They danced slowly, not moving very far in any direction. She could feel the strength of his strong, straight core, the rippled planes of his stomach, and the power in his large, calloused hands. Maggie’s skin heated where he touched her.
Being held by Prosper felt like the warmth of an early summer morning, the newness of the first robin’s song in springtime, and the comfort of a hot cup of tea on a snowy winter day.
Prosper’s touch felt like coming home.
The song ended, but he kept his arms tight around her. As the next song began, he seamlessly led her into it, and they danced together slowly while the night owl screeched, and the cool evening wind sent breezes that ruffled the curtains and whispered across Maggie’s hot skin.
Prosper was solid, unyielding, and more real than anything she had ever known. She laid her head against his chest and listened to the steady, strong heartbeat of a lion.
He was holding her closer now. His lips brushed against her cheek, her throat, the sensitive spot underneath the lobe of her ear. When Prosper pressed his mouth against hers, she kissed him back willingly, lovingly, and with unmistakable yearning.
It wasn’t long before they gave up any pretense of dancing, and instead caressed each other with gentle touches. Maggie led Prosper down the hall, past Raine’s bedroom, the room she slept with her husband, and into the guest room where Prosper slept. They undressed each other with careful reverence. Each button unfastened was like a prayer, a blessing, a promise of things to come. When they were both naked, Prosper moved Maggie to the bed and lay her down. He moved over her, and his big body caged her in. Maggie arched, stretched, and moaned softly under his tender assault. As Prosper entered her, Maggie opened up to him with a need, a want, an urgency that matched his own. His every touch was like an answered prayer.
They made love for hours at a time, then they would fall asleep in each other’s arms, only to wake up and make love to each other again. Prosper held her close and pushed himself inside of her while she lovingly murmured to him in her native tongue. Soft, lyrical words that Prosper didn’t know, but their meaning he understood completely. Loving and being loved by Maggie and holding her close made it all worth it.
All the wanderings, all the forks in the road, all the choices he had made had led him here to her. In Maggie, Prosper had found his journey’s end.
At last.
For the next few days, Maggie and Prosper spent all their time together. Prosper gave up working on his bike and the repair list. Maggie gave up weeding the garden and any unnecessary household chores. When she wasn’t busy with her baby, she spent all of her time with Prosper, either talking or making love. After Maggie put Raine to bed, Prosper would light a small fire in the backyard. Sometimes he would take out his guitar and sing to her, sometimes they would cuddle close and talk for hours. Other times they would make slow, gentle love to each other under the stars.
It was during one of those conversations that Prosper opened up to Maggie, and she saw a true glimpse into the heart of the man: who he was, what he wanted, and the way he had struggled—still struggled to find his place in the world. She asked him if he ever got lonely out on the road. His answer was profound and spoke straight from the core of the man that he was.
“Lonely?” He thought it over for a moment and shrugged. “Yeah, sometimes I travel alone … but no, I’m never lonely. And I meet plenty of guys on the road. Like is drawn to like, water seeks its own level.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“The guys I served with, the men I meet on the road, hell, even the fellas I did time with, there’s just something we recognize in each other. Like a family or a tribe.”
“A family?” Maggie puzzled at him.
“Yeah, maybe not a conventional one, but yeah, there’s a family … a brotherly sort of bond, for sure.”
“I still don’t understand.” Maggie frowned.
Prosper looked down at his boots in thought for a moment, then lit up a smoke and leaned back against the chair. “There are outlaws in this world, Maggie: soldiers, mercenaries, warriors—men who function best just outside the margins. I’m one of those men. For guys like me? This world is getting too rigid, too regulated, too bogged down with societal expectations. Too many dirty politicians sitting in high towers making all the decisions, deciding who wins and who loses, and passing those decisions down as law.”
“But aren’t laws a good thing?” Maggie asked. “Don’t we need laws to function as a society?”
