“Why me? You know I’m a sympathetic ralpher!”
The only reply was the smile that spread across Trey’s face, exposing the dimples that took away from the bad-ass look he’d so carefully cultivated throughout the years. At the sight, the others couldn’t help their own grins from appearing.
“Aw, suck it up, butterfly,” Brand teased.
“Cup. Its buttercup, dickwad,” Dare responded but without any real heat. “Shit, if you’re gonna bust my balls then get the fuckin’ words right, dig?”
“What are your plans for this afternoon, Si?” Trey asked, interrupting the play of Brand getting Dare’s goat.
“Back to the hospital, I guess,” the bald biker said with a sigh. “She wasn’t fucking tracking all that well when I left.”
“We need to get a handle on what the fuck is the hold-up on Johnston Ranch. Need you and Brand to swing by there and scope it out.”
Both of the bikers named nodded just as Bishop came back into the room at a much calmer pace than he’d exited. Closing the door softly and ducking his head, he offered, “my apologies for leaving so abruptly.”
“You’re supposed to do that before you motherfucking go, shit for brains,” the big, blonde Huff barked with a scowl. “Get it the fuck right next time!”
“Ain’t in the military, fucker, so get off my ass. Unless you want to get a salute of the one-finger kind,” Bishop grumbled, lowering himself carefully back into his chair. The man was noticeably sweating and his hands shook.
“That’s enough,” Trey warned and tapped a finger on the folder that still sat in front of him. “With the compound in Billings more than seventy percent done, we need to start talking about getting the list of officers, managers and men together. So the first item of business is to elect a chapter president who can get a stake on getting the building completed, the warehouse up and running as well as assembling his Council and crew.”
“Ryley and I talked about it but decided we need to stay in Missoula since she’s getting Honey Haven II sorted. Hopes to have it up and fuckin’ running by Christmas,” the newly-wedded Dare explained with more than a note of pride before turning to Huff.
The blonde biker looked around the table before glancing down at his hands. “Carly and me are fuckin’ tired of moving, man. Had enough of that shit in the Marines. We’re staying.”
“I’m not interested in leading or in fucking moving. But I’m putting Pagan’s name forward as the Billing IT Manager as well as for a spot on the Council. He’s a good man and a loyal Hellion.” Bishop’s voice didn’t have the strength it normally held, but his opinion carried a lot of weight with the other men. Silo reached over and gave a soft yank of the other man’s waist-length braid as a show of support.
“Me and Dallas are staying. Her parents don’t need the fucking stress of moving again,” Trey mumbled.
“I have talked it over with my Reese. Many nights. And I would like the challenge of leading the Billings chapter.” Brand’s deep voice was soft, respectful but firm and there wasn’t a brother in the room that didn’t doubt that the man had given the idea a lot of thought before putting his name forward. “It would be an honor to wear the Hellion President’s patch.”
All movement stopped and a silence settled over the table as the idea of the large Croatian, the former ATF agent who’d joined the Hellions in order to infiltrate the motorcycle club, gave his answer. “But I would ask that Silo join in that endeavor.”
Wait…what?
Silo’s head swiveled up to see if his biker brother was putting his name up as some sort of joke. In Silo’s mind, Brand should’ve been still holding a grudge for the beat-down Silo had been ordered to give when the other man had gone missing in action without HMC knowledge or permission. “Me?”
“Actually, that’s a great idea.” Dare, as always, added his two-cents while the rest of them were still trying to sort their thoughts out, or as the younger man called it, ‘fuckin’ reaching for their change’.
“Perfect, when you think about it,” Bishop agreed with a lifting of his chin.
“You have the skill-set, the experience and the smarts,” Trey said, giving his own approval with a firm nod. “Don’t wanna lose you, man, but hell!”
“Just don’t fuck up,” Huff cautioned as he pointed his finger at Silo, causing all the men to laugh and breaking the tension that had somehow crept into the room as each of them had given their decision.
