by Toni Blake
“So Bill’s old lady was a girl named Vicki. And she . . .” Shit, this shouldn’t be the hardest part, but with Tessa, it kind of was. “She had a thing for me. And there was . . . chemistry between us.” He sensed Tessa tensing further beside him in the dark, but he couldn’t help that—right now he just had to keep going. “It was only physical, but it was strong, and she egged it on. She was always flirting with me, and whenever Bill wasn’t around, she was coming on to me, rubbing up against me and shit.”
“And you . . . didn’t respond?” Tessa asked.
Thinking back, he said, “Flirted some maybe, but that was it.”
“Why not?”
He looked her squarely in the eye. “I valued my life. I told you, Bill was a crazy bastard, and real possessive. She was putting us both in danger doing the things she did. Truth is, she wasn’t the brightest girl—she didn’t seem to get that she was playing with fire. Or . . . maybe she did. Maybe that was part of the thrill for her.” He just shook his head, remembering. “Either way, late one night, I finally gave in. We had sex in a back room of the Assassins’ clubhouse. I was drunk, and too stupid to realize there were still a few members out front who could guess what was going on. They told Bill the next day.”
He appreciated the fear in her voice when she said, “What happened?”
And this part was hard to say because even though he knew he wasn’t to blame, he still felt responsible. His throat went dry. “Bill beat Vicki to a pulp. Put her in the hospital. I went to see her and it was . . . pretty damn awful.”
Tessa had already moved on from that, though, asking, “What did he do to you?”
Lucky caught his breath and tried to quit recalling Vicki in that hospital bed with her eyes blackened, her throat and arms bruised, one lung collapsed, and all sorts of tubes coming in and out of her. “You remember that guy, Red, you met at my place?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“During my last year with the club, he’d gone from being a hang-around to a prospect.” And sensing she was about to ask, he explained, “A hang-around is somebody who tries to hang out and get in good with the club. They get bossed around, made to do stuff like get beer, stand guard outside meetings, shit like that. After that, you’re made a prospect—kind of a member-on-a-trial-basis.
“So anyway, me and Duke were both steering clear of the club’s usual hang-outs—but Red found us at a little run-down bar up the street from Duke’s apartment. Wild Bill had sent him looking for us with a message . . . to steer clear of his woman from now on.”
The fact was, Bill’s message had been much more detailed than that. But there was no need to scare Tessa with that now that he finally felt assured this all lay in the past, ten years and two thousand miles away. Even if he could still hear Red telling him in that Texas accent of his, “Wild Bill said it’s simple—you screw with his old lady, he’ll screw with yours. Wherever you go, dude, any woman you value—her ass belongs to him and she’ll be beggin’ for mercy before it’s over.” It still gave him chills.
But he went on with the rest of it. “So I asked Red if that meant Bill was kicking me out of the MC. But Red—being Red—didn’t know and said he’d have to ask.” The memory left Lucky shaking his head some more—leave it to Red to screw up a threat.
“What happened then?” Tessa asked.
And—God, he didn’t want to tell her the rest. If only he’d followed his instincts then. But he hadn’t. And that had changed everything.
“Well, I should’ve left that night—should’ve just got on my bike and rode, as far and as fast as I could. Duke and me even talked about it. But we were afraid it would make things worse, that Bill would reach out through other chapters and ally clubs and find us somehow. We decided that staying and riding the storm out was the smartest thing to do.”
After that, he stayed quiet for a minute, until Tessa’s voice sliced through the haze of memory. “Tell me the rest, Lucky.” And he could almost hear in her tone now that she’d begun to understand the kind of man she’d gotten herself involved with—and he only hoped like hell she knew he wasn’t that man anymore.
Only—what did it matter? Because when she heard the next part, she wouldn’t want anything more to do with him. He couldn’t see this ending any other way. And even feeling the finality of that deep down inside, he still couldn’t not tell her. He’d come too far here, and now it was like . . . purging his sins or something. He suddenly didn’t think he’d be able to live with himself if he didn’t go on with the whole story, even the part that sometimes still gave him nightmares.
“The next night, Wild Bill sent another messenger to the bar—but this time it was a full-patch member of the club, a big bald dude called Hammer. Me and Duke were the only people in the whole place—when Hammer walked in, even the bartender disappeared out the back.” As Lucky spoke now, he began to sweat—he no longer saw the shadow of Tessa next to him or felt the calm of the night around them. Instead he could almost smell the stale air of the bar, could almost hear Three Dog Night singing “Mama Told Me Not To Come” on the old jukebox in the corner, could almost feel the stark fear coursing through him when Hammer said in a low growl, “Bill sent me to say you’re never out of the club, asshole. And now I’m gonna teach you the same lesson he taught that bitch, Vicki.”
“Next thing I know,” he heard himself tell Tessa, “the guy was coming at me with a blade.”
She flinched—yet he went on, now filled with old fear, old desperation. “So Duke attacked him, from behind—hit him over the head with a bottle. But it didn’t even faze him. He just turned on Duke and started slashing through the air between them, backing him into a corner. Duke had a knife in his boot, but he couldn’t get to it, and I was . . . hell, I was scared shitless. I think that’s when I really understood just how good a friend he was.”
