by Tess Sharpe
Busy’s freaking out. Pawing at the windows, barking in short, furious bursts. She can’t get out, and she knows I need her.
“I’m wondering,” he hisses, “if you aren’t your daddy’s girl at all. Maybe you’re a devious little bitch like your momma was.”
I gasp and lunge. A chunk of my hair tears off in his hand as I knee that fucker right in the crotch. He’s close enough and I’m mad enough that I get him good and hard, my hands slamming down on his shoulders like I’ve been taught, so I have leverage. For a split second he gasps for air, then the pain hits him.
It doubles him over, and I dart out of his reach, yanking the door open.
Busy snarls, leaping out of the cab and toward Springfield. Her teeth sink into his leg, and he yells, trying to kick her off, but she holds on with a ruthless determination, clamping her jaws down harder.
I let it go on for a good long while before I say, “Busy! Off!”
She lets go immediately, looking over her shoulder at me.
There’s blood all over her snout.
I take a few steps closer to Springfield. Busy growls low in her throat as he slowly rises to his feet.
He’s smiling.
I just kneed him in the nads, there’s blood running down his calf, my dog’s seconds away from tearing out his throat—and he’s smiling, still clutching that handful of my hair like it’s a prize.
“Oh, baby girl,” he says. “I’m gonna have so much fun with you.”
I go white; I can’t control it. He sees it and laughs as he limps away.
I don’t try to stop him.
For a moment, I think about it: grabbing the Glock I know is stashed in the toolbox. It’d be so easy: His back’s to me, and the wind’s perfect today, barely any breeze. I’d just raise, aim, and then…
I shake my head.
Carl Springfield’s not gonna turn me into a killer.
After he drives away, I bend down and clean Busy’s snout off the best I can. Then I wipe down the back of my neck at the hairline, where the blood’s oozing. He tore a huge chunk of my hair out and my braid’s coming loose. I unravel the strands completely, arranging them to hide the red marks and raw skin.
Ten minutes later, when Will comes out of Jones Feed and Farm Supply, Busy and I are back inside the cab of the Chevy like nothing’s happened.
Ten
June 6, 12:15 p.m.
By the time Doc comes, Jessa’s passed out. He checks her pupils and her pulse, and then unfolds the stretcher next to her. Doc’s short and tidy. His thin gray hair is always neatly parted to the side, never a strand out of place, and his pink fingernails are always spotless. He’s the kind of alcoholic that manages to hide it—most of the time. Despite being a drunk, Doc’s good at his job—he hardly ever loses a patient. I trust him as much as you can any man who makes his living fishing out bullets and stitching up wounds that’d call unwanted attention in an emergency room.
“I gave her four ibuprofen,” I tell him as I grab under Jessa’s shoulders, and together we roll her onto the stretcher.
“Let’s get her in the van,” he says.
I take one end of the stretcher, he takes the other, and we carry Jessa down the main path through the tents. Ray follows us, reassuring people who’ve come out of their tents that everything’s okay.
Doc and I load Jessa in the back of the van, onto the inflatable mattress he’s set up.
“Gonna ride with her?” he asks.
I check my watch. “I’ve gotta get to the bar,” I say. “Call me as soon as she wakes up. And you take good care of her.”
“Not gonna let one of your soiled doves die, Harley,” he says with a grin. “Don’t worry.”
I shoot him a look. “Don’t be an asshole.”
Sobering, he looks down at Jessa, then up at me. “You gonna get the son of a bitch who did this?”
Springfield. My heart races just thinking about what I’m gonna do to him.
“Yeah,” I say, and my voice is steady. “He’s done for.”
They all are.
I get to the Tropics later than I’d like, but I still take the time to throw on a long-sleeved plaid shirt over my tank top and shorts before I climb out of the truck. I pat my side pocket, the weight of my hunting knife comforting against my hip.
Though it’s just early afternoon, the parking lot’s already starting to fill up with bikes and trucks. Behind the bar I can see Lassen Peak, dark and oddly bald because the drought’s fucked with the rain and snow levels. The lakes in Shasta County are so low it’s starting to mess with the wildlife—and the tourist trade.
