Raine Falling (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club)

by Marinaro, Paula

  The whole compound was surrounded by woodlands. If it were not for my GPS getting me close to it, I would never have found my way.

  Prosper and I talked and talked and talked. I could not stop. Once that door was open, the words came flooding in. He wanted to know everything about Claire and me. Everything I had to say, he was interested in hearing.

  So I shared and watched. I watched, taking my lead from the expressions on his face. When his eyes grew soft and his mouth curved into a small smile, I continued. When something I said made his eyes grow dark and hard, I hurried past that to the next thing. After a while he sensed that, and kept his face open and neutral, which made it both harder and easier to share. But I told him everything there was to tell. Letting him in, keeping nothing back. Eventually all that talk brought me to the events of the past week. Claire, Jamie, Gino, the fragile-looking blonde who saved my skull from being cracked like an egg, and finally Diego’s part in it all. I saw his eyes go hard at that last part for one instant. Then it was gone.

  Prosper also shared with me. But not everything. That wasn’t his way. But he shared the important things and the things that would matter to me. He talked about the MC and how he had helped it to grow and expand into several thriving businesses. I secretly wondered how many of those businesses were on the books. Of course, I didn’t ask.

  He talked about how a “break of faith” had taken him outside the MC for a short while. He left to get his head cleared, and he spoke of the places he had traveled to. Eventually, his meandering brought him back to the Hells Saints. The place where he had begun and the only family, save mine, that he had ever known.

  To my delight, he told me that his restless travels had also brought a new understanding of committed love. That understanding came in the form of a small blonde with a big laugh who made the best cookies east of the Mississippi. Pinky. They had stayed together through it all and had gotten married last spring. I was happy for both of them and couldn’t wait to see her.

  It was nice and familiar and safe being with Prosper. I had no doubt in my mind that I had done the right thing by coming to him. The only doubt I had in my mind was why I hadn’t done it sooner. Because sooner may have made all the rest so much easier. But as they say, hindsight is 20/20.

  The brothers had given us the time we needed to work it through. The clubhouse had stayed cleared without so much as a knock on the door. Prosper and I walked out arm in arm into a cloudy early afternoon. I was exhausted and I think Prosper was too. Diego, however, looked wide awake and was leaning back against the wall of the warehouse, watching the door, waiting for us to come out. He pulled himself away from the door and walked towards us.

  In a straight line. Right towards us.

  He totally ignored me and chin-nodded Prosper.

  “You and me.”

  Prosper looked at him and nodded.

  “Then me and her.” Diego shot that out like a bullet. I took her to mean me, but since he was still not looking at me, I couldn’t be sure.

  “Respect that you bided your time and gave us that to sort it out. But you going there with Raine, we see how it lands with me first, Brother. I’m feeling it, then it goes to her. I’m not feeling it, it stays.” Prosper’s tone was mild but his eyes were hard.

  “Let’s do this.” Diego started towards the clubhouse, then turned around and looked right at me.

  “Don’t wander, Babe. This will not take long.” He looked at me long and hard.

  Prosper and I had been on our way to the kitchen house for some lunch when Diego had put himself in front of that path. Prosper told me to go on and that someone would be there to help me find things and get settled. He had a suite of rooms in the house, and they were to be at my disposal. He had already told one of the recruits to go in there, change the sheets, bring my stuff from the car, and put some shower stuff in the bathroom for me. Prosper really only kept the rooms out of old habit. He and Pinky owned a house not far from the compound.

  Forget the lunch, I hadn’t showered or slept in two days. If I counted the night of worry, make that about three. I was going to take a really long, hot shower. Then eat, if I could make it that long without falling dead on my feet.

  I wasn’t even thinking about dealing with Diego.

  Prosper had that. And I was going to leave them to it.

