by KB Winters
Joaquin's head had collapsed in on itself. All that remained was his body and a lumpy pile of red meat on the floor of the garage. Joaquin had left the building.
“Get Fuzzy in here to clean this up,” I said. “And tell the prospects to be here for whatever he needs.”
Fuzzy was the club fixer. He had a talent for discretion and a knack for making problems disappear. He'd been doing work for us for quite a while, and I always appreciated his thoroughness and attention to detail. There was nobody I would trust more with a job like this.
“Nice work, boys,” I said. “Good job on doing your part to keep this community beautiful and clean. Proud of you all. Now, let's go get a fuckin' beer.”
Chapter Eleven
Isabelle
It was the longest twenty-four hours of my life. I heard Jameson ride off after muttering something into the door. So much for being my knight in shining armor. I was hungry as hell and bored out of my skull. I turned on the TV and got a screen full of static. I took a risk and called Jerry about amenities that came with the room.
“Somethin’ wrong with the sheets? They were supposed to be clean.”
I wanted to throw the phone at the wall. When I asked about food and entertainment he said he had videos in the office and a vending machine. I had enough change for a couple of candy bars and a soft drink. The videos were complimentary but I passed on his selection. All porn as far as I could tell, so I walked back to my room with my sugar-fueled dinner, unprepared for the last insult of the day. As I crossed over to the row of motel rooms I tripped on a chunk of torn up asphalt and fell forward. I managed to catch myself before I faceplanted. But as I straightened up I heard an alarming snap that sent a current of nausea coursing through my innards. I had ripped one of the straps on my sandal and my shoe now swung freely from my foot.
I pitched a stream of curses across the parking lot that would turn Jameson red and tore the sandal from my foot. Crap I yelled across the desert as the sole of my foot hit the blazing roadway. I slapped the sandal back on and limped back to my room, cursing Milling, the motel, Scott, and everything else under that hot, fucking sun I could think of.
***
I was going bat shit crazy without my phone. No Instagram. No Facebook. No email. I might as well be living in the dark ages. I had a longing to talk to my parents. Could I risk it? What would I tell them? How could I explain about Scott? I’d lied all these months and told them we were the perfect couple. I’d been too ashamed to give them an inside look at my real life.
What would Daddy say now? I’d made my bed? Would he disown me? Come after Scott? Oh, not physically. He’d never do something like that. But my father had connections and could probably do some serious damage to Scott’s chances to take his company public. That was something he talked a lot about lately. Getting venture capital. Daddy just had to put the word out and doors would close in Scott’s face. Did he realize that? Who he was dealing with? Would I let Daddy hurt him?
Right then I just wanted out of this motel. This town. Hell, I’d settle for a good meal and a chick flick to put myself to sleep.
Hours went by and nothing from Jameson. Typical. He’d gotten tired of sitting on my doorstep and went looking for more promising prey. I tried to sleep but I fought with the sheets until the moon was high over the parking lot. I dozed a bit, but when tinges of pink hit the horizon I gave it up and took a shower, a fast one, washing my hair with a tube of smelly shampoo I found on the sink. I dried myself on a towel that was thinner than one of my mother’s linen hankies and watched the clock.
The repair shop opened at seven and I was on the phone to Dave at five after. Please, I prayed. I need good news.
But he’d already had an email that the parts were held up in Nebraska.
“Give me till Friday,” he said. “I’ll have your car put together by then.”
If I haven’t killed myself first, thought but didn’t say.
I hung up and crossed the room to open the window. Maybe it would be better than the air conditioning. The room went sideways and I almost did, too, catching myself on the window ledge. Whoa. This was what, Tuesday? I’d had my last solid meal at breakfast on Sunday. Hunger was taking its toll and I was on the verge of fainting. Where was Jameson when I needed him?
And then, as if he were reading my mind, I heard, “Open up, Isabelle, I know you gotta be hungry.”