“What say you, brother? Care to come make a Hellion club with me?” Brand’s voice held a note of teasing but Silo caught the gleam of resolution in the other man’s eyes.
“I’ve got to see to Shelly before I…” Silo started but was quickly interrupted by Dare.
“Take her right the fuck with you, man. They’ve got medical digs in Billings and it would keep her off Lulu’s radar.”
“They’ve fucking got more hair salons, spas and big name stores than Missoula has,” Huff mumbled, adding incentives that he thought the pampered woman would be swayed with. “Billings is more upscale, bro’, and should be right up your girl’s alley.”
“She ain’t my girl.” Silo’s voice boomed as he quickly tried to get that notion off the table and out of their fucking heads. “She’s just a fucking friend who needs some help.”
Every man but Bishop began to laugh long and loud at his disavowal of the idea of him and Shelly as a couple. Silo didn’t understand what they all found so funny, so incredibly humorous that Trey had a hand over his face, Dare was slapping the table and Huff was wiping his eyes. Only Brand had the breath in order to explain.
“That is what we all say, Silo. Each and every one of us has said those very same words about our women at some point.”
Silo just rolled his eyes and gave the salute that Bishop had threatened Huff with earlier.
*.*.*.*.*
It really hadn’t taken that long to have my release papers processed and I was wheeled out to the entrance of the large, bustling hospital.
“Is that your man, honey?” the nurse asked from behind my chair. I wiggled in my borrowed scrubs, loathed to be in public in such a ridiculous set of borrowed clothes, matted hair and no makeup. But Silo had said that prior to being boarded on the Air Ambulance, the only other option had been my ‘fancy-assed’ dress which I somehow knew had been totally ruined and unwearable.
I didn’t correct the woman’s assumption about Silo being my man. And as for the truck being my ride, I wasn’t exactly sure because the big, shiny-red pickup pulling up at the curb was new to me. When Silo had taken me to Mel and Lulu’s house after our one night together, it had been on the back of his huge Harley Davidson motorcycle.
He was smiling though as he swung himself out of the tall cab and made his way to where I waited.
“Ready to go, princess?” he asked. He bent and pulled me up out of the wheelchair with a hand beneath my knees and his other arm around my back. “Get the door, will you?”
I did as instructed and soon found myself in a large seat that was a good three-feet off the ground. Our eyes caught and held as he did up the seatbelt and closed the door although we didn’t say anything. Not with our mouths, anyway. But there had been a conversation, one of the silent kind, in just our shared gaze. One of ‘are you sure about this?’ and the firm reply of ‘abso-fucking-lutely and don’t question me about it again’.
My eyes were turned to the side window as we traveled the streets of Missoula, which was much like I remembered: homey in a middle income kind of way, cared for but spread out as if the city had expanded quickly from its original core settlement.
“Okay, so I fucking told you it ain’t the Ritz Carlton, right?” he said after a lengthy silence that had only been broken by the clicking of his indicator as the large truck was maneuvered through the streets.
“Actually, I think you said it wasn’t the Sheraton,” I corrected with a sniff. To my knowledge, Missoula didn’t even have a Ritz Carlton!
He snorted and again signa
led for a left-hand turn. “There’s a difference?”
I let that comment slide and let my eyes wander over the obviously residential neighborhood we were moving through. One whose houses seem to get steadily smaller and more aged the further we went. Missoula had evidently not been a master-planned community and he was not taking me to a neighborhood more in keeping with the environs I was used to.
“Wasn’t sure, Shelly,” Silo said slowly but at a volume that seemed to want to echo through the tight confines of the truck. “Didn’t know if you wanted your own room or…”
I made haste to cut him off. “If I could have my own space, that’d be great!” But even I could hear the false enthusiasm of my voice. We were definitely in the low-income part of town and I couldn’t imagine the sort of house he expected me to live in.