  Prosper and Diego had their sit-down. Because Prosper had been dealing with some Saints’ business a couple of states away for the past month, he had to be brought up to speed with the whole mess. The Hells Saints didn’t deal in drugs but had been on the radar of Los Diablos Rojos MC because of a missing cache of cocaine and heroin. Business and relations between the Saints and Los Diablos were shaky at best. The Saints’ involvement with Jamie came on the money-lending part of things. Jamie had his own agenda. He was borrowing money from the Saints and fronting dope from Los Diablos with the intent of hijacking both the cash and the drugs.

  Essentially, he had intended on building a small fortune then disappearing. In order to clear the way for that, he was playing the MCs against each other. Prosper’s chapter bordered the Diablos’ territory so when it all came down, it all became clear. Diego had come down to sort things out. The sort-out had gone well, and both sides left church that day satisfied. The tenuous alliance the Diablos and Saints shared was back on track.

  The only thing that had been left to sort out was Claire’s involvement in the dealing and the deception. In order to clear this up, there had to be no loose ends or stones left unturned. Serious bloodshed could and had been spilled over that much green and that much dope. Jamie had just been beginning and they were not sure how wide his shit had spread. When they found out Claire was just a stupid little piece (yeah, he said it) that got hooked up with the wrong guy, they had decided to let it alone. The MC had no way of knowing that Claire or her sister, Raine, had any ties to Prosper. Nor did they share that.

  Diego told Prosper that he solidly, solidly regretted putting Raine in the path of that psycho. He shared with him his intent to deal with Gino before Raine went to him and how he had pushed MC discussion along to make that happen. He told him about the file and the phone call making sure that Gino was going to pay for the hurt he had put on Raine. He explained how when his wrecking crew got to Gino’s house, he was gone. The house had been tossed and nothing had been found. Diego had Gunner on the house and so far nothing had turned up. However, they would find him and when they did . . . well, when they did.

  Prosper listened to it all. Intently. Because this was his club, he knew most of the story but had needed some of the details filled in. He also wanted to hear what his brother had to say. Diego had Prosper’s respect and had from the time he was a recruit. Prosper accepted what he said and gave props to Diego for sorting it all out in the way he had. He asked a few more questions. They shared a beer and then a couple more.

  Prosper liked him. Diego was a solid, clear-thinking, tough motherfucker of a man. But that didn’t necessarily mean he wanted him sniffing around his Little Darlin’.

  “So you and Raine,” Prosper asked casually.

  There it was. Diego wasn’t fooled at all by the casual tone of Prosper’s voice. He was going to meet this head on.

  “Yeah. Me and Raine.” Diego took a long pull on his beer. “But she don’t know that yet.”

  He put the beer down and looked Prosper in the eye. “You good with that?”

  “Not sure, Brother,” Prosper replied honestly.

  “You know me,” Diego said. “I know you and understanding what she means to you, the respect I have for you, you know I wouldn’t go there and fuck her up.”

  “Worry is, Brother, that life has fucked her up. So a man wouldn’t have far to go, all good intentions aside, to cause more pain. Truth is, I would like to see a brother get in there, take care of my girl, keep that shit away from her. Raine needs someone who would lay it down
for her. She deserves it. Her mother deserved it. Claire deserves it.” He was looking into his empty glass now. Prosper grabbed the bottle. He filled Diego’s glass and then his own.

  He drank it and muttered, “Damn Winston women keep picking the wrong fucking men.”

  Then he looked at Diego.

  “D, looking out for a brother here. Seriously, don’t know if you want to go there. Women like Raine and her mother. Beautiful inside and out. So fucking heartbreakingly beautiful that they get in there and stay in there. Even when they are not yours, even when they are fighting for their last breath. Even after they have passed from this life to the next. Women like that are so achingly soft and good and so fucking special. You get all of it, you’re the luckiest man on the face of God’s green earth. You get a part of it, you take it and thank the Lord for the small bit you get. Every fucking day. You thank the Lord.”

