“Hello, there!” she called back. “You must be Lacey! Want to come take a look at my baby?”
“Yep, that’s me! I’ll be right there,” I answered her, nodding my head, as I struggled to push our bulging cart across the pavement, my movements stiff and awkward.
“Ooh, your little girl sure is a cutie!” she said with a smile on her face. “Hello, sweetheart!”
I inspected the car while she chattered away about how long she had owned it, what the mileage was, and how she had just come from vacuuming it out and putting in a vanilla-scented air freshener that she’d made herself—detailing the whole process with words like infusion and scented oils. She was super nice, but she was driving me crazy as she prattled on and on. The longer we stayed in one place, the antsier I became to get on the road. When she finally got around to handing me the title, my girl was fidgeting with impatience, but she sat silently, waiting for me to put her in the car. She was used to staying quiet while around any other adults, except for me. She knew the punishment that could come from speaking up at the wrong time.
We got on the road about twenty minutes later, driving away in a car that smelled strongly of patchouli oil and vanilla. I didn’t mind the smell though. All that mattered was the car worked like a dream. I just hoped it continued to do so.
After a quick stop to get us fast food for a late lunch, we got back on the interstate and headed south. There were no more errands to run and no other stops to make. I was almost home, and I was worried that once we got there, life would become even more complicated.
I grew up outside of a town called Eugene. Its biggest claim to fame was the state university and, more specifically, the university’s football team. It was where I’d met my husband although I never brought him home to meet my father. I’d been trying to distance myself from that life, so I’d pretty much just pretended it didn’t exist during my four years of college.
My husband strangely never asked to meet my pop. For a while, I’d wondered why he chose to completely ignore that part of my life. It seemed to me that someone would want to know his or her future spouse’s family. Eventually though, I’d chalked it up to total self-absorption. He didn’t care about my previous life because it didn’t directly impact him. That had worked in my favor, so I’d been happy with the status quo.
I’d gone home only a few times during college, and the last weekend home during my senior year had changed the course of my life forever. After that, I’d refused to look back.
We got to Eugene at about three in the afternoon, and I’d left the city, taking back road after back road on my way to where I’d find my father. I wasn’t sure where he was living, but I knew exactly where he’d be at three o’clock on a Tuesday. It was the same place he’d been every Tuesday my entire life and where he’d be every Tuesday until he died.
As we pulled up outside the gate, I was filled with a jumble of emotions I didn’t even bother to sort through. It had been a very long day, and my body was so weary that I wasn’t sure how I’d even make it out of the car. Maybe I should have waited, grabbed us a hotel room, and returned bright and early the next morning, but as soon as I brought the car to a stop, the guard at the gate was walking toward me. There was no time to back out, so I sighed quietly and rolled down my window.
“Whatcha need, beautiful? You lost?” he asked me with a smile pulling up the corner of his mouth.
“Nope. Looking for my pop. Can you let us in?” I muttered distractedly, rubbing the bridge of my nose with my fingertips. A headache was building in between my eyes, and I didn’t have the energy to care how annoyed he looked that I was neither nervous nor trying to flirt my way in.
This guard was new. He hadn’t been here five years before, and it looked like he was a recruit. No patch yet.
“Well, who’s your pop? Is he expecting you? This is private property.” He was smirking with a cocky look in his eyes that hadn’t been there seconds before.
Five years ago, I would have put him in his place, but I was too tired to fight. I just wanted to get to my pop, so I could finally rest.
“Poet,” I answered him shortly. “Look, just call him, okay? No, he’s not expecting me, but it won’t matter. You’re new here, so I’ll give you a little heads-up. You don’t want to keep me waiting.”
He looked at me quizzically, and then he stepped away from the car and pulled out his cell phone. Soon after that, his hand came up to rub the back of his neck, and he turned to face me as he disconnected. “Sorry about that. I’ll just get the gate open, and you can go on up.”
It was obvious that whomever he’d spoken with wasn’t happy to hear that I was waiting at the gate.
When I pulled up at the clubhouse, there were a few guys outside, working on motorcycles and sitting at picnic tables, shooting the shit. All of them turned my way as I parked and got out of the car, holding tightly to the doorframe to steady myself. I recognized a few, but I didn’t acknowledge any of them. I was here for Pop, not to socialize. These weren’t my people anymore. I was surprised to find my backbone returning though, the longer I stood in the yard of my childhood. I was the princess here. It may have been long ago, but I knew my status had not changed.
My thoughts went blank as I saw my father walk quickly out of one of the garage bays with two men on his heels. I didn’t even glance at the men; my eyes were eating up my father as he paused for a few moments and then took long strides toward me. He hadn’t changed a bit. His gray long hair was parted down the middle and hanging down his back in a ponytail. His beard, which had always reached his chest, was cut short, but his smile and shining green eyes, which were just like mine, were achingly familiar. He was smiling at me up until we made eye contact, and then his face changed to one of concern. I wasn’t sure what emotion was showing on my face, but he knew that something was wrong.
My body sagged in relief as he reached me. We were safe. He was here, and we were surrounded. Nothing and no one could touch us now.