“After Nana died and my grandpa was fucking forced to sell the ranch to pay her medical bills, we moved to town. It ain’t much but it’s comfortable,” he said on a tight note. I felt more than saw his eyes on me. “If it doesn’t suit, I’ll see if one of the other Hellions has room for you.”
Aw, geez. He was worried about my opinion of his house? Or could he just somehow sense my trepidation at what might greet me at the end of our journey? But he really was doing me a favor, taking me away from all the loneliness, snobbery and lack of support. By my reckoning, he was my only friend as well as being my rescuer. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, Silo. The doctor said I needed to stay off my ankle until Friday. So as long as it has a bed and a bathroom, I think it’ll be great.”
He coughed and it was my turn to look at him. “There’s only one bathroom, baby.”
Oh.
“I think we can manage,” I offered, trying to sound hopeful in spite of the dropping of my heart at the news.
“Yeah. Okay,” but Silo’s tone sounded doubtful, causing a tight, hard knot to start in my stomach at the thought of what I might encounter at his place. Was it going to be even worse than the almost shacks we were passing?
He pulled up in the driveway of a nondescript beige house done up in metal siding. While the lawn and flowerbeds were tidy, I still knew that the primary structure was far from new. I’d expected him to open the truck door but he turned to me instead, the clinking of the chain to his wallet rattling as he moved. “The Honeys will be bringing by clothes for you tomorrow morning, not that you don’t look cute as fucking hell in the scrubs the hospital gave you. But I’ve gotta warn you, baby. This here’s pretty fucking much a man cave.”
I felt my eyebrows raise at his pronouncement.
“Shower has bar soap and some anti-dandruff shampoo. No fucking fancy shit at all,” he announced, looking me dead in the eye. “Ain’t got no rabbit food, no champagne or fucking girlie junk at all.”
I stared at him, feeling my skin crawl at what he was describing, at what would be my home for the next however long of a time. Because my mind was going all sorts of places that were not of the aesthetically pleasing variety. “Okay,” I breathed and tried to convince not only him, but myself.
“I just want to fucking get it out there so you know,” he countered against my one-word answer.
“Though…” he continued as he reached across the console and picked up my now nerveless hand. “You are welcome here, Shelly.”
And it was then, right at that moment as we sat in his reasonably new truck in front of his not-so-new house that I realized why I’d not only shared a night with him, why out of all the people I knew to call for help but wasn’t certain they’d lower themselves come for me, he’d been the one I reached out for.
Biker or no, Silo Kettering was someone who made my heart beat fast, gave me tummy tumbles with just a look and who made me feel like a person of value.
And I hadn’t felt that way in a long, long time.
Chapter Five
Either my body had already had sufficient sleep over the last few days or the meds the hospital had given me upon release were lower because I was awake even after forcing down the chicken broth I was allowed for lunch. Silo had brought to me in the bedroom I’d been assigned in his tiny house that really and truly had only one bathroom. One that was as dark and as dank as I’d envisioned.
He hadn’t been far off the mark when he’d described it as a ‘man cave’. Plaid or plain seemed to be the theme of the décor. Though he’d forgotten to mention the wornness of the furniture and the dust that coated every surface. I’d never in my life been in a house like his and it was hard to keep both my shock and my judgments to myself.
The room I was assigned only held a hospital bed, a dresser, a bedside table with a lamp made of antlers and a hard backed chair.
That was all.
But really when I argued with myself about it, that was all a person really needed.
Well, that and a sizeable closet, my mind amended as I glanced at the sliding doors of the four foot long enclosure on the farthest wall.
Silo had stayed with me as I’d spooned up the salty broth with a shaky hand though he didn’t say much other than to let me know he had business for his construction job he had to take care of that afternoon. After the few days of being fussed over by medical personnel, I’d felt more alone than ever after he’d left with a promise to be back ‘soon’.
Having that amount of time on my hands wasn’t a good thing because it allowed me to remember. But not to pull out whole, complete memories. The mental images I saw were fuzzy and fragmented, indistinct in a way that was probably more terrifying than if I’d been able to capture them as something of one piece.
