by West, Naomi
Chapter 22
Liona
Liona was just coming out of the shower when Cutter arrived back from court. He tossed his coat on the chair and collapsed on the bed, flopping onto the mattress. He just stared up at the ceiling, unflinching as he watched it. It was such a weird dissonance, this world she'd stumbled into. She went from the bed of one man whose life was consumed by court dates and legal papers, to the bed of another man whose life seemed to teeter on the brink because of it. In a sense, both were two sides of the same coin.
“How'd it go?” she asked as she dried her hair.
He just half-grunted, half-growled.
“That good, huh?”
“More or less,” he replied.
“Wanna talk about it?” she asked.
He shook his head, sighing. “You know I can't.”
“I know,” she replied, sitting down on the edge of the bed with one leg curled up beneath her as she continued to dry her hair. “It's club business. And I'm not in the MC.”
Her morning had been consumed by thoughts of the night before. Of who this Rachel girl that had arrived at his door so unexpectedly was. Was she an old flame, a woman she should be worried about? There were just so many things that she didn't understand about his world, things that he either couldn't, or wouldn't, explain.
“What's bugging you?” he asked, the tone in his voice even and unaffected. It was just a question, with no malice behind. “You okay?”
She wasn't sure how she could broach the subject of the other woman. Or if he'd be as recalcitrant about his love life as he was with Vanguard business. “I've just been thinking,” she began after a moment, “about last night.”
“What about it?” he asked. There was a certain change to his tone, though. Like he was thinking back fondly on it, already. “You want round two already?”
She glanced down at him, saw that little smile of his. She grinned and shook her head, playfully slapping at him with the damp towel she'd been using to dry her hair. “No, not that.”
“Well, what then?” he asked.
“Rachel?”
“Rachel?” he asked.
“The girl that came to your door last night?”
“What?” he asked, lifting his head up from the pillow and looking at her, genuinely astonished Liona was bringing her up. “Her? What about her?”
“I'm just ...” Liona licked her lips as she searched for the right words to use. What would fit here? “You called her a club girl, I think.”
He nodded. “Yeah?”
“What is that? Exactly?”
Cutter sighed and rested his head back on the pillow. “Club girls,” he began, “are just like, I dunno, biker groupies. They like hopping on our bikes, riding around with us, having us buy 'em shots, fucking some of the guys. But, they ain't ol' ladies or anything. They ain't our women, even if they wanna be.”
“Old ladies?”
“Ol' ladies, yeah,” he continued. “You know, like, ol' man, ol' lady?”
She stopped drying her hair for a moment, considered what he'd just finished explaining. “So, Cutter?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, what am I?”
Sitting up, he laughed and reached out for her, grabbed hold and pulled her close. “Well, you ain't a club girl, that's for damn sure.”
She submitted to his warm overpowering embrace and let the smell of leather and cedar, his distinct scent, wash over her as he pulled her to his broad chest. “Yeah?” she asked. “How are you so sure?”
“Cause a club girl would only get one round in my bed,” he said with an easy shit-eating grin.
“Ha,” she said, giving him a quick peck, “ha.”
He leaned down and kissed her, this time making it much more than just a peck on the lips. It was one of those kisses she could feel all the way down her back and down into her tingling toes.
They broke their kiss, but held onto each other as their gazes stayed locked. “Hungry?” he asked after a moment.
“Yeah,” she said, her stomach grumbling as soon as it realized they were talking about it. “I could eat something.”
He kissed her again. “I'm going to go cook up some grub, get my mind off things.”
She nodded and smiled up at him. “Yeah,” she said. “Sounds good.”
Cutter let her go and got up to leave. As he left the room, she couldn't help but return to the face of Rachel, the other woman. Say what you wanted, she had more than just a passing resemblance to Liona. And then there was the part about her not being a club girl, about those women only getting one night in his bed. She shook her head, smiling. She wasn't sure about the feelings she had for him, what shape they might be taking on. But she had a sneaking suspicion that not all hope was lost where they were concerned. If, of course, last night was any indication.
Chapter 23
Cutter
The day had passed idly, with Liona and him riding the backroads near the clubhouse as he showed her their turf. He hadn't wanted to stray too far away, into town or on the main roads. He was fairly certain Wyland still didn't know where his ex-fiancée was hiding out, and he wanted to keep it that way. With that in mind, he stayed away from any place he was likely to encounter the cops on a random basis. The way things looked, they may very well have been working hand-in-hand with the assistant-DA.
Now, though, he'd settled outside in front of the clubhouse with a bottle of beer in an old lawn chair. He gazed up at the sky, tracking the celestial movements of the stars just like he had when he was younger and out tramping in the surrounding woods. Those had been good times, carefree. Of course, they'd only been that way because he was a young boy, and ignorant to the world around him and the problems in his home. Tomorrow was an early morning for the rest of his brothers, so they'd begun to turn in for the night. Smalls, keenly aware that Cutter probably wasn't getting as much sleep as usual because of his new roommate, had offered to keep taking the early shift. Farm to Fable wouldn't open itself, after all.
