Seasons of Change (Bleeding Angels MC Book 1)

by Stephens, Olivia

  after all, that’s not what I came here for and the longer this conversation goes on, the more confused I’m getting and the more likely it is that someone will try to walk in and see the two of us talking. And people in this town talk, even if they don’t really mean to. Information is the currency that everyone uses, whether they realize it or not.

  “Sally, I don’t have much time. I just need you to get him to meet me at my house tonight, once the sun goes down,” I instruct her, looking her straight in the eye so she knows that I’m not messing around. “He needs to make sure that no one sees him. He should come the back way, through the field that we used to play on as kids. He’ll know what I mean,” I tell her, and then I see the fear start to bloom in Sally’s eyes again as she realizes the significance of my serious nature.

  “You want to make sure that he can’t be followed by a motorbike,” she says faintly as she starts putting two and two together.

  I nod slowly, hoping that Sally doesn’t choose this moment to crack, but I should have known better than that. Sally is way too strong for that. “His birthday,” she says after a few moments, as if she’s just realized what this is all about.

  I nod, not saying anything else. Not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t. I’ve never heard the Summers talk about what was inevitably going to happen to their two boys when they turn twenty.

  It was never discussed when I was in their house, and I was there more than I was in my own. Maybe it’s because it’s just too hard for them to imagine what their sons are going to have to do, and what they may turn into when they become a patched member of the angels. Or perhaps it was because they wanted to believe that something would change, that things would be different for them somehow.

  “It’s really important Sally. No one can know I was here or what I’ve told you—not even Bill or Jonah. Please give the message to Jake and only to Jake,” I plead with her.

  “I promise,” she agrees, clasping my hands in hers and holding them tight. I exhale a breath that I hadn’t even realized I was holding and I can feel some of the tension in my shoulders relax.

  “I have to go now Sally,” I tell her, seeing the hands of the clock move closer and closer to opening time. “Tell him that the key is in the usual place,” I add, squeezing her hand before I turn to head out of the front door.

  “Not that way,” she says abruptly. “You’ll be seen by everyone looking out onto the street. Follow me,” she instructs as she weaves through the aisles of envelopes and flat-pack cardboard boxes towards the back of the store.

  She unlocks the door quickly, fumbling with the keys in her hand as she does. “This’ll take you out into the back alley. If you take a right you end up two streets over. No one will think that you’ve been here,” she assures me, and I have to marvel again at the strength of this woman.

  I have just told her that something is about to go down between Jake and the Bleeding Angels and she’s still able to think clearly enough to give me an escape route.

  “Aimee, get him out of here,” she says quietly. “Don’t let them take him.” Her voice breaks. I realize that she must have known the plans that we had made to get out of town. All the secret conversations that Jake and I had were clearly not as secret as we wanted to think they were.

  “I’ll do what I can Sal, but recently he hasn’t been all that interested in listening to what I’ve got to say,” I tell her, looking down at my feet, sending a wave of desert dust up in the air as I draw circles in the sand with my sandal.

  “You’re probably the only one he really will listen to, Aimee,” Sally says, putting her hand on my shoulder, and I feel a little of her strength as if she’s passing some on to me. “If he doesn’t do this for you, then I don’t know who he would do it for,” she tells me, and I have to trample on the little flare of hope that my stupid heart sends up when I remind myself Jake had already said “no” to me once about getting out of Painted Rock.

  I’m not sure what else I could say that would make any difference to him. “And don’t worry about your mom, sugar. We’ll look after her, we’ll make sure she’s alright,” she tells me comfortingly, and I all I can do is nod my gratitude to her. I’m afraid that if I say anything close to what I want, I’ll just crack.

  I start to turn out of the door, but stop abruptly as a thought comes into my head. I figure that Jake’s mom is probably one of the few people that might know the answer. “Sally,” I ask after a beat, “Do you know why the Angels want Jake so badly? Do you know what it is about him that makes him so special to them?” I ask, and I can see from the shade of white that her face turns that she does know—all too well.

  “Aimee, I can’t.” She says the words as though they’ve been ripped out of her. “I want to say, I’ve wanted to tell Jake for years, but I can never seem to…” she trails off.

  “Find the right time?” I ask. “There’s a lot of that going around,” I mumble, not wanting to push Sally but at the same time desperate to know the secret that might be so important to Jake’s situation.

  “I don’t know if he will ever forgive me once he finds out,” Sally says, shaking her head, her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

  “Of course he will,” I assure her. “You’re his family and he loves you all,” I tell her. “He loves you all so much he doesn’t want to leave Painted Rock because he knows what the Angels will do to you guys if he runs,” I confide in her, hoping to prepare her for the possibility that Jake may refuse to get the hell out of town like I’ve been trying for him to.

