The building was pretty new.
The outside of it was incredible.
The exterior of the building was made of a shiny tin, made rustic looking with wood framing the entire thing. Huge glass windows. Large wooden door.
It was then that the sign caught my attention. Halligans and Handcuffs.
Nice.
I’d heard about the place from Dallas.
He’d written about the impact that this place had had on the city of Benton.
How it’d turned into a local hangout for not just cops and firemen, but the entire community.
I turned my head back around and kept on pedaling.
Then I started to hold my breath.
Because I was coming up on the spot where it happened.
The exact spot where my whole life had changed.
The spot where I’d taken the lives of four people.
I willed myself not to stop, to keep going, but my feet and hands wouldn’t listen.
My hands pulled the brake, and my feet stopped pedaling.
I came to a stop on the road where there was still, to this very day, flowers and four crosses.
And I started to cry.
I couldn’t help it.
My God, I’d taken four lives!
Me!
I was a horrible, no good, very bad person and not a single day went by that I didn’t wish it was me that’d died that day instead of them.
If I could go back to that moment in time, I would’ve prayed for God to take me instead.
I would’ve done anything to change places with them.
Pleaded.
Gotten down on my knees and begged.
Not because I didn’t want to spend my life in prison, paying for my crimes.
But because those four people didn’t deserve to die.
Mr. and Mrs. Neesen had been educators.
They’d been making a difference in children’s lives.
Their daughter and her boyfriend had futures so bright ahead of them that even my previous dream of a nursing career didn’t compare.
I hadn’t realized that I’d dropped to my knees until I heard a motorcycle again.
I didn’t look up.
Hoping that, if I didn’t move, nobody would notice me.
I should’ve known it was a stupid wish.
Especially when I looked up to see the bike stopping not even five feet from me.
It was the older biker.
The one I couldn’t stop looking at earlier.
And, Sweet Baby Jesus, was he ever hot.
He certainly didn’t look ‘old.’
He looked…sexy. Distinguished. Mature. And very, very male.
The only reason I could really tell that he was ‘older’, as I was calling it, was because of his hair.
It was salt and pepper.
A silver fox, I thought to myself.
Even his beard.
“You okay?” The man rumbled.
Oh God, his voice was sexy.
Deep.
Alluring.
“Yeah,” I sniffled, wiping my eyes with the backs of my hands. “I’m fine.”
He nodded. “Did you fall?”
I looked down at my bike, realizing that he thought I’d crashed or something with the way I was crying and on my knees, my bike at an awkward angle from where it’d fallen.
“No. I didn’t fall,” I said, looking down at my hands. “I’m okay.”
That ‘I’m okay’ was more for my benefit than his.
I needed to get up.
To get away from here before I went into one of those moods again.
The type that sucked me in and wouldn’t let me go until morning.
I could feel the panic rising. Could feel the tears pouring down my cheeks.
But I couldn’t stop them.
I didn’t know how.
And then I said something stupid.
“I killed them,” I whispered brokenly.
Chapter 4
Hold on to me. Never let me go. If you do, I can’t promise I’ll be there when you come back.
-Sawyer to Silas
Silas
“I know,” I told her.
She clenched her eyes shut, and the apples of her cheeks, the only part of her face that had any color left in it, paled.
“I never meant to,” she whispered. “I wish it would’ve been me.”
My gut clenched.
This was most certainly not how I wanted to meet Reba’s daughter.
I’d hoped it’d be under different circumstances.
Maybe while she was visiting her parent’s house.
Or maybe while at the grocery store.
I didn’t do tears.
Tears did things to a man.
Made him feel sorry for things he couldn’t control.
Made him do and say things that he never would’ve said had there not been tears.
“Life doesn’t work like that,” I told her, wishing it did, in fact, work like that.
I would know.
I could recall five such instances that I could offer myself instead of another person being taken from me. And it never got any easier.
“I know. I know. I can’t stop myself from thinking it, though. It’s like a burn in my gut, and a bullet to my brain. It never stops,” she whispered, leaning forward so her hands were crossed tightly around her stomach.
No, it didn’t.
“You want a ride?” I asked.
She finally gave me her eyes, and I felt the shock all the way through me.
It pierced my brain, traveling to the tips of my fingers and toes.
Her hair was down.
Long, curly, black, and down to her ass.
It was beautiful.
But what made her absolutely stunning were her eyes.
A deep shade of blue, nearly indigo.
Her eyes were captivating, and I found myself extremely disappointed when she looked away and went back to staring at the cross.
The cross that was changed with the seasons like clockwork.
New flowers were put on the spot once a month by lord only knows who, and it bothered me at times.
The town wasn’t letting it go.
And I feared that this meant bad things for Sawyer.
