Blood & Rust (Lock & Key #4)

by Cat Porter

  I felt empty, but that was an understatement.

  I felt full, but that was also an understatement.

  That I was here at all, to witness this, alive and a part of this circle of kichú, was a gift. I rubbed the back of my hand across my mouth. Tania, who was seated in the second row of pews, whispered to Grace’s nephew—her late sister, Ruby’s, son—Jake and to Jill’s daughter, Becca, whom she held in her lap.

  Pastor Brad came forward again, clearing his throat. “Richard Thunder Kichú is given new birth through the water and the Spirit. Baptism is the beginning of a lifelong journey of faith…”

  Faith, affirmation, covenant, vow, tradition, love.

  I closed my eyes and let Brad’s words seep through me. Yes, they all made sense to me.

  A special sense. A One-Eyed Jack sense.

  Hadn’t I run after Boner and pulled him from setting himself on fire months ago? That was love, a vow of brotherhood.

  Hadn’t I gone along with every little crap job Jump could think of for me these past months? That was my covenant with my club, each job a show of faith, an affirmation of my commitment.

  Hadn’t I created a much-needed bridge for our club to another club, establishing new cash wielding opportunities? That was me continuing the tradition of our brotherhood, moving us all toward something better, something more for the Jacks’ future.

  Nina uncrossed her legs, a leg bumping into mine, and I sank back against the hard wood of the pew.

  Hadn’t I done right by Nina, who’d needed my help to escape from her private hell? That was compassion, a kind of love.

  My eyes slid to Tania once more. Black-haired beauty. Cranky Scarlett.

  She rocked Becca in her lap, Jake leaning his head against her shoulder, all three of them listening to Brad.

  Tania had bolder makeup on today, like at her art gallery party. She’d made a special effort for this special occasion, enough to accent her beautiful features without going overboard and coming off like a jangly bad chord your fingers had mistakenly stumbled over on a guitar. No, she was a perfectly tuned, perfectly elegant composition.

  She turned her head, her gaze meeting mine, as if she’d heard me across the church. The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention.

  Scarlett.

  My seductive dream. My other could-be life.

  I miss you. I—

  Her sexy lips turned up at the ends, a dark eyebrow lifted. She was happy to see me and teasing me all at the same time. I smiled back, enjoying the odd spiral of heat in my chest. She returned her attention to Becca, and something dimmed inside me.

  That was too brief, but that was what it was—unattainable and out of reach. A bolt of lightning before me on the highway. Startling. Unsettling. Breathtaking. Then, in an instant, it vanished; it was gone.

  “With baptism, we become a part of the body of Christ in the world.” Brad’s raised voice brought me back to the ritual at hand. “Our name is written in the book of the Lord. We are named. We are commissioned to use our gifts to strengthen His church and to transform the world.

  “Richard Thunder Kichú, go forth with the love and the support and commitment of your friends and family gathered here today. God bless you, and may God bless us all. Amen.”

  “Amen,” people repeated out loud through the communal murmuring and shuffling.

  Grace took her son back in her arms, and Boner swung an arm around Lock. Jill wiped tears from her face and scooped her daughter up into her embrace. Jake hopped up from his seat, joining Grace, his face craning to check out his baby cousin, with his granddad—Grace’s father—at his side.

  Grace and Lock had a family. Death, alienation, betrayals—none of it had twisted them in the end. They were the victors.

  My eyes clouded; my throat thickened.

  I stalked outside of the small church, avoiding the greeting line. I got on my bike and lit a smoke as I watched Tania help her mother into another elderly lady’s car. They took off, and Tania turned and opened her car door. Travis came up behind her, saying something, a crooked grin twisting his mouth. Tania swung around, her face drawn tight.

  Always ready for a fight, aren’t you, Scarlett?

  Her shoulders dropped, and she broke into a huge smile, her beautiful dark eyes hanging on Travis.

  Son of a bitch.

  Tania’s face lit up. They talked.

  Her face lighting up for me outside that dilapidated house we’d picked over flashed in front of my eyes. Her appreciation of my interest, of any knowledge or history I’d shared with her that she wasn’t aware of, our quick way of teasing each other, the jokes—all those moments seemed so far away and so goddamn precious right this very second.

