It was the next step of our relationship a comfortable spot where we weren’t dealing with crises or trying to feel each other out. It was a point where we both knew where we stood, and now we could just step back and enjoy it.
“I remember how excited I used to get hunting for eggs when I was a kid,” Haley said, her voice wistful, her eyes far away, like she was reliving the memories even as she examined the huge sack of plastic eggs filled with various treasures. “I think I liked it even better than Christmas.”
“I always liked hiding them,” I said, dipping my hand into the sack and taking out a green egg. “Maybe it was just my devious nature. I liked it when my younger cousins couldn’t find all of them.”
“You are devious,” she said, laughing, as she balanced another egg in an Aloe Vera plant sprouting from the dusty ground.
“Takes one to know one,” I said, pointing at her pick for an egg-hiding spot. “Only the kids who aren’t afraid of getting their hands scratched up by the plant are going to go for that one.”
“Oh, damn,” Haley said, reaching for it. “Think that was too hardcore?”
“No, no, leave it,” I assured her. “Fortune favors the brave.”
She snorted at me before laughing. “If you say so. So what would happen then?”
“Huh?”
“After your younger cousins couldn’t find the eggs you deviously hid.”
“Chelsea and I would split the contents of the ones that didn’t get found.” I considered the possible consequences of putting eggs anywhere near a cluster of viciously spiked cacti and did it anyway. “It was incentive for us to be creative in hiding the eggslike really get into it and for the other kids to work hard to get their rewards.”
I experienced my customary pang of loss to talk about a memory with my sister in it, but it didn’t spread into the all-consuming grief I was used to. That was odd. Welcome, but odd all the same.
“That’s pretty ingenious,” Haley said. “What were the rewards?”
“Candy, mostly,” I said. “Some eggs had pennies, though.”
“Ooh, pennies.” Her sarcasm was like something I could touch, and I laughed.
“Don’t be fooled; kids love pennies. Other eggs were full of quarters. To be especially cruel, sometimes we’d fill old plastic eggs we’d squirreled away from Easters past with pebbles to simulate the change.”
“The childhood version of you sounds like he was a handful.”
“It was Chelsea’s idea.” I smiled as I camouflaged a yellow egg with dust and positioned it on a small incline studded with rocks. I’d be super impressed if a kid turned that one up. “Other special eggs had dollars in them.”
“Let me guess which ones you worked to hide the best,” Haley said, her hands on her hips, lips puckered with disapproval.
“Oh, no, didn’t work like that,” I said. “Our parents are the ones who stuffed the eggs, and they’d try to weigh down the ones with dollars in them with candies or other coins.”
“That’s sneaky.”
“It was. And if they caught Chelsea or me trying to peek and figure out which eggs had the good stuff, we’d be sidelined for the entire egg hunt.”
“How many times did that happen?”
I held up a finger. “Exactly once and only once.”
“Smart kids. Learned your lesson.”
“We did.” I coordinated the colors of the plastic eggs with coverings for some of the playground equipment. It would’ve been nice to have Chelsea by my side, joking around, helping me find dastardly hiding spots, but I surprised myself again by feeling more fondness and nostalgia than grief and regret. Was this what it was like to move on from tragedy? Did people suddenly wake up one day and find themselves not as broken as before? Was each day after that a little bit easier, another crack in themselves mended? It was a concept I’d never thought would happen for me. I’d grown to accept that the wound Chelsea left would be open for the rest of my life. I didn’t know if it was visiting Rob in the prison or simply Haley’s presence that had redirected me on this path back to my new normal.
“We should organize some kind of adult egg hunt for the bar, don’t you think?” Haley was in the middle of suggesting, rolling an egg into a downspout on the restroom facilities.
“You have my attention,” I told her, taking advantage of some of the landscaping along the edges of the sidewalk to conceal more eggs.
