Protector

by Kate Stone

  I couldn’t resist throwing a smirk Kent’s way. “Sure thing, darlin’. We can plan it later.” Taking a risk, I planted a tender kiss on her forehead before sauntering toward my bike. Part of me wondered if I had just acted like an ass and used her to “mark my territory”, but I knew that wasn’t true. Had Officer Pinhead not shown up right when he did, I would have actually kissed her.

  As I got on my bike and pulled my helmet out with flourish, just for Officer Kent, I overheard him talking to Lilly. “I know you’re new here, but you cannot be seen with those guys, Lilly. The Watchdogs are dangerous thugs—”

  Revving the engine to cut off his nonsense, I called over to Lilly, “Hey, Lilly, be wary of monsters who hide behind badges.”

  With that, I was off. I released myself to the wind and the country roads, praying the ride would lift the stress and blow it away into the atmosphere. What had started out as playful flirtation had somehow turned into serious interest in Lilly Sweeney. I knew I was going to dream of that name. Not only was she heartbreakingly beautiful with a natural confidence that would magnetize any man in a fifty-mile radius, but there was a spirit to her that just felt right. Lilly fit perfectly in the Watchdogs with her desire to protect children.

  My mind was so full of the thought of Lilly, I had gotten to the clubhouse on the edge of town without realizing it. Parking my bike in its usual spot, I walked into the bar and sat on my usual stool at the end of the counter. My sister, Celeste, was behind the bar. “Hey, get me a whiskey on the rocks?”

  “Is there a please in there?” she retorted.

  “Ah, yes, our normal banter… I’m not in the mood, Celeste.”

  She slid the glass over. “I know it’s serious if you’re calling me by my legal name.”

  “It’s not that serious, Cellie,” I corrected. Cellie was not only an abbreviation of her name, but a purposeful nickname as she was the first of the grandkids to be arrested, even though Felix, James, Jericho, and I were all older than her. She had been one tough as nails thirteen-year-old.

  “Of course it’s not that serious,” Jericho called from across the room. “It’s over a girl!”

  “Quiet down, Rico.”

  “A girl? Please tell me it’s not Madi again.”

  “No, it’s not Madi again. Will everyone get off my case?” I snapped, losing my patience with the bombardment of questions. Drinking in a gulp of whiskey, I peered around. “Where’s James?” Cellie then answered by nodding to the back room.

  The rough part about a club being your life was that if you wanted to stay out of the spotlight, you had to be working. Hanging around was only asking to be made fun of by the rough crowd. Pushing open the office door, I found my brother hunched over the desk while talking on the phone. Stress was written all over his face—James was only a year older than me, but in that moment he looked like he could pass for forty. After our dad and so many other leading members had died, and our grandfather fell ill, the brunt of the responsibility for the Watchdogs had fallen to James. All the responsibility without any of the power. I constantly offered help, but he wanted to carry it all himself.

  I sat across from him and lit a cigarette while I waited for him to get off the phone. Once he hung up, I didn’t say anything and instead waited for him to talk. “Preston and Liam are having car troubles, a state away, while transporting the package.”

  My eyes widened. “Do you want me to go out there?”

  “No,” he sighed, rubbing at his eyes. “We have some connections down there, so I have a mechanic on the way. It’s just a matter of if a cop stops to ask questions.”

  “If you have someone on the way, I’m sure it’s fine. Even if a cop stops to help, they have no reason to search.”

  “Yeah, like biker vests aren’t reason enough for cops,” he grumbled.

  “There is nothing you can do, okay? You handled it the best you could. Try to relax.” I slid the whiskey across the table to him. James eyed me before seeming to take my advice and picked it up. “Need a laugh?”

  “Always.”

  “Ran into Kent today.”

  James rolled his eyes. “Did he frisk you this time for having a suspicious item in your pocket?”

