Knife & Flesh (The Night Horde SoCal Book 4)

by Susan Fanetti

  “The system needs people like you shoving wrenches into it, to slow it down long enough that the masses can see its flaws. If it rolls on unimpeded, it just gains power and momentum. That’s when it’d be truly Orwellian.”

  “Well, I’m not shoving wrenches into anything yet.”

  “You will, though. I think you’re going to be a force to be reckoned with. The fight is important.”

  She smiled and tucked her head into the crook of his shoulder. “Did you and Lucie have a good night?”

  “We did. She and Bibi made spaghetti, and Hoosier grilled steak. Connor and Cordero were over, too. She asked Cordero a thousand questions about being a firefighter.”

  “Sounds fun. I’m jealous.”

  “We can just drop by any night for dinner. Bibi is never tired of having people in her house. Oh—Lucie’s class walked to the library today, and she found a book of primary-grade science fair project ideas. She wants to make a solar system. I told her I’d take her to ArtMart this week for supplies.”

  “Are they doing a science fair at her school?” Lucie hadn’t said anything about this during their ride from preschool to Bibi’s.

  “I don’t think so. I think she found the book on her own, and I think the solar system is just for her.” He leaned back and tipped her head up. “Is it a problem?”

  “No. It’s just…strange to have somebody know things about her that I don’t.”

  “Strange bad?”

  “Not at all. Strange good. I love sharing her with you.” She sat up. “You need a better truck, though. I don’t like her sitting in the front seat of that old beater. She’s only five. She should be in a back seat.”

  “I know, I know. This weekend.”

  “You said that last weekend.”

  He took his arm from her shoulders. “To afford it, I’m going to need to hit money I’ve never touched. I’m having trouble getting that right in my head. I’m sorry.”

  Picking up the hand that had held her, Juliana lifted it to her lips and kissed his knuckles. “I understand. It doesn’t have to be an expensive truck. Just safe, with a back seat. Or a car. You could do a car.”

  That made him smile, and he cocked an eyebrow at her. “What, like your little Nissan? No. I want a good truck.” He sighed, and she knew there was something else on his mind.

  “What is it, Trick?”

  “I think we should buy a house.”

  She laughed, surprised. “What? You’re having angst about buying a truck. How’d we make that leap?”

  “I’m ‘having angst’ about spending that money. But I want us to start out on a good footing. We don’t fit into this apartment. My old truck is no place for Lucie. There are things I want to give you both, but I don’t earn enough to make it happen. Not in Southern California. Not even this part of it. We don’t earn enough together to make it happen. I’ve got all this money sitting around. It would be smart to use it. I know that. But I haven’t been using it on principle. So…angst.”

  “When you say ‘all this money,’ what do you mean?” She asked out of curiosity, not avarice. Money like that gave her some angst, too.

  He turned away and stared at the wall as he answered, “It’s a lot. I earned outlaw for more than three years and spent none of it. They were good years.”

  “Do you not know how much, then?” She didn’t believe that, Trick was too thoughtful and precise not to know, but she’d rather ask that question than the one that truly bothered her. His obvious reluctance to be specific made her wonder whether he didn’t trust her enough.

  “I know to the penny.” He sighed and told her the number.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” she breathed. “Trick, Jesus.” Enough to buy almost any house they wanted—nothing like the Elstad house, but she didn’t want something like that—and brand new vehicles for both of them, and to pay for her law school, and Lucie’s college, and about everything Juliana could imagine needing money for. Her teeny mortgage and college funds seemed ridiculous in comparison.

  She was, admittedly, a bit dazzled for a moment.

  It must have shown in her eyes. “It’s blood money, Jules. I did the things I did for one reason only: loyalty to my club. To protect and support my brothers. Not for me. None of it for my own interest. If I spend the money that work earned, it means I need it. If I need it…”

  He didn’t have to finish. If he needed it, then he might go back to the work, and not for any reason he could make right in his heart.

  This was how she’d known she could make a life with an outlaw. Because he wasn’t a criminal. He was loyal and thoughtful. He did what needed to be done, irrespective of conventional law, but he did it for reasons that could be trusted.

  “Then we won’t spend it. We’ll figure it out the way we’ve been. I think we have a great life already.” She settled back against him, resting her head on his chest.

  He closed her in his arms again. “No, Jules. I do want to spend the money to get us started. Some of it. I just need a way to think about it that doesn’t fuck with my head. I’m only now getting my head back under control.”

