down with Sam and Max. We agreed that something needed to be done, and we would have a meeting with everyone (minus the women and kids) at the shop later that night. I’d left them shortly after to go find Ember and apologize for not going to get her last night. I knew she was upset, but after I unloaded all the junk front the truck, I’d sat down and gone over what I could possibly do to fix this situation. I’d come up with those two options and nothing else. I hadn’t even realized it was so late until the sun peaked over the horizon and stabbed through a crack in the blinds.

  Ember walked in a few moments later, and I seemed to spit out my thoughts before ever thinking about how they would come across. She probably thought I blamed her, but I didn’t. This wasn’t her fault in the slightest.

  She wasn’t in the house when I got to the back, so I went in search of her at Cheyenne’s place.

  Cheyenne opened the door with a child attached to both legs screaming.

  I looked down and reached for Pru who had big crocodile tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “They had their shots today. The shots make them run fevers and feel bad for 48 hours. So here we are.” Cheyenne said dryly.

  I gave Pru a kiss on the forehead when she laid her head down on my chest wiping tears and God knows what else on my shirt.

  “Where’s Ember?” I asked.

  “I haven’t seen her, like I said, we just got back. I was about to run up to the shop, could you carry Pru for me? That’s probably where she is. Sam just said everyone was there.”

  Nodding in agreement, I walked with Pru while Cheyenne picked up Piper. Pru was fast asleep by the time we got to the shop. Pizza had been ordered sometime in the fifteen minutes I’d been gone, and everyone started chowing down.

  Everyone that is, except Ember.

  Turning towards Max I asked, “Is Ember asleep at your place or something?”

  “No, I thought she was with you.” He replied.

  It was then that it sunk in. She left. She heard what I said this morning, and left. Passing Pru to Blaine who was the closest, I ran out the door and slammed into the house. Glancing around the living room, I noticed what was missing. Her blanket was gone; her shoes that were normally strewn
half-hazardly in the corner were gone.

  I went into the bedroom and it was the same. All her clothes were gone. Her toiletries that covered the counter were no longer there.

  My hands went to my hair as I yanked on it. Of course, she would do this. She didn’t want my child to be in danger, so she left thinking she was doing the right thing.

  I walked into the living room and finally noticed the note on the coffee table and on top was her ring.

  Gabe,

  I’ll let you know where I end up. Don’t worry about me, worry about your sweet girl for now. I’ll give Max updates when I can.

  Ember.

  The tearstain on the bottom of the note is what broke my heart. Oh God, she had better be all right or I was going to do something this world had never seen before. I balled the hand not holding the note into a fist so hard that my knuckles cracked.

  Max walked through the door taking one look at my ravaged face and nodded his head that he knew she was gone.

  He handed me a paper and key and then said, “She went to the cabin. I have sensors set up. The whole place is wired. The code is on this paper. No one will get in without me knowing. She’s laying on the bed right now sleeping. Here are directions. Pack a bag and stay a few days, I think y’all need it right now. I would have known earlier, but my phone was dead.”

  I ran to the room and packed a small overnight bag, and then back into the living room. Max was gone, which wasn’t surprising. Walking at a fast clip out the door, I straddled my bike, glanced at the directions, and took off. I rode hard and arrived in forty minutes instead of the hour Max said it would be. The gate at the bottom was locked so I pulled the bike over in front of the gate and shut it off.

  Swinging my leg over and off, I hopped the fence and walked up the long driveway. It was a sweet spread. Trees lined both sides of the driveway and about a third of the way from the gate a creek ran underneath through a large drain.

  I walked about half a mile when I saw a pond. No fish jumped from what I could tell, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Around the bend of the pond, the cabin came into view. I couldn’t see Ember’s car, so that meant that she parked behind the cabin itself.

  Pulling the key out of my pocket, I unlocked the door. The main room looked neat and tidy. A wood burning stove dominated the entire left side of the room. Large cedar beams lined the vaulted ceilings. The cabinets were cedar as well. Overall, this looked beautiful, and had a ton of potential.

  I walked quietly to the hallway where I assumed the bedrooms were. The bedrooms split one on each side, and I stood in the middle of the hallway to look into both rooms. Ember was asleep in the one on the left.

  Her face was tear stained, and her breath caught in her throat every other breath. It was my undoing. I dropped to my knees and ran my hand over her hair, smoothing it down. She slowly opened her eyes, blinking away the sleep.

  I moved my face closer to hers, and then ran the tip of my nose along her face. I kissed her nose before leaning back on my heels and regarding her slowly. Her eyes filled with tears, and then spilled over.

  “Alright, crazy girl. I know I said something that set you off, and I can guess how it sounded and what you think I meant. Let me tell you what I really meant. This gang has to go; I don’t want you, or my kids getting hurt. So either I’m going to help bust them, or I’m going to take them out. I don’t really care what it takes, but it’s going to happen. I need to be able to not fear for your safety when we go buy shit for our kids.”

  Her mouth dropped open about halfway through my explanation, and by the end of it, her tears dried up.

  Rolling herself onto her back, she threw her arm over her eyes and muttered, “I’m a dumbass.”

  “You’re not a dumbass. I can see where you got that I wanted you to leave, but how could you think I’d just want you to leave like that?”