“Well, you’re the one who gave me the idea, with all this crazy hiding and grand prize eggs and stuff,” she said. “We could have candy, of course, but also money. And maybe vouchers for free drinks at the bar in some of the eggs.”
“What if one of the vouchersthe true grand prize egg was a tab covered for the night at the bar?” I asked.
“Holy shit. That could be huge.” Haley grinned at me, shading her eyes against the sun. “Could you imagine how wild people would get, trying to find that egg?”
“We’d definitely have to weigh it down with chocolate or quarters.”
“You’re the expert.” She grinned. “But maybe we should have someone else hide the eggs. I think I’d like to see you going bonkers hunting around for them.”
“Bonkers?”
“You’re a competitive man. I’m betting you’d go completely crazy keeping Sloan or the rest of the guys away from your finds.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever paid for a tab at the bar,” I mused. “The rest of the guys never let me or Sloan.”
“You always give good tips, though,” she said, giving me a fond swat on the rear.
“I’ll bring the idea of an adult egg hunt to the next club meeting,” I said. “Maybe we wouldn’t even have to wait until next Easter. We could make it into a scavenger hunt or something, organize it for the summer or fall. Find another cause to raise funds for.”
“You know, I have to say, when I first realized you guys were in a motorcycle club, I never imagined that you would use that power for good.”
“You watch too much television,” I said, touching the tip of her nose with my finger. “It’s not like we’re running guns or drugs.”
“Or warring over territory with a rival club,” she said, her voice almost wistful.
“You are a nerd,” I said affectionately, planting a kiss on the side of her neck.
“It’s just a fantasy,” she said. “You guys really are amazing. This is a great cause. You’re always doing great things.”
“A fantasy, huh?” I grinned at her, fixating on that point and ignoring the praise. “Are you telling me that you might be turned on by a big, bad biker showing up in your bed one night?”
“A big bad biker I can never tell anyone about,” she said, looking up at me from beneath her lashes. “It would ruin my reputation if anyone knew about us.”
I took a step closer to her. “It would ruin mine, with the MC, if they knew I was infatuated with such a good girl. But I keep returning anyway, time after time, because there’s something there I can’t replicate with anyone else. Are you telling me you’re embarrassed to be seen with me? You’re ashamed of what a bad girl you are in the bedroom?”
Haley licked her lips. “We are so playing this scene. It is happening. You’re too good at this.”
“Even a bad boy can be good for the right girl.” I kissed her on the lips, smiled against her mouth at the hitch of her breath.
“Hey, lovebirds, those eggs aren’t going to hide themselves,” Sloan teased, hefting a large cooler full of meat for the grill. “You’re about to get demoted.”
“We’re on it,” I said, breaking the kiss and rolling my eyes. “Focus on your own shit.”
The egg hunt was, predictably, a resounding success. I had to fussand laugh at Haley for pointing out some of the trickier locations to the little kids as they scampered around, hunting eggs.
“Survival of the fittest out here,” I reminded her, snaking an arm around her waist and tugging her close. “No cheaters allowed.”
�
�Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled good-naturedly. “I’m going to go grab a plate of food. I’m starving. You want anything?”
“I’ll come over there in a few minutes,” I said. “I love watching the chaos.”
“Yeah, right. You’re going to help out the little kids just as soon as I turn my back on you, aren’t you?”
“I’ll do no such thing,” I said, with dignity, discreetly giving a thumb’s up to a child who’d successfully navigated the spikes of the cacti where I’d planted some eggs. I held up my pointer finger to indicate that there was one more, and she diligently resumed her search.
“Hey, I saw that,” Haley said, laughing as she kissed me. I watched her walk across the park toward Ace, who had pulled grill duty again, wondering how I had a right to be so happy, the good fortune to be so lucky. None of it made sense, but I rolled with it. It was better not to ask too many questions when such good things were happening.
“Got it,” the little girl said, holding the egg up to me triumphantly.
“That’s a good one,” I said, solemn, nodding.