  We both howled in laughter. “I don’t think I’ll ever get a more flattering reason to be searched.” Tyler Kent was a local boy who had grown up hearing the tall-tales about our motorcycle club and tried to seek justice on the playground—particularly against me, since we were the same age. I don’t know what he thought would happen, but when you fight a kid who belongs to a tight-knit organization, it doesn’t end well for you. After he was roughed up that one time in middle school, Kent was gunning for us. I truly believed he became a cop just to get revenge for middle school. “Well, I met this pretty new girl at the market today… Guess who her next-door neighbor is?”

  James choked on a sip of whiskey as he laughed at the irony. “That is just your luck, ain’t it?”

  “He almost wrote me a ticket for being parked next to the fire hydrant just to get rid of me.”

  “Christ Almighty,” James chuckled. “And I assume you’re not going to take this as a sign to back off and leave the poor girl alone?”

  “At this point I’m planning to move in and start a little family. If for nothing but the principle of the matter,” I kidded.

  “That’d be great! Watchdog brats and cop brats finally playing together.”

  I laughed. “Knowing our genes, my kid would make his kid eat dirt.”

  “Well, before you get anyone pregnant, do you mind delivering some product to the city for me?” he asked with a forced smile, dangling the truck key between us.

  I groaned. “I sat at the booth all damn day despite the fact we have never gotten business that way.”

  “You know why we have the booth.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” It was true, I did. The booth made the landscaping business look more legitimate—even though it technically was a legitimate business. It was a complicated story. “Why can’t Rico run it?”

  “Are you really being a brat about this? It’s a forty-five-minute drive.”

  “Yeah, one way.” He gave me the dull look which screamed did you really say that to me. “Okay, fine,” I sighed. Snatching the keys from him, I headed for the door. “I’m not doing the count tonight, though. You guys can handle it. I want the booth tomorrow too.”

  “Weren’t you just complaining about the booth?”

  “How else is Mrs. Lilly Sweeney McIntyre going to find me? I had to go without giving her my number. So I’ll need a backup with me, in case I have to go elope.”

  James laughed me out the door. Going around back, I unlocked the truck and scooted the driver’s seat up. Underneath a floormat was a hidden compartment protected by lock and key. Once revealed, I checked to make sure it was all there. Five pounds of marijuana were packaged in airtight containers inside of larger containers, in a tub of a detergent solution to help neutralize the smell.

  As I stared down at the of illegal drugs, I thought of Lilly. If she were to see this, what would she think of me? Would she give me the chance to explain? My mind became heavy and thanks to James, I had forty-five minutes to stew in it.

  Chapter Three – Lilly

  Wade had been right, his name was stuck between my ears by the end of the day. I could hardly sleep that night, wondering what in the world happened between Wade and Tyler. Both of them seemed like good enough guys… So why did they have a pissing contest in my yard? Even though running through the list of possibilities wasn’t great for my sleep, it had really helped with unpacking, I unpacked my whole kitchen and most of the living room, too.

  I should have been enjoying my house becoming a home, but I was obsessed over Wade and Tyler. What had Tyler meant by don’t trust the Watchdogs? Who even were the Watchdogs?

  So, I wasted no time in the morning. As soon as the sun came up, I dressed, tied my hair up, and headed down to th
e market. Approaching the town square, I could see that the farmers and business owners were still setting up. Making my way through the construction zones of tables and booths, I searched for the forest green canopy. It wasn’t the canopy I saw first, but rather Wade’s giant form. He watched as a man, different from the one I met yesterday, unsheathed the massive metal and canvas structure from its sleeve.

  Wade saw me before I could approach. There were circles under his eyes and I wondered if he had been as restless over the ordeal as I had, but I doubted it. He gave a tired, sheepish smile, “Morning there, sunshine.”

  “Can I talk to you? Maybe in private?”

  He cocked a brow and I wasn’t sure if it was out of surprise or confusion. “Wanna go get some coffee?” he asked. I responded with a quizzical look, as he was already holding a coffee. Wade noticed this and promptly chucked the disposable cup into a nearby trashcan. That earned a small laugh to which he grinned and led the way into the small shopping area.

