Stand (The Brazen Bulls MC Book 7)

by Susan Fanetti

  Grampa and Levi sat in the cab, talking, not showing any signs of actually getting out of the damn truck.

  Well, they only had until Cecily got home from work to get this done. Luckily, this was her long day—she taught until nine—but still, they had a lot to do. When Levi had agreed to help, Caleb had thought they were making some progress. Just enough progress to get to the driveway, it seemed, but no more.

  He tore open the front door—shit, it was cold!—and ran down the front walk in his bare feet. Shoving his hands into his jeans pockets against the bluster of the February day, he stood at the passenger door and gave his grandfather a what’s it gonna be? look.

  Grampa rolled down the window, and a welcome puff of heated air billowed out. “Hello, son.”

  “Hey, Grampa.” He ducked a bit so he could see across the cab. “Levi.”

  “Bro.”

  “You guys comin’ in or what? I got a fresh pot of coffee inside.”

  With a slight, but warm, smile, Grampa said, “Your brother’s working some things out in his head.”

  “Okay, but dude, it’s fifteen degrees out here. Hot coffee and warm walls inside. Can you bring your head in there to work your shit out?”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “Whatever. My ass is gonna be an ice cube in a second. My feet already are.”

  His grandfather looked out the window and down at his bare feet. “That wasn’t very smart.”

  “I didn’t think we were gonna have a family powwow on the driveway, Grampa. I thought you were here to come in and help me make Cecily’s present.”

  “We’re coming!” Levi killed the engine. “Get inside. We’re coming.”

  With a nod, Caleb left his family in the truck and ran back on stiff feet.

  Another couple minutes later, they were finally at the front door. Caleb let them in and took the big toolbox from Grampa’s hand.

  “Welcome. Let’s get some coffee, and I’ll show you around.”

  His grandfather said, “It looks nice, Caleb. It’s a nice house.”

  Levi looked around. He set down his toolbox and stepped into the murder room. “Nicer than anything you ever lived in before. I guess turning your back on who you are pays off.”

  So far, that was the nicest room in the house. Cecily had good taste—kind of country but not in the bows-and-bunnies way he’d seen some women do. Just sort of…rustic. Natural. He liked it—and they’d done exactly what he’d wanted. Put something new and pretty and happy over something horrible.

  He was not about to let Levi ruin his good feelings about his house—or his life.

  “Levi, man, don’t start. If you didn’t want to be here, you could’ve just said no.”

  “Levi,” Grampa said. “Enough.”

  Caleb’s brother flipped his hair over his shoulders and glared. Then, with a sigh, he conceded. “Okay. But you know, you leaving home, that makes things harder at home.”

  “Let’s get some coffee. We’ll sit and talk.” He led them down the hall to the kitchen.

  This room was still in progress. They’d made some extra work for themselves on the first day they’d started it, when they’d fucked like crazy people in the middle of all that ceiling paint. And then made another mess when they’d taken a shower together to get all the paint off. Their first intention had been to simply brighten the kitchen up—pull the wallpaper off, paint the yellow ceiling white, the unpapered walls yellow, scrub up the old cabinets—and put off the heavy-duty remodeling until the rest of the house was done.

  Instead, they’d totally fucked up the gross fake-tile vinyl floor, so they’d yanked it up—and then just decided to make the kitchen their next priority. He’d laid real twelve-inch porcelain tiles down, and Cecily had stripped the cabinets but hadn’t had time to paint them yet. A plywood board served as a countertop while they waited for their hunk of granite to come in. The new kitchen sink sat in the garage, waiting for the countertop.

  Definitely a work in progress. But Caleb preferred this room, in its barely usable state, to the rooms they hadn’t started on yet. This room showed their presence, their ownership. The fake paneling and ugly carpet elsewhere was Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Citizen Murder-Suicide’s taste.

  He refilled his mug and poured two fresh ones, concocting them with the milk and sugar ratios his brother and grandfather preferred. When he carried the mugs to the table, Levi was standing at the back door, looking out at the porch and the frosty yard beyond.

  “It’s not a bad piece of land,” Levi muttered.

  “No, it’s not. It’s the best part of the place. It’s why I wanted to buy it.” Very true. He loved the property, with its many big trees and its gentle slope so the house sat on a hill.

  “You know, if it’s a nice piece of land you were after, you’ve got that at the ranch.”

  “Leve, come on. Sit, have your coffee.”

  With his brother finally at the table, Caleb said, “Thank you for being here. I hope it means that you accept that this is the life I want, and I’m not going to lose you because of it.”

  Grampa reached over and set his weathered hand on Caleb’s. “We’re blood, Caleb. Blood cannot be lost.”

  “Thanks, Grampa. Since you’re coming to help me make Cecily’s office for her, I hope that means you accept her, too.”