“Some laws are good, and others are necessary. And you’re right, a society couldn’t run without a set of standards. But not all the laws are good for all the people,” he explained. “Maybe all men are created equal, but for shit sure, not all men are the same. So, for some of those people, those rules, those laws are a set up to fail. Does that make sense?”
Maggie nodded. “It’s starting to.”
“Okay”—Prosper paused as he attempted to explain further—“think of the world as a giant puzzle and we are all pieces. Only some of the pieces are from a different puzzle. Now what do you have?”
“You have a game where only some of the pieces fit,” Maggie answered.
“That’s right, darlin’.”
“But how do you know which puzzle you belong to?” she asked.
“Well, that’s the funny thing. You don’t really know where you fit. It just happens and no one gives it much thought. But you sure as hell know when you don’t. You told me that your sister’s husband, Tanka’s husband—”
“Ahanu. His name is Ahanu.”
“Okay, yeah, Ahanu. He’s a doctor? Perfect. He fits. He found his way, and he belongs. There’s a need for the man that he is, for the things he is good at and for the work he is passionate about. In a world where things can be run or controlled by a flip of a switch? He’ll make that work.”
“And the others?” Maggie asked. “The ones that don’t fit? Can they ever find a way to make it work?”
“The men who don’t fit, will never fit,” Prosper explained. “We belong to another world, to an older puzzle. We belong to a place in time when there were things that we could do … were born to do … that nobody or no machine can replace. We run faster and think quicker. We’re strong, aggressive, tough, risk-taking motherfuckers. We were given courage and an intrinsic set of values. A sense of morality that keeps us on the edge of society. Maybe that’s why I like being on the road so much, the freedom to go and feel and think wherever I want, whatever I want, whenever I want.”
“I can see that. I can understand why you see it that way.” Maggie nodded, enthralled by Prosper’s unique view of the world.
“Sounds like such a damn cliché, but it’s true. Someday, computers and machines will do all the work,” he told her.
“But we will always need men to run those machines,” she answered.
“Ah, darlin’, sure we will. But what the hell does that take? A few guys sitting at desks punching keys? That’s not the kind of work that requires strength or courage or an inch of independent thought. I have no place in that world, Maggie. A lot of us don’t. So, me and my boys? We’re set on making our own set of rules and creating our own place, and that place exists outside the margins of polite society. The rules I find on the road are rules I help create, rules I understand, and rules I can live by.”
“But any world, any society will always need men, Prosper … What about babies?” Maggie frowned at him.
“Darlin’, I like the way you think.” He grinned and winked at her then.
Maggie blushed. “I’m serious!”
“Honey think about it. All you need to make a baby is some poor slob jacking off into a cup, right? Then some ‘white-coat’ takes care of the rest. Most men don’t take their time anyway. Women are always complaining about men being rotten lovers, so there ya go … not much loss there in replacing sex with science.”
Maggie blushed slightly at his words. “So, you? You consider yourself an outlaw?”
“O
nly when I have to be, darlin’.” Prosper took Maggie back in his arms and gave her a kiss that made her forget all about outlaws and science and things that did not fit.
On Friday, after they made love, Prosper began the conversation that they had been doing their best to avoid.
“I’m gonna head out in the morning. Gonna go meet Jack in Mississippi and tell him how it is. I’ll make him understand, make him see this is the way things have got to be. Then I’ll come back for you and Raine. Or you can come with me. We’ll tell him together if you want. Whatever you want, Maggie. However, you want to handle this, that’s what we’ll do.”
She looked at him with sorrowful eyes. “He won’t understand, Prosper. He won’t. I don’t think there’s a man in this world who he loves more or respects more than you. Jack won’t be able to wrap his head around this … this kind of betrayal. That’s the way he’ll see it, and I know what that will do to him. It’ll break him. He doesn’t have the kind of character or strength to get through it.”
“So what? This is where it ends?” Prosper shook his head. “Is that what happens next, Maggie?”
