“It’s all I heard that matters, Crow.”
He moved out of my way and took me home.
CHAPTER 31
We pulled up in front of the compound and there were lights on everywhere. The wind had picked up and the evening sky was a stormy shade of gray. I sensed it before I heard it. Something wicked this way comes.
Crow sensed it too and moved his hand to the small of my back as we walked towards the kitchen house. I moved forward quickly, wanting to be rid of that touch. Just another Walk-away Joe, my mom’s words came whispering unkindly through the wind. Something was brewing, and it was waiting for me. I was back to being all alone. Well, at least that was a place I was familiar with.
I had this.
I wasn’t prepared to see Dolly red-eyed and shooting down a shot of tequila when I walked in. Reno was with her and Jules was too. A lot of the other guys were standing or sitting around. Bottles and shot glasses littered the tables and the vibe was subdued. Jesus, I had just left Dolly a couple of hours ago. What could have possibly happened in that short of a time to bring her and lots of others here with her? The quiet drinking was unnerving. This was a rabble-rousing, tear-assed crowd when they drank.
I moved to Dolly and held the hand that wasn’t wrapped around a shot glass.
“Tell me.” I held my breath.
“Oh, honey. It’s Lilah. There were some complications.” Dolly was having a hard time getting the words out.
I felt a wave of sadness roll over me like a storm. I held on tight and felt my heart break for Pinky and Prosper. This was bad. Reno wrapped his arm around his mom. He looked at me.
“Prosper called a little while ago. Pinky is taking it really hard, her only sister. Services will be this week. You, me, and Mom are flying out first thing in the morning. You cool with that?”
I was cool with that. Very cool with that because it meant I was considered family. And to a girl like me, that meant everything.
“Pack funeral shit. We’ll pick you up at six a.m. Be ready,” Reno said roughly to me. Then he took the shot glass out of his mother’s hand and walked her out.
The bikers resumed their drinking. Someone was starting a card game in the back. Crow moved towards me and I walked right past him. Done is done.
I took a long hot shower, took extra time doing my hair, and packed a few things. Thanking heaven that I had splurged on the navy-blue pencil skirt and pretty white blouse. It wasn’t something black, but it would have to do. I threw in a pair of new heels I hadn’t gotten a chance to wear yet, one pair of jeans, one pair of black trousers (that were not new but looked it), one sweater, and three tees. I had no idea how long we would be gone, but figured I could buy anything else I needed.
For the plane trip, I wanted to be comfortable but presentable. I wore a pair of my new jeans with some pretty strappy sandals. After changing three times, I settled on a baby-blue cami and tissue-weight sweater combination. Then because I still had hours to wait, I took some time and put my hair into a really rad crown braid. I took way too long picking out some silver jewelry and took even longer putting on my makeup in a way that looked like it hadn’t taken an honest-to-God half hour to do. The cut on my hairline was still scabbed over and would leave a scar, but the extreme bruising on my face had started to fade. I could cover it with the heavier makeup I had just purchased. I was looking much better, I told myself. I was all ready to go by five a.m. and was waiting by the window enjoying a third cup of coffee when they pulled up.
Dolly told me I looked beautiful. Reno gave me a chin nod when he took in my hair. It occurred to me that I had never heard Reno say more than a couple of words at a time. However, I had noticed that when he took the time to do that, people took the time to listen. They both had taken some effort with their appearance too. Dolly had on a pretty butter-yellow top (Rolling Stones tattoo completely covered) with white silk pants. Dolly’s natural auburn curls were artfully arranged, and her makeup was subtle and flawless. I had been with her every day for the past week, but I never really noticed what a truly natural beauty she was. Dolly cleaned up good.
Reno was another beautiful man. He had a darker version of his mother’s hair. The coppery-colored locks were streaked in shades of warm caramel from the sun. He was bronze and lean. He had light brown eyes with fine sunburst lines radiating outward in his face from the years of riding and working outside. He was about six feet tall and had a big Celtic knot tattoo on his bicep. He was wearing a white button-down shirt with the sleeves turned up and black jeans that rode low on his hips. He had on expensive-looking biker boots and a very cool black belt with a hammered silver buckle. He was sporting aviator glasses and a man bun. He looked dark and dangerous and grim.