  Travis got closer to Tania and said something. Her eyebrows quirked, her mouth twisting in a perfect combination of, You must be kidding me, and, You’re turning me on.

  I tossed what was left of my cigarette on the ground.

  Once Tania and I had gotten back to Meager and she had found out about me and Nina, I’d thought I’d have a female shitstorm on my hands, its sour aftereffects lasting for weeks, if not months, on end. But I’d been so wrong. Tania was bigger than that. I’d seen her face at the club that day as I entered the clubhouse. Her features had been still, registering what she’d just heard. Then, she’d squared her shoulders, turned her back, and moved on.

  It should have been a relief to me. Done and dusted.

  But it wasn’t.

  A deep gouge had ripped through my gut as I was led back inside the clubhouse. Bothered. Disappointed. And fucking confused. Being with Nina was all about no emotional complications, not wanting or needing a real relationship, and knowing I was better off without one. I’d lost Caitlyn. I’d fucked up with Grace. Pain, humiliation, blindness. So much arrogance. Being with Nina was a solution.

  Now, I wasn’t so sure anymore.

  Inside the clubhouse, my brothers and I’d partied, celebrating my return. I’d been so looking forward to that moment, and instead of enjoying myself, feeling the fucking high, I’d felt an odd desolation deep in the pit of my soul that seeped through every cell and vein in my body.

  Tania was interesting to talk with, entertaining, thought-provoking, and to top it all off, she was fucking hot. A hot that was intriguing and complex, a hot whose layers I wanted to uncover and explore and get singed from doing it.

  In our petty youth, I had kicked her to the curb at Grace and Dig’s wedding. I’d flirted with Tania by taunting her and coming on strong, plowing right into her. My hands had grabbed at her flesh, as if I were shoplifting and my life depended on it. And she’d backed out at the worst possible moment. We had been fucking, and she’d panicked, deciding she didn’t like what I had been giving her, deciding she didn’t want it. Or maybe she didn’t want it from me.

  Back then, she’d always looked at me with hints of distaste, dislike, disgust even. If we hadn’t been ignoring each other, we’d been shooting off biting riffs here and there. We’d gotten tangled in each other’s barbed wire. She wouldn’t back down, and I hadn’t quite realized it then, being the self-involved ass I was, but I liked that about her.

  In those days, her every glance had been like a scraping over my skin, like she was analyzing me or trying to.

  “Let it go, baby. Live and let live,” I had told her on several drunken occasions.

  She’d only rolled her huge dark eyes at me and taken off in the opposite direction.

  So, at Dig’s wedding, when she’d stood before me in the repair shed, snarled up in awkwardness—same as me—looking sexy as fuck in that tight dress with, obviously, no underwear underneath, I had gone for it. Or maybe a better description would be that I’d dived for it headfirst.

  And she’d taken me up on it.

  I had known I was her taste of the lowlife, a secret escapade, a dirty fling, and I’d liked that. That was what most women had wanted out of me anyway. That, I had known how to do and do it well. I’d been with plenty of wome
n, both way younger and way older than me, single and married, regular and rich, all of whom had wanted a bite of the other side. And I’d never said no to providing them with what they wanted. But to toss Tania into that category and to shift blindly into fifth gear with her from the get-go had been stupid.

  At Dig and Grace’s wedding, I’d been heaving in a tornado of irritation and tension that whole day, and lashing out at Tania had been entertaining, a distraction, a fleeting remedy. I’d wanted to feel like a king again even if it was only for a moment. I got her on that damned couch, and we got busy. Just as I’d started coming, she had pushed at me, panicking. She’d thought better of it, of me. Fuck, I had been a self-centered lay back then. I couldn’t say I remembered it much, but I was sure I’d just hammered away at her, getting my rush on.

  In the end, I’d gotten left with my wet dick in my hands and hurled bitter words at her for it, letting her know how ridiculous I thought she was before I’d stalked off.

  Ugh.

  “Butler? Let’s go. Come on.”