The bar’s squat cement block walls can’t muffle the sound of Merle belting from the speakers inside. Above my head, the neon outline of a palm tree flickers, the words THE TROPICS buzzing steadily in green and pink.
The steel door’s scuffed from years of dragging across concrete, and its blood-red paint peels off as I pull it open. Inside, it smells like beer, sweat, leather, and a hint of motor oil. Long before Duke’s organization took over the place as home base, the Tropics was a biker bar, home to the Sons of Jefferson. And for the fifteen years since, an uneasy alliance between the two groups has kept things from getting ugly, because Duke started using the trucking business to run the Sons of Jefferson’s weed down south. They’ll drink side by side without bloodshed and they’ll do business with us, but it’s a wary sort of peace.
I’m lucky—Paul, the president of the Sons, likes me. He’s provided muscle a few times when I needed it at the Ruby.
I nod to him as I come in. He’s at the end of the bar, his braid longer than mine and a greasy bandanna knotted tightly over his head. He tilts his beer toward me in greeting before going back to his conversation with the skinny guy next to him; obviously a new pledge. I can practically see the green behind his ears.
A short, middle-aged woman with thin, peach-colored hair down to her waist and a black leather vest slung over her shoulders comes ducking through the wooden beads strung up in the doorway leading to the storeroom. “Hey, Sal,” I say.
She looks up from her clipboard and smiles. “Harley, how you doing?”
“Good. You?”
“Can’t complain.”
“Boys in the back?” I ask.
“They are.”
“I’ll be joining them.”
I’m almost home free, halfway across the room, when Sal calls out. “Hey, have your daddy give me a ring, will ya? Haven’t heard from him since he went down south, and that damn swamp cooler’s leaking like crazy.”
I flash a smile over my shoulder. “I’ll do that, Sal.”
The back room’s door is always shut tight, and everyone knows better than to try to get in. The conversations that go on inside are drowned out by the honky-tonk on the jukebox, the click of pool balls being racked, the crash and slosh that always goes along with Southern Comfort and Jack and Jim.
I tap on the door lightly before swinging it open. It’s even darker in the room than the bar, most of the light coming from the neon Budweiser and Coors Light signs flickering on the walls. Posters of half-naked women beam down at me from the ceiling, beer bottles clutched in their hands, logos arranged carefully not to cover up the important parts.
There are only two men still in the room—the others have already left. I’m that late. Fuck.
Buck looks up from his seat at the end of the table, his greasy dark hair plastered against his bulbous forehead. “Nice of you to finally show,” he growls.
Buck pretty much hates me, and as long as Duke’s gone, he doesn’t make much effort to hide it. The last few years, Duke’s been spending more and more time in Mexico, and it’s been making Buck bold and me uneasy.
If I wasn’t around, he’d truly be Duke’s second-in-command, in charge of everything in his absence. But I’m almost twenty-three, and every year, Duke gives me more responsibility. When Duke drives down to Mexico, Buck’s in charge of the cooking and the protection, but I’m the only one allowe
d to touch the money—or the guns. It chaps Buck’s ass something awful, but he has to deal.
“I had some shit to do,” I say, closing the door behind me. “I texted Cooper.”
“I told him,” Cooper says. Cooper, who used to run guns with Duke and went with him when he expanded to cooking meth after Momma died, is at Buck’s left. Of all Duke’s men, Cooper’s the closest thing I have to family. There are parts of me he knows even better than Will does.
It’s never a good idea to entrust your secrets to a man who can kill a person seven ways to Sunday, but sometimes it’s necessary.
“Hey, honey,” Cooper smiles, craning his neck to look at me. “Come give me a kiss.”
I walk over and peck him on the cheek obediently. His white curls are soft around his face, making him look sweet, even grandfatherly, until you notice the five blue notches tattooed underneath his right eye. Prison tats. “A notch for each one I got away with in there,” he’d once confided in me with a wink.