  Everything in town was still asleep except for the farmers, and one little coffeeshop. We both ordered before heading back outside, taking our time with the walk back. There was a light layer of small talk, but I needed answers. That’s what all of this was about.

  “What happened last night? With you and Tyler.”

  He yawned, “I’m not sure there is enough coffee in the world for this.” Wade plopped down on a bench and I sat next to him. Usually I wouldn’t consider a bench in the center of town private, but there wasn’t a single car on the road. “Well, mine and two other families run a motorcycle club. We have since the 1960s. To sugarcoat it, it started out as a way for the community to unite, and then grew into a vigilante group of guys protecting the citizens from the police during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement. It goes without saying that the police and our organization have never seen eye-to-eye. You would hope that crap would have died out decades ago, but stuff still goes on. People are always at odds with the police. We also handle the stuff the cops won’t.”

  “Stuff like what?” I questioned.

  He made a clicking noise with his tongue, looking up at the sky. Wade’s accent was thicker than before as his tone dropped and eyes grew distant, “Circumstantial things. Domestic abuse. Child abuse. Bullying. Things that often don’t have concrete evidence and mean a great deal to people. Things the cops won’t do crap about since they are so concerned with looking good. There’s nothing pretty about a guy beating his wife, so I don’t see why I need to look pretty walking out of handling it. Get what I mean?”

  “I think so…” I breathed, though my mind was reeling. “So you guys are a gang?”

  “If you use the dictionary definition, sure. We are trying to do right by the people, Lilly—in ways the law won’t. There’s no reason to be scared of me, my family, or any of the Watchdogs. Why do you think we have that name? We’re honestly the safest people in town to be around, because we will make sure no one messes with you.”

  Trying to put a light spin on things, as I have a habit of doing, I added, “Are you trying to recruit me into your gang? Am I going to get hazed?”

  He gave a light chuckle, stretching his arm out along the back of the bench. “I just want to be honest with you. Everyone in town knows us and our history, one version or another. You deserve to know, too, before you decide to hang around me.”

  For all the time I spent down my rabbit hole over the scene between Tyler and Wade, I had never anticipated him being so forthcoming. All I had considered were half-baked reasons I deserved to know what was going on. Of course, my mind had entertained the idea of a biker gang, but I thought I was just being dramatic. As much as he would love to call it a “club”, a club gave the image of just a bunch of bike enthusiasts who crowded around a bar and planned road trips. The Watchdogs were apparently at war with local law enforcement.

  “How about this,” Wade spoke up, slicing through my racing thoughts. “Spend the day with me, come by our clubhouse with me this evening, and then make your judgement. If you decide you don’t want to be around me, then it’s fine. At least your opinion of my family and me will be based in the truth.”

  I tried to act like the butterflies in my stomach hadn’t returned. There was no clear way for me to describe why I was so attracted to Wade. Sure, he was beautiful and manly, but there was something deep about him. There was a complexity which sat right behind his tropical eyes and was between the lines of everything he said. Something in me demanded to know the answer. Besides, I was officially an adult and living my own life. I should have fun and do what felt right to me. “What’s included in this day?” I asked.

  His bearded face cracked an infectious grin. “Wanna go for a ride?”

  Part of me felt as though he performed a Jedi mind trick on me. One moment I was lost in the information he divulged—information that was in itself reason to run—and the next, I was on the back of his bike. I was holding to Wade tighter than before, his warmth offering great relief from the cool morning air whipping by.

  I couldn’t tell how long we rode, but I didn’t mind. With a cheek pressed to his back to shield my face from the wind, I watched the cow pastures and rolling hills slip by. The hum of the motorcycle’s engine and its vibrations were almost enough to lull me to sleep. I shouldn’t be so comfortable around a man I just met, but none of my usual alarms were sounding.

