“Thanks, Marta.” She nodded and then headed off to whatever work she’d been interrupted in. As she passed him, she patted his arm. Lately, she touched him in that maternal, comforting way every time she got within range.
He let his head swivel and watched her go, then turned back to Bibi, who stood yet in the foyer, as if she weren’t sure she’d be welcomed any farther into his house. That was strange. For all the years they’d lived in this house, Bibi had made herself comfortable here. On several occasions, when they’d used the house to protect their women and children, Bibi, mother to the club, had been something of a co-lady of the house with Riley.
Bart went to her and kissed her cheek. “Hi, Bibi.”
A microscopic frown flashed over her face, and with it, he understood that for the first time in longer than he could remember, he’d called her Bibi instead of ‘Beebs’—or, even more common, simply ‘Mama.’
“Hi, baby. You doin’ okay?”
Bart found a smile. Bibi’s loss was even more recent than his own, but here she was, checking on him. “Yeah. I’m okay. You?” He took her arm and led her into the living room. They sat together on one of the lush sofas Riley had picked.
“Oh, you know. I’m holdin’ things together.” She laid her hand on his thigh. “We missed you all last night, darlin’.”
The Horde had thrown one of their old football parties. The Colts and the Raiders on Monday Night Football. It was supposed to have been the first time the whole family had been together since Hoosier’s funeral. It had been Connor’s idea, a way to honor Hoosier, an avid Colts fan, and a way to start the club on its new path. A way to heal.
It was a good idea. But Bart hadn’t been able to face the thought of bringing his children anywhere near the clubhouse, anywhere near the club. So they’d stayed home. They’d ordered pizza and watched Disney movies.
“Sorry,” was all he said to Bibi. Badger was the only person he’d spoken to at all about his new antipathy toward his club.
“You’re leavin’ us, aren’t you?” Bibi asked, her voice quiet and rich with compassion.
So rich with compassion that Bart, who for weeks had been holding himself together with an iron will, felt as if Bibi had reached into his chest, right through that band of iron, and stroked his heart.
He collapsed. Clutching his arms across his aching chest, he folded forward, and the flood of desperate sorrow he’d been holding back, trying to keep away from his kids, trying to keep it from washing what little was left of him away, broke forth.
“Oh, baby,” Bibi crooned and pulled his sobbing body to her. She laid his head in her lap and stroked his back while he wept.
His children were in this house. They were upstairs; Deck was napping and Lexi and Ian were in their rooms, but they were in this house. They couldn’t see him like this.
And Jesus, he was leaning on Bibi for comfort, a woman who’d buried her husband more recently than he’d buried his wife. He should have been comforting her, not the other way around. After all Bibi and Hoosier had been through, after what they’d so recently survived, to lose him anyway only a couple of years later—fuck, how was that right? How could anybody believe in a god when shit like this happened?
Ironically, though, Bart wanted more than anything now to believe. He wanted what he’d told Deck to be true. He wanted Riley to be in heaven, waiting for them. He wanted her to be looking down on her family and loving them. He wanted to know that they would all be together again.
He wanted her to be waiting for him. He needed her to be waiting for him.
With a harsh breath and a rough swipe of his eyes, he cut off his stupid tears and sat back up. Bibi’s eyes were red and wet. “Fuck, Beebs. I’m sorry.”
“Hush, you.” She reached up and wiped his wet cheek with a gentle hand. “You needed that.”
“You’re the last person I—”
She gave his cheek a light slap. “I said hush. The last thing I fuckin’ want is sympathy. I had Hooj for forty-five years. I lived this life for all those years. Every single time he went out on a run, I was ready for him not to come home. For all those years—you know how many times I made myself ready? Hundreds. Thousands. And he made sure we got to say goodbye. After he got hurt in the fire, he fought like crazy to rob the devil and give us a couple more years together, and then he went and did it again, long enough to get home and tell me he loved me one more time. It hurts every minute, I ain’t sayin’ it don’t. And I don’t guess you’re ever really ready. But my man went out the best way he could. He went out fightin’. He went out savin’ our boy. And we got our goodbye. His last words to me, and mine to him, were our words, our love. So I’m doin’ okay.” She combed her fingers through Bart’s hair. “I got it easy compared to you.”
Bart could only sigh.
“You are leavin’, though. Ain’t that right?”
Bibi had eerie powers of observation. He’d never known anyone more astute than she. Everybody laughed about her X-ray vision or her mind-reading; nobody could keep a secret from Bibi Elliott.
It wasn’t a secret he was keeping. Just a thing he hadn’t fully faced until quite recently. Hell, he’d talked to Ronin not long ago, seeing that he was on the way out, and he’d tried to talk him into reconsidering. He had no idea if he’d been successful or not.
“Yeah,” he finally answered Bibi. “I am. I can’t…be here anymore. I need to give my kids a new start. Somewhere safe. Away from all of this.”
