“What did you do?” I asked him.
Right around the time I finished the question, screams started to fill the air.
High, panicked ones that clearly said that something was very, very wrong.
My eyes flicked up to the sidewalk where he’d just come running from, and my stomach sank.
By the time my eyes flicked back down, it was to see the man trying to reach his right hand into his pocket.
“No,” I snapped. “I don’t think so.”
I stepped on his wrist, stilling his movements.
“Move another inch and I break this wrist,” I told him. “Did you shoot him?”
I gestured to the man that was laying on the concrete about fifty yards away. The beautiful German Shepherd at his side, barking so loudly that it echoed off the buildings around us.
Tommy Tom made it to the man that’d taken the bullet—the man who was way too still—and I gritted my teeth, hoping for a good sign of some sort from Tommy Tom. But the only thing I got was a shake of his head.
My breath froze in my chest.
The kid tried to yank his hand out from under my boot, and I did the only thing I wanted to do, which was transfer my weight to the foot that was holding the man’s wrist down.
With a quick twist and grind, the satisfying crunch of the man’s wrist snapping filled the air.
The man screamed.
The entire scene took less than a minute, tops.
But it was enough for me to realize three things.
One, this man was about to be in a world of hurt.
Two, the rest of the police department was, too.
Because the man who was shot, and just pronounced dead by Tommy Tom, was a police officer.
One of the oldest and most experienced on the entire force.
And three, The Dixie Wardens MC, all two thousand strong, were about to go fucking berserk.
Because the police officer who’d just died was none other than our president, Stone Conner.
The bikes were the first thing we heard before ambulances. Being in a small town means that the ambulances have further to go.
Hearing nothing but bikes from all angles is an odd experience.
It’s an eerie sound.
One that not many people would think to recognize.
But I did.
Truth and Tommy Tom did.
It was the sound of desperation.
The fight for men to get to an area where they knew one of their own was hurt.
And we’d not even had a chance to call.
But as I looked around at the storefronts, I realized that the town’s occupants had.
They were all plastered to the windows, staring with tears coursing down their cheeks. Men. Women. Children. There wasn’t a dry eye that I could see.
My heart was breaking right along with theirs.
Stone had changed my life. He’d pulled me back from the dark hole I’d been in when I’d arrived here a year and a half ago.
He’d done so much for me, that I trusted him as one of the few men who I could count on for anything.
Truth walked up, his face mutinous, and I did the only thing I could do at the time.
I surrendered the poor stupid man to the wrath of Truth.
***
It was only when, much later, as the man’s hoodie was taken away, his mugshot plastered on the TV in the bar, that I realized that the ‘man’ was someone I knew. Someone I’d seen daily for the last couple of months.
Kevin Turner.
The drug dealing, gang motherfucker who worked the street outside of my apartment.
“Saw that guy every fucking day. Knew he was no good,” I murmured to the men who were drinking around me. With me. “I told Stone about him. Stone was going to look into him.”
The bar around me grew quiet as I gained not just the ones closest to me, but also the entire fucking bar’s attention.
“Stone would’ve done it anyway,” Seanshine murmured quietly. “Even if he knew this was going to be the end result, he didn’t like that kind of shit in his town.”
No, he didn’t.
Which was why I’d told him in the first place.
Not to mention his little brother was turning into him. The same little brother who was having a very odd conversation with Davis just this morning. Which had prompted me to remind Stone, yet again, that there was still something going on that made me uncomfortable.
“It’s convenient that every time Stone talked to him, something bad happened,” Truth murmured. “Didn’t he talk to him the same day that car was sitting on the side of the road? The one that had the bomb in it?”
I thought back and squeezed my eyes tightly shut.
“Fuck yeah,” Ghost rumbled. “That was the day, because I was working when I saw Stone talking to the kid in the bullpen.”
Fire started to burn through my veins as my blood boiled.
“We need to see if he’s working alone,” I found myself saying.
“Agreed,” Big Papa rumbled. “But we have to go see Memphis. She has to know.”
Memphis was Stone’s daughter and she lived over six hours away in Kilgore.
“We gotta go tell his girl,” Truth agreed. “This isn’t something we can do in a telephone call. But when we get back…well, let’s just say that little fucker will no longer have a reprieve.”
Ghost’s face was blank.
“Yeah,” Ghost agreed. “We’ll have to go by Mei’s house, see if she wants to go.”
Mei was Stone’s wife. A five foot nothing woman who loved everyone. She was feisty. Crazy. And one of the best old ladies I’d ever had a pleasure of meeting.
But right now, after tonight…well, I’d never seen someone so devastated before. Never.
And it was heartbreaking. To see her there, staring blankly as tears coursed down her cheeks in silent rivulets, I knew that we’d have to watch her. We’d have to be careful.