Everything inside of me froze. I was naked underneath the paper thin robe I found hanging behind the bathroom door, and I had no makeup with me to cover up the bruise around my eye. This morning it looked more like a neon sign advertising battered woman syndrome. Altogether I felt completely exposed and without armor.
Jameson kept me on my guard and I had nothing with which to defend myself, not even my cosmetic bag to paint over the evidence of my vulnerability.
“Isabelle. Give me a break,” he said, more insistent now.
No, I thought, you give me a break. You, world. You give me a break. I was tired of having my back to the wall. A year of it with Scott, and now this nightmare with my car, with Jameson. Time for me to take control of my life. I was tired of hiding, running scared, living a shriveled-up life. So what if I looked like the loser in an MMA fight? So what if my clothes were a wreck, and my designer shoes were coming apart. That was the outside stuff. Show him what was on the inside, Isabelle. Show him what I was made of.
I was tired of being hungry and tired of being alone as well. A loneliness magnified by the fact that I was stuck in a motel out in the middle of the fucking desert, so far from home with no phone, no car, and no one to talk to. Now I had to be real about who I was and what was mine.
Me.
Whether I meant it or not.
Chapter Twelve
Jameson
“I know you've gotta be hungry,” I called through the door early the next morning.
I stood outside of Isabelle's room with hot coffee and a bag full of food for her. And of course, she was refusing to answer me—and refusing to open the door.
“The coffee might be shit,” I said, “but these breakfast sandwiches are to die for. Seriously. They're life changing. You like bacon, right? I mean, who doesn't like bacon, but you never know these days. People got all kinds of sensitivities and allergies and shit. You're not a damn vegetarian, are you?”
I continued talking, even though she didn't answer. Nothing but silence on the other side of the door. I figured that if I kept standing there talking to her, she'd eventually get tired of it and open the door. Either that or she'd call the police. That was about as close to a plan as I had. I was just hoping she didn't call the police—I still had a warrant out for my arrest. Old ticket. Nothing serious, but I didn't want to spend a night in jail over it.
“Come on, Isabelle,” I called. “Your coffee is getting cold. And if it tastes like shit when it's hot and fresh, I can't imagine what—”
She surprised me by opening the door. Standing there in a ratty motel robe that definitely had seen better days, her hair wet and dripping, I thought she looked adorable. There was no way in hell I was going to tell her that. Her eyes were narrowed and her jaw set, and she glared at me, the expression on her face one of contempt that said she wished nothing but pure death upon me.
“Hungry?” I asked, holding out the bag and smiling.
I swore I saw a smile slowly creeping across her lips. But if I had, she pushed it away as quickly as it had come. It was gone and there was nothing but that ever so familiar scowl upon her face again.
She took the bag from my hand along with the cup of coffee. She turned, and for a second, I thought she might shut the motel room door on me and disappear inside without so much as a thank you. But in the next biggest surprise of my day, she'd actually left it open—as if telling me it was okay to come inside. Without actually telling me, of course. Because, you know, we wouldn't want to have to acknowledge that I'd helped her or anything.
I took it as a sign and walked into the motel ro
om. Just before crossing the threshold, I had the unsettling image of her sitting there on the edge of the bed with a gun in her hand. Clearly, I'd been in the MC life too long.
“Maybe after breakfast, I can run you to a store, get you some clothes,” I offered. “I bet you could use a change or two, huh? We got an outlet mall outside of town a ways I can take you to.”
Isabelle sat down at the table near the air conditioning unit but said nothing. She'd left a seat open for me across from her at the tiny table, so I didn't wait for an invitation—one that likely wasn't going to be forthcoming since her power of speech had apparently deserted her this morning. I sat down as she opened the sandwich and grimaced, slightly.
“It's better than it looks, I promise,” I said. “Which isn't saying much, I know. But still . . .”
“I sure as hell hope so,” she said.
