From there we commenced showering, dressing and heading out to the kitchen where I made him and Jade my special Belgian waffles with Bing cherry compote and whipped cream.
I found it odd, what with it being almost June in Kentucky, that he ordered me to wear jeans. Since I figured Duke had a reason for that, I had. As well as Jade.
While my little girl and I were finishing the breakfast dishes, I heard a loud thump like a box plopped on the island, behind us. When I turned, I found I was close. It was two boxes stacked one on top of the other. The top one being smaller.
He handed the smaller box off to Jade, the bigger one to me. We pulled the tops off to reveal black, leather boots for me. Sexy, flat three-inch heel biker boots. For my girl, he’d gotten her leather boots, oh yeah. Pink, little girl Harley boots.
She.
Squealed.
Who even knew they made pink leather boots?
“What’s this for?” I asked. Because I knew leather boots would not come cheap.
“Put ’em on.” Was his answer. “Follow me.”
Both Jade and I pulled our boots on and scurried outside to join Duke next to the carport. Not next to his truck, though it was there. Or what I’d come to think of as my truck, thought that was there, too. But his Harley. Now I know nothing about models, all I know, it was a huge black and chrome monster with one of those sleek, black sidecars attached. Inside the sidecar sat a Jade-sized pink leather jacket to match her boots, and a pink helmet with ‘Harley Princess’ scrawled in a pretty periwinkle script across each side.
Commence squeal number two.
He had a black jacket and helmet for me.
I started to ask when he’d done this but he shut me up by cupping the back of my head with one of his enormous hands and pulling my face in for a quick lip touch.
Without her even having to ask, when he finished with me, he bent over to give my daughter her kiss as well. She was training a big, burly, badass biker.
And further, he went on to pluck her up in his arms and drop her inside the sidecar where he got her situated and buckled.
He lifted me to set me on the back of the bike, climbed on in front of me where instinctively, I wrapped my arms tightly around his middle, and we spent the whole day out riding. Duke and his girls.
That brought us to this morning, early this morning. Duke got called away on some club business, leaving us to putz around the house. I got the brilliant idea to head to the home store. With Saturday having been so perfect, I should know better than to expect a carryover into today. When will I learn?
I open the door to find an older woman with gray hair but brown eyebrows fidgeting with the red leather hobo bag resting at her hip. She’s thin, age undetermined, as she suffers from permanent sad eyes. I’ve seen these a lot in my line of work. And a general look of constant suffering about her. That, I’ve also seen a lot in my line of work. Sad eyes and constant suffering age harsher than time ever could.
“Can I help you?” I ask, tucking loose hair that had fallen out of my ponytail behind my ear.
“Where’s Duke?” The woman asks, sharply. Confused.
“He’s out on club business. How—did the prospects let you in?”
“They know to let me in. Who are you? Why are you—what are you doing?” She shoves me out of the way to storm inside. “This is Dawna’s house. Who gave you permission to change Dawna’s house?”
Confused now myself, I answer. “Duke…did.”
“Bull. I don’t know who you are, but Duke would never let some strange woman change his Dawna’s house. The love of his life, this is how he keeps her. So you need to go.”
Now starting to lose my cool—hello, redhead after all. Fiery hair, fiery temper—I raise my voice to almost a yell. “I will not leave.” Although, it hurts to hear her say Dawna was the love of his life. As he’s still quite alive, that would encompass all his remaining years to come. So where does that leave me in this hierarchy?
Jade comes running out from her room. “Mama, why you yelling?”
“A kid?” The strange woman asks incredulously. “Seriously? You pieces bringing kids around now? I should call child protective services, but I don’t know where you live.”
And that’s when my beautiful preschooler, only trying to help, pipes up. “We live heew.”
If a person’s head could actually explode, I’d be covered in brain matter about now. Which is when I put it together, that this is Dawna’s mom.
Phone in hand, she punches a contact and puts the device to her ear. After what I would guess to be about four rings, no hello, she shouts into the receiver. “There’s a whore in your house painting over Dawna.” She pauses. “You get her gone, Duke. She’s ruining Dawna’s home, everything she built for you.” More pause. “No. I’m not going until she does.”
