American Hellhound

by Lauren Gilley

  “How are you feeling?” Denise asked. When Maggie turned to her, she saw that her face was pinched, wrinkles she normally took great care to hide showing at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Maggie didn’t know what to make of it.

  “I feel good. A little tired.” Horny, she left out. And Ghost was all about that. He wouldn’t say it, but he was proud as hell, in a primal, male way, to know that he’d gotten her in this condition. He was working out more strenuously, drinking less. He looked damn good, and he couldn’t keep his hands off of her. “Happy,” she told her mom, smiling gently. Because she was. Being expectant parents as responsible, home-owning adults who knew what they were doing was so much more peaceful than being young and desperate.

  Denise nodded, expression almost sad. She took a deep breath. “I was just about to feed your father lunch if you want to join us.”

  “That sounds great.”

  Arthur Lowe, sick or well, was vulnerable as a newborn when it came to feeding himself. He could barely work a microwave, completely helpless when it came to stove tops and ovens.

  He looked well today, though, Maggie was happy to see, already sitting at the head of the dining room table, paging through the day’s paper, a glass of iced tea waiting on a coaster. His color was good, and he’d gained a little much-needed weight since last year’s angioplasty.

  His face lit up when Maggie entered the room, and she was reminded that at least one of her parents loved her.

  “There’s my Maggie girl,” he said, beaming, as he stood to intercept her with a gentle hug. He’d always hugged her like she was made of spun sugar; no one had ever given her a tight, warm, full-body hug until Ghost came into her life.

  And people wondered how she ended up living on the wrong side of the law.

  “Hi, Dad, you okay?”

  “Oh yes, of course.” He eased her back at arm’s length and looked down at her growing belly. “Do we know what you’re expecting yet?” He seemed eager.

  “Yeah, Ghost and I just left the doctor.”

  “A shame he couldn’t join us,” Denise said, coming in with a tray of sandwiches.

  Maggie shared a look with her dad, Arthur’s brows raised skeptically, Maggie biting back a smile.

  “He had to get back to Dartmoor,” Maggie said, taking a ham sandwich from the stack and sitting down gratefully. Her back was starting to bother her the further along she got.

  “She found out the gender, dear,” Arthur said when they were all seated.

  Denise looked mildly curious. “And?”

  “It’s a boy.”

  Arthur said, “That’s wonderful!”

  Denise said, “A boy,” without inflection.

  “How exciting,” Arthur said, “now you’ll have one of each.” He seemed to catch himself. “Of course, Aidan–”

  “Will be a great big brother,” Maggie finished for him, not wanting him to think he’d stepped in it too badly. She thought of Aidan as hers, but she knew her parents had never looked at him as a grandson – hell, she wasn’t sure they looked at Ava as a granddaughter most of the time. “He was always so good with Ava.”

  Looking down at her plate, Denise said, “Kenneth must be glad to have another biker on the way.”

  “Mom,” Maggie chided.

  “With a girl, there might be a chance…at least, that’s what I tell myself. But Ava…”

  “Mom.” Pregnancy made her bolder, brought out the mother lioness in her – well, brought it out more dramatically. “Can’t you just love them? No matter what they choose to do with their lives.”

  Denise lifted her head, her eyes damp, her smile tremulous. “I’m trying,” she whispered.

  It was so unexpected, Maggie felt the burn of sudden tears in her own eyes. She cleared her throat. “That’s all I’m asking.”

  Denise nodded and glanced toward the window, sunlight turning her skin papery and pale, aging and fragile. A woman whose dreams had always lay in other people and superficial qualifications, who didn’t know how to reorder her priorities and live the life she’d been dealt, rather than the one she’d planned. “I’m trying,” she repeated. And then: “Congratulations. I’m happy for you.”

  It was a start, and to be honest, Maggie had never even expected that much.

  ~*~

  Mild for late January was still mid-forties at night, but this night, the chill was held at bay by the crackling warmth of the drum fires, their woodsy smell mixing with the tang of the pork shoulder in the ceramic egg smoker over in the corner of the pavilion. The party lights were on and the music – Skynyrd, of course – was a low pulse beneath the murmur of conversation.