  Diego looked at Prosper, and he knew it wasn’t the booze talking. The only woman Diego had ever seen Prosper with was Pinky. They had a good thing. He treated her well, and as far as Diego knew, he didn’t fuck around on her. Prosper was getting on in years now, but no doubt he was still a good-looking guy. Tall, all lean, hard muscle, and although gray now peppered his light brown hair, he still had all of it. The lines on his face made him look like a badass with experience. The chicks really seemed to dig that. But no, Diego never knew Prosper to step out. You just had to take one look at Pinky to know she adored her man.

  But listening to him now, Diego came to realize the ties that bound Prosper to Raine went deep. Raine’s mother had evidently been Prosper’s one true love. And as badass and tough and dark as Diego could be, he absolutely positively believed in the whole “one true love” thing. He knew what having that would mean to a man like Prosper. He knew, long ago, what it had meant to him.

  “Raine’s been through some shit.” Prosper was looking at Diego. “Shit that happened in what they call the formative years. Shit that happens when you’re that young sets a course for the rest of it.”

  Prosper was looking right into Diego’s eyes.

  “Shit that she keeps buried deep. So deep she has to wrap her arms around herself to keep it in. Because if she don’t, she’s afraid that, on the way out, it will tear her up so bad inside that it will kill her. Stuff she keeps down. Stuff she thinks no one knows or can see or can touch but her. She carries that for her and for Claire. She doesn’t share that. She carries it.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Boss. She gave it to you last night. I saw it. I heard it. She gives it sometime.” And she will give it to me, Diego thought but didn’t say.

  Prosper looked hard at Diego. He could see the poor bastard was already over the fucking moon for his Little Darlin’. Good luck with that, Prosper thought but didn’t say.

  “Twice, Diego. Twice in a lifetime of carrying it. She trusted me with her shit twice. Last night and when she was a tiny little thing of eight years old. She only gave it to me then because she was dog tired and worn out from being left alone to care for her baby sister for two fucking days just one month after her mother had died. That’s what it took then. Her sister in danger of being killed and a beating that left her face battered is what it took this time. I cannot even begin to imagine what she has dealt with on her own for the last twenty years, if this is what it took.”

  Diego was getting it.

  Prosper pulled his hand through his hair, then slapped it hard on Diego’s shoulder, giving him a little grin.

  “Brother, you just don’t know. She will complicate your life. You’ll have to fight to get in, and sometimes it will take everything you got just to hang in there. These women define complicated. But once you’re in, there’s nothing sweeter in life than a woman like my Maggie was. Guy who gets a shot at her daughter, guy willing to go the distance, is one lucky sonofabitch. Guy like that, tough road ahead but paradise at the end of it. Eternal fucking paradise. But the getting there, the shit you don’t know. You might want to think about it. Loving and being loved by a complicated woman like that is hard work, Brother.”

  “You see any part of me that spells weak, Boss?”

  Prosper grinned.

  “You got a story to tell me, then I got a story to hear.” Diego was ready. He wasn’t smiling.

  Prosper looked at him for a long minute and he wasn’t smiling either. So he began.

  “Once upon a fucking time . . .”

  CHAPTER 20

  The tub was huge. The water was hot and there was a lot of it. There were big fluffy towels and shampoo, sweet berry body wash, and lotion. I changed my mind and took a bath. I did the thing where you fill the tub halfway, get in, and turn on the water every five minutes so you get the hottest part of it. Oh, yes I did! I stretched and let the hot, soapy, silky water slide over me. I washed myself gently, over and over again. Trying to wash away the worries, I guess. Maybe trying to make myself new again. The room was a den of steam when I was done, and everything smelled good, including me. I stepped out and towel-dried my hair until it was tousled and damp. I spread lotion all over my warm body and the open pores cried out in ecstasy.