“That’s not what I want,” she said sadly. “But I keep going back to remembering what you said about where you belong and what your purpose is. You, Prosper Worthington, are an exceptional man: a strong, brave, free-thinking warrior. And I believe you have found your world, your puzzle. But a wife and a baby?” Maggie shook her head. “There’s no room for that. I’m baby food and vegetable gardens and lists of household repairs. And you? You’re wind and road dust and sunrises in faraway places. That’s what I want for you. That’s how it should be. I love you enough to want that for you.”
“Maggie—” Prosper started to speak, but Maggie stopped him.
“Prosper, I need to say this and you need to hear it. I want to go with you. A part of me wants to jump on the back of your bike and ride off to find those sunrises with you. But I have responsibilities here, I have a child. And that child has a father. Jack loves us. In his way, he loves us. I am not sure he would survive my leaving him under any circumstance, but this would be so much worse. He would have to live with the fact that the two people he loves most in the world …” Maggie’s voice trailed off. “I can’t be the person who destroys him, and I know that you can’t be that person either.”
“Maggie …” Prosper reached out to her, but Maggie slid out from under his arm, and out of the bed.
She tagged her dress from the floor and slid it over her head. With eyes bright with tears, she implored him, “Please, don’t ask me again, Prosper. Not again, because I don’t think I have the strength to say no even one more time. If I went with you, the thought of what I’d done to my family … to Jack by leaving him, and to Raine by taking her away from her father, those thoughts would haunt me. They would torture me and twist me. And the kind of man you are? The honor that you have? That guilt would eventually kill you, too, and I think you know that. The blame we’d carry would wreak that kind of havoc. It would change this into something different than what we have now. It would change us.”
When Maggie began to cry, Prosper went to her and held her while a storm of emotion raged inside of him. He knew she was right. The guilt would tear at her and gnaw and gnash its razor-edged teeth until there was nothing left but pain. No matter how much he loved Maggie or how angry he was at Jack for leaving her, he couldn’t do it. The man that Prosper was could not take the wife away from the husband, or a child away from her father.
“All right, Maggie. I understand. But I want you to know that I’m gonna head down to Mississippi and I’m gonna find Jack. He and I are going to have a man to man.”
“Prosper…” Maggie looked at him in alarm.
“Not that talk, Maggie, but a talk. I’m going to give him a chance to be the man you deserve and the father Raine deserves. If, after that talk, Jack doesn’t get on his bike and come home to you, then there ain’t gonna be a home for him to come back to. He either wants this and he’s going to make a stand for it, or he loses it. Jack doesn’t get any more time to play it both ways. So, after we have that talk, there’s going to be a decision that he has to make. I’ve already made mine.”
Prosper paused and looked at her long and hard. His voice was a low growl when he said, “So, it’s either gonna be me who will be coming down that road in a few days or it’s gonna be Jack. But either way, you are not going to be left alone to deal with this shit any longer.” Maggie wrapped her arms around Prosper and buried her head into his chest while tears ran unchecked down her cheeks.
Prosper held her close and his tone gentled, “Don’t cry, Maggie. Please, honey, don’t cry. No matter what happens, I want you to always remember that I want it to be me. I want it to be me who comes back for you. But if it’s not, if it’s Jack who comes down that road? I want you to know that nothing will ever change the way I feel about you. For me, it will always be you. Always.”
Their lovemaking that night was poignant and passionate and agonizingly tender … filled with soft whispers and fervent touches. At dawn, Maggie fell asleep for a little while, and when she woke up, the spot next to the bed was empty. Halfway down the hallway, she heard Prosper’s Harley rumble to life. Maggie raced through the kitchen and out the back door just in time to see his bike roar down the dusty road. Her heart beat fast in her chest as she felt the world sway and crumble around her. The pain of his parting brought Maggie to her knees, and she clutched at her chest, afraid she was dying.