“Please don’t talk like that in front of my girl.” I order through gritted teeth. My lip pulls thin as I try my best to check my temper.
“Shut up, whore.” She replies.
Not good. “Jade, your room. Close the door.”
My girl knows me, hears the seriousness in my voice and does what I ask without hesitation or complaint. Then I turn to the unwanted bitch standing in the living room. “I told you, don’t.” I shove her chest, not super hard, but hard enough for her to take a step backward. “talk.” And I shove again. “like that.” A third shove. “in front of…” Shove number four. “my girl.” The last shove she stumbles out the door and down the stoop.
“Duke will hear about this.” She threatens me.
“Fine. Let him hear it outside because you’re not coming in again.”
I shut the door in her face to a whole lot of, “You can’t treat me like this.” Repeated over and over. Loud enough that I start to think she’ll strain her vocal chords, and I will not be doctoring her after she called me a whore. Loud enough that I wonder why none of the brothers at the clubhouse have come to check out the situation.
Finally, she shuts up so I go back to my painting. Besides, if the woman bothered to pay attention, the color I picked freshens up the room, is manly enough for a guy like Duke and compliments the chintz in the fabric on the sofa.
The last wall just about finished, her screeches pick up again. The front door opens then Duke strides in, a smug, still loud but not screeching any longer woman on his heels.
“Look.” The woman points to the paint on the wall. “She’s ruined your house. Dawna’s vision gone.”
“Mamie, that’s enough.” Duke grumbles at the woman. “Doc, why’d you paint in here?”
What? He told me to. “You said to do what we had to get comfortable.”
“I told you to paint Peaches’ room.”
“Peaches? Who’s Peaches?” The Mamie woman shouts. “Duke, I want her gone. This would break Dawna’s heart, seeing her home destroyed.”
“I hardly destroyed it,” I defend myself. “The walls needed a fresh coat of paint. Duke?”
“That’s not something a whore decides,” she fires back at me. “That’s for the lady of the house to decide. And you aren’t her.”
“Duke?” I repeat myself, questioning why he hasn’t spoken up in my defense. When he says nothing, only stands with his hands on his hips, I decide it’s time to stick up for myself. “I told you not to call me a whore. I’m a doctor. I worked hard for my degree, my practice. And that never included spreading my legs for money.”
“Doc,” he says sharply. “That’s Dawna’s mom. Show her some respect.”
“Show… show her some respect? She called me a whore. More than once and in front of Jade… You know what, never mind.” Then I stomp to Jade’s room. “Come on sweetie, we’re leaving.”
She hardly has her sandals on before I’m grabbing my purse and heading out the back. Duke swears and calls after me, but I just found my place. And it’s sure not where I thought it was. I tug Jade by the hand over to the clubhouse, but make her wait outside by the wall because who knows what we mig
ht walk into?
“Jesse?” I call. “Is Jesse here?”
“Here, Doc.” He strolls out from the kitchen with a sandwich in his hand. “Whatcha need?”
“I need to go. Now.”
“What? Why?” he asks around a bite-full of food.
“Duke’s mother-in-law showed up and doesn’t like me being at her daughter’s house.”
“Fuck.”
“Duke took her side.”
“Fuuuk.” Jesse repeats low and slow, for effect. But he grabs his keys from his pocket and asks, “Where’s Jade?”
“Outside. I didn’t know if it was blowjob hour or not.”
He snickers around a mouthful of food. “Let’s go.”
Back out the front, I grab up my little girl in my arms, and we walk over to Jesse’s truck. Since he’d been put on Caitlin guard duty, he’d put a booster between us for when Jade came along. Though, the middle doesn’t have a shoulder harness, only a lap belt, so I sit in the middle and put Jade by the door.
My phone rings four different times in just the short while I’ve been collecting Jesse. They’ve all been Duke. Duke can kiss my ass. Or keep on kissing his mother-in-law’s.
“Where we headed?” Jesse asks.