She took a napkin and dabbed up the extra grease that had pooled around the edges of the bun on the paper. I watched as the napkin quickly became completely saturated. As she was doing that, she must have realized what a jerk she was being, because she looked up and gave me a soft smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
“Thank you, Jameson. I appreciate the food.”
“Figured you'd be hungry,” I said, taking a sip of the coffee. Mine was black. “There's some creamer and packets of sugar in the bag. I wasn't sure how many you needed, and I didn't want to assume anything.”
“Thanks,” she said again, this time she said it a little more clearly and with a little less mumbling. She actually sounded sincerely appreciative. Progress. We were making progress.
She took slow, small bites of the sandwich and washed them down with coffee. The room was silent as she ate, and I sat there staring at her, drinking my coffee, like an awkward teenage boy. Even in her stained blouse and no makeup on, she was a hot piece. Deciding I needed to make some small talk with her to hopefully break the wall of frost between us, I asked, “So how's the car coming along?”
Isabelle sighed, rolling her eyes, and I figured that maybe that was the wrong question to ask.
She let out a long sigh. “The parts got held up in Nebraska, I guess. Some sort of union strike at the warehouse or something. Dave was really apologetic but said there's nothing he can do. I understand it, of course, but I'm still just as frustrated. He gave me a guestimate of Friday.”
“Shit,” I said, taking a bite of breakfast muffin, reveling in the egg, bacon and all that grease. And the news that she wouldn’t be leaving town any time soon. “That blows.” I tried to sound sincere.
“Tell me about.” Her voice was soft, but I couldn’t figure out the meaning behind it. She didn’t sound like she was on the verge of breaking down. Maybe just realizing that she had nowhere to go, nowhere to turn, and no friends to lean on. Maybe that was why she'd opened the door to me today—she knew she needed some help. Or, at least somebody who'd listen—give her a friendly ear to bend and a shoulder to cry on. Hell, if she did need a shoulder to cry on, I was more than willing. I'd made that perfectly clear.
“Listen, I'm serious about taking you anywhere you need to go,” I said. “I'll even sit at the damn mall while you do your thing. Just tell me where you wanna go, and I'll make sure you get there.”
“Why?” she asked, done with her meal.
“Why what?”
“Why are you being so nice to me? You don't know me. You don't owe me a damn thing. But you're going out of your way to be nice to me. To do things for me.”
It was a good question. It was one I'd thought about but hadn't quite figured out myself. I had a few theories, but I tried to avoid thinking about it too much. I just knew if I saw a woman in trouble, without stopping to think about all the angles and ramifications, I'd just act. I’d help where I could.
Let’s face it, I had a bad reputation around Milling—some of it earned and well deserved. But some things I couldn’t stand, and a woman in trouble was one of them. You can get all psychological on me and say it has to do with my mother or some bullshit like that. I don’t give a crap. It’s just the way I’m wired. But I also have to hide that sort of thing from the club. After all, I had a reputation to maintain and uphold.
“Why, Jameson?” she asked again softly.
“Because I saw a woman on the side of the road who needed help but was too afraid to ask for it,” I replied. “I've seen too many women get hurt—or die—because there was no one there to help them when they needed it most. And I really don’t want that to happen to you if I can help it. That's not the kind of man I am.”
“Die? Seriously?”
“Yeah. Die. And I don’t want to talk about it.”
“So, it really wasn't just because I was wearing heels and a short skirt?”
“Nope. But that might’ve helped,” I said, winking at her. “I am, after all, a warm-blooded man.”
Isabelle laughed. It was a soft laugh, one that could barely be heard over the clattering of the air conditioner, but she laughed nonetheless. It was the first time I'd seen anything resembling a positive emotion from her in days. And I had to admit, it felt like a giant step forward.
And best of all, she was talking to me. That had to count for something, right?
We were definitely making progress. It wasn't necessarily swift, and it was fragile as hell, but it was progress. There were smiles and a conversation. I felt good about my prospects with Isabelle in that moment, better than I had since the day I'd met her.