“I’ll stay with her,” Big Papa, now the acting president of our chapter, murmured. “She won’t be getting on the back of anyone’s bike ever again. That I can guarantee you.”
I believed him.
A woman loyal to her man would do that.
Though I didn’t have one of my own, I knew what one looked like, and Mei was it.
“Y’all ride in an hour. Go home. Pack enough for a day. Eat. Then head out,” Big Papa stood. “I gotta go check on Mei.”
I went home, changed, and then headed to the diner to grab a bite to eat from my mom.
Forty minutes later, I’d just mounted my bike with the rest of the club when my phone rang.
Pulling it out and answering it without reading who it was, I pressed it to my ear and said, “Hello?”
“Aaron!” Booth’s frantic voice boomed through the receiver. “Masen had the baby. I’m sorry I didn’t call you, but fuck it was quick. By the time she realized it was happening, it’d already happened. You know what I mean?”
I looked at the men who’d been sitting silently with me for the last hour, and swallowed.
“I’ll be there,” I muttered. “I have to take care of something anyway.”
Chapter 7
Sex is not the answer. Yes is the answer.
-T-shirt
Aaron
“We need you on this, Aaron,” Big Papa said. “We don’t trust anyone else. No outsiders are coming in until we get this straightened out.”
It was two days later, and I was in Big Papa’s office. Big Papa, also known as Steel Cross, was now the acting chief of police.
And yes, that really was his name.
“I’m not a police officer, though,” I muttered. “I’m a firefighter. I have my peace officer’s license, but that doesn’t mean that I know the shit necessary to be an actual cop.”
In my previous life, I’d been a SWAT medic…or, at least, I was on the road to becoming one, anyway.
Th
en the accident had happened, and I’d lost sight of my goal for a while.
When I was healing and waiting to get back on with the fire department, I’d gone ahead and gotten the schooling, as well as the training, done to become a SWAT medic.
I got my peace officer's license. I’d met all the necessary requirements, and then had never followed through.
The moment I heard I wasn’t getting back on the fire department at Kilgore, I changed my entire outlook on what I was going to do.
I realized then, after the denial of my rehire, that there was nothing left for me in Kilgore but bad memories.
Which led me to now.
“Stone asked me, of course, but I told him the same thing I am telling you,” I murmured. “I don’t know anything. I…”
Big Papa glared.
“You’re a fucking Marine.”
I was. I couldn’t argue that.
“You have combat experience. You know your shit. You wouldn’t have passed the peace officer training if you didn’t know your shit. Stop coming up with excuses, grow a pair, and get it done, Newbie.”
I growled.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “But you’ll have to tell the fire chief that you stole me.”
Big Papa found his first smile in days.
“I can surely do that,” he grinned.
I found myself smiling right along with him.
“Is there going to be someone to train me?” I asked. “You’re not going to just throw me out there, are you?”
I had to admit, the thought of being thrown out with absolutely no guidance didn’t appeal to me.
“I have a partner for you, all right.”
Turned out, that partner wasn’t even human.
***
“Whoa,” Davis exclaimed. “I thought dogs weren’t allowed in this apartment complex.”
I looked down at the dog who likely wanted to kill me, and I shook my head.
“I don’t think they are,” I admitted.
“Then why do you have him?” Davis continued.
“Is that…” Imogen whispered.
I nodded my head and answered her question before she’d even finished the thought.
“It is,” I confirmed.
“That’s terribly sad,” she continued to whisper. “How does that even work?”
Not very well.
Which was something I’d experienced over the last three hours that I’d had Tank, Stone’s K-9 officer.
“He looks sad,” Davis said. “Can I touch him?”
“No,” Imogen and I said at the same time.
“Why not?” Davis asked.
“Because I don’t trust him not to bite you,” I told him honestly. “He’s sad and volatile right now. When he’s more comfortable, I’ll let you…just not right now.”
Maybe not ever if Tank had anything to say about it.
He was being a jerk.
It was understandable, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t scary.
There was something about a police dog, one who’s trained to take a two-hundred-pound man down, acting odd and foul-tempered, that made a man rethink some decisions.
Like moving too quickly. Or talking to him. Hell, I’d had a hard time sitting next to him in the fucking car, too.
Which might also be part of my problem.
I didn’t do cars.
Not anymore.
They made me feel choked and closed in, and it wasn’t something I wanted to experience ever again.
Which made it ironic that I was fixing up the Nova.
I wouldn’t ever drive it.
Tank growled, and I stepped between him and Imogen, who had only taken a step toward me.
She froze, one hand suspended in the air to touch my chest, and looked down at the dog before quickly backing away.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She smiled nervously. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
Davis walked away, his eyes lighting on Kellen, the brother to Kevin who was likely having a grand old time in jail, and I watched him stop close, talking softly.
