Shield

by Anne Malcom

  But he was completely lucid as he pulled out his gun and rested the barrel on the back of Cade’s head, who was sitting in front of the bar, one bottle of whisky in front of him.

  He didn’t flinch.

  Nor did he even turn.

  “Expected you might come,” he said calmly, and clearly, despite the bottle being almost entirely empty. “Didn’t think you’d be using your weapon. My money was on the handcuffs.”

  Luke’s grip tightened on his gun. “Don’t have anything to arrest you for. In the eyes of the law, you’re innocent.” He spat the word at him.

  Cade turned, clearly not minding that when he did so, the barrel of the gun now rested comfortably between his eyes. He met Luke’s gaze with icy determination, a snatch of sorrow dancing in those cruel eyes, something that he didn’t try to disguise.

  “And in your eyes, we’re not,” Cade said.

  Luke tried not to let the sheer depth of Cade’s obvious suffering get to them. “My eyes, God’s eyes,” he gritted out.

  Cade raised his brow. “After everything. After….” He was unable to continue for a moment, taking a long and unhurried swig from the whisky. “After what happened to Laurie, you think there’s a man up in the sky protecting the innocent, punishing the guilty?”

  Luke’s hand danced on the trigger. “No, I don’t think there is. Which is where I come in.”

  Cade gazed at him thoughtfully. “You gonna shoot me, then?” he asked calmly. “Thought that would go against your ironclad morals.”

  “Nothing’s ironclad after what I saw today. After telling Peter and Christine that their little girl was never coming home.”

  Cade flinched. Actually flinched.

  Luke’s grip on the trigger softened.

  Cade took another swallow. “Do it, then,” he invited. “Shoot me. I sure as fuck deserve it. We sure as fuck deserve it. We never would’ve laid a fucking hand on that girl. Each and every single one of us would’ve fucking died to prevent her from getting a goddamn hangnail. Wasn’t our hands, but that doesn’t mean the blame doesn’t lie firmly with us.”

  Luke’s resolve flickered. He hadn’t consciously made the decision to come here. Nor had he intended on murdering a man in cold blood. Whether that man was a murderer or not, he didn’t think he’d have been able to do that. Then again, a human being was able to do anything and everything under the right circumstances, more so under the wrong ones.

  He toyed with it. The idea of pulling the trigger, calling in that he’d come here to take a statement and that Fletcher had pulled his piece, self-defense. He wouldn’t be the first cop to do it. Despite the fact that Cade wasn’t even carrying. His gun was, for some reason, right at the other end of the bar.

  Later, he wouldn’t like to admit just how close he’d come in that moment. How easy it would’ve been. How selfish such an act would’ve been. He also wouldn’t like to admit that one thing, one person stopped him.

  The girl with wild hair and an equally wild heart. Though it may have been wild, that didn’t mean it wasn’t big, vulnerable, and already bleeding.

  If Luke pulled that trigger, he’d be responsible for breaking that beautiful wild thing.

  And he might’ve been able to live with murder, but he sure as fuck wouldn’t have been able to live with that.

  So he lowered his gun.

  Cade looked at him with surprise. And relief. Or maybe disappointment. Luke wasn’t sure which. He didn’t want to think too much on that either, because that would’ve meant that Cade was much more than the simple outlaw that Luke had pegged him as.

  “No, that would be a disservice to Laurie’s memory,” he said. “That girl would’ve chosen that exact same fate if it meant no blood would’ve been spilled but her own. I want you to live with that knowledge. And the rest of that fucking horrific shit. You can barely deal with the knowledge of that, but imagine how Laurie felt living that.” Cade flinched again but Luke ignored it. “That’s more of a punishment than a bullet could ever be. Bullet for you is mercy, and you deserve none of that. Maybe this will make you see what your club is doin’. Killing. Not just people who chose this life, but people who were forced into it by their hearts.” Luke regarded him with contempt. “Maybe. But I expect not. I expect you’ll need a lot more blood. Not your own, of course. Maybe your family’s, maybe your sister’s, to make you see fucking sense. And then, like now, will be too fucking late.”