  Neither man responded to that. He let the silence drift for a bit, noted that his grandfather watched him with careful eyes, but his brother turned and looked out at the yard again.

  When it became obvious that they wouldn’t fill in the silence, Caleb said. “I’m marrying her. And we’re going to have children. We’re trying right now.”

  Levi’s head whipped back. “What?”

  Caleb, however, fixed on his grandfather. “Grampa, I know how you feel. I understand it, and I respect it. You will always have my respect and my love. But I don’t feel the same way. I can’t live the same way. Your home is not enough home for me. This is my home, and Cecily is my woman.”

  “And you’d make little half-breed kids to be hated by everybody?” Levi sneered.

  “No. I’d raise children with my woman to be loved by their family. All their family. Loved so much that they’ll be strong enough to face down any hate and rise above it. I don’t think the way you do, Levi. I don’t think the way to get along with the world is to avoid it. That’s what the haters want—for us to stay on the rez. They shoved us all over the fucking country and stuck us where they thought we’d be out of their way. I don’t want to give them that. I want to stand in their way and say fucking deal with me.”

  “This was always you,” their grandfather interjected, holding up a hand. “From when you were small, you went your own way. This is why I gave you your true name.”

  He Who Stands Alone.

  Grampa crossed his arms and squinted at Caleb. “You love this woman so much?”

  “She’s my bridge that connects all the things I am.”

  “Then she is Mathews, as you are, and as your children will be.”

  Before Caleb could express his love and relief, Levi protested. “Grampa, no way.”

  Caleb understood his brother. They had been raised in deep love by a man who felt deep hate, and who had reason to feel it. Their grandfather had taught them to fear and avoid white people, to expect the worst from them, because white people had devastated their family. They’d lured his father into believing white and Osage could share a path, and then they’d murdered him on it. Him and dozens of his people.

  Whites had killed thousands, millions of Native people and had displaced them all, offering a friendly hand while holding a weapon or a whip behind their back with the other.

  Caleb understood. He lived in the world as an indigenous man, and he understood. But it would not ever be different, it would not ever be better, if they simply turned their backs and pretended they lived in a different world. They did not. There was only this one, and he wanted his place in it.

  “Levi,” their gr
andfather said. “Blood cannot be lost. This is the life your brother chooses.”

  “C’mon, Leve. I love you, man.”

  Levi turned and stared out the window. Caleb waited, watching. Eventually, his brother shook his head and turned back. “Okay, well. Let’s see what work you’ve got for us.”

  Caleb decided to take that as acceptance.

  ~oOo~

  The house had three bedrooms. They planned to make one a nursery if and when Cecily got pregnant, but they hadn’t decided what to do with the third. Actually, Cecily hadn’t decided. Caleb knew exactly what to do with it, and he’d been watching her covertly as they’d prowled the home improvement and furniture stores, seeing what she liked, listening to what she wanted, what she dreamed of.

  Today, a week before their appointment at the courthouse to get married, he meant to give her that dream.

  With his brother and grandfather helping, and a couple of breaks for food and rest and to work out some snags in the plan as they cropped up, the three of them got the work done with about an hour and a half to spare—just enough time for Caleb to run a couple final errands and be ready when Cecily came in the front door.

  She set her messenger bag on the plywood ‘countertop.’ “You got Mario’s! Yum!”

  He folded her into his arms. “Sausage, peppers, and olives, just like you like. And there’s ice cream in the freezer, too.”

  “You rock. I’m starved.”

  “Wait, though. I’ve got something to show you.” He took her hand and led her down the hallway.

  She resisted a little, pulling on his hand. “If you got yourself some sexy underwear and mean to do a little striptease or something, can it wait until after pizza? You can’t wave Mario’s under my nose and not let me eat it.”

  “Sorry, Ciss. No sexy underwear.” He opened the door to what had been the third bedroom and pulled her inside. “I love you.”

  Dropping his hand, she stepped into the transformed room and turned around, her mouth hanging open. Caleb followed her gaze as she took in all he and his family had done in one day: The hardwood floor they’d uncovered and buffed out when they’d pulled up the ratty shit-brown carpet. The Osage-pattern rug he’d asked his grandfather to pull out of the attic in Pawhuska. The freshly painted paneling in the greyish blue color she preferred. The wall of bookshelves they’d built—all the way across and six feet high. The maple desk she’d fondled on three different trips to a secondhand furniture shop downtown. The big, comfy chair and ottoman and brass reading lamp he’d found at the same secondhand shop. And an antique typewriter he’d just thought was cool.

  “What is this?”

  “Your office.”

  She turned and stared at him, wide-eyed. “But we hadn’t decided to make it an office.”

  “You hadn’t decided. I don’t need a music room. I just play a little guitar when I feel like it. I’m not a musician. But you are a poet.”

  “I’m not. I failed at that.”