  Ghost had a plastic cup in his hand and it was full of…water. He hadn’t had a smoke in two days. This atmosphere, surrounded by drinking, smoking, laughing brothers lit up a craving inside him, but he was committed to living better. Living longer. He had a baby on the way, and he wasn’t anywhere close to ready to step aside and let someone else run his empire, even if Aidan was throwing himself wholeheartedly into learning the ropes.

  He’d make a good president one day. One day far in the future.

  “Old man!” Candy shouted, stepping through the crowd like the others were children to get to him. He had a cup in his hand too, and Scotch on his breath as he leaned in close to talk above the music. “Congrats, Papa Bear!” Though he seemed more suited to that title, clapping Ghost on the shoulder with one of his big paw hands. “How’s it feel to be a daddy at one hundred?”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Ghost shot back, grinning. “How’s the kid?”

  On anyone else, the delighted look that overcame the man would have been chalked up to alcohol, but as big as Candy was, there was no way he was buzzed yet. He looked absolutely reverent. “Amazing. He’s just…wow, incredible.”

  Then his expression shifted. “But what’s not amazing.” He moved around to Ghost’s side and pointed through the crowd to Roman, currently propping up a support column and burying his face in his cup. “What the hell’s that motherfucker still doing around here?”

  Son of a founding president, Candy of course recognized the guy. And of course knew most, if not all that had happened in the past.

  Knew about Roman, anyway. He didn’t know that Roman had wandered over from the barn the night Maggie and Ghost buried Duane; that’d he’d watched them tamp the earth into place. That Ghost had sworn him to silence. Candy knew that Ghost had excommunicated Roman because he was two-faced and untrustworthy…but not that Roman was one of three people who knew exactly what happened to Duane.

  Ghost winced. “I dunno. I’m getting soft or something.”

  “Tell me you’re not patching him back in.”

  “I’m not. Nah. His boys are hangarounds and he, well.” He shrugged. “There’s no harm in him stopping by a party now and then.”

  Candy had a disagreeing face. “He’s lucky he didn’t show up in Texas. He’d be underground by now.”

  Ghost sipped his water. He didn’t know how to explain the ways Duane had ruined them both, the way that, despite their mutual hatred, a bond existed, one Ghost had always been oddly hesitant to break. Keep your enemies closer, and all that.

  ~*~

  In the months that she’d been living at the Lean Dogs clubhouse – she had her very own dorm, with a door that locked, her own bathroom, toothbrush, collection of towels and toiletries, a fluffy fleece blanket she’d bought herself at Target – Kris had learned some very important things about the way the Dogs operated.

  For starters, they paid their groupies. Not much – most of them had regular jobs as well – but enough for her to scrape by. Secondly, they all wanted to hang around the clubhouse. No one was raped, or beaten, or used for dart practice – she’d witnessed that firsthand in Denver. The girls here were employees who slept with the single guys when they wanted to. If they hopped on a table and started dancing, it was their choice.

  Secondly, Ghost ran a tight ship. He wanted floors clean
enough to eat off of, and a spotless, well-stocked kitchen.

  Kris was…well, she wasn’t sure she knew what happy felt like. But her constant, stomach-grinding fear had lessened. She was learning that the Dogs weren’t going to rescind their kindness, that they weren’t going to hurt her.

  She thought this must be what real people felt like.

  Roman didn’t seem so happy about her new life, though.

  She was bartending for the party tonight, sliding shots and beers across the polished bar top, trying to smile, and being unfailingly polite. Some of the out of town boys from Texas had flirted a little, but the Knoxville crew were distant and polite, the way she preferred it. Roman had been by twice already for drinks, brooding and unsmiling, looking at her like it pained him to do so.

  He climbed onto a stool across from her now and slid his cup over.

  “You should eat something,” she suggested. “You make bad decisions when you drink too much.”

  He ignored her. “You seen the boys tonight?”

  “They’re working.” Boomer and the boys were stepping and fetching, carrying drinks, lugging kegs, moving chairs, making sure the bathroom stayed stocked with TP. Normal hangaround activities.