We rode in relative silence to the airport. Each in our own thoughts. Reno had taken care of our tickets and had checked in and printed our e-tickets via the Internet. He parked in the airport parking garage, and we made it to our gate with only minutes to spare. Then we were off.
CHAPTER 32
I sat next to Dolly on the plane. She had more than a few drinks, but she could sure hold her liquor. I got treated to Dolly’s life story, Pinky’s story, and some of the missing parts to my story as well. I don’t know what the airline tickets cost, but for me the ride proved priceless.
Dolly and Pinky had been friends since they were both sixteen years old. Pinky had introduced Dolly to her brother, Petey. For Dolly, at least, it had been love at first sight. Because Petey was fourteen years older, it took some convincing on Dolly’s part but eventually her total love (her words) for him won out. They were married the day she turned eighteen. Petey had been the love of Dolly’s life. For her there would never be anyone else. She still missed him every single day. Reno had been the light of his life, Dolly said. She saw Petey in Reno every time he smiled. Since I never remembered seeing Reno smile, I couldn’t imagine it.
Pinky and Dolly, once best friends, now sisters-in-law, were closer than ever. Pinky and Prosper tried, but were never able to have children. Reno was their godson. When Petey died in that car accident, Pinky and Prosper took Dolly and Reno in until they found their way. That was a long time ago. When Reno was old enough to decide which way the cat jumped, he decided that it jumped in the MC’s direction. His Uncle Prosper had guided him through the prospect phase of initiation. Reno was now a brother. Prosper and Reno were tight. Dolly and Pinky were tight. And now Claire and I were a part of that. I liked it.
Evidently, Pinky and Petey’s younger sister Lilah had always been a hell-raiser and a half. From the time she was a teenager Lilah had made all the wrong choices. The bad boys had led to the bad men, which in turn had led to three bad marriages. She was an alcoholic by the time she was twenty-five years old with a number of DUIs under her belt and some jail time. Pinky had tried. Lordy, lordy, how she had tried. But Lilah had been hell-bent on destruction.
The strange thing was that when she had wrapped herself around that tree, she had eighteen months sober. The tragic thing was that she wrapped herself around that tree trying to avoid a head-on collision with a car driven by a drunk driver. The guy missed her but ran himself right off a steep embankment and died anyway. Dolly leaned in to me and whispered, “It’s a damn good thing too. What Prosper and the brothers had planned for that drunken bastard would have been a lot more painful and a lot less quick.”
By that point, she had begun slightly slurring her words. I hoped it was the booze talking retaliation, but in my heart, I knew it probably wasn’t.
Dolly talked then about the summer that Pinky and Prosper had taken us in. She said she remembered it like it was yesterday.
Prosper had lost his mind when he found out that we had been left alone. He had sent some of the brothers out to find our father while he went to get us. Pinky had been frantically waiting because she had been afraid that Prosper had killed Jack in his attempt to get at us. So the look that I remembere
d seeing clearly on her face that night had been both gratitude that we were safe and relief that Prosper hadn’t killed our father. No, Prosper hadn’t killed Jack. What he did do was send a very clear message that Jack had two weeks to clean his act up totally or he would never see his daughters again, ever.
I was mesmerized. Dolly went on and on, mellowed from the booze and nostalgia. I had lived my life thinking one thing, now I was hearing something that was so much more than that. Mostly that Claire and I had never really been alone in our misery, in our mourning, in the sad story that had defined our lives. It was disquieting, validating, and a host of other indescribable things to hear all of this from a perspective that wasn’t ours. We had been seen. We had been wanted and loved. Someone had fought for us.