  She thought about that. His concern was valid, and she would very much rather he stay out of the outlaw business. Having him home almost every single night, sitting with him like this and talking about their days, their daughter sleeping snugly nearby—that was what she wanted. Every rationale she could think of for using ‘blood money’ sounded to her mind’s ears like a rationalization.

  Finally, an idea came to mind. Perhaps it was still a rationalization, but even if it was, it had merit. “Maybe spending it to get us started is a way to make it make sense. Giving you something of value from it.”

  She felt his body subtly move under her as he shook his head. “That’s what I’m afraid of. I don’t want to need it.”

  “I’m not talking about needing more. I’m talking about making what you’ve already done worth it. For you.”

  He eased her back and looked into her eyes. “It’ll never be worth it.”

  She’d used the wrong phrasing. “I understand. But maybe you can make peace with it. It’s your call, Trick. I’ll never ask you to use a penny of that money. But so much bad has happened to you because of the work you did. Maybe if you can make something good happen because of it, maybe that’s how you get right with it.”

  He was silent, and Juliana tried to read his busy calm. It worried her, always, when he got like this, his eyes chaotic with emotion and his face placid.

  “Trick?”

  He blinked. Then he leaned in and kissed her. “I love you,” he murmured against her lips and kissed her again. “I love you. I love you.”

  ~oOo~

  “It needs a lot of work. This porch needs to be replaced, for one thing. I can feel the dry rot.”

  Juliana looked down at the weathered boards under her feet. “Should we get off?”

  Trick shook his head. “I don’t think we’re at risk of falling through, but it won’t be long before it won’t be so safe anymore. That’s not all that needs doing, either. A couple of rooms need new plaster, and all the floors need to be redone. The roof’s got a couple of years left in it, tops. The kitchen is ancient. And pink.”

  “I like the pink kitchen. It’s like a museum piece. And Roy said all the appliances worked well.” They’d sent Roy, their real estate agent, out to his SUV so they could talk in peace. “Anyway, you’re handy, right?”

  Trick laughed and put his hand on the back of her neck, under her ponytail. “There’s not much I can’t do with my hands, it’s true. But I wouldn’t take what the agent says on faith. He’s trying to sell us a house.” He pulled gently; she turned and faced him. “Which he has, hasn’t he? You want this one.”

  “Look at this yard, Trick. It’s beautiful. That magnolia tree is spectacular. I feel calm just standing here looking at it. We could get a puppy. There’s that room on the side of the garage—it could be a shop for you. There’s tons of light. I could make that ‘b
onus’ room upstairs into a sewing room. And there’s still four bedrooms. Plus—it doesn’t look like the same old California stucco blah of every single other house we’ve seen. I know it’s a lot of work, but that’s why it’s in our price range.”

  It was a Victorian house, more than a hundred years old, in a little town about ten miles west of her job in San Bernardino, and twenty miles from the clubhouse and shop in Madrone. Much bigger than anything else they’d looked at, it was by far her favorite. And she’d seen Trick’s eyes flare at the architectural details: the carved woodwork, the original glass in the windows—some of it stained glass—the oriel window in the living room, the fireplace, the peg-and-plank wood floors. Even the pink kitchen, straight out of a Fifties home improvement brochure.

  And definitely the enormous claw-foot tub in the bath nearest the master bedroom.

  “I know you like it, too.”

  “I do. But it’s a lot of space. Do we need so much?”

  “I hope we do.”

  She smiled and pushed her hand under his t-shirt, over his belly, firm and contoured with muscle again. She pushed all the way up to his chest, where some of the hair was still a bit stubbly. He had new ink, just something simple: her name and Lucie’s twined into an infinity symbol, over his heart. She had his name, written phonetically in the Greek alphabet, on the back of her right shoulder. The only tattoo she had, or would ever have.

  Groaning as she lightly scratched over his new ink, he caught her hand, holding it to his chest, the fabric of his shirt between his hand and hers. “What do you mean, Jules?”

  It would be the first time she’d said it aloud, and a flutter of fear tickled her throat. “I was thinking…I’d like to take the IUD out. I want to have our baby. With a big house like this, I want to have a couple, at least.”

  He cocked his head, but she couldn’t read anything but curiosity in his blue eyes. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about school?”

  “If I take it out just before the wedding, then even if I get pregnant right away, I’ll graduate before I deliver. And I won’t start a J.D. program until the next fall.”