“You’re goin’ back to Signal Bend.”
He nodded. “Everybody around here knows about what happened. The kids can’t get clear of it. I can’t get clear of it. Not here. And I need them to be somewhere that nothing like that is ever going to happen again.”
“You transferrin’? Goin’ back to the mother charter?”
“I need to talk to Connor about all that.”
She nodded and didn’t push; she knew it wasn’t her place to ask about club matters. “I don’t need to tell you that bad things happen outside the club, too. You know that.”
“And you know it’s different. Bad things like what happened to Riley and Lexi, and Hooj—those things don’t happen to normal people.”
“What do the kids think?”
Bart felt a rush of defensive anger. Who did she think she was, questioning his decision? But she was Mama. And she was Granny Beebs, an important presence in his children’s lives since their births. SoCal was about the only family his children had ever had—with the distant exceptions of Riley’s mother, who’d died about a year ago and had never reconciled herself to Riley’s choice to marry an outlaw biker, and her cousin Pru, who lived in New York City and rarely visited.
The more pressing reason for his defensive feeling was a simple one: he hadn’t talked to the kids yet about it.
When his answer wasn’t immediately forthcoming, Bibi narrowed her eyes at him. “Can I offer you some advice, baby?”
He nodded. He was going to get it whether he wanted it or not; at least she’d asked first. “Sure.”
“When you talk to ‘em, don’t just tell ‘em. Talk. Hear what they’ve got to say. They’ve had a lot of loss already, and this is the only home they’ve ever had. If they’re not ready for more change and loss, then you could really hurt ‘em while you’re tryin’ to help ‘em.”
She was right, he knew. But he also knew that he could not live much longer in this life. He wanted his children as far away from it as he could get them. He wanted them in a small, safe, snug town, where everybody knew everybody and looked out for each other.
He wanted away from the men who’d voted in the life that had killed his wife and hurt his children.
Most of the men who’d made that vote were dead, it was true. But Bart didn’t trust the men who remained to stay on this new, straight course. Someday, some deal would happen. Some player would rise up and change the scene, and the question would land on the table again. He’d been burned enough—he rubbed the old scar on his right
forearm—literally and figuratively by choices made by a majority club vote.
He didn’t trust the men at the SoCal table to remember the lessons of the past.
But Bibi was right. He couldn’t cause his children more pain than the agony they were already reeling from. If they weren’t ready, then he’d wait. He’d talk to their therapist and help them be ready, and they’d leave when they were.
“Okay. You’re right. I’ll be careful with them.”
“You know I love you, right? I love those babies of yours with all my heart.” Her words began to warp as tears overtook her. “It’s gonna tear another piece out of me to lose you all. But I know you’ll do what’s right for your family. You just promise me that if you go, you won’t leave us all behind forever, y’hear?”
“I won’t. I love you, Mama.” He pulled her close and hugged her hard.
TWO
“I think I want to give it to Lucie and Callie.”
Lexi stood next to her father and, with an appraising tilt of her blonde head, considered her store. It was the dominant piece in their playroom, taking up half the space, and had been more extravagant than Bart and Riley normally indulged with the kids’ toys. They were, no two ways about it, wildly rich. They hadn’t wanted their children to grow up to be spoiled, entitled shits.
No need to worry about that anymore.
When they indulged, they tried to do it in a meaningful way, and this little market, with aisles and shelves stocked with all sorts of play food, with a checkout stand, carts, and little chalkboard pricing signs, with a scale for produce and a rack of canvas bags, had given their children and all the Horde kids hours and hours of earnest entertainment. Lexi still played in it, being store manager with the younger kids. Ian had moved on. But Deck loved it.
“Are you sure?” It was big and would be a pain to move, but it would be somebody else’s pain—he was paying people to pack and ship them.
“Yes. I’m sure. Lucie and Tucker and everybody should still have it, and Uncle Trick and Aunt Juliana have the best place for it.” She looked up at Bart, worried. “Do you think they would take it?”
“I’m sure of it, baby princess. They’ll be happy.”
She smiled a little and went in to start packing up plastic eggplants and broccolis.
He’d talked with—not to, but with—Lexi and Ian the same afternoon he’d talked to Bibi. Ian had offered nothing but shrugs. But the first question Lexi had asked was what Bart wanted. He’d told her that he wanted them to be safe, to feel secure and have a chance to be happy again. Wherever that was.
She’d stared at her hands and thought quietly, and then she’d said, “I think we should move, then.”
That sentence had flayed him top to bottom and told him everything he needed to know.
And then he’d seen Ian, just barely, move his head. A nod.
His children didn’t feel safe in the only home they’d ever known. He had failed them utterly. So they were leaving California. In Missouri, he would try to give them the chance to feel safe again, to find a new kind of happiness. A kind that would always be edged with loss.
He would do it alone, and he didn’t know how, but he would try.
