Strength & Courage (The Night Horde SoCal Book 1)

by Fanetti, Susan

  When they got out, the dog danced around in a circle, but he stayed close, Muse put a harness thing over his head, and Cliff wasn’t thrilled about that at all. He lay on the ground and spent a solid minute trying to work it off with his front paws, while Muse locked the cab and the steel box in the bed. He’d put his kutte in that box before they’d gotten into his truck.

  “Is that some kind of muzzle?” It didn’t look like a very effective muzzle, if it was. Cliff’s mouth wasn’t covered.

  “It’s called a Gentle Leader. Not a muzzle. More a halter like horses wear.”

  “What’s it for, then?”

  “So I don’t yank on his throat if he gets excited and needs to be controlled. Cliff has a squirrel problem.” He ruffled the dog’s head. “Dontcha, boy?” The boy in question barked happily and turned toward the trail.

  It was too early yet for ski season, but not by much, and the day was cold and bright. Muse was only wearing a thermal and a hoodie, and he seemed fine, but half an hour into their hike, Sid had pulled up the faux-fur trimmed hood on her down jacket and shoved her hands into her pockets.

  Muse noticed and pulled her close. “You’re cold. Want to head back?”

  They’d been talking aimlessly, focused on Cliff’s enthusiastic enjoyment of the hike, pausing so he could thoroughly sniff and then mark every tree, rock, and trail marker they passed.

  “Not yet. He’s having too much fun.” She nodded toward the dog, whose nose was planted in the ground at the base of a big rock.

  “Okay. There’s a meadow up ahead, and since we haven’t passed anybody, I’m gonna let him off the leash for a while. Then we can head down. There’s a diner in town that’ll let Cliff sit with us on their patio. They run a couple of big outdoor heaters, so you’ll be warm.

  “Okay. Sounds nice. You know, today is our first actual date.”

  He cocked his head. “What?”

  “We’re out somewhere together, going to a restaurant for a meal. I think this is our first date.”

  “I guess it is. Huh. I wonder if I’ll get lucky at the end. Since I’m buying you a meal and all. Only fair.”

  She laughed. “Maybe I’ll pay.”

  “Yeah? I guess I’ll have to put out, then. That’ll make me twice as lucky.”

  She punched his arm. “Caveman.”

  He grunted.

  When they got to the meadow, Muse removed the halter thing from around Cliff’s head, and the dog immediately dropped to the golden grass and rolled, rubbing his face on the ground.

  “He doesn’t like that thing, does he? Does it hurt him?”

  “Nah. He doesn’t like it, though, it’s true. It’s supposed to be a dominance thing. It uses pressure across his snout, which is supposed to be the way wolves and pack dogs assert dominance, pushing a lesser dog’s nose down. Cliff’s pretty alpha, I guess, so he always fights it at first. But I haven’t been able to break him of his squirrel fetish, and I hate the choke collars and shit like that. The Leader just bugs him, it doesn’t hurt him. And it works. You saw—he sees ‘em, he wants ‘em, but he doesn’t chase ‘em, not with that thing on.”

  “Will he bolt if he sees one now?”

  “Yeah, but if I whistle, he’ll come. He could be off leash all the time, since he always comes when I whistle. But I don’t have clear sight to what’s coming on the trail, and I don’t want him to scare anybody coming around a bend if he gets some distance before I can call him back.”

  He led her to a boulder and sat at its base, pulling her down with him and settling her between his legs. The position briefly reminded her of her freakout that morning, but she set those thoughts aside. It was old shit, and she usually had it well under control. There had been too many unstable factors this morning—the lingering effects of the day before, the oddity of waking up in Muse’s bed, the muddy disorientation of not-quite-wakefulness—otherwise, she would have been much calmer and would have been able to just turn around so they could fuck face to face.

  Now, though, since she had freaked out, Sid was worried that he would ask why and push, as he so liked to do, for an answer. She didn’t know whether she would give him one. She didn’t talk about the answer. Ever.

  While she was ruminating on that, Muse said, “My sister is in a coma. She has been for three years, and they say she won’t ever wake up. They call it a Persistent Vegetative State.”

  Her thoughts died in her head, and she turned so she could see his face. “Oh, I’m so sorry. That’s awful. Can I ask what happened?”

  “Car wreck on her thirtieth birthday. Drunk driver.”

  “Fuck. Did they get the drunk driver?”

  He looked out over the meadow. “Yeah. Our father. Killed three people in the car he hit head on, made Carrie like she is, and he came out of it with nothin’ but a fucking broken arm. He’s doing thirty-three at Chino.”

  Sid rolled onto her knees and hugged him. He didn’t hug her back.

  “She likes to make a big deal out of her birthdays, and that one was bigger to her than any of the ones before. ‘The Big 3-0,’ she kept saying. She didn’t want a party this time. She wanted to go out to dinner, since she was going to be a ‘grownup’ at last. Damn, she was a nag about making sure I got home for it. I was still a Nomad then, and I wasn’t around much. I told her I’d be there, that I wouldn’t miss it. But I got tied up in Santa Fe. She was so pissed when I called and told her I was gonna miss it after all. She hung up on me and wouldn’t answer my calls after that. The last words I’ve ever heard in her voice were ‘Fuck off.’”