Pinky had come into our lives after our mother’s death so I had always assumed that she had met Prosper after my mother died. Through Dolly I learned that hadn’t been the case. I had never even considered that Prosper and Pinky were involved while my mother was alive. Never. From what I remembered, he was with us, with her, all the time in the months leading up to her death. I honestly never remembered him not being there. But evidently there had been times when he hadn’t been.
It had started quickly between them, Dolly told me. In a very odd twist of fate it was actually Petey, Pinky’s brother, who had led her to him. Evidently Pinky had been stuck on the road with her car one night and had called her brother to help her out. Because Petey had been about three sheets to the wind, Prosper had volunteered to go. Pinky invited him in for coffee and that coffee turned into a couple of beers and that was followed by a couple of really great days of hot. Just like that. Dolly laid it out for me. Just like that. She remembered it clearly. Dolly, God bless her, spared me nothing. At one point, I wasn’t even sure she was talking to me anymore. She just seemed lost in the years.
Apparently Pinky had openly confided in her girl, Dolly, about the enigma that had been Prosper. Pinky had known there was something, possibly and very probably someone, who was getting in the way of her moving forward with Prosper. But when she tried to find her way to it, he would clam up. Woman’s intuition winning out, Pinky grew surer than ever that there was a woman. She enlisted Dolly’s help to find out who that woman was and the story that went with her.
Because the brothers played it close to the vest, Petey was tight-lipped about Prosper’s personal life. The only thing Dolly could get out of him for sure was that Prosper was wrapped up in some pretty heavy shit. And that shit was reaping a world of hurt on him. Apparently it involved a woman. A good woman.
Dolly had been like a dog with a bone and wouldn’t let up on Petey. Petey held out as long as he could. But because he had a hard time denying Dolly anything and truly didn’t want to see his sister hurt, he finally opened up. By that time our mother had been in the most debilitating stages of her illness. When Dolly heard the whole sad story, she sat at the table and wept. Then Dolly had called her girl.
Petey had warned Pinky off, but also told her that if Prosper could get on the other side of the shit he was carrying, he was a man worth having. Dolly saw things differently. She thought the hurt was too heavy a burden. She wanted Pinky to get rid of Prosper. But Pinky had fallen hard and fast. So Pinky hung in there, asking nothing and giving all. Dolly recalled the phone call she got from Pinky the day that Prosper had come clean.
According to Dolly, Pinky had been seeing less and less of Prosper. And when he did come to her, she was never sure any longer what it meant. Sometimes he was silent and angry and almost rough with her. Other times he was tender and gentle, but so distant she knew that even though he was with her, he was somewhere else. Prosper was slowly breaking Pinky’s heart. It all had come to a head the morning after an incredibly earnest session of all-night lovemaking. A night where Prosper had been so sweet and so distant that Pinky lay awake long after Prosper had fallen into a fitful sleep. When Prosper woke the next morning, he saw the pain etched all over Pinky’s face. He pulled her close then and sat for a while with his arms tight around her.
“I don’t want to hurt you, honey. I know I can be a selfish bastard. I’ve not given a thought to what my coming to your bed like this could be doing to you. I just know that when it gets bad, the only thing that eases that pain is feeling you all soft and warm and wanting me. I don’t know what this is. I just know I need it. If you don’t want me to come back, I get that. I respect that and I swear to God you tell me to leave and I’m gone. None of it falls back on you. You take some time and you think about that. But before you make that decision, before I’m inside you again, you need to know.”
Then he had pulled himself away from her. He had wanted to see her face when he told her the rest.
“Her name is Maggie. I’ve loved her since the minute I saw her. He claims her, but she’s mine. Always has been. Always will be. She’s not just sick, she’s fucking dying. And it hurts so goddamn much to think of a life without her in it that sometimes I can’t breathe.” Prosper’s voice had been ragged with emotion.
Pinky had tried to move towards him, but he held her away. Then he said, “I look at her and I see the only woman I’ll ever love.”
My heart filled with sadness at the thought of how painful those words must have been to hear.