“It has a prize?” she asked, excited. Some of the prizesscrawled on slips of paper included bicycles, basket arrangements of candy, sporting equipment, art supplies, and even a pizza party at the parlor the next town over.
“The prize is that you were so brave in getting it,” I said, offering my hand for a high five. I honestly didn’t know which ones were the prize eggs. Like my childhood egg hunts, it made everything a little more honest if I didn’t know where the special ones were.
The little girl scampered away, and I watched the movement of the other kids around the park. Everyone was having a good time, even the kids who’d decided to take an impromptu break from the hunting to play on the playground equipment. They might get lucky, too, if they spotted what was hidden there. The older egg hunters were focusing on the main street, supervised by adult volunteers, some off-duty county police officers pressed into volunteering by Katie, Brody, and Jack. Well, Jack could be anywhere. He generally preferred his freedom at our fundraisers, filling in here and there and talking with attendees. I noticed Katie on the far end of the park, where the egg hunt transitioned from the urban experience to the rural. She was laughing at a group of kids who were too excited to wait until the end of the egg hunt to begin opening their eggs. One of them was waving a slip of paper around in the air like it was a golden ticket, and I knew it was a prize slip. Was he excited about a bicycle, or a pizza party? It was hard to tell, but the joy was something pure, something that made me smile, too.
A man passed in front the happy group, and my smile faded a little. He was familiar, somehow, though he seemed like he didn’t belong. His face was clouded with anger, the joy of everyone around him seemingly not rubbing off on him.
“Son of a bitch,” I murmured, my hands tightening into fists of their own accord as I made a positive identification. It was the guy from the bar fight, the one who’d been rough with Haley. What in God’s name was he doing back here? He still had ugly bruising and a swollen nose thanks to my knuckles. For a moment, I let myself believe that he was back here to make amends. To tell Haley and me and the rest of the guys that he was sorry for getting into it with us that night, that he’d been drunk and stupid and he’d recently reformed his ways because of it.
Then, I watched his expression darken even further as he spotted Haley from across the park, closer to her than I was, and the cadence of his stride told me that this wasn’t a friendly social call. Fuck.
I was moving before I realized my feet were pounding the ground beneath them, Haley, as of yet, oblivious to the storm rolling toward her. All I knew was that I had to reach him before he got to her. If he hurt her again, like his face told me he was looking to, I didn’t think I could hold my temper. Even if someone was there to pull me back, I couldn’t guarantee I would stop.
I loved Haley too much to see her get hurt, to allow this asshole to have another try at getting to her, whatever his obsession might have been.
“Hey!” I roared, waving my arms to get his attention as I ran. I would’ve added a curse, a crappy name to ensure his attention was on me instead of her, but there were too many children around for that. “Hey!”
He turned just as I barreled into him, and I vaguely saw Haley turn from the grill, surprise and horror etched onto her features, as both the guy and me went down hard onto the sidewalk.
“Get off me, motherfucker,” he snarled, apparently not caring about corrupting the ears of the kids who scattered from around us.
“Watch your mouth, or I’ll wash it out with sand,” I said, pressing his face into the ground. “What the hell do you think you’re doing.”
“I’m here for my wife,” he said, the words muffled but still angry. “And I’m going to talk to her whether you like it or not.”
“You’re full of shit,” I said, my voice calm in the face of this lunacy. “You came because you want to try to hurt Haley again, and I’ll die before I let that happen.”
Something unexpected a harsh laugh. “She has you wound around her little finger, doesn’t she? She’s manipulative like that. I would know. She did the same to me.”
“You’re going to have to be really careful about what you say next,” I informed him. “It looks like your face isn’t fully healed from our last encounter.”
“Is there a problem here?” Katie was bent over, watching us scuffle on the ground. “Stay back, kiddos. Way over there. There aren’t any eggs over here. They’ve all been found. Oh. It’s this fuck-face.”
“Bitch,” the guy hissed.