Recognizing it for the hand-up that it was, Cutter hadn't declined the offer. He needed the rest. And the time he was getting to spend with Liona was a godsend. Just the sound of her laugh was almost enough to rejuvenate him, to make him feel like he had a new lease on life, no matter how fleeting that life might be. He was still torn, though. Torn about where the Vanguard were going, this war with the law, and on his relationship with Liona. He still couldn't afford to lose focus on the club. He'd never be able to forgive himself if he did.
The door leading into the clubhouse opened and shut. Cutter glanced back, grunted at the newcomer in acknowledgment. “Howdy,” he said.
“Evening,” Smalls replied, heaving himself over and grabbing another folded lawn chair that leaned against the clubhouse's exterior wall. “Mind if I join you?”
“Free country, brother,” Cutter growled, but didn't take his eyes from the sky.
They'd talked about Jersey's state of affairs earlier in the day, and about the chances of Big Jack coming home. Everything seemed dark and grim on all fronts, and Michael Hunting hadn't exactly painted a pretty or optimistic picture for them.
“You holding up alright?” Smalls said as, beer in hand, he unfolded his chair and collapsed into it. “With this whole Jersey thing?”
Cutter shook his head. “Kills me, man. Us being out here, under the open sky, drinking a beer ...”
“While he's sitting in there,” Smalls said, finishing his thought. He took a big swig of beer and smacked his lips. “Yup. Kills me, too. Think he's gonna be safe?”
Cutter nodded. “One of the guys got the word out, talking to people. Don't worry.”
Smalls grunted in agreement. The unspoken subtext between them was that this needed to stay out of any discussion. The phrase ‘one of the guys’ meant it was in a different compartment, one that wasn't necessarily legal to be in the know on. This, though, was the first time they'd had a chance to really discuss the earlier bail hearing. He'd simply informed the M
C about what had happened, not had a full meeting. Unfortunately, he'd made that decision for the worst reason possible: he'd wanted to spend time with his woman.
Smalls sucked down some of his brew. “How's the girl?”
Cutter nodded, took a drink of his own beer. “Good, I guess.”
“You're spending a lot of time with her.”
“Yep,” Cutter said, kicking a piece of gravel away from his boot. “Guess I am.”
“You care about her?” Smalls asked in a conversation tone.
That was uncharacteristically forward of him, though. Bikers didn't fit all the stereotypes out there. Cutter as chef at the Farm to Fable proved that. But the trope about the brotherhood and the guys playing things close to the chest when it came about their relationships, that generally held true.
To Cutter the question was completely out of the blue. He blinked his eyes and, with a half-smile, shook his head. He looked back up at the stars. “Yeah, I guess. I dunno, though. She burned me real bad, back in the day. Dunno if I can do that again.”
“We all get burned,” Smalls said, taking another drink of beer, “every once in a while.”
“And for some reason, we all keep playing with fucking matches, don't we?”
“Lemme ask you a question. A serious one, now.”
“Alright,” Cutter said, not sure what he was going to ask. “Shoot.”
“How many times you laid your bike out. Five, six times?”
“Well,” Cutter said, beginning to see his point, “maybe not that much. But, quite a bit, yeah.”
“And you got back on that fucking bike every single time, didn't you?”
He drained the last of his beer and picked up the next one from beside his chair. “Yep, suppose I did,” he said as he popped the cap off it.
“So, lemme ask you this, then,” Smalls said, his words more emphatic. “Why'd you do something so damn stupid, boy?”
He thought about Smalls's words before he replied. Really gave them some consideration. Why had he gotten back up on his bike afterward? What could have possessed him to be so stupid as to do climb back on his hog, even after it had almost put him in the hospital, or damn near killed him.
Simple. It was in his blood. He could still remember the first time he'd climbed on a bike, had felt the power virtually at his fingertips, felt the wind in his hair as he raced down the highway. The heat rolling off the exhaust, the sun beating down on his skin and coming up off the pavement as he and the rest of the guys rode under the afternoon sky. He'd felt alive for the first time, had felt as close to complete as he had since high school ... since he'd last seen Liona. Everything seemed to come together in that moment, like he'd been born to ride a bike. Cutter shook his head again. He didn't want to answer, because if he spoke the words they might be real. Especially the part about Liona.
Smalls, like the old codger he was, took the initiative and spoke them for him. “You got back on, man, because you're supposed to get back on. No matter how many times you fall down, you got it in your gut to get back on the damn thing. That's why you're who you are, now.”
“So, you're saying I should get back with her?”
