“Hello?” I answered.
My helmet had a Bluetooth setup for it.
Then I laughed at the realization of what a sucker I’d become.
My daughter had bought the helmet for me because she hated when I ‘put myself in danger unnecessarily.’
“Hey, dad. Will you watch the kids for me this weekend?” My daughter, Shiloh, asked.
I smiled, knowing I’d do it without question.
I, of course, had to tease her a bit, though.
“All of them?” I asked playfully.
My daughter laughed. “Yeah, all of them. Even Sam’s and Sebastian’s.”
Now that, I couldn’t do.
“You know I can’t watch all of them. They’d eat me alive,” I told her honestly.
Shiloh laughed again.
“Can’t you ask Reba to help you like she did last time?” She questioned.
I grimaced as I swung into the parking lot of The Dixie Wardens MC clubhouse.
“No can do, baby. Sorry. Reba and I just called it quits about twenty minutes ago,” I informed her.
There was a moment of shocked silence as my daughter processed that.
“I thought y’all were doing good?” Shiloh asked quietly.
I shrugged. “She’s getting back with her ex. The daughter gets out soon.”
Shiloh knew the story.
Reba had been very open with her daughter’s struggles.
We all knew the whole tale.
I’d been new in the Benton area, so my daughter hadn’t been here when it’d all gone down.
She was aware of the talk, though.
The town was stuck in the past, reliving memories of that night often.
It’d been a big deal for the town.
The family that had died that night had been celebrating their daughter’s graduation by going out for ice cream.
The parents of the girl, and the girl’s boyfriend had been in the Bronco, with the boy driving.
It’d been raining and visibility had been poor, and the accident had been brutal.
I’d remembered that clearly.
The aftermath had been what rocked the town.
The girl had just been accepted to Columbia University and would have been leaving later that month.
The girl’s boyfriend had already been attending Columbia University on a scholarship for football.
He’d been a star quarterback, and the college community had felt that loss throughout their world.
The real reason, though, that the community kept bringing it up, was because of the parents.
The father had been a teacher at the high school, and the mother had been a teacher at the elementary school.
The same teachers who’d taught the girl who’d killed those four people.
“’Yo!” Loki called, interrupting my thoughts. “What are you doing?”
I looked up in surprise to see four men staring in my direction.
Loki, Trance, my son, Sebastian, and Cleo.
“What the hell do you care what I’m doing, boy?” I asked.
It was a decent question, though, so I’d give him that.
But I was the president of The Dixie Wardens MC.
If I wanted to sit on my bike in the forecourt of our clubhouse in the rain, then I fucking would.
Simple as that.
“You got a call a couple of minutes ago from a man named Bonus,” Sebastian said from his position under the porch roof.
I nodded.
Bonus was my contact/handler.
I was a retired CIA asset, but occasionally they had need of my… services.
I didn’t offer them lightly, so they knew to call me only when they well and truly needed it.
I’d earned that right.
And the agency knew it.
I also had a kid that hated for me to prove it.
“Thanks,” I said, getting off my bike and pocketing the key in my jeans.
They all nodded at me as I entered the clubhouse, and I walked straight to my office.
I called ‘Bonus’ back immediately.
“It’s about time,” the man on the other end of the line said.
I laughed. “You told him your name was Bonus?”
Lynn laughed. “Well, you lot seem to like going by funny nicknames, so I decided to give it a whirl to see how I liked it.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Lynn,” I said, taking a seat in my office chair and punching on the computer. “What the fuck do you want?”
Lynn sighed and leaned back.
“You told me if the name ‘Shovel’ ever came back online again, I was to let you know immediately. So here’s your call letting you know immediately,” Lynn said dryly.
The breath in my lungs froze, and my eyes went far away as I tried not to vomit at hearing that name again.
“Tell me everything.”
Chapter 2
If the trailer’s a-rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’.
-Bumper Sticker
Sawyer
Officer Donner’s hands ran longingly over my hair, and I squeezed my eyes shut and I prayed.
I’d made it eight years without being raped.
Please don’t let it happen in the last twenty minutes I’m here.
A fight broke out in the yard, and the sirens started to wail as the security personnel started to swarm the area.
“Don’t worry, darlin’. Maybe we can meet up on the outside, make this real,” Officer Donner whispered.
I wanted to puke.
“See you soon, sweets,” he said as a parting gift, then left me to finish packing my few belongings.
“You’re welcome, bitch,” my cell-mate, and second best friend in the world, said to me.
Ruthie, Ruthann Comalsky, had been my cell-mate since I’d entered the wonderful world of Hunstville Women’s Correctional Facility eight years ago.
She’d had my back when guards tried to rape me the first day I was there.
And I had hers when they tried to do it to her later that night in retaliation for helping me.