“You have the cash?” Buck demands.
I hand over the envelope, still looking at Cooper. “How are your plants?” I ask him. Cooper and Wayne grow some of the best pot in the mountains. But it’s a hobby, not a business, since the Sons have the weed trade covered.
Cooper nods. “Looking good,” he says with a smile. “Trying out a nice new strain. It’s—”
“This is short,” Buck interrupts, looking up from the cash he’d been counting. “You run out of nail polish or something?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what happened,” I sneer, turning to him. “I spent a grand on nail polish. Fuck you, Buck. While you were sitting on your ass, Springfield attacked one of the Rubies. I needed the money so her kids could buy food and I could pay Doc to fix Jessa. Carl broke some of her ribs and maybe her jaw. So you gonna keep riding me? ’Cause it looks like we’ve got a Springfield problem on our hands while Duke’s away. Good to know you’ve got a hold on the situation.”
I shake my head in disgust and double down. “I told Duke you’d be shit at running things this summer. He should’ve put me in charge of everything. I’m a better shot than you, anyway.”
Buck jerks out of his chair so hard it falls over. “You little cu—”
“Buck,” Cooper growls. “That’s my goddaughter you’re talking to. Watch your tongue.”
But Buck’s on a roll. “Harley spends all that money on some stupid whore who’s probably working for Springfield and you’re telling me to watch my tongue?” He slams his hand on the table, and the beer bottles rattle.
“Call Jessa a whore again, and you won’t have a tongue,” I say flatly. “You show the Rubies the respect they deserve or you get the fuck out of here.” Cooper stands up behind me.
Buck shifts a little, just a touch away from the table.
Away from me.
He has good reason to be nervous, and not just because of Duke’s wrath or Cooper’s backup.
I’ve been deadly since I was eight. From the first time Duke put that gun in my hand. When my fingers closed around it, when I raised it to aim at the target, everything else falling away until it was just me and the pistol and the clear red circle ahead, it was like finding the first real part of myself.
There’s being a good shot. And then there’s being me.
I don’t miss. If I’d been a boy or born to different parents, I’d probably be a special-ops sniper right now.
Duke recognized my talent. Honed it and me. And he made sure every man in my life knows exactly what I’m capable of with a gun in my hands. It was part pride, part protection.
“Fuck this,” Buck says, knocking over his beer bottle on the table, where it bubbles out across the scarred redwood. “I’m going to the warehouse.” He stands up and glares at me before he kicks his chair away and turns to the door.
“Great to know you’re on top of that Springfield thing,” I call after him.
He storms out without saying another word, and I sit down next to Cooper, who holds the chair out for me before taking his own seat again.
“You sure your Ruby was beat up by Springfield?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say.
Cooper leans back in his chair and shakes his head. “Shit. Duke’s gonna lose it.”
“I called him,” I say. The lie is easy, because all I do is lie nowadays. “He told me he can’t get away and that I should take care of it.”
Cooper’s bushy eyebrows rise up so high they almost disappear under his white curls. “Honey, no. You must’ve misunderstood him.”
“I didn’t,” I say, my heart beating fast against the lie. I need Cooper to believe me. If he doesn’t, my whole plan’s screwed. “The Rubies are my responsibility, and I’m grown. If Duke thinks I can handle it, I can handle it.”
“I’m gonna call your father.” He’s already reaching for his phone, but I stop him with a question.
“Do you remember that night out on Route Twenty-Three, Cooper?”
“Harley—” His face changes, darkens. A half minute ticks by. “We’re not talking about that,” he says finally.
I see the weakness and push it. “After that, are you really gonna bet against me?”
He looks away and shakes his head. “Springfield’s a grown man. We have a truce.”
“Which he broke the second he hurt Jessa.” I can’t believe he’s arguing with me about this. I thought that out of all of them, Cooper would understand. Buck hadn’t been around when Springfield was at his worst, but Cooper was. He had known my momma. Hell, he’d been Duke’s best man at their wedding.