“I don’t know. We haven’t eaten yet. Let’s take Jade to Fun Zone.”
“Caity, that’s forty-five minutes away.”
“Then just drop us at our house.”
He glares at me. Then, turning out of the compound onto the street running along the fence, he decides, “Okay. Let’s do Fun Zone.”
God, I love this kid. I lean my head on his shoulder. “You smell good,” I tell him. “Not interested in older women by chance?”
He laughs a hearty laugh. “Not as much as I want my patch.” But then he drops a sweet, almost older brother type kiss to my forehead.
Jesse only took his eye off the road for a brief second on an empty country road.
It happens so fast, like a scene from a movie. I’m suddenly aware of a black SUV. I’m suddenly aware when it comes out of nowhere to ram the tail end of Jesse’s pickup. Jesse swerves, but gains control. Then he speeds. The SUV speeds up behind us, ramming us again. I pull my phone from my pocket to call for help when we’re hit for a third time and I drop it.
I drop it.
Jade is screaming, “Mama!” and she’s crying so hard as Jesse fights to keep control. His truck is old and can’t outrun the SUV which rams us a final time. Jesse swerves a final time, hitting the shoulder and skidding on loose rock.
We skid right over the steep cliff edging the right side of the road, our side of the road coming down the mountains. The truck hits tree after tree until it all becomes a blur of green. Then we hit solid. With only my lap secured, my upper body is thrust forward, slamming my head into the dashboard.
That’s it.
15.
Duke
“Mamie, shut the fuck up.” God, the woman won’t give me a chance to think. And Doc taking off, shit. What did I expect? I told her to stop. “Why’d you come here? You know you’re supposed to call first.”
“Who was that woman?” She says woman the same way someone might ask, “Who was that monster?”
I didn’t want her to find out about Doc this way. “She’s my woman, Mamie. She and Peaches are mine.”
Dawna’s mom stops her ranting dead, mouth gaping open. Fucking stunned. “No… no. The pieces. You promised, Duke. You’d stick with the pieces. You’d never replace my girl. She was the love of your life. You said that, over and over. At the hospital, you told me… her body was still warm when you made me that vow.”
“We both know it wasn’t fair for you to even ask ’a me. To spend my life alone.”
“No.” She throws her hands to cradle her head as she cries. “What’s not fair is my baby cold in the ground. If not the one you made to me in that hospital room, think of the vow you made to my daughter.”
“It’s not fair that someone as beautiful as Dawna left us so early. But I fulfilled my vow to her. ’Til death do us part. Death parted us, Mamie. I met Doc. And fuck, I ain’t even told her yet.”
“Told her what?” she asks, but damn if it ain’t accusatory.
“That I fell for her.”
Mamie gasps, then drops to her knees crying. I feel bad for her, but I need my family. My girls. While she continues to cry on my floor, I pull my phone and attempt to call Doc yet a-fucking-gain. And yet a-fucking-gain, it goes straight to voicemail.
“Come on, sweetheart. Get up.” I help Mamie stand and lead her to the sofa. She ain’t a hefty woman by any means, but when she plops down on the cushion, the whole damn thing lists to the right and hits the floor. Both legs on that side broken off.
I think it happened when I fucked Doc on the sofa that day. We went at it so hard we moved the damn thing. Mamie starts crying harder. But I think it has more to do with the fact that I’m gonna have to replace the sofa now. And that’s another piece of her daughter’s life gone.
After getting her a bottle of water from the fridge, I start to leave my mother-in-law on the broken sofa to head up to the clubhouse.
“Stay ’til you’re composed. Then I gotta ask you to leave. Sorry, but the way you treated Caitlin, can’t have you in my house, she gets home.”
“Home? No. This… this is my Dawna’s home. Your Dawna’s home.”
“Don’t gotta explain myself, Mame. Not gonna.”
Then I turn to leave, but she stops me. “You forgot.”
That stops me.
“It’s today, Duke. Four years ago, today.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, reach inside my pocket to pull my pack of smokes, but remember I don’t smoke in the house anymore so I don’t light up. “Living life again is the best way to honor her memory.”