  “You’ve put some thought into this.” He smiled, and she felt encouraged.

  “Yep. I put thought into everything. According to Lisa, it’s a character flaw. What do you think?”

  Instead of answering her, he grabbed her and turned them both, pushing her into the flaking wood siding of the house. Then he leaned his body into her, pushing his leg between hers. He held her face in his hands and kissed her—a light sweep of lips, nothing more.

  “Watching your belly grow with our child, being there when he comes into the world, holding him when he’s still warm from your body, introducing him to Lucie, seeing what a great big sister she’ll be? What do I think of that?”

  Juliana felt joy course through her, and she looped her arms around his neck and fed her hands into his hair. “You’ve put some thought into it, too. But he might be a she.”

  “I think about it all the time. And I don’t care if he’s a she or she’s a he.” He smirked, and a mischievous gleam sparked in his eyes. “Or they’re a they.”

  “Yikes! Don’t even joke! So that’s a yes, then?”

  “That’s a yes. To the house and the baby.” Leaning close again, he kissed her neck, lingering there to suck until the nerves under his mouth had electrified everything downward, through her breasts, her belly, between her legs.

  “Trick…” She could feel the length of him hard against her belly, and she flexed toward him, tightening the contact of their bodies.

  “If you weren’t wearing jeans right now,” he murmured deeply against her throat, “I would be inside you already. You should wear skirts when we look at houses.”

  “But we’re done looking at houses now. We found it.”

  “We did.” He stepped back and set her down. “Let’s put our buddy Roy on this and get it done.” He took her hand and brought it to her lips. “Then let’s pick up Lucie and celebrate.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  They got married at the end of March, during Juliana’s spring break, in their own back yard. Neither of them wanted a big production, so they kept the ceremony intimate, just their most immediate friends and family. For Juliana, that was only Lisa and a couple of girlfriends Trick had never met before that day. For both of them, it was the Horde.

  They each had their own reasons for complicated feelings about God and religion, and neither wanted a religious service. After they’d talked about it one night in bed, their limbs tangled together in a post-coital knot, Trick went to Hoosier and asked him for a favor.

  At first, he’d refused, insisting he wasn’t capable. But Trick persisted, and finally Hoosier agreed to do an online ordainment and preside over their vows. To Trick, it seemed fitting, and he’d shown Juliana, and then Hoosier, his view. Hoosier stood at the threshold between the life that had ended in the showroom that afternoon in September and the life he was starting now. He’d shown him the way through.

  So on a warm spring day full of California sun, Hoosier stood under the magnolia tree with Trick and Connor while thirty-five of their friends and family sat in rented white chairs. Juliana’s friend Lisa was her maid of honor. As Lakota began to strum a tune on an acoustic guitar, Lisa sashayed over the lawn, down the swath of white canvas that served as their aisle. Arriving at the tree, she gave Trick a sassy wink. He returned it with a smile.

  Trick thought Lisa was…okay. He didn’t expect ever to be great friends with her, but she didn’t piss him off or anything. She just seemed very different from Juliana, so different that he couldn’t understand the connection. But it was there, and it was real. He and Connor weren’t so very alike, either. Real friendship went deeper than similarity.

  Lakota shifted to a different tune, and Trick stopped thinking about Lisa. Out the back door of their house, down the new steps of the new back porch he and Connor had built, Juliana and Lucie came hand in hand, and Trick had no thoughts but for them.

  She’d designed and made their dresses, and he’d been worried about how much stress she’d put herself under to get them exactly perfect—both lace, hers crème and Lucie’s peach. He’d pulled her away from her sewing machine in tears on more than a few nights.

  But they were perfect. This day was perfect.

  And then, paused with Lucie at the far end of the aisle, Juliana began to sing.

  The first time he’d ever seen her, she’d been singing—at The Deck, during Karaoke Idol, a year and a half ago. Connor had performed, but Trick had been secretly hoping Juliana would win. Her voice was glorious, a clear alto, and she sang with deep feeling, like she meant it. She’d simply stood alone on the stage, closed her eyes, and sung. He’d known then that he wanted her; he might even have known as early as then that he could love her.

  He’d been right.

  That night, she’d sung a sad song in Spanish. As she walked with her daughter down the aisle to him, she sang an old classic, from the Forties or Fifties, he thought. He recognized it in the first couple of lines: ‘Only You.’ This was a surprise; she’d said nothing about singing for him today.