  Nina climbed on the back of my bike, her hands latching on to my sides.

  I started up my bike and sped out of the church parking lot, swinging by Tania’s Yukon. Travis had one arm planted over the door of the vehicle, leaning down toward her open window, the two of them chatting.

  Tania’s dark eyes darted over at me as I zoomed past in a blur.

  “THINGS WITH JUMP any better?” I asked Alicia.

  “Nope.” Alicia’s matte mauve lips pursed together. “He’s moved on from feeling bad already. Can’t say I have.”

  “Another shot, ladies?” asked a young blonde with a dozen full shot glasses on the serving tray she held before us.

  “Sure,” I said, taking two glasses and handing one to Alicia.

  The weather had cooperated beautifully for the christening party at the club. A grand buffet table stood at one end of the center of the track, and Alicia and I sat at the other long table opposite, which was for the guests to sit and eat.

  Penny’s two boys, Nate and Carter chased Becca and Jake through an obstacle course of white chairs on the newly trimmed green grass. All four kids laughed as they punched at the white, blue, and silver balloons attached to the chairs.

  Butler and Dready sat on the opposite end of the dining table, talking. With a hand clamped on Dready’s massive shoulder, Butler threw back his head and laughed loudly, his body shaking. I tried to look away, but I couldn’t. My pulse knocked in my system at the sound of that winner-takes-it-all laugh of his that made you feel as if you’d missed out on something big. His cheekbones seemed more pronounced, and the slight indentations of something like dimples were visible on his face for a moment. Those soft waves of his golden hair shook—a stark contrast to Dready’s dark dreadlocked hair—as both men high-fived each other.

  The devil inside me wanted nothing more than to torture me today, and I loved and hated every second of it.

  Nothing like an impossible crush that just wouldn’t die.

  I might as well be back in my teens with the way I reacted every time I heard Butler’s voice or his name or saw him drive up on his motorcycle. Something would jump and boil inside me and take over my judgment, my reason, my senses. Definitely my senses. I could almost feel his hot breath on my neck on these occasions, like when he’d stared at me in the church earlier. He had unlocked the hidden portal to my carnal self during those hours we had spent together at the motel.

  Talking.

  Laughing.

  Touching.

  Kissing.

  Coming—Well, me, at least!

  I crossed my legs and slammed the lid down on that boiling pot.

  Time and time again, I felt compelled to seek him out with my eyes, my ears, whenever I knew he was around. He would match my glances with either a brief smile or a diligent gaze, which would make me mildly uncomfortable because I couldn’t tell if these looks were appreciative, friendly, or negative.

  But none of that matters, does it? This was an idle game I played with myself. Butler was in a committed relationship with Nina, and that was most certainly that. I was friendly with both of them, but I mostly kept my distance.

  Alicia bumped my shoulder with hers. “I’ve put up with a lot of shit in my time, Tania.”

  “I know you have.”

  “At some point, the sewer gets full to capacity and should be emptied. You can’t keep plugging up the leaks.”

  “Oh, totally agree. The stink becomes overwhelming.”

  She laughed, and we clinked our shot glasses.

  Alicia knocked back her tequila and wiped at the edge of her mouth. “Any sense of guilt or wrong Jump might have felt—and I stress the word might”—she let out a hard laugh—“vanished within thirty-six hours. And now, I’m the one with the problem.”

  “Ah, let me guess—that you can’t get over it, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Fuck that.”

  “Oh, yeah, fuck that, is right.”

  “Maybe you should fuck that with a new man,” I said.

  She laughed, clinking my glass with hers. “I like you, Tania. Have I told you that lately?”

  The blonde who’d been passing out shots poured Jump a drink where he was holding court on a long sofa with the president of the Colorado charter of the One-Eyed Jacks.

  “For the first time, I really feel like I’m at the end of the line.”

  “You do whatever you need to do, Alicia.”