“I don’t think I’m doing badly, per se,” I murmured, eyes still on the two kids.
“But I’m definitely a long way away from okay.”
She nodded, her eyes going to the dog.
“When’s the funeral?” she asked.
“This afternoon at three.” I looked at my watch. “Shit.”
It was less than an hour before I needed to meet the rest of the club.
The expected turnout had far exceeded the church where we were going to have it, and luckily we could move it to the stadium so it would fit all of the people who’d be coming, some from thousands of miles away, to pay their respects.
Mei had wanted to have it at the church, though, and since we weren’t able to argue with the grieving widow, we’d been forced to agree to have it there even though the place would likely burn to the ground the moment we all stepped inside.
Which was why we counted ourselves lucky that the people had started to show up, giving us a clear indication that the church just wasn’t going to work. Mei finally relented, and we’d moved everything to the stadium with bare seconds to spare.
Right now, the count for people attending Stone’s memorial service was at over three thousand, and those were just the ones who’d shown up in the past two days.
Likely, there would still be more coming for the actual funeral.
Tank growled again, and I sighed.
“I’m going to leave him here,” I told her. “Do you think you can keep an eye out? Don’t go in my apartment unless it’s an emergency. Just…talk to him through the door if you think you need to. I just don’t trust him right now.”
She looked at me like I was crazy, but nonetheless nodded her head in affirmation. “I can do that.”
I sighed.
There were so many things I wanted to say to the woman.
I’d had a lot of time to think over the last two days. A lot of time to figure out that life was short.
Stone had just been living his life. One second he was walking down the street talking on the phone, and the next he’d been shot dead. He’d taken a bullet straight to the heart; he never stood a chance.
His wife, whom he’d been talking to, had heard him take his last breath. She’d known the instant he was gone.
It really brought the point home to me after seeing Mei look so devastated, that I wanted a woman that would care if I died. I wanted someone to mourn me like that when I was gone.
It was a sick reality I lived in, but I wanted it.
And I wanted it with Imogen.
What I had with her—the feeling I got when I was around her—it felt big. It felt like something I wanted to pursue.
And after the last two days I had, the shit that had gone down, I’d still thought of her. Still thought about the way that she smelled. The way her hair stuck out every which way.
“Aaron?” Imogen broke in again.
My eyes focused on her face.
“Yeah?”
“If you need anything…you’ll let me know, right?”
Would I?
Probably not. I was a suffer in silence kind of guy.
I also wasn’t the type to lie.
“If I have a problem, it’s highly likely you’ll never know.”
Her lips tipped up in a grin.
“Well,” she shrugged. “I’ll have to keep my eye on you to make sure you’re okay then. I’ll be that annoying fly that buzzes around your head when you least expect it.”
I snorted.
“You do that.”
Chapter 8
My New Year’s Resolution is to lose…oh, look! Chipotle!
-Imogen’s secret thoughts
Imogen
“I’m going to buzz around you like a fly?” I muttered to myself as I paced the length of our living room.
�
��What are you carrying on about?” my mother asked as she came out of her room dressed in black slacks, a black shirt, and low black heels.
Her hair was down around her face, curling just like mine curled if I wasn’t careful.
“I’m talking about the fact that I came on to a man who was grieving instead of being supportive,” I muttered darkly.
“I actually overheard your conversation,” Mom murmured as she tried to affix a bracelet to her wrist. “And it wasn’t bad. In fact, I thought it was kind of sweet.”
I shivered.
“That’s creepy that you were listening,” I told her.
She smiled.
“You’re twenty-nine years old, and you haven’t been with a man who I thought you’d marry yet. I was married and had two kids at your age,” she murmured.
I snickered.
“You wouldn’t have been married if Clarabelle wasn’t an accident baby,” I informed her.
She shrugged. “Regardless of whether your sister was planned or not, I was married. I loved your father, too.”
“You don’t love my father anymore,” I pointed out.
Mom gave me a look.
“We grew apart. We’re still friends.”
Meaning they still had sex when they were in between relationships, which was more often than not.
There was no love between them. Not anymore. There was more, what I would call, friendship…with other benefits added in.
It was something I’d long ago decided not to ever think about.
“I kind of feel like shit that I’m not going,” I told her.
“You didn’t know him,” my mom said. “And there will be a ton of people there. There’s no reason in the world that you should go. That man has half the state coming to his funeral. He won’t notice that some girl he didn’t know isn’t going.”
My mom had known Stone by association. She knew him through Steel Cross, or better known as Big Papa in these parts.
They’d dated once, before my mother met my father, and Stone had been there when they’d met. Stone had a daughter Sunny’s age, and they had gone to the same school along with Big Papa’s son, Sean.
“Does this look all right?” Davis came out in his little black tux, and I wanted to squeeze his cheeks at how cute he looked.
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