Chapter Thirteen
Isabelle
Breakfast was peaceful—with a side order of awkwardness tossed in for good measure. I watched him watching me, glaring at the bruise below my eye.
Jameson was trying to appear like he wasn't gawking, but he was staring right at it. He'd always turn away when I caught him looking. And for a while, we'd managed to avoid the elephant in the room. But then that truce was shattered, and the elephant was allowed out of its cage to run free—where it trampled over everything in its path, of course.
“Who hit you? Was it someone you trusted?” he finally asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Did someone you trust do this to you? You know friend, family? Husband?” he asked, reaching across the table he stroked my cheek, causing me to flinch. “Whoa, hold on. I’ll never hurt you. These hands are made for lovin’, sweetheart.”
Heat rose in my cheeks, and I looked down, avoiding his gaze. “Yes.” I surprised myself by answering the question—something else I hadn't intended to do.
Who'd done it to me wasn't any of his business. But the word just slipped from my lips before I could stop it. And once it had escaped, it unlocked something deep inside of me, because so did the tears.
They came hard and fast, and my body was suddenly racked with sobs, my breath coming in heaving, choked gasps. I was mortified that I allowed myself to cry like that in front of him, but he'd finally managed to rip the band-aid off the wound he'd been messing with for days. I was swamped beneath a flood of emotions and couldn't find my way back to the shores of calm—or at least, what passed for calm in my sorry life.
Jameson dropped his sandwich, stood up and rounded the table to sit on the edge of the bed nearest to the table and wrapped his arm around me, pulling me in close. He held me pressed against his body as I wept. I buried my face in his chest and let the tears fall.
He’d opened the Pandora's Box of emotion deep down inside of me and I had no control over what came bursting out. I was used to holding everything in, never letting anybody see beneath the big girl mask I projected to the world. I was used to being tightly in control of my emotions and only letting people see what I chose to let them see.
What made it worse was now that it was open—I wasn't sure how I was going to get it stuffed back in there again. Ever tried putting toothpaste back in the tube? I said I wanted to be real. Be careful of what you ask for.
“Who was it?” Jameson asked, gritting his teeth as if he were either angry or in pain—but given
the conversation we were having, I was relatively certain it was anger.
“My ex-boyfriend—Scott,” I said, still surprised I was talking about it all, let alone with a full-blown biker-thug.
For some reason, though—reasons I couldn't come close to identifying—it just felt natural to open up to him now. To tell him these things. It was like, now that I had started crying on his shoulder, I felt like I could suddenly start flapping my jaws and spilling my guts, too. I hardly knew him, and yet, suddenly, I was telling him about Scott. And the biggest shock to me, was that I even felt comfortable doing so. Perhaps I just so desperate to unburden myself of all these lies and all this misery that I finally opened the gates to the one person who persisted in trying to get through them.
“He hit you?”
I nodded, wiping my eyes.
“Was this the first time he'd done it?” he asked softly. “The first time he'd hurt you?”
I shook my head, hanging my head down low. “No, but it's the last time he's going to do it.”
“Good girl,” he said, stroking my hair as he held me close. “Good girl. Don't go back, no matter what he tells you. No matter how convincing and sweet he sounds. No matter how much he's promised you he's changed and that it'll never happen again. Because let me tell you, he’ll do it again. They always do it again. With scumbags like him, it's never a matter of if. It's always a matter of when.”
This didn't sound like the same man I'd known over the last day or so. Not at all. His voice was soothing, protective. It was full of caring and compassion. I could see the empathy for me in his eyes. It wasn't pity—I'd been wrong to think so. It was empathy and concern.
I found his presence comforting. It was a strange turn of events, given how we'd started. When I first met him I honestly didn't think I’d ever be comfortable around him. I honestly didn't think I'd even want to be around him at all. And yet, here I was, opening up even more.