Lucky felt out of breath now. He’d been sure Duke’s blood was gonna flow any minute and he was gonna lose his best friend. He swallowed back the lump in his throat. “So I picked up the heaviest thing I could find—this big, antique beer stein sitting on a windowsill—and I brought it down on Hammer’s head as hard as I could.”
He stopped then, overwhelmed by the memories, by his own words. He’d never told anyone this before. He’d never said it out loud.
“Lucky?” she said softly. But her voice seemed to come from somewhere far away—it sounded muted, distant. At some point, she’d drawn her feet down from his lap and now leaned forward to touch his knee. “Are you okay? What happened after you hit Hammer?”
“He died,” Lucky said, his own voice sounding small to him now, as well. “He hit the floor, and a big pool of blood started growing around his head. I killed him.”
. . . soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his.
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Fifteen
Christ. He felt his own words like a punch in the gut. They seemed to echo inside him now. I killed him. I killed him. I killed him.
Beside him, Tessa’s voice shook. “Oh God. What then?”
He sought out her gaze in the dark, took in the glint in her eye. Felt as he had for years after that night, as if he wasn’t sure he deserved to be alive, living a normal life. Damn, that hadn’t hit him quite so hard in a while—maybe he’d even thought he was over it. And now his eyes felt wet, and a tear rolled down his cheek. “We ran. We got on our bikes and rode like hell, like the devil himself was chasing us. And he probably was—for a while anyway.”
Lucky stopped once more, closed his eyes, willed away the damn tears. “We rode east, day and night. And we dumped our colors—our vests with the club’s emblems—in a trash can somewhere in Nevada. And we lived in fear for a long time, because a gang’s reach can be long and far. But that was the end of it.” He paused, drew in a deep breath, and tried to quit feeling everything so much.
“So now you know,” he finished. “I killed somebody. And I ran away from it and never looked back. E
xcept in my head.”
“It was self-defense,” she pointed out. “And in defense of your friend, too.”
“Yeah, but . . .” He looked down, not quite able to face her right now. “I took somebody’s life. And it wasn’t mine to take. And yeah, the guy was a scumbag. But I was a scumbag, too, at the time, and . . . it’s possible for people to change. So he could have changed, too—and . . . I took away that chance. I mean, everybody counts, don’t they?”
When she reached for his hand, he looked back up at her. God, she was beautiful. Even in the pale light of a crescent moon, he could see that, drink it in. At the moment, it seemed . . . too nice a thing for him to have, to look at. He didn’t deserve something that good. “Listen to me,” she said. “You didn’t have a choice.”
“But I had a lot of choices before that. And if I hadn’t made all the wrong ones, I never would have ended up there.” He shook his head, the shame oozing like a freshly reopened wound inside him. “When I think of all the shit I did in those days—from stealing cars to fights with rival gangs to what happened with Hammer . . . damn, babe. The world can be pretty fucking ugly sometimes. And I just hate that I added more. And . . . if you don’t want to be around me anymore, I would understand.”
She stayed quiet for a minute, and despite her comforting words, he began to fear—to know—that he’d been right; she didn’t want him anymore. And he couldn’t blame her. Sometimes it was easy to forget just what a bad person he’d been for a while, what hideous things he’d done—but when forced to put it out there, to lay it on the table, it was a lot. He’d been the kind of man he wouldn’t want anyone he cared for to be around. How could she feel any different?
Finally, she began to speak and he braced himself. “Maybe I should be afraid right now. Maybe I’m crazy to still be sitting here with you, holding your hand. Because, yeah, you just told me some pretty terrible stuff. But . . . it’s hard for me to imagine the man I know doing those things. So . . . I have to believe you’re not that guy anymore. I have to believe you’re a changed man.”
He swallowed past the tightness in his throat. “I am, Tessa—I swear it. I swear it on everything I have.”
“I believe you,” she whispered.
And he was amazed at her. Amazed at her faith. Amazed because right now, more than ever in his life, he felt like his nickname made sense: He was one hell of a lucky guy if a woman like this was willing to stand beside him after what he’d just dropped on her. “Why?” he asked, a little dumbfounded.
“Because I can see it in your eyes.”
And Lucky just said, “Come here to me, babe—please,” and opened his arms to her. A few seconds later she was sitting on his lap, wrapped in his embrace, and he was burying his face in the soft spot where her neck curved into her shoulder, and drinking in the feminine scent of her, and knowing once again that he didn’t deserve her, but he was so, so thankful she wasn’t running away from him.
And he realized in that moment, Tessa didn’t do that—she didn’t run. She had a health condition she couldn’t run from; she just toughed it out like a bruiser. And she could have run from him on the very first day they’d met or lots of times after that when he knew he’d made her so nervous. But she’d stood her ground—that’s who she was. And it was probably one more reason he’d fallen for her.