  “No, you didn’t. Maybe you’re not a professor, but you’re a teacher. What were you doing tonight at work?”

  A little smile crept up her cheek. “Creative writing workshop.”

  “Uh huh. Exactly. And you just had a couple poems published last month. You’re a poet, Ciss. Who cares if you’re not Robert Frost. This is where you can read and write and do whatever you want.”

  Wandering over to the desk, she fondled its surface as she had in the shop. “This desk! You bought me the desk! You did this all today? How?”

  He stepped to her and hooked his arm around her waist. “I had the furniture delivered. Grampa and Levi came over and helped remodel the room.”

  She was back to wide-open shock. “What?”

  “Yep. I told them today that we’re getting married and trying for kids, and Grampa understood. Or accepted it, more like. Levi’s still trying to hold out, but he helped all day, and he even asked some questions about you. He’ll come around, too.” Blood could not be lost.

  “Everything’s coming together.”

  Kissing her head, he buried his face in the fire of her hair. “You bring all of me together.”

  She grinned and turned into his arms. “I love you so much. You bring me together, too.”

  He held her for a while in the middle of her room, just enjoying the intimate quiet. “Hey, baby. Do you like your present?”

  “Oh my God! I didn’t thank you! Yes! I love it. It’s perfect and amazing. You are perfect and amazing.”

  ~oOo~

  After his shift that Friday, Caleb sat down at his seat in church for a regular club meeting and could tell at once that it wasn’t going to be regular after all. All three officers at the head of the table scowled darkly, and something felt off in the air, like their anger had made the room muggy.

  He looked around and saw that he wasn’t alone in catching the vibe. Shit, he hoped it wasn’t Russian trouble. He liked things calm, especially now. He and Ciss were getting married on Monday, and one of these days she was going to turn up pregnant. It would be cool if the club work would stay boring. It was easy to forget they were outlaws when everything ran smoothly. Lately, they were barely outlaws at all.

  Since September 11, and the Panhandle meeting that had blown up so spectacularly, the Russians had backed their shipments down. In nearly six months, the Bulls hadn’t taken anything north to Nebraska, and they’d only done the Galveston run once. They’d done two runs west, to the Abrego crew now running Amarillo, who carried it to the Tezcat Kings. The Kings were still in, even after the Panhandle. Irina Volkov had a pull of gravitational force. Once you were in her orbit, there was just no way of getting out.

  Caleb wondered if the Kings had tried. He’d been in the hospital during the immediate aftermath of the Panhandle, but he’d heard that Miguel Hernandez, their president, had absolutely lost his shit. He’d had three men down, two of them critically wounded. All three had pulled through, but it had been close, and Hernandez had wanted Russian blood on the floor with everybody else’s.

  And yet, the Kings were still in the game, just like the Bulls. It was more than the big paydays. It was Irina Volkov herself. Saying no to her was no easy thing.

  Delaney opened the meeting asking for the usual stuff—the financial report, the schedule for club jobs, all the boring operational details. With the Russians lying low, they’d picked up several small gigs for protection, work the club had apparently done a lot of in the old days. Simon suggested that it was time to get the roof inspected. Apollo floated the idea of upgrading their security system. Delaney told them both to get some quotes and bring it back to the table.

  Everybody felt that weird, hot vibe, and the meeting went off surreally, like they were going through the motions of normalcy while expecting a monster to crash through the ceiling at any minute. When all the mundane business was conducted, Delaney sighed and looked around the table.

  “I got a couple more pieces of business, and then we can go get a drink. The first, I’m gonna let Becker handle. Beck?”

  Becker gave their president a look Caleb could not read at all but found deeply unsettling. “Yeah, okay. We heard from Alexei yesterday. And D talked to Irina today. We got some changes coming down with the Russians. They’re cutting the north run to twice a year and cutting out Galveston completely. The port is just too hot right now, and Canada’s riskier, too. She’s got a new route to and through California, and another through Arizona.”

  “What’s that mean for the work?” Maverick asked. He looked at Delaney, but the president nodded to Becker, who picked up the answer.

  “It means we go west more often, alternating between California and Arizona. For us, we hand off at Amarillo every time, but she doesn’t want the Kings running all that traffic. Now that the Bone Wolves are gone, she wants us to hit up Pancho’s Boys again. They can pick up the Arizona run, and the Kings can keep going to California like they have. We’ll fold Nebraska in when it comes up.”

  “But we’re
not carrying across the border,” Gunner mused.

  “No. It makes it easier for us, because we won’t be at any border when we hand off. Anybody at the border gets caught up, it’ll probably blow back on us, but that was always the case. And it’s not more runs, just different directions.”

  “Sounds doable,” Wally said. “Why’s it got your panties bunched? Because, D, all three of you look like you want to do murder.”

  “Prez?” Rad said with a snarl. “Why don’t you take that one.”