Especially when it came to making friends, once again
“No, I don’t want a ride,” she said, startling me.
“How far do you have to go?” I persisted.
She pointed in the direction.
“That’s helpful.”
She shrugged, uncaring.
Then, without another word, she got up, mounted her bike and rode away.
She looked back three times before she was too far away for me to see her, and I cursed as I looked over at the cross one last time before I started the bike up with a roar.
I was meeting Lynn to talk to him about the possibility that Shovel could be near the town.
My town.
A town that I told him, under no circumstance, was he ever allowed to show up in again.
He’d been in jail now for over twenty years and had been released just two days ago, according to Lynn.
When I’d first gotten into The Dixie Wardens, Shovel had been the vice president of The Dixie Wardens MC.
He’d been the president’s right hand man, and the one man that was steadily pushing more and more drugs through the small town of Benton until it drew the attention of the CIA as well as ATF.
The CIA wanted an inside man, and I’d been put into place as a prospect. I worked for an entire year to get into that club, and I had to endure torture upon torture in the process.
And I fuckin’ hated every single minute of it.
Mainly because of the man named Shovel and the fact that he thought giving drugs to kids was an okay thing to do.
Not to mention he was the one to push all the oth
er illegal activities.
Which meant I had to do illegal things.
I followed the girl at a safe distance until she was nearly on the road to a nicer subdivision on the outskirts of town.
When she was safely within the confines of said subdivision, I pulled over, shut the bike off once more and pulled out my phone.
“Yeah?” A male voice answered.
“Dixie,” I said. “Is Berry there?”
Dallas Berry was Sawyer’s brother, and I had a feeling that he’d want to know what had just transpired.
“Yeah, him and Kettle are sitting right here,” Dixie said, the music from the bar thumping loudly across the line.
“Tell him his sister needs him. She’s at his house.”
“Got it.”
The phone clicked, signaling the end of the conversation, and I shoved the phone back into my pocket before I started the bike back up.
With one last look into the subdivision where she’d disappeared, I put all thoughts of Sawyer Berry, her captivating blue eyes and her beautiful black hair out of my mind.
Instead, focusing on what was to come.
***
Three hours later I wasn’t in any better of a mood.
In fact, it was worse.
“What do you mean that’s all you can tell me? So he got out of prison, walked down the street, got on a bus, and you haven’t seen him since? What about his parole officer?” I questioned him, pinching the bridge of my nose.
Lynn shrugged.
“Hasn’t seen him either. Neither has his doctor,” Lynn confirmed.
“Fuck!” I yelled, bringing the attention of the bartender to me.
I’d ridden two hours to get to this little hole in the wall bar, and then spent another hour waiting on this fucker to get here. This was really pissing me off.
He’d just shown, and in no uncertain terms, had said that he had no clue where Shovel was.
Nor did he think he could spare any resources on finding him.
“How about this,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “You tell that boss of yours that he’ll help me, or he’ll fuckin’ regret it? Do I make myself clear?”
This would’ve never happened with the old director.
The new one felt he was too good to help out old colleagues.
Even if I wasn’t technically a colleague of his anymore, it didn’t mean that I didn’t do the odd job here and there.
It also didn’t mean that I didn’t still know some people.
Or that I couldn’t get to the fucker.
“He’s not going to like that,” Lynn cautioned.
I shrugged. “I don’t really give a fuck. I can find Shovel myself, of course, but old Crotch Rot isn’t going to like it.”
Lynn rolled his eyes. “Crotch Rot? You’re still calling him that?”
I nodded.
Crotch Rot was really Crotchet. And he didn’t much like being called Crotch Rot. Which was why I did it.
Crotchet didn’t like me, and I made no bones about not liking him either.
He was a selfish prick who only looked out for himself and his own advancement in the company, rather than the men under his wing.
“Just tell him,” I sighed, standing up and paying my bill.
The bartender nodded his thanks for the tip, and Lynn walked with me out to my bike.
I scanned the parking lot, as I did automatically every time I entered a different environment, and straddled my bike.
“I’ll tell him, Silas. But you’re going to have to be careful. He’s not a dick. He won’t care what you did to get where you’re at. He sees it as you being over entitled. Something he’s been spouting off for months,” Lynn offered.
I smiled.
I’d been offered Crotchet’s position more than once. Had I wanted it, I could just go take it from him. And maybe he needed to know just what he was dealing with.
“Fine,” I said, smiling lightly. “I’ll talk to Rosenthal.”
Lynn blinked.
Slowly.
“You’ll… you’ll what?” he stuttered.
I nodded, firm in that decision. I had been considering going over his head.
Maybe I should just go over right now.
Maybe that was the way to take care of this… to nip this thing in the ass before it got to where I could see it going if it got out of hand.