“Aren’t you lucky you can do that,” she says snidely.
“No. It ain’t luck. It’s Doc. Peaches.” And that’s all I’m willing to give, because I gotta make this up to my woman.
Finally outside, I light up and suck back the calming effects of the nicotine while I walk across the forecourt to the clubhouse. I walk inside and look around.
“Where is she?” I ask Hero. He’s the brother sitting closest to me.
“Who?” he asks.
“Who the fuck you think? Doc.”
“I haven’t seen her.”
“Anyone seen her?” I call out to the other brothers.
Blaze walks from the back hallway. “She grabbed Jesse, and they took off. Don’t know where.”
Immediately I press his contact and wait… and wait…
Fuck. The punk don’t answer.
I hang up and call again.
Still nothing. That little fucker not answering my calls? His president. Oh hell no. Demote his ass back to puke duty.
“I’ll be in my office.” I grumble to the brothers and stomp off. At least she was smart enough to take her guard.
Behind my desk, I get caught up in paperwork. A shit-ton of it. Though I keep calling my woman, and she keeps ignoring my calls. So I decide fuck it, she has to come back eventually. Then bury myself in work.
Finally, finally, my phone lights up. I grab it and answer, not bothering to look at who’s calling. Four hours since she took off. Four fucking hours. “Talk,” I order.
“Duke, man.” Sneak. “I’m about three miles from the compound.”
The severity in his tone makes my body seize up tight. “And?” I prod.
“Something didn’t look right. Skids, broken branches. Got out to check, Duke, I think… is Jesse there?”
Suddenly I can’t breathe. But I gotta breathe. Hand to the back of my neck, I force in the calming breaths that won’t come on their own. Then I stand and walk back out to the common. “Jesse back yet?” I bellow to any brother who’s in earshot.
“He’s been gone for hours, prez.” That was Blaze again.
“Call him.”
Blaze quickly pulls his phone and calls. “Not answerin
g,” he says.
“He ain’t answering.” Don’t mean to, but my answer comes out a bark at Sneak. “What you got?”
“Jesus,” Sneak mutters. “Prez, it’s got to be his truck at the bottom.”
“Blaze, call 9-1-1,” I order. Running. “Three miles out. Need ambulance. Jesse went off the cliff.” Then turn to Sneak. “On my way.”
On my bike, I speed up the road. It don’t take long for me to ease up on Sneak and Trish pulled off to the shoulder. Sure enough, that’s the ass-end of Jesse’s truck sticking up about halfway down the gully. I try Doc’s cell again. Voicemail.
I’m about ready to lose it when the shrill of the ambulance sirens and flashing lights cut through the dim lighting caused by the canopy of tree coverage. Along with the ambulances, two police cruisers speed ahead. Behind the racing ambulances, one of Ellis Auto’s big towers.
After another forty-five minutes, we get the truck back onto the road. Too steep to send rescuers down, our only option was to harness up one of the officers experienced in repelling to repel down and hook the winch to the rear axle. Once we hauled the truck up, we could get to the occupants.
Oh fuck. Oh fuck. We all hear it, the desperate low, painful whimpering of a child. They wrench her door open. The paramedic extracts my Peaches. She looks okay, but’ll have to be checked out.
Not thinking, I run over to her. She sees me and her eyes go big. “Duke,” she cries. “Duke. Duke. My mama. Duke… my mama.” Fat tears spill down her cheeks, and it takes everything in me to keep standing. I reach her, my Peaches. One medic begins checking her. The other goes after Doc.
They lay her, my woman, on a gurney. She’s gray. That peaches and cream skin drained of color. They check for signs of life. Signs of life? “We’ve got a pulse, but it’s weak.” The medic calls and both load her into the back of the ambulance.
The other medics for the second ambulance have to wait as Sgt. Tommy Doyle and one of his officers cuts the driver’s door with a power saw. They pull Jesse out with much less haste. Not a good sign. I hold Peaches’ hand and force myself to look.
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