“What kind of woman would I be if I let that go unpunished? My momma wouldn’t have allowed any man to get away with hurting one of the Rubies. Neither would Mo. And neither will I. Especially that man.”
Cooper looks up, and I see he’s wavering. He sighs. “At least give me a day to get Wayne, and we’ll track him down and go with you,” he says.
I let the anger melt off me, and I smile. “You’re right, that’s a better idea,” I say. “I’ll wait until you get Wayne. You’ll call me? Tomorrow morning?”
“Of course,” Cooper says, and probably he really means it. He doesn’t like to lie to me—but he’ll lie for me.
“I’ll go to the nursing home then,” I say, standing up and walking to the door. “I’m late to see Miss Lissa anyway.”
“How’s she doing?” Cooper asks.
“Okay,” I say. “She misses Will…when she can remember him.”
“You be careful out there,” Cooper warns. He looks troubled, and for a moment I feel bad for conning him. But I push it down.
I’m doing this to save people. And Cooper’s one of them.
Sometimes you’ve got to save people from themselves. Even if they don’t want it or know it.
“I always am.”
I wave goodbye and head to the end of the bar, where Paul the biker is still sitting with the new pledge.
“Hey, darlin’,” he says, and nudges the new pledge out of his stool so I can take it, jerking his chin at the man to move away so we can have some privacy. “How are things?”
I hop up and lean forward to say quietly, “I need a favor.”
Paul looks back at me, unmoved. “Well, seems to me that I don’t owe you one,” he finally says—but I know his weak spot.
“You’ll want to do this. One of the Rubies got beat up real bad. Springfield fucked her up. I was wondering if you could send a few of your boys over there, keep watch until I’ve got it sorted out?”
Paul’s grizzled goatee twitches. “Which Ruby?” he asks, trying to sound unconcerned and failing.
“Jessa.”
A little too quickly, he asks, “Mo’s okay then?”
I don’t smile, but I know I’ve got him on the hook. “Mo is fine. She’s watching Jessa’s kids for me.”
Paul loves Mo, but she refuses to become his old lady. So he pines and presses me for bits of information instead. And I’m not afraid to use that. “I bet if you sent some
protection to the Rubies, she’d be mighty happy.”
Paul grins and holds out his hand. “Consider it done.”
We shake on it, and I get up off my stool.
“You watch your back, sweetheart,” Paul warns me. “If Springfield’s causing trouble, you know there’s more coming.”
“I’ll be fine.” I hope my voice has more confidence than I feel.
On my way out, when Sal’s back is turned at the bar, I reach over it and grab a half-empty bottle of vodka, slipping it inside my plaid overshirt.
Trouble’s coming, all right.
Eleven
Two months after our mothers die, Will and his grandma move into the guest cabin a mile south of the main house. Miss Lissa’s short and baby-powder soft, fond of needlework, brightly colored sweatsuits, and revolvers over semi-automatics. I come by to watch Daddy’s men hauling in their furniture and boxes of belongings while I hang back, uncertain of this new woman in my life.
But when she sees me, she walks up and wraps me up in a hug that goes on so long I’m wiggling, uncomfortable, and prickly hot against her. She smells flowery—not the right flower, not the way Momma did, but it reminds me just the same.
One afternoon not long after they’re settled in, Daddy tells me to come along, and we walk across the meadow to the cabin.
He doesn’t tell me why or what we’re doing here, but he walks up and knocks on the door. Miss Lissa answers it like she’s expecting us, and she and Daddy send Will outside where I’m waiting on the deck to keep us out of their hair so they can talk.
It’s the first time since that day that Will and I are alone together. We stand on opposite sides of the back deck, the cedar planks distancing us like some kind of border under our feet. I scuff the toe of my boot into the wood. I don’t want to look up at him.
If I do, I’ll remember.
He’s the first to give in. “You okay?”
I shrug. “You?”
He shrugs too, and I can’t tell if he’s making fun of me or if it’s something else. My shoulders rising off the railing, I step forward without thinking. Will stays very still, watching me carefully as he lets me come close, until we’re just a few inches apart.