“Yeah, I think I’ll do that. Don’t worry about telling Crotchet a thing.”
Chapter 5
Some days are harder than others. But those other days I usually drown myself in wine, so I’m not quite sure if they’re actually easier or if I’m drunk.
- Fact of Life
Sawyer
“You can’t take a baby into a bar,” I said in mock outrage as Bristol pulled into a parking spot directly in front of Halligans and Handcuffs. I was referencing one of my favorite movies – Sweet Home Alabama.
“It’s not only a bar… and besides, it’s one o’clock in the afternoon,” Bristol said as she got out.
Since Bristol and Dallas’ youngest was on my side, I got the car seat and carried her inside, warily.
“Whatever you say… I won’t be the one going down for child endangerment,” I muttered under my breath.
By the time I made it to the front door, Bristol was there holding the door open for me.
I winced when the car seat dug slightly into my arm, and I handed the baby off to her mother.
The baby was probably all of eighteen pounds, but that was enough to make her feel like a million in the car seat.
Bristol took the seat and slung it into the crook of her arm like it was second nature… which it probably was seeing as this was her second child.
Their other baby, Latham, was at pre-school until three this afternoon.
Latham didn’t even know me, and I was his aunt.
I shut down that thought before it could morph into anything worse.
I studiously avoided looking at the cross on the way to and from work today.
It’d been only a half-day today since Zack had Friday afternoons off, and I was grateful.
Riding my bike back and forth to work, as well as putting in a whole eight hour shift, was tiring.
And it was more than I’d done in ten years; it was going to take some getting used to.
“Just two?” A man asked.
I looked up to find the man behind the bar, a man that had a long white beard down to his chest, and a pot-belly to rival a sumo wrestler, staring at us.
“Two and a baby. A booth will be fine,” Bristol said, holding up the arm that was holding the car seat.
The man nodded to a booth towards the middle of the room, and I grinned.
I loved how they incorporated all the firefighter and police memorabilia.
It was tastefully done, not ostentatious like it could’ve been.
“This place is nice,” I said, sitting down across from where Bristol sat Danni’s car seat.
Bristol took her own seat, and we both looked the menu.
It was the, “What can I get for you ladies?” That had me looking up.
It was the man.
The same one from the other day that’d stopped to make sure I was okay.
The older one.
I licked my lips.
“Dr. Pepper,” I said roughly.
My voice sounded scratchy, as if I’d been gargling Jack Daniel’s and chain smoking.
The old man smiled, and I was taken by his appearance once again.
I’d never seen an older man as hot as him.
He was just as fit as any other man in the room, if not even more so.
“I want a water with lemon,” Bristol said, smiling at the man.
I felt an irrational surge of jealousy when the man turned his attention to her. “You got it, babe.”
Bristol smiled as the man turned and left, and I was left wondering how well they
knew each other.
“You know him?” I asked softly.
Bristol nodded.
“Everyone knows him. He’s the owner,” she whispered back.
My eyes widened. “Really? How old is he?”
She shrugged. “We always get mixed numbers. His son, who I’m sure you’ll see around, says he’s in his fifties. But the man doesn’t look a day over forty. He’s seriously beautiful, and I can only hope that Dallas ages that well.”
“His hair looks like that man’s on the commercial… you know the one for ‘Touch of Gray?’ The one that you said looked fake?” I whispered back.
She nodded. “He shaved off his long beard a few months ago. He looked a little bit older then. Now he looks like a fuckin’ cover model for Harley Davidson. They could seriously use him on all their ads and women would go buy Harleys just in hopes that their husbands might look that cool.”
I rolled my eyes.
“He looks good now, though. I like his beard that size.”
His beard was trimmed close to his face and outlined his jaw, upper lip, and midway up his cheeks perfectly.
It was the type that would feel great against the inside of your thighs… you know…if I had to guess.
I’d only had one lover in my lifetime, and that was when I was seventeen.
And he was as baby faced as they came.
It was incredibly disheartening and had been the only experience I would have… probably ever.
Which was the saddest part.
“What are you getting to eat?” She asked.
I looked down at my menu, noticing that they didn’t have anything that wasn’t fried.
My mouth watered at the plethora of foods.
“Chicken fried steak, fried okra, French fries, and fried pickles.”
Silence.
I looked up to see Bristol staring at me with wide eyes.
“You’re going to give yourself a heart attack,” she mumbled, going back to her menu.
I shrugged.
“Maybe.”
What did it matter?
I had no life.
And my family had already proved that they could live without me.
There was nothing keeping me here.
“She doesn’t look much different,” the whispered voice had me tensing.
I didn’t look up from my menu as I listened to the two ladies across the aisle from me discussing me.
Counter To My Intelligence (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC Book 7) Page 4