Now he needed to tell Connor and the rest of the SoCal charter.
~oOo~
Connor stood up and went to close his office door. There wasn’t really any need; the clubhouse was empty. Everyone was in the shop or working elsewhere.
He sat back down and studied Bart for several seconds. Bart—though he was older, had been a patch longer, and only weeks before had been Connor’s superior—felt awkward and fidgety under the new SoCal President’s heavy stare.
“I gotta say, I got a hard time not taking this personally. I’ve had this office a few weeks. Voted in unanimously—you put my name up. Now you’re the second man this week to sit right there and tell me you want out. I just got Ronin to commit to stay, and now here you are. I know I’m not my father, but—”
“It’s not that, Con,” Bart cut him off. “You’re going to be a great leader. What the club needs. I have no doubt about that at all.” He was glad that Ronin had decided not to leave. He had seen the man’s conflict playing out on the sidelines, but Roe had seemed, from Bart’s vantage, too conflicted for leaving to have been the right choice. The club needed his steady, mature perspective—and his long history.
“Then why?”
“You know why. My kids don’t feel safe. I have to get them out of this.”
“You didn’t ask to be released, Bart. You don’t want out of the life. You want a transfer. You’re not leaving the club. You’re leaving my table.”
“Missouri has been working clean for almost ten years. Signal Bend is a safe place for my kids to grow up.”
“We’re clean now, too. You sat there and heard the discussion. Fuck, you were in it. Your kids are safe here.”
Bart shook his head, and Connor leaned back so hard in his chair that the back rammed into his desk and made the old monitor on it rattle. “You think you can’t trust me.”
“I trust you. I believe that you, and Trick, and Muse, and Sherlock, the whole table, you all want to stay clean. I believe it. But I believed us when we started this charter, too. You said it yourself: it’s a democracy. You can’t vouch for what will happen in a few years, when patches like Fargo and Keanu and Big Nate, and J.R., too—who weren’t around for Santaveria—forget what this was like. When they start having needs that being a mechanic or guarding pussy at strip clubs can’t pay to meet. No, I don’t trust this club to stay clean.”
“Same could be said for Signal Bend. Far’s I know, that’s a democracy, too.”
But it was different. It had always been different. Bart had always felt it, even as he’d made a home in SoCal, at this table, even as he’d been loyal to Hoosier and all his SoCal brothers. This charter was different from the mother charter in important ways, ways that felt like lack.
It had taken him a long time—years—to fully understand what the difference came down to. When he’d put his finger on it, he’d told no one but Riley.
To the mother charter, Signal Bend was home. In every possible sense of the word, the town was home. Even now, almost all of the members, past and present, had been born and raised within twenty miles of the clubhouse. Bart was an outlier in that way—he’d been born on a naval base and hadn’t lived in Signal Bend until he was prospecting for the club—but his father was a Signal Bend native, and Bart had spent summers with his grandparents there. He, too, had grown up in the shadow of the Night Horde MC.
Everybody in town was on a first-name basis with the Horde, and vice versa. The club was their strength and their savior.
What that did—that native sense of home and belonging—was weave bindings so strong and eternal that everything within the borders of the town was like a single, vibrant organism. They all shared experiences so similar that when one member felt a loss, suffered a pain, celebrated a joy, what the others felt wasn’t sympathy. It was empathy.
They were, in truth, a family. Not just the club, but the town, too. They were one.
SoCal didn’t have that.
The SoCal brothers had love and loyalty. They had trust and compassion. Bart didn’t doubt that for a minute. He felt it deeply.
But none of them shared experiences that predated the club. None of them had attended the same schools, known the same people, known each other as children. They had all been formed as discrete individuals with unique experiences, and they had come together as very different men. They had love, loyalty, trust, compassion. But what they felt when one of them suffered was sympathy, not empathy.
Hoosier had wanted the club to be a family. He had hit that note over and over, and he’d done all he could to bring his men into his fold. He’d done it, too. He and Bibi had made a family of men who’d had none.
The men at the Missouri table had been family from the days of their births.
Both were strong families. In
some ways, the SoCal version, a collection of orphans, had an extra sheen of open-heartedness. It meant something special to choose your family, and to be chosen into one.
But, Bart thought, it also meant that when the hard choices had to be made, every man with a vote was forming his choice from a unique perspective.
Many of the Missouri Horde were orphans, too, or had challenging histories with their blood families. But there was still that strong foundation of shared experience, of growing up in the same place, knowing the same things. It made the family they’d picked all the stronger.
Diaz, rest his soul, had often, when drunk, and more or less jokingly, sneered about the crazy redneck white boys in Missouri and their Viking bullshit, making the mother charter out like it was some kind of cult. In fact, Bart had called him into the ring over it a couple of times over the years, when Diaz had crossed all kinds of lines.
Calm & Storm (The Night Horde SoCal Book 6) Page 30