Ruthie was in jail because her husband had tried to beat her to death, and instead of taking it lying down, she’d shot him while he was peeing during one of his breaks from hitting her.
Something that almost anyone would’ve done.
Ruthie was thirty-one to my twenty-nine, and she had four months left on her nine-year sentence.
And I felt horrible leaving her alone.
“Ruthie,” I said softly. “I’m so sorry.”
Ruthie’s face melted as she took me in.
“It’s going to be okay, Sawyer. I promise. You’ll see,” she whispered.
I should’ve known when those words came out of her mouth, that they would only bring bad luck.
Those words gave me hope when I damn well knew I shouldn’t have had any.
“Get out of here already. They called for you over an hour ago,” she urged quickly.
I put one last thing in my trash bag and walked up to the one thing that had saved me these last eight years. The one woman I owed my life to, over and over again.
“I love you, Ruthie,” I whispered to her. “I’ll be waiting the day you get out.”
She hugged me tight.
“I’ll look forward to it. We’ll go for burgers and a beer. Okay?” She asked hopefully.
I nodded weakly.
She grinned, and I let her go.
She tossed me my bag, and I walked out behind the guard that’d be walking me to the front gates.
I felt lost.
Really lost.
I had no clue what I’d do once I got out.
I knew my mom was willing to take me home… but I didn’t have a home.
Not anymore.
I was staying at a halfway house in town, much to my parent’s annoyance.
But I just didn’t think they needed to hear
me at night when I woke up from my nightmares.
The scenes that played out in my mind, over and over as if in a loop, night after night.
Although, now, they weren’t all the same horrid one of the night I crashed into that Bronco.
Now there were new ones… more vivid ones that didn’t have eight years on top of the memories.
“Hurry up, girl,” the guard at my side said. “They’re about to come in from the yard, and I don’t want to be caught with my pants down.”
I checked the eye roll.
Apparently, I was the ‘pants down’ portion of his problem.
Then he’d have to protect me since I was technically no longer a ward of this prison.
I hurried anyway, though.
I had a date with Isaac. And I couldn’t wait to see him.
I was blessed to have him.
He’d been there for me through thick and thin.
As had Bristol.
They were two of the best friends ever.
We arrived at the final door that would lead me to the final hallway that led outside, and I swear my heart was about to beat out of my chest.
Not necessarily from happiness, though.
From fear.
I’d spent eight long years on the inside, and I wasn’t sure I would ever be the same.
I’d always be registered as a criminal.
Finding a job would be hard.
Really hard.
I already knew my nursing career was gone.
You couldn’t be an ex-con and be a nurse. You had to have a clean record.
Fuck, but I’d had an extensive background check to even get into the program in the first place.
Now, the entire year and a half I’d spent on my bachelors of nursing degree was useless.
As were many medical field jobs that might be willing to take my college credits.
“Sign here,” the guard behind the glass window ordered, shoving a paper in my direction and a bag of my belongings.
There wasn’t much there.
An old cell phone that was so outdated that I’d never be able to turn it on again, let alone use it.
A key to my old dorm… something else I didn’t need anymore.
A wallet with my driver’s license in it.
My expired driver’s license.
And a watch.
That was it.
The extent of the belongings I had arrived here with.
“Here’s all the Certificates of your Release for timed served. Here’s your post bail money, as well as a bus ticket,” the guard muttered.
I smiled. “I won’t need the bus ticket, I have someone meeting me.”
I hadn’t told my mom the exact day I was getting out.
I wanted to get changed out of these horrid clothes first.
They were mine, but they fit my twenty-two year old self. Not my twenty-nine year old self. They were too tight, and I was fairly sure that if I bent over, the button on the front of my pants would burst off and shatter the glass in front of me.
He shrugged and threw the ticket down onto the table beside him.
“Thanks,” I muttered, putting the watch on.
It felt weird.
Like really weird.
I hadn’t worn jewelry in well over eight years.
Belly flipping summersaults, I walked out the door of the long hallway and stepped into the sunshine.
To find nobody there.
It was just that, the end of the road.
I looked to my left, noting the huge red fence that marked my captivity for the last eight years.
Then to my front to see the very empty parking lot.
Then to my right, seeing more of that same red brick.
I didn’t dare go back in and ask for that bus ticket.
It’d be like admitting defeat. And I wasn’t a fucking quitter.
Far from it, actually.
With no other recourse, I started to walk.
The duffel bag I had in my arms was heavier than hell.
It held fifteen books, two pairs of clothes and photos.
My whole entire life was packed into that one single bag.
As I got to the main road, I turned left, noting the buildings off in the distance.
That would be the way to go then. The other way only had trees.
About a mile and a half into my walk, I lost my books, dumping them into the first trashcan I came to right at the edge of town.
Even though it killed me to do it, I walked away and didn’t look back.