“That ain't what I'm saying,” Smalls said. “What I'm saying is, if it's in your gut, go for it. Women like that, they don't come around every day. And you sure as hell don't find 'em on the side of the road more than once in a lifetime.”
Silently, Cutter nodded and took another drink of beer. He settled down deeper into the lawn chair, letting it swallow him up as much as it could, and gazed deeper into the field of stars that splayed out over the night sky. Beside him, Smalls kept drinking his beer in silence. They stayed that way for a little while longer until his second-in-command decided to call it a night. The room was dark when Cutter succumbed as well and returned to this dorm where he slipped beneath the cool sheets and pressed himself against Liona's warm body. It felt like a lover's embrace, this feeling of ease that settled over him as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close against him.
“I got tired,” Liona mumbled, her voice heavy with exhaustion.
“It happens,” Cutter said and kissed the top of her head.
He tried to go sleep, but it didn't come for hours. His thoughts were too heavy with visions of Jersey shivering on a cold bunk, of Big Jack sleeping with one eye open. He had no right to be in the arms of this beautiful woman, stretched out on this comfortable bed.
Cutter would get them out. Come hell or high water, damnation or the end of days. He'd get his men out of jail, no matter what. That was his silent promise to them, just before exhaustion finally took him and he drifted off into his dark dreams.
Chapter 24
Cutter
Cutter woke to an empty bed. Confused, he patted the cold spot next to him, where Liona should have been. Wondering where she was, he sat up and looked around the room. Around him, the clubhouse was even more silent than normal. She'd probably gone for a walk, or something. He got up, performed his morning ritual, and pulled on some fresh jeans and a Vanguard emblazoned tee shirt. Ears open, he stalked out of his room and headed out to the rec room.
He stopped at end of the hallway and listened. There was a noise, coming from his kitchen. The rest of the clubhouse was silent, though, with most of the guys already gone for the morning shift. He still had an hour or so before he had to be there for the lunch rush. As he made his way across the rec room, and to the door leading to the kitchen, the noises grew louder. Was that Liona? Cooking for him?
He pushed through the door and poked his head inside. The smell of burning bread hit his nose immediately, and the sound of sizzling grease filled his ears. Liona frantically scraped at a pan with a flat spatula, making scrambled eggs. In the corner, their little toaster had a plume of smoke billowing from the top like the barbarian hordes had just razed it and stolen all their women. At the sound of his entering the room, she spun, a mildly worried look on her face, the flat spatula raised like a deadly weapon. A little startled by her response, Cutter froze in his tracks.
“Hey!” she squawked in surprise, clearly flustered. “I'm trying to make you breakfast.”
“Smells like it,” he said, trying to get past the burnt taste that was filling his nostrils and mouth. “Your toast is burning.”
“Shit!” she yelped, almost dropping her flipper as she scrambled over to pull the crisped and blackened bread.
He fought the urge down to jump in and save the day. She was trying to cook him breakfast, even if she was ruining all the food in the process. Instead, he just asked, “Need any help?”
“No, no,” she said, clearing the smoke from the toaster with a waving dish towel, “I've got it.”
He just shrugged and went over to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup. To her credit, it tasted just fine. He took his coffee black, just like his old man had, and went over to perch himself on the edge of the bar stool.
“What am I having for breakfast?” he asked, his voice still drawling with sleep.
“Bacon, scrambled eggs, toast,” she said, making a face as she dropped the burnt toast briquettes on a small plate. She went back over and began trying to save the eggs.
“Sounds good,” he replied. He could already tell, though, that the eggs were going to be dry little nuggets, and the bacon was going to be slightly undercooked. But, whatever, he'd forced the guys to eat worse when he'd first been starting out. “How long you been cooking?”
“Not very long,” she said, laughing nervously. “I tried to learn once, like you did. But, that didn't go over so well ...” she said.
Cutter knew “with Wyland” was the unspoken ending to that sentence but he kept his mouth shut and steeled his resolve to eat every last crumb he had. When it came to food, he lived by the Grandma Rule, something a much more famous chef than he had once said. If anyone cooks you food, and they do it with good intent, you eat it and you fucking love it. Food's the gift of life, and you don't just throw it away.
Whe
n she finally set his plate of overcooked eggs, burnt toast, and floppy bacon in front of him, he just covered the little, pale nuggets in pepper, and the burnt effigy of bread in as much butter and jelly as he could handle. She hovered over him with a wary, nervous look on her face as he choked it all down and contentedly began to chew the bacon for the five minutes it took before he could swallow it.
“What'd you think?” she asked, coming around to his side.
He belched a little and smiled. “Delicious, honey.”
“I thought the eggs were a little overdone,” she said as he put an arm around her waist and pulled her to his side.
“A little. You just need practice, that's all. I can teach you, if you want.”