“Now mind you,” Dolly was saying, “By that time Pinky had known about your mom. Petey and I had laid it out weeks before. Pinky knew that Maggie was sick. She knew that Prosper was coming to her only after days and days of being with Maggie. Only coming to her when the sadness was so overwhelming he couldn’t bear it. She even knew that, at times, it was Maggie he was seeing when he made love to her. She knew all this and had never said a word. She had been loving him through it all. Prosper had no clue what she knew and what it was costing her. It was the first time that Prosper had uttered one word to Pinky that there was someone else. And he led with that. Yes he did.”
“What did Pinky tell him?” I was on my third little airplane drink by that time myself.
“I’ll tell you what she told him, honey. And I’ll tell you, when I heard it I was never prouder of my girl in my life. She did it quietly and gently, which is her way, but she sure told him.” Dolly’s eyes were on mine.
“She told him that she loved him. That it hurt her to see him so full of pain. She told him that if she could trade places with Maggie to spare him that pain she would do it. But, of course, she couldn’t do that. She told him the other thing she couldn’t do was to be a substitute for Maggie. That Prosper coming to her for that was cheating all of them. She told him that she was willing to do just about anything for him, but she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t be that. She told him that after Maggie was gone and he found he had some left, whatever he had left, she would be willing to take. She would even cherish it. No matter how much, no matter how little. Until and unless that day came, he wasn’t welcome in her home. Not in her bed or in her heart either. She walked him to the door and locked it behind him so he heard.”
“Wow.” I breathed and shot back the rest of my drink. Wow.
“Yep.” Maggie drained her drink too.
“It took a while, but he found his way back to her. And when he did, he found his way back to his two little sweethearts too,” Dolly finished.
“Was that hard for her?” I asked softly.
Dolly looked up quickly then. “Was what hard, honey?”
“Us. Me and Claire. Her children. Was it ever hard for Pinky to be around us?” I wrapped my arms around me, waiting for the answer.
“Hard, honey? Oh no. Oh no, never ever hard. What was hard for her was to give you up. She thought you and little Claire hung the moon. She wanted you.”
Dolly then told me that after everything went down that summer, Pinky had begged Jack to let them keep us. She had done this behind Prosper’s back and without his consent. Prosper had wanted us too, Dolly was quick to add. But both Prosper and Jack h
ad made a promise to Maggie. Her dying wish was that her children wouldn’t ever be separated from each other or from Jack. Maggie had grown up without her father, and she didn’t want that for her children.
While my mother had loved my father deeply, she hadn’t loved him beyond reason. She knew he was an imperfect man. She also knew that it would be Prosper who would have to make sure our family survived a life without her. Maggie had left this life loving and being loved by two men. In the end, Prosper couldn’t deny her. Anything. Even if it meant giving us up and inviting a world of worry into his life.
“Pinky took to bed for a week after you two left to go to live with your dad. Prosper was so worried about her that he called me in to take care of her. I cannot even tell you how many times she and I plotted to go get you and Claire. But she knew she couldn’t go against Prosper and his promise to your mother.” She smiled at me then.
“Pinky was just ecstatic when Prosper told her you had found your way back. Seeing you’ll do her a world of good just about now, honey.” She patted my hand and leaned back on her seat and snored lightly for the remainder of the flight.
When I looked out the window, I saw that we were flying over the Grand Canyon.
CHAPTER 33
When we got off the plane, Dolly and I used the ladies and Reno was working his cell. We had brought carry-ons so gathering luggage wasn’t a problem. We had miraculously beat the restroom line so we got right in and did our business. We spent some time adjusting, readjusting, combing, spraying, and refreshing our makeup. Like that.
We were waiting at the pickup when a black SUV with tinted windows pulled up to the curb. The driver parked and came quickly around to our side of the car. I was busy organizing and pushing the handle down on my carry-on when it was taken from me. I glanced up to see a pair of dark brown eyes looking at me.
It was Diego. Damn if it wasn’t.
Raine Falling (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) Page 12