“Pop,” I whispered as he wrapped his thick arms around me.
“My Brenna girl. Where have you been, lass?” He squeezed my middle in a tight hug.
My relief was unfortunately short-lived because the moment he squeezed, my body tensed in pain. I promptly lost consciousness and felt nothing.
Chapter Two
Brenna
I woke up, bleary-eyed, to someone prodding at my ribs. At first, I wasn’t aware of my surroundings, so I began to panic, frantically pushing those roaming fingers away.
“Brenna! Stop! Let Doc look at you.”
I heard my father’s voice from across the room. The past week came back to me instantly, and panic rushed in for another reason.
“Where’s my girl? She was in the car! Where is she?” I feverishly looked around the room, not spotting my daughter anywhere.
“Ach. I found her. Don’t be worrying about that. I left her outside with the boys, and she was just fine. Now say hello to Doc. Let him finish looking you over, and we can have a bit of a chat, yes?” he admonished me.
I looked to Doc, who hadn’t seemed to age since the last time I saw him—well, except for the fact that he seemed to have lost about thirty pounds. I wasn’t sure he ever had an actual medical degree, but he’d been fixing up members of the club and their families for as long as I could remember. He’d always seemed like such a contradiction to me. He could gently set a five-year-old’s broken arm (mine) and beat the hell out of someone (some huge guy that I had never seen before) all in the space of an hour. He was old as dirt when I was a kid, and I wasn’t sure how he was still alive and kicking.
“Hi, Doc. It’s been a while,” I said with a sheepish smile. “I’m not used to waking up to someone coppin’ a feel. I thought you were just getting handsy. Sorry about that.”
He started to guffaw in his deep baritone, and I found myself smiling at its infectiousness. His looks were deceiving; the man’s voice was as strong as ever.
“Glad to know you still got som
e fight in you. Although, I’m wondering where that fight went when whoever it was cracked these ribs,” he replied with a raised eyebrow. “You’re going to need to take it easy, girl. I don’t know how you’ve been getting around like this.” He shook his head. “I’ve wrapped your ribs, which doesn’t do a whole lot other than keep you aware of things, so you don’t move the wrong way. There’s really nothing I can do for you at this point. I’ll leave you some pain meds, but with the way you react to them, you may want to stick with something over-the-counter.”
I’d always had a very strong reaction to pain medication. For some reason, they just seemed to hit me harder than they did everyone else. When Doc had given me one for cramps when I was a teenager, I’d slept for thirty-six hours. It’d freaked Pop way the hell out.
With a nod, Doc packed up his bag and left, closing the door behind him. I closed my eyes for just a moment, preparing for what I knew was going to be an extremely hard conversation. When I opened them again, Pop was sitting on the edge of the bed. I realized I was in his room, and it was freshly painted in a garish shade of yellow, but before I could say a word, he started to speak.
“Brenna, what the hell is going on? You show up here after five years—and believe you me, lass, I’m grateful—but the minute I hugged you, there you went, fainted dead away in my arms. So, I lifted you up to carry you inside, and out of the corner of me eye, I found your wee lass sitting in the car bawling her eyes out.”
Even after all these years, if Pop was upset about something, his accent got thicker. I found that comforting in a way that I couldn’t explain.
“She wasn’t making a sound, Brenna! Tears were falling down her face, and she wasn’t making a bloody sound! She couldn’t be more than four years old, and she doesn’t say a word when her mum collapses? I handed you off, and as they took you inside, I grabbed your girl. Now, she’s crying, mind you, but no matter what I said, she just kept on crying, but she was completely fuckin’ silent.”
He raised his arms in exasperation, and I forced myself not to flinch from the sudden movement.
“She was stiff as a board! I can understand the lass being afraid of a scary old man like me who she don’t know from Adam, but she didn’t fight me! Oh no, I lifted her up, and her back just snapped stick straight, but she kept on crying. Then, when she finally stopped, I left her with the boys outside. I came in here and saw Doc checking out that bruising you have all over your body. Tell me what the fuck is going on.”
As he spoke, his face got redder and redder, and by the time he finished, I could see the tendons in his neck straining under the skin. I took a deep breath to try and calm my nerves. The conversation could end in one of two ways: Pop would be mad as hell at me, or he’d be ready to kill my husband. I knew it would be the latter.
“Now, Brenna!” he growled.
“It’s a long story,” I said, trying to find the right words. I was already starting to cry.
His voice was softer when he spoke again. “Start at the beginning, lass.”
“I’m married. I’m sure you already know that though. Um, we met in college, and he seemed like a really good guy. We dated for a while, and eventually, he asked me to marry him, and I agreed. By then, I was pregnant, so we just did a quick Justice of the Peace thing, ya know? Things were fine for a while. His family is from Salem, and they’re really into politics although I’m not sure what his dad does. He makes a lot of money though because, Pop, seriously, his mom lunches. She spends her days doing all of this charity shit, and she doesn’t work. Ever. She’s never worked. Plus, she’s a bitch.”