  With Luke tasting the bile of even entertaining the idea of Rosie sharing a similar fate as Laurie, he lowered his gun and left.

  He didn’t start shaking until he left the lot. He might’ve even broken down completely if he hadn’t seen Rosie’s car speeding past the lot and toward the outskirts of town.

  The small glimpse of her face in the fading light told him she wasn’t heading for the outskirts of town.

  She was heading for Hell.

  And no way would he let her near there.

  Not alone, at least.

  Rosie

  Present Day

  I went to a bar. Straight from the hospital.

  I knew it wasn’t the best coping mechanism, but I didn’t feel like shopping. My best friend was recovering from almost dying so I couldn’t exactly unload on her, and my family would likely excommunicate me if I went to them with the truth. Not the lies I hid behind after I’d survived my encounter with Luke.

  The waiting room was full of everyone I loved, which meant they all descended on me.

  Lucky snatched me into a fierce hug. “We’ve been worried sick,” he said into my hair, then pulled me back to inspect me. “Well, Cade’s been worried sick. I’ve just been pissed that you didn’t bring me and Becky along for the fun. We’re a boring old married couple now.” He pouted.

  I rolled my eyes and looked to his beautiful wife. My beautiful friend. Somehow smiling and whole after she was shattered. She’d put herself back together, made friends with her demons.

  I wish I could’ve done that.

  “You blew up our car two days ago,” she said dryly.

  Lucky huffed. “Because I was bored. And no one even blinked. Like we have one car bomb and suddenly, poof! It’s not even a big deal anymore.”

  She grinned, her face lighting up as she did so, cupping Lucky’s cheek. “I know, babe. It’s not fair.”

  My heart smiled. Or tried to.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the wedding,” I said.

  Becky focused on me, yanking me into a hug. “You should be fucking sorry,” she hissed. “I had the cashmere mafia planning my wedding. Not that I don’t love those babes, but they wanted me to spend five grand. On flowers.”

  I laughed as she let me go. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to rescue you,” I said sincerely, sadness creeping into my tone.

  She regarded me shrewdly. Not only did Bex not buy into bullshit, but she saw right through it all. Once you’d made it through the other side of Hell, you recognized the people only halfway there.

  “I think you need a break from the rescuing,” she whispered, reaching out to squeeze my hand. “Sometimes even the kick-ass biker babe needs rescuing too.” She said it so low, even her eavesdropping husband couldn’t hear.

  We shared a moment, both too long and too short before the rest of the family interrupted.

  Steg yanked me into his chest, and I inhaled the smell of the man who had turned out to be my father when I lost mine.

  He held me back, regarding me with shrewd, wrinkled eyes. He didn’t say anything for the longest time. I knew he was like Bex. He saw it too. But he wouldn’t say anything. He may have loved me like a daughter, but he wouldn’t rescue me. Knew he couldn’t. He was one of the ones who’d taught me how to rescue myself.

  “’Spect there’s a story behind those eyes. Guessin’ it isn’t pretty,” he observed.

  I blinked at him. “Is it ever?” I whispered.

  He stroked my cheek. “No, baby. But you always will be. Despite the ugly that surrounds you. Best remember
that.”

  Then he let me go, not one to linger on the emotional shit. I silently thanked him for that.

  He let his wife, the only mother I ever knew, descend upon me.

  Unlike a mother, she didn’t cry or yank me into her arms, declaring how worried she’d been.

  She put her hands on her hips, narrowing her blackened eyes at me.

  “You took your time to turn up,” she said sharply.

  “Had a long trip,” I replied.

  “I don’t know how. Hell isn’t that far from LA,” she deadpanned.

  I got it now, those lonely people you saw withering at the end of the bar, staring into a glass as if something could be found in there.