Prosper Worthington locked the door to his small three-room apartment. He carried a leather saddlebag packed with a couple of changes of clothing, some wet-weather gear, a wad of cash, a bag full of dried fruit and beef jerky, a couple cartons of Camel cigarettes, and a loaded gun. He shoved his license to carry and some more cash into his wallet, then attached the wallet to his hand-tooled leather belt. Prosper wore faded Levi’s, a black t-shirt, black riding boots, and a black leather jacket. He glanced at his watch and headed down to the shop on the ground floor.
The garage was large with several work bays that took up a good amount of the building’s footprint. There was also a room that was originally meant to be an office for the business but was now used as a meeting room. It was where the motorcycle club that Prosper had started along with his buddy, Derringer Gage, a few years back conferenced.
Prosper paused just before he cleared the last step into the garage, and his eyes darted to the three men in the corner wearing Hells Saints MC leather cuts, smoking cigarettes and mulling over the panhead they were working on.
What a long, strange trip it had been on the road that had led him here to this solid place, to a point in life that Prosper had considered and trusted would be his last destination. He held out a fervent hope that this would be the final stop on the merry-go-round of shitstorms that had so far defined his life. He knew that a lot of people had it rough. And although he didn’t like to dwell on it, he thought that as far as fate dealing a warped and twisted hand, he was right up there with the best of them.
From the get-go, from the moment Prosper had left the womb screaming and red faced, he had landed on the wrong side of the stars. Because of his mother’s addiction, he was not only born premature but also drug dependent. The first few minutes of his entrance into this world had him fighting for his life, and it was a feeling that never left him. The medical complications that had come with being born a four-pound, heroin-addicted preemie had made him a very “hard-to-place” infant. However, he’d been lucky enough to be taken in by a loving couple. Darcy and William Worthington were in their mid-fifties and had been opening their hearts and homes to foster care kids for years.
They were just finishing off their careers with the agency when they were told about the drug dependent infant child. The moment the baby was placed in her arms, Darcy knew that he was meant to be theirs. She’d felt certain that in their home the child would not only survive the bad decisions of his biological mother but also would grow up happy and health
y. To help him fulfill that legacy of love and life and happiness, they’d decided to stack the deck in his favor and had named the infant … Prosper.
Prosper had had a wonderful childhood with Darcy and William. There’d been Cub Scouts and vacations at the beach and big Christmas trees wrapped with what seemed like thousands of lights, surrounded by colorful gifts purchased specially to please the little boy. Although Prosper had been told about his adoption and the circumstances surrounding his birth, he’d never considered himself anything less or other than the son of Darcy and William Worthington.
When Prosper was nine years old, he’d been at his very first sleepover birthday party, and his parents were on a bus trip to the city to see a play. The bus driver had had a heart attack en-route, and over twenty people had died in the crash. William and Darcy had been among them. Prosper was put back into foster care. He would run away on a weekly basis and find his way to the home he had shared with the Worthingtons. Prosper would sit on the front steps or on the back porch or in the yard until someone had found out he was missing and had come to get him. Because of this tendency to run away, he was soon labeled as “hard-to-place” and the foster homes had gotten much worse after that. When Prosper was fifteen, he’d run away for good and lived on the streets until he was sixteen. Then he’d lied on his enlistment papers and signed up for the service. It turned out that rage, a prevailing death wish, and extreme youth had been the perfect recipe for a damn good soldier. Prosper did a couple of tours and had earned himself a purple heart for the trouble. He was honorably discharged when he’d started to show signs of what was then known as soldier fatigue, but now is called PTSD.
That discharge from the military was one of the worst things that could have happened to Prosper. It was like being torn away from yet another family. Back in civilian life he was lost and alone again, and everything that he’d felt he was working towards was gone. Prosper had set off on a very self-destructive and dangerous path. The choices he’d made during that time should have killed him over and over again, but he miraculously slid through knife fights, drunken blackouts, and high-speed car chases unscathed. However, as all things eventually do, that lifestyle had come around to bite him in the ass.
Prosper (Hells Saints MC Book 7) Page 8