“That’s not nice,” Katie said mildly. “I’d just like to inform you that your presence here is a direct threat to the woman you threatened the last time you were in town, and the people you assaulted. Are you looking to go to jail today, sir? Haven’t you had enough?”
“I’m going to talk to my wife,” he roared, squirming in my hold so furiously that he landed an elbow right in my gut. I barely kept my hold on him, but a nasty snapping sound made him still.
“I don’t know who you think your wife is, jackass, but I see you remember my Taser,” Katie said pleasantly, as if she were commenting on the weather or her plans for the weekend. “Make another move and I’ll see to it that you get reacquainted with it. Intimately.”
“Is this a party I’m missing?” Ace had joined the fray, but I was dismayed to see that Haley had come with him, her eyes wide and wild, standing slightly behind him.
“Get her away from here,” I told Ace, wheezing. “It’s the same idiot who tried to jump her in the bar earlier this year. He’s out of his mind. Says they’re married, or something.”
“Gross,” Ace said in a carefully constructed conversational tone. To the casual listener, he might’ve been joking, but I knew he was doing police work, trying to figure this all out just like I would’ve been if I wasn’t so confused. “Haley, you have some terrible taste in men Chuck excluded, of course.”
“You fucking this one, whore?” the guy demanded, lunging forward. Katie’s brandished Taser was the only thing that kept him on the ground with me. I was still trying to catch my breath from the elbow.
“Don’t call her a whore,” Katie instructed him. “You don’t even know her.”
“He does know me.” Haley’s voice shook a little, but the words were clear enough. “We were married.”
“We are married, is what you mean,” he said. “And it’s past time for you to come on home. You’ve had your fun.”
Shock reigned, for me, and it was only by some sort of grace that I managed to keep my hold on this guy. Was this true, or was I hallucinating the entire thing? Was Haley actually married? What the hell was going on?
“I’m not going anywhere, Jared,” Haley said, and like that, the monster had a name. “You lost the right to call me your wife the moment you first hit me. We’re through.”
“We’re not through. I haven’t granted you a divorce yet, and maybe I n
ever will. Not with the way you’ve been misbehaving.”
“Haley, is this man your husband?” Katie asked calmly, not taking her eyes off Jared.
“We were married, yes.”
“We are married, slut.”
“I don’t care what you are to her,” I growled in his ear, too low for anyone else but him to hear it. “If you call her another name, I will choke you out. You think anyone here can stop me, if I really put my mind to something?”
“We’re estranged,” Haley was saying. “He, um, wouldn’t grant me a divorce. So I left.”
“Do you want to speak with him right now?”
“No. No, I don’t.”
“Are you feeling threatened by his presence?”
“Yes. Very.”
“Excellent.” Katie took a step back. “Chuck, Ace, help get this asshole up. You’re done today, sir, do you hear me? You’re going to jail. You’re not going to get a chance to hurt this woman again.”
“I have rights,” he bellowed as I pushed him and Ace pulled him, Katie never pointing the Taser away from him. “She’s my wife. Mine. She belongs to me.”
“I think you forfeited those rights, sir, when you raised your hand against her,” Katie said. “Haley, do you want to press charges against this fucker? Because I really, really think you want to press charges against this fucker.”
“I…” I was surprised to see Haley hesitating, biting her lip.
“I’ll put him in the back of a cruiser right now, if you say yes,” Katie said, maintaining a level stare at Jared.
“Okay. Okay, fine.”
“Hear that, asshole? You’re finished. Let’s go.” Word must have spread about the altercation, because I recognized a few of the other off-duty police officers heading over toward us in a beeline. A far-off siren told me the cruiser Katie had promised Jared was well on its way.
“This isn’t over, Haley,” Jared warned her. “Not by a long shot.”
“Have you heard about your right to remain silent, and that anything you say can be used against you?” Katie asked brightly, Ace helping her shove Jared along toward the other officers.
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