  That was me, staring into my own, realizing I’d never felt more alone. And because I felt alone, empty, I had to fill it up with something.

  I pushed the glass away. “Another.”

  He complied.

  And although I’d traveled from the hellish destination where I’d taken my demons for vacation, in that dark and dirty LA bar, it was like I was back there. I could’ve been anywhere.

  But I was nowhere.

  Maybe that was the idea.

  Chapter Eight

  Rosie

  Age Twenty-Five

  “You’re gonna need to stop doin’ that,” Evie ordered. “You’re annoying the piss outta me.”

  I glanced at her and saw her narrowed eyes were focused on my knee. I had been jiggling it up and down furiously since we’d been sat here by a grim-faced orderly after we’d been ‘bothering’ the nurses too much.

  I didn’t do well with sitting still. Being helpless.

  Didn’t do well with sitting in a hospital fighting for both joy and agony.

  Joy that my little niece was born healthy and beautiful and that my sister-in-law was okay.

  Agony because in order for my niece to be born and my brother to still have the love of his life breathing and whole, the man who was the closest thing I had left to a father had to get shot.

  In the chest.

  I’d dealt with a lot of shootings in my time with the club. More than I cared to admit. Some were stupid accidents by idiotic prospects. Most were results from fights with rival clubs.

  Some of them required me to stitch up flesh wounds.

  Others required our off-the-books doctor to come and perform minor surgery.

  Then there were these ones. The life-or-death ones that required hospitals.

  Hospitals meant cops.

  Which was reason for my churning stomach, but not for my jiggle.

  Hospitals, more often than not, meant death.

  But I stopped. Because of Evie’s narrow eye. Evie’s dry, narrow eye. She hadn’t shed a tear, hadn’t cracked her hard façade. She’d sworn at a lot of doctors, though.

  Then she’d just sat there, still, her hands clasped on top of her knees, displaying the huge rock standing amongst the array of silver on every finger.

  Steg got it for her for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

  “I can’t do this,” I whispered. The first time I’d done it. Given up. Sank down from the weight on my shoulders instead of continuing to put one foot in front of the other—in heels, no less.

  She regarded me shrewdly, with none of the emotion I expected on her face. None I could see, anyway. None anyone could see. I expected that was the point.

  “Yes you can,” she said in her no-bullshit, no-sugarcoating, gravelly voice. “You can because you have to.”

  “What if he doesn’t make it?” I choked out.

  She didn’t look at me. “He will.”

  “But what if he doesn’t.”

  Her gaze cut to me, sharp and venomous. “He will,” she snapped. Her hand squeezed mine at the same time as she addressed me harshly.

  I got it. She said he would because there was no other option for her. He would because he had to.

  I squeezed her hand back.

  “He will,” I whispered.

  Surgery took a long time. Too long for me to sit stationary next to Evie. Ranger and Lizzie took over, both giving me firm embraces and soft looks.

  I took to wandering around the sterile halls.

  I hated hospitals.

  You could smell the death, lurking around the corners, waiting to snatch someone up.

  And you also ran into police officers with no chance of escape.

  His form jolted the second he laid eyes on me, still at the other end of the long hall.

  My eyes darted at either side of me, and I almost laughed out loud at the door that signified my salvation.

  Chapel.

  I didn’t hesitate to slip inside, hoping that Luke’s cop business would be more important to him than chasing me.

  No, I didn’t hope that. I hoped for the opposite.

  I knew better.

  So I sat on a pew in the small room, staring at Jesus.

  The door behind me opened and closed, the harsh footfalls of boots on hardwood signifying his arrival.

  I jerked with surprise when he sat next to me. Right next to me.

  I didn’t look at him, my eyes still focused on Jesus.

  “You runnin’ from me, Rosie?” Luke asked softly.

  “No,” I lied. “I came here to….”

  “Pray?” he finished for me in a disbelieving tone.

  I darted my gaze to him. “I could be. You don’t know.”