  He stopped, still looking out over the meadow. Sid turned and followed his line of sight. Cliff was bouncing back and forth through the tall grass, which was crunchy and dry after a Southern California summer.

  “If I’d’ve been there, I’d never have let that rummy piece of shit behind the wheel. I’d’ve been driving, and she’d be okay.”

  Her heart felt swollen and raw. She brushed her fingers over the short hair at the side of his head. “Muse, it’s not your fault.”

  “Yeah. It is.”

  “No, it’s—”

  He grabbed her hand roughly. “Sid. It is. Pretty words don’t change truth.” His eyes were the cold blue of winter sky and full of pain and anger, so different from the wise, sardonic light they usually cast.

  “Okay. I’m sorry.”

  He nodded. “You ready to go back down?”

  Fighting the tension in her throat that wanted to push tears up and over, she only nodded.

  ~oOo~

  The restaurant he’d described earlier was called the Arrow Grill, and it was quite dog-friendly, with even a menu for kibble. While they ate burgers and fries, Cliff sat beside the table with a meal of his own, complete with a beef-infused treat for dessert.

  Though his mood had lightened as they’d gone into town, and he was friendly and joking with the owner of the restaurant, whom he knew, Muse’s story about his sister still weighed on Sid’s mind. It got tangled up with her thoughts about her freakout in the morning, and she was feeling like she should share a pain with him, to try to balance the scales in some way. She felt guilty knowing something so painful from his past, like he’d let her see something he kept safe, while she had held everything away.

  So she drank down her soda—when he’d ordered a 7Up, she’d ordered a Diet Coke—and buttoned up her will. “I want to explain why I acted like I did this morning.”

  Muse had been leaning down, checking on the dog, while she said it. His eyes being elsewhere had helped her keep her will up. Now he sat straight, quickly, frowning. He reached across the table and took her hand. “You don’t have to say because I told you about Carrie. I don’t need a tit for tat, hon.”

  It threw her that he’d intuited what she was feeling, but she wasn’t dissuaded from sharing. If she didn’t say now, he’d bring it up eventually, and she’d just be sitting around waiting for that to drop. Better to do it now, while she was making the choice without being prodded.r />
  But she’d never said it before. She’d never told anybody. Ever.

  “When I started at USC, I thought about joining a sorority. Actually, my mother really wanted me to. She thought it would be a good way to have a community—which I guess is the whole point of sororities, so she was right. I didn’t really care one way or the other, so I went to some Rush Week parties.”

  Muse squeezed her hand. “You’re gonna have to help me out with the lingo, hon. I don’t know a lot of college people.”

  “Rush Week—it’s when all the frats and sororities throw a bunch of parties and try to make themselves look super awesome so people will want to pledge them. They get pretty wild. I guess not as much as they used to, but they were pretty wild when I was there. I think Pledges are like your Prospects? Kind of on probation, and all the members pick on them and give them gross jobs and make them do shit to prove they’re worthy?”

  He smiled. “Yup, that’s a Prospect.”

  “Anyway, one of the sororities looked pretty okay, so I went with some of its members to a party at their brother frat. It was this beach party theme, and guys were walking around with armloads of plastic leis asking girls if they wanted to ‘get lei’d.’ They thought they were really hilarious and original. There was a lot of booze at that party, and I got pretty drunk. This cute guy was paying me attention, and I liked it.”

  Muse squeezed her hand again, and Sid realized that his whole arm was rigid. “I know where this is going, hon. You don’t have to go on.”

  But she did, now that she’d started. So she shook her head and went on. “I thought he was nice. I was wearing a strapless top—beach party and all—and some random guy came up to me and tried to pull it down, and this guy pushed him back and got all protective. I liked it. When he said I was getting way too drunk and offered to drive me back to my dorm, I said okay. I said thanks. I called him my hero. As drunk as I was, I remember all of this. Everything’s a little warped, like it’s running at the wrong speed, but I remember it all. He didn’t take me to my dorm. He took me to some apartment off campus. I didn’t realize it until we got out of the car, and he said we’d only be a minute, he was still going to take me home. When we got inside, he tried to start something. I probably would have, but I was feeling sick by then and just wanted to pass out. So I said no, I wanted to go home. His whole personality changed, like a switch flipped. He said I could go home when he said so.”

  She could feel her lips trembling as she tried to make the next words. Nobody knew this. Not her parents, not her roommate at the time, not anyone. She hadn’t reported it or ever spoken of it, because she’d been ashamed and humiliated, and because it had taken her years before she’d truly understood that she hadn’t brought it on herself.

  “He shoved me over the kitchen table, yanked my skirt up and my underwear down, spat on me and fucked me in the ass. Then I puked all over his kitchen and he slapped me for it and made me clean it up. But hey—he took me back to my dorm after, just like he promised. I bled for three days afterward.”