The first restaurant that I came to was a Whataburger, and I immediately turned into the parking lot and walked inside and straight up to the counter.
“Can I help you?” The woman behind the register asked.
I nodded, and bit my lip as I looked over the menu boards above her head.
“Umm, I want a number one with cheese and ketchup only, please. Large fries and a Coke,” I said softly.
The woman blinked, looking me up and down, and I just knew she was thinking ‘how are you going to fit all of that into your tiny body?’
Luckily, she didn’t say it aloud. Instead, she handed me a number on a little orange triangle.
“Have a seat, we’ll bring it out to you shortly,” she said, smiling.
I wondered if she knew I was coming directly from the prison?
Did the duffle bag give me away?
It was fairly simple. Just a black canvas bag with a black zipper.
I could be anyone, I decided.
“Thank you,” I said softly.
She nodded and handed me a cup that was the size of my head.
I blinked, taking the cup.
Holy shit! The cup was freakin’ massive.
Shrugging my shoulders, I walked over to the drink fountain and stared at it.
“It’s new,” a little girl, probably about twelve, said.
She was wearing pink capri pants and a pink flowered shirt.
I watched her as she filled her cup up with ice, then started punching buttons on the screen.
“You can put whatever you want into it. It’s pretty stinkin’ cool, if you ask me,” she chattered as she filled her drink up with at least seven different flavored drinks.
A suicide.
I hadn’t had one of those in years.
So what did I do?
I followed suit, filling up my massive head-sized cup with grape flavored soda, Dr. Pepper, and a cherry vanilla Coca-Cola.
“That’s gross,” I heard said from behind me.
At first I didn’t comprehend what I was hearing, but it didn’t take long for my brain to come back on line.
“Bristol,” I said breathlessly. “You came.”
She smiled. “I did. I was late, I’m so sorry. I meant to get there earlier, but my kids had a meltdown this morning before I left, and it made me late. I got to the parking lot I was supposed to be picking you up in, and the guard at the gate pointed in this direction to where she saw you walk. It’s only understandable that you’d want something to eat.”
A tear slipped from my eye as I placed my drink and bag on the closest table, and then I walked right into my best friend’s arms for the first time in eight years.
She smelled like strawberries.
She always had.
She loved strawberries.
And I’d forgotten.
Bristol had visited with me hundreds of times in the last eight years, but I’d never hugged her.
We weren’t allowed to touch.
For the visitor’s safety, I sneered.
“I’m so glad you’re out, honey,” Bristol whispered roughly, her throat clogging with tears as she did.
I nodded. “Not that I’m not happy that you’re here,” I said, pulling away from her when my food arrived. “But what are you doing here? I thought Isaac was picking me up. At least that’s what his last letter said.�
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Bristol looked down at her hands.
“Isaac,” she hesitated. “Isaac has a lot of stuff to explain.”
I blinked.
“What do you mean?” I asked as we both took our seats. “Is he having trouble at work again?”
Isaac worked with his father. His father owned an oil business that allowed him the free reign to be the big boss, living large on the money his men made for him.
His son was also privileged that way as well.
Not that Isaac saw it that way. He didn’t like that his daddy was the boss of him. He wanted to be his own boss.
The problem was that his father dominated the market in our small community.
Anybody who was anybody knew who Doral Roans was.
Nobody would cross Doral for Isaac. He wasn’t worth it.
Something I’d been trying to tell Isaac for years. No one was going to leave Doral and start doing business with him just because he’s a nice guy. Doral had been the dominant supplier in this market for years. Not to mention that he was not a nice man, and he was definitely not a man you’d stop doing business with to do it with his son instead.
“Jesus,” Bristol said, distracting me. “Do you want me to go get you another burger?”
I moaned at the way the juicy morsels filled my mouth with heaven.
And the fries.
Oh, my God, the fries.
They were divine.
“No,” I said, washing the fries down with a suck on my Suicide. “I’m probably not going to eat all of this.”
Bristol stayed uncharacteristically silent as I polished off my hamburger, only making the odd comment about people that walked through the door.
“We’ll have to go find you some clothes,” Bristol said, surprising me.
“I don’t have any money to buy clothes,” I informed her bluntly.
She blinked. “I have money.”
I shook my head. “You’re not buying me clothes. I’ll just get the ones from my mom’s house. It’ll be okay.”
She looked at the shirt that I was wearing and raised her brows.
“And will they all fit you like that?” She asked teasingly.
I looked down at the baby doll T-shirt that was something closer to a half shirt rather than a shirt, and shrugged. “It’ll work out. I’ll sew some new ones when I get home.”
She shrugged.
“We have an apartment over the garage that I want you to stay in,” she said softly, looking at me with sincere eyes.
Counter To My Intelligence (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC Book 7) Page 2