  He rose his brow. “Know you’re smart. Too smart to believe in this shit.”

  I gaped at him. “You don’t believe?”

  He shook his head. “Fuck no.”

  “But… you go to church every Sunday.” I didn’t realize I’d disclosed that stalker detail until it was too late.

  Luke didn’t acknowledge it. “Dad’s the sheriff. I’m the dutiful son.” He shrugged. “It’s habit.”

  I stared at him, then laughed.

  “What?”

  “It’s just I think that’s the only time Luke Crawford has done something as rebellious as not believe in God.”

  He quirked his mouth.

  My chuckle died away. “You seriously don’t believe?” I asked soberly.

  “Seriously. And you do? After everything you’ve seen? Went through? You think there’s someone cruel enough to let you go through that?”

  I jerked at the softness of his voice, the tenderness in it. “Maybe not exactly him.” I nodded to the man on the cross. “But something. I’ve got to believe there’s something more to this. That there’s some kind of method in the madness.”

  “You’re looking for a method in the madness? You live for madness.”

  I hid my response to his perception of me. “On the surface, maybe. But there’s only so much chaos even I can welcome. I need to know that there’s something more so I can live in the chaos, you know? I don’t know if I could keep on keeping on if I thought there was nothing. If we’re all just here on a chunk of rock by chance.”

  Luke tilted his head. “I don’t think it’s chance.”

  I trapped myself in his stare. “I know it’s not. And I need miracles, need to believe in them. I got shown one today, when I heard my niece was born with ten fingers and ten toes and beautiful green eyes,” I whispered. “And I’m holding out for another one.”

  Luke squeezed my hand.

  I was so surprised at the touch, and how my whole body relaxed into it. How the simple gesture made me feel safe.

  “Didn’t believe in miracles,” he murmured. “Not till I saw one right in front of me. Not until I was lookin’ at the miracle right now. So I’m thinkin’ you’ve still got a few.” He paused, like he hadn’t just sucker-punched me in the chest. “He’s gonna be okay, Rosie.”

  “Yeah,” I whispered.

  And then we sat there, holding hands and staring at the guy who was staring woodenly back at as. I found support and strength in that chapel. Enough to get me through the worst of it and then some. Until Steg woke up cursing at nurses and demanding a cigarette.


  I didn’t find salvation. No, because I loved Luke then. More than ever. That conversation, that small touch, the sitting there for hours wordlessly, that was enough to hold onto. To pretend that something on his side existed too.

  A sliver of hope that the man I loved irrevocably might just love me too.

  That wasn’t salvation.

  That was damnation.

  Luke

  Present Day

  Luke followed her.

  He knew he fucking shouldn’t. But what else was he meant to do? Where else was he supposed to go? When she disappeared, dropped off the face of the earth, it was like his center of gravity drifted away along with her. So he was plunged into free fall. She ripped the paper fucking background of his life away and left him to deal with the emptiness.

  He was fucking furious with her for that.

  He was even more furious with himself.

  For letting her leave. For being such a dumb fuck for half his life.

  He knew what everyone thought about him. His job had been to know things. Maybe it still was now. But his job was to know things and not tell anyone but the person who was signing his paycheck, not using those things to lock people away. Using them as ammunition against those who broke the law.

  A small-town cop knew a lot of things. All part of the job description.

  He knew that Evan Goodall brewed moonshine in the dense part of his ten-acre property. He knew that Laura Maye had a couple of pot plants growing in her sprawling and wild garden. He knew that one of his deputies moonlighted for a security company, despite it being against the law.

  He knew those things.

  But he also knew that Evan Goodall was a quiet man who owned a bookstore, and that brewing that strawberry-flavored hooch was the only thing he’d ever done that was against the law. He’d never even gotten a speeding ticket.

  He knew that Laura Maye might’ve smoked some of that pot herself, but mostly she baked it into brownies and took it around to those in hospice whose insurance didn’t cover enough pain relief.