  “For years, I put up with it. I argued, I fought for us, I even fooled around myself to even the score. None of it ever leveled the playing field though. Nothing changed, not really. I knew all this going in. Getting married to him, I knew. But, now, I see my son understanding it, and it’s confusing him. Wes is going to be eighteen soon. A man ready to go out into the world and make choices on his own. He already is really. He loves his dad, and it kills me to think that Jump is his role model when it comes to personal responsibility or relating to women. I don’t want that for my son. I don’t. That hurts more than anything else.”

  “And you sticking with Jump only shows Wes that all of it is okay.”

  “Not only that, but also that I’m a fucking failure as a woman, as a wife, and as a mother.”

  “Come on, Alicia.”

  “Think about it. All these years, my kid has watched me go from disappointment to disappointment, from artificial high to way down low and back up again. At some point, Wes has made the realization that this is the way a marriage is, that this is the way a man is. And that kills me. It’s fucking wrong, and I had a hand in that.”

  I found Wes in the crowd of guests, eating with a couple of his friends. He was a tall teenager with chestnut hair almost touching his shoulders and deep blue eyes. He had his mother’s lean frame, coupled with his father’s height, and a sullen expression permanently stamped on his face, all of which made Wes a heart-stopper.

  “Look at that now.”

  I followed Alicia’s line of sight. The blonde passing out the shots lingered in front of Jump, chatting with him and another biker, while the Colorado president had his hand wrapped around her bare thigh, but her eyes were on Jump, and her smile was for Jump. As the four of them bantered and laughed, the president’s hand rose higher under her short skirt, pulling her closer.

  “See, right there? That one knows what she’s doing.”

  “What? Flirting?”

  “Not just that. Going for the officers. You think she’s hot for Jump’s body or something?” Alicia scoffed.

  How do I say, Of course not, without offending her?

  Jump hadn’t kept up with his formerly fit, muscular self. His bulging stomach attested to that. His arm muscles were still huge, his chest pumped, his legs sturdy. His lone braid ran down his back, now flecked with lots of gray. His face was somewhat swollen and grizzled, which defined his tired, worn appearance, except for those dark eyes of his that would still flick over you with a quick, sharp assessment. Onc
e that assessment had been made, there was no changing it, that was for sure.

  But what the hell did I know? Maybe Jump was still The Man in the bedroom.

  Jump suddenly got up from the sofa and strode off with another biker from the Colorado club.

  Alicia shifted her weight in her chair. She certainly was no has-been/seen-better-days old lady. Her appearance was always polished. Today, her long platinum hair was pulled back in a ponytail with a slightly teased pouf at the top, her heavy eye makeup and perfect dark manicure rounded out her sleek look. Sporting spiked heeled sandals with white skinny jeans and an open-back lilac top held together with thin strips of fabric, showing off an amazing tattoo mural on her upper back, Alicia could give any twenty-something wannabe a run for her money anytime.

  The Colorado president lit the shot girl’s cigarette. She flicked her mane of golden hair from her face and grinned at him as she drew deep on her inhale, a hand going to her hip.

  “Some men think they can walk on water,” Alicia muttered.

  Grace appeared, shaking her head at me. A signal to change the subject fast?

  “This spread looks great, by the way,” I said. “You know how to plan a party, Alicia.”

  “She certainly does,” chimed in Grace.

  “Huh? Oh, thanks.” Alicia touched my arm as she brushed past me.

  “I’ve got to say”—I stepped closer to Grace as I admired Alicia’s sexy stride through the yard—“I’m tempted to stay because I feel a train wreck coming on, and my evil sensibility would love nothing more than to soak up that spectacle.”

  Grace sighed. “Right?”

  “But I will refrain.”

  “Oh no. No, no, you can’t leave, not yet.”

  I let out a sigh. Come on, buy my line of shit, Grace. Make this easy for me for a change.

  “Baby…” Lock embraced his wife from behind, bending his head to kiss her. His one hand stroked just underneath her breasts as they kissed deeply.

  I smiled and peeled the empty plastic drink cup from her hand. That hand went to her husband’s jaw as she tilted her head back against him. Her pale pink strapless empire-style dress seemed so delicate against Lock’s all black clothing. I loved seeing them together. I loved the affection they shared, that physical and emotional need they had for each other.