  She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. She thought she would lose me eventually, and always in the back of her mind, she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “You’re not getting away from me. You’re mine now. Forever. In fact, I have a few calls to make. Be back in a few.”

  She still had her arm over her eyes, and using her left hand she gave me thumbs up as I left the room.

  I dialed Max and let it ring.

  “I need a few favors.” I said when he answered.

  I went on to explain what I wanted, and he said he would have it done by Thursday. Which meant we had two and a half days here by ourselves before I had to get her home for our surprise.

  The next few hours we spent exploring the property.

  “This is where I got stuck. When we first moved here this was all flooded. The swamp from the next land over flooded and it extended to the back of our property. I was riding through here one day by myself on the 4-wheeler when I got high centered on a rut. I had no clue why I’d gotten stuck, and I needed help. I had to walk back to the cabin from here, and about half of it was in calf high swamp.”

  “What’d your dad have to say?” I asked while glancing over the area, trying to pretend that I wasn’t terrified for the little twelve year old that was in the middle of a fucking swamp.

  “He was pissed at first. He told us never to go back there without one of them. That I was lucky an alligator didn’t eat me. When he saw the 4-wheeler, he knew immediately that I was high centered. We spent nearly two hours getting it unstuck, and by the time we got back we were both covered from head to toe in mud. It’s one of my greatest memories.”

  We continued to walk, and finally circled back around to the cabin where we went into the AC to cool down.

  “This is the room that reminds me of him the most. I remember him cooking us bacon and eggs. He would cook the eggs in the bacon grease, and it would taste amazing. No one else cooks eggs like that, and I have yet to find a restaurant that does it either. He also used to make some breakfast sandwiches that were similar to Egg McMuffins. The only difference was that he made them with over easy eggs, so as soon as you took a bite, you’d have the yolk everywhere.” She smiled.

  I watched the expressions flit over her face and asked, “You don’t talk about them much. Where was your mom?”

  “She didn’t come over until later in the afternoons, and then would drive home later that night. She wasn’t into ruffing it, but when she was here, she had a camera in her hand and a smile on her face.”

  “I’d love to see the pictures sometime. So Max has fixed the place up since you were last here?”

  She glanced around before saying, “Yeah. He’s done a lot. I haven’t been here since my parents died. It was always too difficult to think about coming here when I knew they wouldn’t be. Hence, why I’ve stayed away. Max obviously didn’t have the same problem. He put in indoor plumbing, and electric. The rest of the house still looks the same though.”

  I loved the way she lit up when she spoke about her family. It seemed to me that she kept this part of herself hidden; if she spoke of it, she would feel the pain of losing them even more. So instead, she ignored it all together. Except here, she couldn’t, because everything she saw reminded her of them.

  Her expression turned sad so I distracted her with food, as any good man would do.

  “I’m getting pretty hungry, Em. What do you say we go get something to eat?

  “That sounds pretty good, actually. I haven’t eaten since last night’s pizza.”

  I glanced at my watch, noting it was two in the afternoon. It’d been over eighteen hours since she’d eaten, and I felt a sharp ache in my chest when I realized it was my fault.

  “Em, you know you can’t do that anymore. You have to make sure you eat for the baby.” I admonished.

  Her expression went from sad to desolate, and I curled her into my chest when I noted it.

  “What is it?”

  “What if he doesn’t make it?” She cried.

  “Our boy is a fighter. If he’s anything like me, he’ll come out swinging.
Try not to worry so much. There’s nothing we can do about it right now, and we need to make sure we keep our attitudes positive.” I said as I kissed her forehead.

  Getting her emotions back under control she said, “The closest place is Mineola. It’s about a thirty minute drive.”

  “Then that’s where we’ll go. By the way, do you want this back?” I asked holding out her ring.

  I was rewarded with her sweet smile. She held out her hand and I slipped it back onto her finger. Lifting her hand, I gave it a kiss before I wrapped my arm around her neck and led her to the bike. Our hips bumped as we walked, and she giggled the entire time.

  The drive was a scenic one, and I promised myself we would come out here more often. She enjoyed the ride, as well as the familiar landmarks that she hadn’t seen in so long.

  We agreed that Mineola would be the place to go and spent the afternoon walking around downtown. We ate in a small restaurant called Armadillo Willie’s. It was definitely a redneck establishment. They were very proud of their tin cups and plates, as well as their eclectic menu.

  They offered “Armadillo Eggs” which were nice ways of saying bull balls. They also offered squirrel, possum, gator, and venison. I decided to go wild and try some of the gator while Ember stuck with the old-fashioned hamburger. Apparently, she had her first bout of queasiness, and just thinking about anything other than a burger made her stomach churn.

  The ride back to the cabin was beautiful with the sun setting in front of us, and the love of my life at my back. I pointed out deer every couple of miles, and laughed at the squeal of happiness she would let out when she saw them.

  Our next two days were spent reading, exploring, and making love. Our nights were spent playing cards, laughing, talking, and making love. Tomorrow was back to the real world. Too bad we weren’t aware that very soon, something so terrible was going to happen that would make us long for those two days back, just to know what goodness felt like.

  Darkness was about to ascend on our world, and we needed something pure to hold on to.