  “What about you?” he asked with a nasty smile. “You working?”

  She didn’t like that look on him at all. “Yes,” she said, hearing the tightness in her voice. He was staring at her. Her skin prickled and she wanted to go to her dorm, wrap herself in her blanket and think fluffy thoughts. “You can see that I am.”

  “Yeah, I bet you are. Which one’ll it be tonight? Huh? The British asshole? Little prince? Or the big man himself, maybe? His old lady’s knocked up, he’s gotta want a nice thin slice.”

  Kris felt her hands curl into fists at her sides, her disquiet supplanted by a sudden anger. She thought about Walsh, Aidan, Ghost, none of whom had ever looked at her the way Roman was now, leering and angry and lascivious. Like she was a piece of meat. A whore and a slave, like she’d always been.

  “They’re married,” she said. “And I don’t work like that.”

  “Yeah right.”

  She slapped the bar and he jumped, surprised. “I don’t. Those are married, nice guys, and it’s not like that around here.”

  “I know how the club works, sweetheart. Girls like you earn their keep on their backs.”

  “You’ve been gone for twenty years,” she shot back, alarmed by her boldness. She couldn’t bear to listen to him accuse these people of treating her like that, though. Not after they’d taken her in and been nothing but generous with her. “You don’t have any idea what it’s like around here.”

  A stare-down ensued, this one nothing like all the staring matches they’d had in the past.

  Roman moved first, sliding off the stool, jaw set.

  “Roman,” she tried, but he pushed through the crowd and toward the door.

  It wasn’t until he was disappearing down the front hall that she realized he’d nicked an entire bottle of Jack from beneath her nose and was taking it with him.

  ~*~

  “Hi, baby,” Ghost greeted when she slid her arm through his.

  Maggie leaned her head against his solid shoulder and inhaled the scents of clean cotton and deodorant, just detectable over the tantalizing aroma of smoked meat.

  He tipped his head down toward her, breath rustling through her hair, so she could hear him above the low strains of the music, and the much-louder tangle of conversation around them. “How’d it go with your folks?”

  Maggie didn’t think she would ever be able to keep from sighing when she talked about her parents; she sighed now. But it wasn’t as heavy and crushing as it sometimes was. “It went okay. Dad was sweet – he looks good, by the way, totally bounced back from his procedure. And Mom was…sad. But not hateful. She’s disappointed and I don’t guess that’ll ever change.”

  Ghost snorted. “Poor thing – her kid grew up to be a total badass. How embarrassing.”

  She goosed him in the ribs, but smiled. “What about you and Aidan. How’d that go?”

  “It was good.” Was that…a note of pride she detected in his voice?

  She glanced up at him, the contented hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth, the party lights reflected in his eyes.

  She was hit with the sudden, overwhelming sense that it was going to be okay: the club, the new baby, all three of their kids, and them. If she pressed in a little harder, she thought they might just fuse together into one creature, something with fangs, and claws, and blood on its hands, and a tender heart. All this painful love for the family they’d made together: a family made of their children, and of the lost souls they’d invited into the club together. Her eyes searched them out in the crowd: Walsh, Michael, Tango, Mercy. All the young ones Ghost had brought up in the new tradition. When she’d met her man, the club had been a den of angry, snarling heathens…but it had become a sanctuary for the misplaced and unloved, somewhere where they could finally find what had always been missing in their lives.

  They’d done that. Ghost had done that. Taken a crippled club and turned into a multinational powerhouse, the strongest and most infamous MC in the world.

  Such pleasant thoughts were interrupted by Roman, as he charged through the crowd, earning nasty looks and disgruntled protests. He had murder in his eyes…and whiskey. A whole lot of whiskey. Maggie could see the liquid courage sloshing around inside his head, the stripped-down fury he usually kept tightly in check.

  Ghost muttered, “What the hell?”

  “Ghost,” Roman said, shouting, too loud, drawing eyes. “You’re a real asshole, you know that?”