  Eventually we left the foothills and started up a mountain. Where in the world was he taking me? My mind started to flood with scenes of true crime documentaries my friends and I binge-watched as teenagers where the girl was led into the woods and left for dead. I didn’t have too long to torture myself, Wade slowing to a stop outside a small diner. Stepping off the bike, I was in awe at the view. Nestled back on a ridge, the diner overlooked the hundreds, if not thousands, of acres of farmland. The sun washed it all in glorious soft light, casting long shadows from the gentle hills over the sleepy towns; I could even spot Newshire! It was like seeing heaven, or something else marvelous and celestial. An inexplicable feeling of serenity came over me as I studied the delicate colors of the landscape.

  Suddenly, an arm tossed over my shoulders and lips were by my ear, “This place has the best pancakes I’ve ever had. Never tell my sister, though.”

  I peered up at him, catching a glimpse of the playfulness that pinched his features. “You have a sister?” I asked as he guided me into The Overlook Diner.

  “Mhm, and an older brother. I’m in the middle of them. How about you?”

  “An older sister, but we don’t talk much.”

  An older woman wearing a baby blue dress and crisp white apron led us to a booth against a glass wall, in full view of the amazing overlook. We both ordered coffee and a big stack of pancakes, banana and chocolate chip for me and butter pecan for Wade. When the waitress walked away, Wade didn’t miss a beat, “How come you and your sister aren’t close? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  Admittedly, I was caught a bit off guard. It wasn’t that I minded the question, but it was a personal one. I was used to guys just asking what my favorite color was or my astrological sign—not the inner workings of my family life. “We are just very different people. She’s very… by the book. She didn’t date until college, which was med school for her. She brought the guy home on their third date to meet our parents and married him. Lives in the city still and bought a house just two blocks away from my parents because ‘that’s the right thing to do, Lilly’,” I let out a deep breath. “Don’t get me wrong, I love her to bits and pieces. Being close to her is like being close to a fire a lot of the time. She’ll burn you.”

  “So you’re telling me the renting a fixer-upper, social worker sister is the whimsical one?” He was smirking behind his mug of coffee.

  “Guilty as charged,” I said, putting my hands up in defeat. “I mean, isn’t it whimsical to get in tens of thousands of dollars of debt for a career that rarely sees past fifty-thousand a year?”

  �
�I don’t know about that, but I know it’s the right thing to do if it’s what you’re passionate about.”

  “If you weren’t a landscaping bike enthusiast, what do you think you would be?”

  He paused, looking at me with such shock that I was positive no one had taken the time to ever ask him that. Or maybe he had never considered any other life for himself. “I don’t think I can say,” he admitted. “I grew up with this way of life. As a kid it seemed like my dad and his friends were cowboys, you know? What little boy wants to be anything else when that’s an option?”

  There was another pause as our pancakes arrived. We dug in with deep satisfaction. They were the best pancakes I ever had. Perfectly fluffy, sweet, and buttery. For a few moments, I forgot what we had been talking about. Then, catching me off-guard yet again, Wade suddenly announced, “I suppose I would have been a veterinarian, open up a little local clinic. Make house calls to help the poorly horses.”

  I could feel my lips reaching for my ears. The thought of the bearded, pierced, and tattooed man sitting before me tending to an ill horse was nearly too adorable to bear. Before I could make any comment, a woman came out of the kitchen and made an excited cry. Both our heads turned to see her rushing for our table. She spoke in rushed Spanish, grabbing Wade’s face and peppering his forehead with kisses. His eyes were wide but full of joy, patting her arm and speaking in a simplified Spanish back to her. The woman oozed over him. I couldn’t understand them, but I could hear the affection in her voice. Needless to say, my curiosity was piqued. She turned to me and switched to English, “You take care of him. He’s a good man. Good family.” Turning back to him, she gave him another kiss on the forehead before heading back into the kitchen.

  “Can you tell I keep her on payroll?” Wade jested as he popped a bite of pancake into his mouth.

  “What was all that about?” I laughed.

  “The Gonzalez family was one of the first Hispanic families in the county. Needless to say, they faced a lot of problems when it came to establishing a normal life for themselves. The Watchdogs got her brother out of a sticky situation. I come up here from time to time just to make sure they are still doing okay, and of course to get some pancakes.”