Pop nodded his head as I kept talking. “Anyway, we finished up college, and then lived with his parents when Trix was born. She was so tiny, Pop. She was early, and there were all these problems. After she was born, I spent the first two months with her in the hospital. I rarely saw him, and we never saw his parents. He rarely came to see her even though he didn’t have a job and spent all day doing nothing. It was weird, but I really didn’t care, ya know? ’Cause I had Trix taking up all of my energy.”
I stopped to take a shuddering breath. I had to just get this part over with. Just give him the story—no exaggerations, no emotion. Just get this shit over with. “He finally got a job up in Portland, so we moved up there. I’m not sure why, but he started getting pissed all the time. Everything set him off, but I just figured it was shit with his new job. I thought things would get better. I was so caught up in the move and getting Trix situated that I just didn’t see it coming.” I shook my head. “One day, he came home, and the living room was a mess because my girl was fussy. I remember that toys were all over the floor, and laundry was all over the place, too, because I was trying to catch up. He came in and just started talking in this soft voice. It was eerie because I could tell he was pissed, but his voice never changed. Before I knew it, he walked over and punched me. Right in the stomach.”
By this time, I was breathing hard but trying to keep it under control because my ribs were on fire. I didn’t even notice the tears streaming down my cheeks and into the hollow of my neck until Pop handed me the handkerchief he always kept in his back pocket.
“You know I can take a punch…you know I can. It’s not even a big deal normally,” I insisted as I wiped my face.
I was raised in the life. There was honor in being able to take whatever someone threw at you.
“It wasn’t even that I was surprised really. I mean, I knew it was coming. I could tell by the way he was standing, the way every single muscle in his body seemed to tighten up. But Trix was less than three months old, and I had a C-section. I don’t think I was totally healed yet…or something…because it was the worst pain I had ever felt. Ever. It knocked me off my feet. He didn’t care, and he wasn’t sorry. It wasn’t like I had done something wrong, and he was punishing me for it. He wasn’t pissed at me. It was like he enjoyed it. After that, it was like he knew he could get away with it, and no one would know. Every single thing I did. Everything set him off. It was like it wasn’t even about me, you know? He just needed an outlet, and I was his personal punching bag. He didn’t scream or trash the house. It was only me he went after.”
I paused again and closed my eyes as I remembered every punch, every kick. “I could take it. I was strong, and I knew I could just deal with it—at least until Trix was a little older and in school. I figured if I could just make it that long, then I could figure something else out. He’s a stockbroker; it’s not like I couldn’t take anything he dished out.”
As I told Pop the abbreviated story of the last five years of my life, I felt like an idiot. Who stays with a guy that beats her bloody more than once a week? What the fuck had I been thinking? I scooted myself up carefully on the pillows. I didn’t want to tell Pop the last of my story while lying down although I wasn’t sure why it would have mattered.
“Last week, Trix didn’t put her toothpaste away after she’d brushed her teeth before bed.”
I saw my father’s body, which had been tensed to the breaking point before, turn to forged steel.
“He grabbed her out of bed. She had already been asleep when he got there. I came running into the room as he started to shake her. Pop, she looked like a fucking bobblehead! Her poor little neck was just jerking with every shake, and there were tears running down her face. When I got there, her eyes just sort of shifted to the side, and I know she saw me because she started to whimper. It was like she was asking me to make it stop.” I clenched my hands together on my lap, realizing they had begun to shake. In fact, my whole body was shaking, and I had been so engrossed in my story that I hadn’t noticed. “I charged at him and tore her away. Before I even set her down, he was punching me in the back. She knew if he was angry that she should go sit in her window seat, and she did. Thank Christ. She sat there, trembling, as he turned on me.”
I closed my eyes as I remembered that night. “He beat the holy hell out of me, Pop—right in front of my four-year-old daughter. I thought he was g
oing to kill me. I couldn’t get out of bed for two fucking days. I’ve been peeing blood for a week. Trix made kitchen runs because I couldn’t make it down the stairs. When he would leave for work in the morning, she would crawl into bed with me and lie there all day. She tried not to move because every time she did, it was excruciating for me.” I shook my head. “I couldn’t let her see that again. I thought I was being so sneaky, but you’ve seen her. She’s so fucking quiet.”
I had done it. I made it through my entire story without breaking into hysterics. Now, I just had to brace myself for my father’s reaction.
“That motherfucker. I’m gonna kill him. But first, he’s going to hurt,” he replied calmly.
I knew that this wasn’t just an overwrought father who was talking big about avenging his daughter’s honor. My father never made threats, and while I had never feared him once in my entire life, I knew everyone else did. I always knew that Pop was different from the other dads. It was why I had run as far and fast as I could, why I’d married the first guy who asked, why I’d never told Trix’s biological father that I was pregnant. Ironically, I had decided early on that his life was not the life I wanted, and yet, when I needed a safe haven, this was the only place I wanted to be. I was slowly figuring out—five years too late—that this was where I belonged.
My father belonged to the Aces MC. The Aces controlled the gun trade on the West Coast from Fresno to Vancouver. All of them had rap sheets, and many of them had outstanding warrants. They lived by their own rules—the law of the club—and once you were in, you were there until you died.
Pop wasn’t just a member. He was the vice president.
A Ride or Die Kind of Love Page 39