  I dug in my bag and pulled out a pretty kimono. I had gotten it for really cheap at a little store in Chinatown. It was powder blue and had matching silver dragons on the front of it. When you wrapped it around with the thin belt, it looked like the dragons were intertwined. Very cool. The silk felt good against me. I was feeling great until the steam wore away from the mirror, and I was reminded of the deep bruising on my face. It would be a while before the colors faded, but at least the swelling was gone. The blue did bring out my eyes, I grinned wryly at myself.

  Being with Prosper, my father in every way that mattered, had put the smile on my face and had lifted some of that crushing weight off me. I forgot how good it felt to give worries away. It wasn’t just that. It was just good being with family. He looked good too. The years had been kind and I knew part of that was Pinky taking good care of him. He was still strong and lean. His face was lined now, and he had beautiful streaks of gray running through his hair. When I knew him, he had been rocking a goatee and a little soul patch. Now he was clean-shaven. He wore a plain silver wedding band on his left hand where before he’d had lots of chunky man rings. He was still hard and from habit I had watched him while he talked. All the secrets Prosper had now were old ones. Nothing new was dark. I was happy for that.

  I wondered what he and Diego were talking about. I thought I would find out soon enough. I thought about the fact that Diego was here at all and what that meant. I thought about the fact that Diego had stood outside staring at the door for hours waiting for us to come out. That meant something. I thought about how he had told me not to wander. I thought about how I was safe now. Well, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, him not wanting me to wander. In the tub I had thought about his hands on me that night, and how his mouth had felt against mine. I thought about the kiss that had ended in pain, and how he had worked to stop that pain. Yeah, I gave some time to thinking about Diego.

  I picked up the towels in the bathroom, tied the belt of my robe loosely, gave my hair one more fluff, and walked out of the room ready to slip into some clean sheets. And I would have done just that if Diego hadn’t been leaning deep in the armchair, legs crossed at the ankles, looking totally relaxed and as if he owned the place.

  I stopped dead a few feet away from him, right outside the bathroom door. He stood up. I took a small step back. He moved a small step closer. He took the towels and clothes from me. He walked over to the hamper near the bed and tossed them in. He came back and stood in front of me. Him looking at me. Me looking at him.

  He took his hand and brought it up to my hair. He traced it lightly with his index finger from the top of my head, down the side of my face, past my neck, over my breast, and to where it fell down near my waist. He held the strands loosely in his fingers and watched it as the damp silky mass s
lid through his hand. I was watching him, but because his eyes were downcast, couldn’t see his secrets. He was close, very close. Too close. I took a small step back. He looked up, still holding my hair, and took a small step forward. His eyes on me. My eyes on him. He leaned his head in and I leaned my head back. My head hit the back of the door frame, my back flat against the wall. He stepped in and the side of his body fell flush against the front of mine.

  Diego dipped his head close to my ear and whispered, “Nowhere left to run, Raine.”

  Oh my God! This wasn’t good. And it wasn’t good in a scary way. I pulled my arms around me.

  For Diego’s part, he felt that and realized his mistake immediately. He put his hand around my head and pulled it close. “Don’t be afraid, Raine, not of me. Not ever afraid of me. It’s done. I talked to Prosper. He talked to me. You’re safe. Claire is safe. And I swear to Christ I’m sorry for the shit I put you through. Everything. I’m sorry, baby.”

  I stood stock-still and processed that. He stood where he was, not moving, and waited. I unwrapped my arms from my waist and put them up between us. My palms on his chest. He was warm and rock solid. He moved to have one of his hands cover mine and the other past me, resting on the door frame, trapping me in close to him. I was staring at his chest.

  I looked up at him. “You talked to Prosper and it’s over?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, honey. I’ll tell you all about it after.”

  “After what?”

  He raised one eyebrow. Then his eyes left mine and they burned a path down my body and up again. His eyes were sparkling and warm and he stepped in a little closer. I felt him go hard against my belly. My legs turned to jelly. I pulled on his shirt to keep myself from falling.