  With a shaky breath, she finished, “And that’s why I don’t like sex from behind. And didn’t join a sorority.” She tried to laugh, but it failed and turned out more like a gasp.

  Muse was silent, staring at her, holding her hand so hard she was losing feeling in her fingers.

  “Muse, please say something. I’ve never told anybody that before.”

  He sat forward and lifted her hand to his mouth. He opened her fingers and kissed her palm, and the gesture was so sweet and…and loving that she let loose a sob. Just one, before she caught back the urge for more.

  He raised his eyes and met hers. “I love you.”

  And that was it. Sobs overwhelmed her, and she collapsed utterly. What she’d told him had happened years before, when she was eighteen, and she honestly had complete control over the memory. After a few months, she had been able to lock it out of her way. It had not stopped her from dating or enjoying sex, even casual sex. It had kept her away from certain positions and a particular kind of sex, but it was not a key factor in her life.

  Or so she’d thought.

  His response had been so simple. Unvarnished and exactly right. What she needed. She believed him. But all she could do in response was cry.

  Cliff sat up and whined, and Muse changed seats, scooting right up next to her so he could pull her into his arms. She turned into his chest and cried, right there in the restaurant, surrounded by fellow diners.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The People of the Pines Casino Resort was situated between Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear in the San Bernardino Mountains. It was owned by the Serrano Tribe. Wade Ferguson was their chief, the CEO of their corporation, and the President of the casino. His hands spread wide, and his fingers were in every tribe pie. Muse felt certain that few members of the tribe had any idea how dirty Ferguson was and how much fatter his pockets were than anyone else’s.

  The casino had brought new opportunity to the tribe, but it had also brought new problems and new enemies. Ferguson kept everything running just smoothly enough in the community that people felt that things, though not as good as they should be, were too good to complain.

  Muse wasn’t personally much interested in tribal politics or economics. They’d been working protection for Ferguson in one way or another for as long as there had been a Horde charter in SoCal—and he’d worked with their previous club before that. All Muse really cared about was the work. But Lakota and Diaz had held a few drunken lectures in the Hall, so everybody had some kind of sense that Ferguson was a bad guy with a great PR team.

  Half the club—not coincidentally, the half that had voted in the new run—was heading up the mountain to get details on the job, which they’d taken to calling the ‘border run.’ Bart was back in Madrone. He’d been ready to ride out, but Hoosier had left him back at the last minute.

  Muse added that to the list of evidence that trouble was brewing at the head of the table. Hoosier always wanted his Veep with him on meets like this, working out details for new work. Bart was his detail man.

  But this run was Hoosier, Connor, Lakota, Sherlock, Diaz, P.B., and Muse. Four officers. Bart was the only officer who’d voted against the run. Another item for the list. Well, Muse supposed Jesse was technically an officer, but he didn’t think Public Relations Officer was a title with a lot of pull in this case. President and SAA were both riding up the mountain. So were the Treasurer and the Intelligence Officer. And Bart was home babysitting the bike shop.

  Yeah, there was trouble, and they were too new a charter to weather much trouble.

  Hoosier hadn’t given Bart a reason, just told him to stay back. But Muse knew the reason. Everybody did. The Missouri charter was coming, and not to party. Bart had called home, and Hoosier was pissed. He felt that it should have been him talking to Showdown about the border run—and it should have been. Missouri, which had lost almost everything in the Perro war, and had sent two of their own to hard time to end it, was not happy that their new charter was going outlaw again.

  Not their call, though. They could be as pissed as they wanted to be. Long as they got their cut, it was SoCal’s choice. And the vote, split though it was, had been fair.

  Hoosier had been an MC President about ten times longer than Showdown Ryan, so he didn’t like getting called to the woodshed by a less experienced leader. Muse wondered how friendly this visit would be and what kind of fallout they could expect.

  Figured that the club would start to shift unpredictably just as Muse was starting to really settle. A little more than a week had passed since Sid and he had had their ‘first date.’ Since he had told her he loved her—and meant it. Since she had told him a story that had made all the loose pieces of the puzzle of her find their place.

  When she’d told him what happened to her in college, two things had developed inside him. One of his was his certainty that he loved her. He didn’t know how or why he’d fallen so fast, but it didn’t matter. He had
. The other was his sense of finally understanding her. Her fight, her independence, her assertion that he was pushy and her resistance to his attempts to handle things. Her meltdown in the clubhouse. Her job, her work at the women’s center, her guns and self-defense moves—all of it had made sense, in a rush. Some women understandably became fearful after an ordeal like that. Sid had instead become determined.

  One other thing had happened while she’d shared that story. Rage. She’d been eighteen. There was nothing he could do about what had happened to her fourteen years ago. But he could find the man who’d hurt her most recently, who’d threatened her, whose hurt of her had been written all over her face while she’d sat across from Muse and told him about being anally raped by a lowlife college boy. And the man he could reach was going to pay for both.