  Ghost propped his hands on his hips and looked unimpressed. “Yeah, I know. Why’s it got your panties in a twist right now?”

  Maggie felt like she shouldn’t – a fight was never a good thing – but she couldn’t help but smile a little, trying to disguise it as a concerned frown.

  Roman leaned in to Ghost, got right in his face, and jabbed him in the chest with his finger. Straight out of a soap opera. “Where the fuck do you get off doing that to Kris?”

  “Shut up,” someone shouted.

  RJ’s voice called, “Bounce his ass, Mercy.”

  “Dad!” That was Boomer. Maggie saw him fighting through the crowd to get to them.

  She caught a glimpse of Aidan watching with delighted horror.

  Ghost glanced down at the finger on his chest, and then back up at Roman’s face, the picture of underwhelmed. “Do what to her?”

  Red in the face now, Roman said, “She’s not a goddamn groupie! She’s not your whore!”

  Conversations were rapidly breaking off, brothers turning to see what the disturbance was. Some, like Aidan, looked like they couldn’t wait for the fists to fly. Others, like Walsh, looked like they wanted nothing more than to drop-kick Roman over the twelve-foot gate. (Sorry, honey, she thought to Walsh, one of the big boys will have to do that.)

  Ghost sighed and shook his head. He was enjoying this now, putting on a show. “Nobody’s touched your girl, man. She works here. I pay her. To clean house and serve drinks.”

  “You lying son of a–”

  “Get your hand off me,” Ghost said calmly, “or I’ll break it.”

  “Get your big monster to break it?” Roman sneered, tilting his head toward Mercy. “You don’t get your hands dirty anymore, do you? Too important for that now.”

  Mercy, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Candy, both of them now looking gleefully bloodthirsty, cracked his knuckles.

  “No,” Ghost said, brushing Roman’s finger away. “If anybody gets to hand your ass to you, it’s gonna be me.”

  “I’d like to see you fucking try.”

  “Here we go,” Maggie sighed to herself.

  And that was how she ended up sitting on top of a picnic table beside a panic-stricken Kristen, watching Mercy and Candy appoint themselves refs. The entire party had crowded around, forming a loose circle around the two c
ombatants.

  “I’m so sorry,” Kristin kept saying, face in her hands. “I’m so sorry, oh my God.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Maggie said. She was trying to sound supportive, but she was distracted. “The guys spar all the time, it’s just what they do. And this fight’s been brewing for years.”

  “Oh my God,” Kristin groaned.

  Maggie patted her knee, but her eyes were trained on Ghost. She felt giddy and breathless as a teenager staring at him, like that first time he’d taken his shirt off and she’d gotten a look at what was underneath.

  Somehow, he was more entrancing now. The soft padding of young muscle carved down to the bare essentials by stress and hard work, the cuts of pec and ab stark, the jut of bone at his hips unforgiving. He had an assortment of tattoos, but the one of her name over his heart was her favorite.

  She wanted to smooth her hands across his chest, lean in and trace his sharp collarbones with her tongue.

  But they were in the middle of a crowd. And he had a fight to win.

  He looked at her, briefly, as Candy was laying out the rules. In the middle of wrapping his hands, a piece of tape held between his teeth, he glanced up and shot her a wink.

  “It’ll be okay,” she told Kristin.

  She just couldn’t promise that Roman would be.

  ~*~

  Mercy was the monster. And Candy was the one with the tooth-taking punch – Ghost had witnessed that enough times to know it wasn’t just a myth. Michael was mean with a knife. All his boys could handle themselves in a fight.

  But Ghost was the one tried and true boxer of the bunch.

  Once upon a time, he and Roman had duked it out when they were in their twenties. Ghost had no doubt this time would end the same way that one had: Roman spitting blood and too dizzy to get up on his own.

  The old familiar feeling of victory filled him – a preemptory sense, one that had come to him before every sparring match of his life. He’d never fought for money, no, in shiny shorts and with name-brand gloves, but he’d won every bought with every opponent he’d ever faced. He didn’t need the fame: winning was his drug of choice. And he was going to win now; he could taste it.