  But Sally is shaking her head. “They won’t hurt us,” she tells me, and there’s so much certainty in her voice.

  “How do you know?” I ask, pressing for answers now. “How could you possibly know that?” I wonder if I’m jumping to completely the wrong conclusion, or if the idea forming in my mind is possible after all.

  “Don’t make me say anymore Aimee,” she pleads with me. “We were all young and we’ve all made mistakes,” she admits. “Some just last longer than others.” She looks sadly at me. “Look after him,” she adds before she closes the door behind me, leaving me standing in the empty alley, wondering what to make of everything.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I try not to think about the possibility that Jake may not want to have anything to do with me after leaving his bed without so much as a note and having maintained radio silence since then. I persuade myself that he’ll realize how important my message is and that’ll overrule his feelings of pride or hurt. That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway.

  The diner is coming to the end of a busy breakfast service when I walk through the doors of Sunny Side Up. The remaining customers are finishing up and I can see Crystal, Suzie’s replacement flirting with some of the regulars at the corner table. Once it had become clear that Suzie had no plans to ever come back to work, Big George had employed someone else. I had hoped that she would return eventually, but after seeing the mess she was in this morning, that now seems less and less likely.

  I keep my head down, not wanting to make eye contact with any of the customers as I head behind the counter and hurry into the kitchen as quickly as I can without attracting any unnecessary attention. I find Big George in his normal place, cleaning the grill to within an inch of its life.

  “Winters, you’ve got problems,” he says with his back to me. “It’s not even your shift and you just can’t stay away from this place.” George laughs.

  “You’ve got me,” I admit jokingly, “I just don’t know what to do with myself when I’m not serving greasy eggs and fried onions.”

  “I know you mean the best greasy eggs and fried onions this side of Vegas,” he says, correcting me.

  “Of course.” I nod, smiling at him as he turns around, cleaning spatula still in hand.

  It’s a little incongruous to see the man mountain that is Big George in his apron with a little cleaning utensil between his thick fingers, but when you’ve worked with him for as long as I have
you realize that it’s outside in his normal “civilian” clothes, as he calls them, where he doesn’t fit. Here in the kitchen he is the king of his castle. Outside… outside is where they have the control. I don’t blame him for wanting to spend as much time as he can in here.

  “You look like you’ve come to tell me something,” he says astutely, leaning against the cooling grill. It’s not a question.

  “You know I have,” I tell him. I had known how hard this was going to be, but I don’t think I had really understood what leaving this town behind would mean— what leaving the people I care about behind would mean.

  “About time” is all George replies, and I know that he’s letting me off. He’s not expecting the tearful, long goodbye—he’s just going to act like everything is normal.

  “Guess so,” I respond, wishing that I didn’t feel as if I was about to burst into a hot mess of tears yet again.

  “Hey,” George says so loudly he snaps me out of the tears about to overcome me. “What does the sign say?” he asks, pointing up to the wall on the right with his spatula.

  I smile as I read the words, although I know them off by heart: “‘No crying in the kitchen.’ And anyway, I wasn’t crying—just must have got smoke in my eye from all that food you burnt in here,” I joke, nudging George with my elbow.

  “Hey, Big George does not burn food,” he tells me with mock-seriousness. “So get on with what you have to tell me, I’ve got a grill to clean,” he says gruffly, but I can see that this is hard for him too. Goodbyes are always hard.

  "Just that I can’t make my shift tonight,” I tell him. “I’ll need someone to cover for me.” I look him in the eye and my expression tells him what I can’t say with my words.

  “Okay; you’ve covered enough of the other girls’ shifts, so they can cover some of yours now,” he says reasonably, nodding.

  “George,” I say. “Thanks… thanks for everything. That’s what I really came here to say,” I finish, and before he can stop me I throw my arms as far around his big frame as I can reach and I hug him.

  He pats my back awkwardly for a few moments before pulling me off of him. “That’s enough of all that now,” he jokes, but I can see the sheen of tears in his eyes. He knows that this is it and he knows that I don’t have any other choice. “I forgot to say—this month your tips got all mixed up,” George says after a few moments, as he looks behind the grill and retrieves a Tupperware box that he’s clearly been hiding.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, looking between him and the clear box.

  “Just that you had some more tips coming to you, but I just kept forgetting to give them to you,” he tells me simply as he pulls out a roll of cash tied tightly in a bundle with an elastic band holding the straining bulge together. He hands the money over to me, but I don’t take it.

  “George, I can’t,” I tell him, taking a small step back, not wanting to receive something that doesn’t belong to me, not wanting to take the money that he’d been saving for his rainy day.

  We both know that sooner or later he’ll need it, just like everyone else in this place. Sooner or later the Angels will come for him for one reason or another, and I’m willing to bet that the cash was his “get out of jail free” card. I couldn’t take that from him.