Of my two-seater Audi going upside down, rolling over and over again the tinkling of the glass as it shattered.
Of hearing ‘Senorita Palmer’ being called from behind me as I scrambled over nature’s debris as I tried to run, my heart going much faster than my feet as I choked back cough after cough. Coughs that had started weeks before and would’ve betrayed me, would have certainly given away my position in the dark night.
I quickly turned on the old-fashioned radio on the nightstand in order to redirect my thoughts but the man shouting out from it as I’d flipped the ‘on’ switch was caterwauling about ‘Jesus, our merciful savior’ and ‘the flesh-eating of hell’s fiery damnation’ wasn’t much better. I spun the old-fashion dial and landed on a voice speaking Spanish that quickly had my whole body quivering in fear, my fingers seizing up on the old fashioned knob.
When I had heard the voices that had broken the eerie silence of the dark canyon, I had recognized the language but had only remembered some of the words. And what words I knew told me they were determined to find me, that forcing me off the road had not been an accident but their intention.
And that I was far from any measure of safety if the unknown Spanish-speaking bikers found me.
So I stayed deathlike still in my borrowed bed, trembling in the semi-dark and frozen with dread, only the waning light from the window for illumination as I listened to the radio. I knew I needed to stop the tinny voice with its strange words, its heavy accent. Had to in order to keep myself together but I couldn’t seem to make my hand work. Finally, I was able to move but instead of turning the station once again, my fingers knew what I needed more and all sound from the small plastic box was cut off.
I stayed there in the small bed but every so often I shifted on the mattress, trying and not finding a more comfortable position for either my damaged body or my more troubling memories. The tremors of my body seemed to take hours to decrease.
I let my eyes drift and soon found myself mesmerized by the moon as it made its ascension in Montana’s late afternoon sky through one of the two small windows in the room on opposing walls. Idly I wondered why it seemed night came so much quicker in Missoula than it had in Albuquerque. True, it was early autumn if the multi-colored leaves were any indication, but I didn’t think there was any time zone difference between New Mexico and Montana.
Caught up in my own thoughts, the knock on the doorjamb barely registered unti
l I heard a man’s voice ask, “Miss Palmer? Michelle? Are you awake?”
Grabbing the sheet in one hand and pressing the control to lift the head of the bed in the other, I licked my lips before turning to answer.
The voice startled me much as the thought that Silo had not locked the front door behind him.
While my mouth wasn’t as dry as it had been, talking still made my throat hurt almost as if I’d overused my voice and when combined with the icy fingers of fear that roamed over me had it sounding thready and weak. “Yes? Who’s there?” I reached for the antlers of the bedside lamp in order to turn on the light.
“It’s me. David Moore,” and as soon as the light clicked on, I could confirm that the voice did indeed belong to the FBI bureaucrat.
And winced even as my mind muttered a curse.
The man had been a pain in my butt since the day he’d shown up out of nowhere to advise me that he’d been assigned to the case against my father. Although from his actions and constant questions about my personal life, I’d felt like he was more interested in me than the lawsuit he was building. And all that personal attention had made me uncomfortable in the extreme. As much as his unending stares did.
What was he doing in Silo’s house unannounced?
His presence only brought shaking quivers of fear. His questioning, done twice to three times a week had always made me afraid. Scared not to answer and yet fearful that the answers I did have weren’t good enough. And then his focus on me, his relentless staring that zeroed in with almost a fanatical zeal about me and my everyday life was just…creepy.
The fact that he was there and that I hadn’t heard him enter Silo’s home weirded me out even more.
“Why are you here and how did you get in?” I asked sharply in my best bitch-of-the-manor voice, trying to sound more in control of my emotions than I actually was. Having him unexpectedly show up in Missoula was not only a surprise but an unwelcomed one. “Didn’t you get my voicemail?”
A Civilian for Silo Page 4