After that, he told her the rest. How he and Duke had ended up in this area on sheer instinct since they both had family in the region. And Duke had liked Crestview enough to stay—while Lucky had decided to move on, not only because he didn’t want to face his family but because he was afraid he’d endanger them. They’d also been scared enough then—paranoid maybe, but who could say?—that they’d decided it was safer to just split up. And they’d both had different ideas of what they wanted anyway—Duke had sought a quieter existence someplace small, while Lucky had felt it would be easier to blend into the woodwork of a city.
“What do you want now?” she asked him softly. And God, it felt good just to hold her. There for a few minutes he’d been sure he’d never get to again.
He thought her question over and said, “Now that I’m older, and hopefully wiser, I’m starting to think being in a small town’s not so bad after all. And getting back with my family . . . that was hard, but the truth is, it’s made me feel more . . . human or something . . . than I have in a real long time.”
“I’m glad,” she whispered.
“But Tessa, I gotta tell ya . . . leaving the gang the way we did was dangerous—that’s why we went so far. And by coming home—by coming in to Johnny’s life, and yours . . . well, I wouldn’t have done it if I thought there was still any real risk, but it’s only fair to tell you—the last contact I had with the Assassins, they were trying to hurt me, bad.” He thought of Vicki—dead now.
“I’m sure it’s long in the past,” Tessa assured him, kissing his cheek, and he kissed her sweet, soft mouth in return.
“And one more thing,” he said, his gut pinching up all over again. “If Mike ever found out the things I’ve done . . . I’d be in big trouble with the law.”
“Don’t worry,” she assured him. “I would never say anything.”
He pulled back slightly to look at her, still a little astounded. “And so . . . after everything I’ve just told you, you’re really not afraid of me now? Even a little?”
She leaned her forehead over against his. “Want to know a secret? When we first met, I was kind of scared.”
He let a soft grin unfurl, their faces still touching. “That’s not a secret, babe.”
“But now I know what a good man you are. So no, Lucky—I’m not afraid of you.”
Tessa held Lucky’s hand as they walked quietly through the woods near Whisper Falls. Nothing much was different since he’d told her about the Devil’s Assassins—except that now she knew. And it truly didn’t matter. His smile was still just as sexy. His love for his new son was just as endearing. And his concern and care for her remained just as powerful.
Sitting on her deck listening to his story had felt almost surreal—she didn’t know people who went through things like that; she’d never been near such danger. But what had stayed with her the most was his honesty, and also his remorse. The shame had practically dripped from him—and even as she respected him for feeling so strongly about it, it also broke her heart a little. Lucky’s life had taken some unfortunate turns, and that didn’t excuse him—but she could understand, and she could also forgive.
And maybe she was insane—as she’d told him, maybe she should be running from him. But she felt his love so strongly now, covering her as warmly as any blanket—and didn’t that count for a lot?
As promised, she’d kept it all to herself. Maybe it would have been nice to use Rachel and Amy as sounding boards, but on the other hand, even if she could have, they’d both think she was nuts for staying with him. She couldn’t expect anyone who didn’t know Lucky the way she did now to understand it. They didn’t know about the boy he’d been. They knew even less of the man he’d become.
And so as they strolled through the forest, now filled with warm shades of green—from the leaves above to moss-covered tree roots below—it was almost as if he’d never told her. And yet, everything was different, better, because there were no more questions. She no longer had to fear the mysterious and wonder where Lucky had been. Now she knew and she was making peace with it so that, hopefully, both of them could move on to something better.
As they reached the top of Whisper Falls, where the surface of the water was smooth as moving glass, Lucky said, “Let’s try out that legend, see if it’s true.”
“About whispering across the falls? How? You’d have to be on the other side.”
He just shrugged. “Water’s shallow here, and . . .” He looked upstream a little. “I can jump from rock to rock up there. See?” He pointed to where a few large rocks littered the creek bed.
But she was skeptical. “What if you fall in and go over the edge?”
He just laughed. “If I fall in, I’ll be lying in water about six inches deep. Don’t worry, hot stuff—I don’t risk my life that easy anymore.” And off he went—releasing her hand, he hiked up the creek and skipped across, as effortlessly as a kid playing hopscotch. Then he jogged back down the opposite bank until he stood across the water from her.
“All right, babe,” he called. “You ready to whisper something and see if can hear it?”
“Okay,” she yelled back. But she knew it wasn’t going to work. As she’d told him before, most people had concluded that it was either an old wives’ tale or that you both had to be standing in precisely the right spot.
And since she was so sure he wouldn’t hear her anyway, she shielded her mouth and said what she’d been thinking but just hadn’t found the right time to tell him yet. Softly, she whispered, “I love you, too, Lucky.”
And then she lost her breath, because she saw the look in his eyes—he appeared positively stunned. And shockingly vulnerable.
He’d heard her.
And she understood more than ever before that this big, strong man with the tattoos running up and down his arms perhaps hadn’t felt loved by very many people before. It made her sorry she’d waited so long to say it. But glad she’d said it now. Her heart missed a beat just peering across the stream at him. And she fell more in love with him than she already was.
The first time Lucky drew his eyes down to the water, she thought it looked as if he was wondering if maybe he could actually walk across it. But then he took off, running back to the shallow area with the rocks, again skipping comfortably back to her side. And she began to move toward him until they were both running just to reach each other a second or two sooner.