  “You can and you will,” he says decisively. “I’ve been saving it for you,” he adds quietly, and I have to pinch myself to keep myself from crying over how sweet Big George is and how I’m never going to be able to repay him for his kindness. “It’s not much.” He shrugs apologetically. “Only about $500, but it’ll help get you where you need to go.”

  “George I—” I start, wanting to thank him again, but he interrupts me.

  “I don’t want to hear it Aimee.” He holds his hand up to silence me. “The only two words I want to hear out of your mouth are ‘Thank you,’” he tells me, smiling ruefully as his voice softens.

  He holds out the cash, waving it at me until I reach out and take the bundle from him, closing my hands around it. “Thank you, George,” I say obediently.

  “Good. Now get out of my kitchen,” he yells at me good-naturedly, not looking at me again and just turning back to attack the grill with his spatula and some good old-fashioned elbow grease.

  “I’ll be seeing you George,” I say, proud of myself that I’ve managed to get the words out without my voice cracking and breaking.

  “Be seeing you, Aimee,” he replies so quietly I can only just hear him as I walk out of the kitchen.

  I take a last look around at the diner, one of the few places where I had felt like I was actually doing something rather than just marking time. I nod to Crystal, who gives me a little wave as she counts out the change for a customer, and then I walk out the door into the bright morning sunshine, feeling more ready than ever to do what I have to.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  If you’ve never withdrawn your entire life savings in one go then you won’t be able to understand the strange mix of excitement, fear, and anxiety that flows through you as you walk down the street with more cash on you than you have ever seen in your life at one time.

  I’ve been paying into my account regularly since my dad died. At first it had only been a few dollars here and there—whatever I could earn from cutting the neighbor’s lawn or washing dishes in the diner. But as time went on I got older and started waitressing and getting tips, so my monthly deposits grew steadily.

  But there was never enough. What I had was never enough compared to what I figured Jake and I would need to be free and clear of this town. My mom had her own account where all my dad’s life insurance and pension money had ended up, and that was enough for her to live on, so I knew she would be alright once I had left.

  But as time went on and I started to realize how much things like gas, motels, food, and basic living cost, it became pretty clear that the small fortune, as it had seemed to me I had when I was fifteen, was going to be less than sufficient for Jake and me to make our great escape.

  Even now, after years of hard saving, there was still only just enough for us both to live on for a month, maybe more, after taking us as far away from Painted Rock as possible. After the money ran out we’d have to get jobs as we could, travel from one place to another, until we could finally find somewhere to settle where we felt safe. Somewhere that the Bleeding Angels would never find us. Somewhere that we could finally be free.

  Like I said already—people in this town talk. So before I even went into the bank I knew there was no way that I could just ask them to hand over my life savings in one big chunk without some an explanation that wouldn’t sound suspicious to anyone they told. The last thing that I wanted was for anyone to take an interest in what I was doing, to put two and two together, and come up with the correct answer—that I was getting out of this two horse town.

  So I had to do the only thing that I could do: I lied.

  “That’s a lot you’re taking out all at once,” the cashier had said, looking curiously at me through the glass partition.

  “I know,” I tell her, dropping my voice as if I’m telling her a secret. “It’s just that my mom’s in kind of a bad way and the hospital bills are bleeding us dry,” I explain, adding a theatrical glance around the building so that it looks as if I’m embarrassed at having to admit that we’re in dire straits. “You know how it is. With insurance companies, they find every which reason not to pay what they owe,” I confide in her, shrugging my shoulders and sighing loudly.

  “Don’t I know it,” the cashier responds instantly. “Those insurance companies, they just take your money and give you a whole lot of false promises and then when you need them, it turns out you didn’t read the fine print,” she snorts.

  “That’s what I’m saying,” I agree with her, glad that I’d been attended by this middle-aged woman and not the guy a few years older than me sitting behind the counter in the far corner.

  I catch a glimpse of a tattoo on his neck as I'm waiting in line, and tattoos
only mean one thing in this town: that you were or are an Angel. Even if the cashier dude had served his time and then gone on his merry way, you still couldn’t be sure that he didn’t report in to any of the bikers, telling them about anything he’s noticed, any strange deposits or withdrawals that could signal something is about to happen.

  Anyone that looks like they might have links with the Angels should best be avoided, especially today, especially now.

  “So do you want me to go ahead and close this account down then, honey?” The woman behind the counter asks.

  “No ma’am,” I say certainly, “I most surely don’t. Once that insurance company agrees to pay what they owe all this money is going to come back into my account,” I explain to her with the simple belief of a young girl, and the cashier doesn’t say anything.

  She just nods, giving me a pitying glance. I’d thought about it already—closing my account might raise a red flag and I wasn’t willing to take any chances.