HWY 550 (Rock Point Book 3)

by Freya Barker

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble in her hair when I can feel her shoulders shaking.

  “That’s my line,” she counters between sniffles. “I should’ve come after you. Explained.”

  “I shouldn’t’ve walked out like that.” I lift her chin with a finger and look into her now red-rimmed eyes. “Is it gonna hurt if I kiss you?”

  Her mouth twitches. “Don’t care if it does.”

  I’m gentle, or as gentle as I can remember to be, pulling away much faster than I want to. “Ready to come home or is there somewhere else you need to be first?” I’m a little confused when her eyes well up again.

  “Home. I was just thinking I wasn’t sure where that would be.”

  “Wherever you want, as long as it’s with me.”

  With her lips pressed together she nods.

  We’re just walking to the SUV when a black Expedition pulls in, Damian behind the wheel.

  “Taking her home?” he says to me, when he gets out of the car.

  “Planning to.”

  “I’m right here, guys,” Luna pipes up before peeking inside Damian’s vehicle. “Where’d you leave Keith?”

  “He’s driving Dylan’s truck back to Durango. I just got a call from Jasper, who’s at Mercy. Dylan’s out of surgery. The bullet did some damage to his shoulder, but they were able to patch it up and he should recover with some rehab.”

  “Shit. He’ll be pissed he’s benched.”

  “I’ve already put a call in to James. He’s sending us a couple of his guys on loan since you’ll both be out for a bit.”

  I feel Luna’s shoulders snap back. “Me? Why would I be out? It’s just my nose.”

  “Bureau rules, Roosberg, you know that. Only reason I let you follow up with Salinas and the woman is because this is your case, and I didn’t have anyone else at the ready. You’ll need medical clearance, which won’t be until your follow-up appointment at best, and then it still has to be approved by HQ before I can put you back on rotation.”

  “Can I at least sit in on questioning?”

  “Busting my balls here, Roosberg. How about listening in? It’s the best I can do.”

  I have to bite my lip when she huffs dramatically at his suggestion.

  “We should be off. There are a few people at the clubhouse I’m sure are eager to see you,” I prompt her.

  “Oh my God, Ahiga, how’s he doing?”

  “He should be fine, probably being pampered by Momma.”

  “On that note, I should get inside and see if I can pry some more information loose from Daddy’s little girl.”

  I let go of Luna and stick out my hand at Damian. The moment his palm hits mine, I pull him in for a one-armed hug. “Thanks for looking out for my girl, brother.”

  “Hey, she’s ours too.” He winks and, with a soft fist-tap to Luna’s chin, walks into the hospital.

  “WHAT WAS THAT DADDY’S little girl business?” I ask Luna, once we pull out on the road.

  “Not sure if I should be telling you this when you’re driving, but the daddy Britney was talking about is actually her father—Wheels.”

  “No fucking way.”

  “Oh yeah. It’s a tangled web and we’ve not even gotten to the bottom of it, but let’s save that for tomorrow. I need to get something off my chest first.”

  I reach over and take her hand in mine, slipping my fingers between hers and giving it a little squeeze. “Shoot.”

  “I want you to understand that my job has been the most important thing in my life since I joined the Bureau. Bar none.”

  “There’s no need to—”

  “Just let me get this out, okay?” she asks and I nod.

  “But that wasn’t the reason I was so focused on it. I wanted to see this assignment through to the end as soon as possible, so that when I pack up my house and move in with you, you’ll know you’re my only motivation.”

  It’s probably illegal, and the car behind me doesn’t appear to appreciate it, but I pull off the road onto the shoulder, so I can properly kiss my old lady.

  AHIGA ABANDONS HIS PlayStation game the instant he spots Luna and barrels into her so hard, I have to brace her from behind.

  “I’m okay, sweetheart,” she automatically mumbles into his freshly washed hair. It doesn’t seem to matter, he’s not able to hear a word.

  The clean hair is probably Momma’s doing, she is standing in the door opening to the kitchen, dabbing at her eyes with a tea towel. I step away when I notice Kaga nudging his head to the office.

  “Everything okay here?”

  “Here, yes,” he says with a grin. “At your house, not so much.”

  It takes me a minute before I realize what he’s talking about.

  “Fuck, the dog.”

  “Yeah man, I knew you were going to pick him up this morning, so I went to check right after I got back here with the boy. Figured you’d want to keep that a surprise. Shit, man, and I mean that literally: shit all over the place. Took me fuckin’ half an hour to clean that up. You’re lucky you have tile and wood flooring, cleaning up carpet would’ve been a bitch. Which reminds me, you’re out of paper towels.”

  “Thanks, brother.”

  “You’ll owe me—I’m good with that,” he grins. “He’s walked, has fresh water, and I dumped some more of that food in his bowl, but I suggest not leaving him alone for too long.”

  Twenty minutes later, I open my front door and shove Ahiga ahead of me. The sound of galloping footsteps greets us, and the boy freezes in front of me as the big dog slides to a halt at his feet.

  A soft “oh” comes from Luna, who is peeking around me to see what the holdup is.

  I didn’t know you had a dog, he says, when I step around him to help with introductions.

  He’s not mine, he’s yours.

  Fucking kills to see the disbelief on the kid’s face morph into tears. Goddammit. Now I’m swallowing down a lump as I watch him drop to his knees and wrap his arms around the big mutt’s neck, and turns his face to me.

  “Taank-yew”

  CHAPTER 30

  LUNA

  “Jack!”

  I’m already five minutes late meeting Ouray at the clubhouse.

  Standing in the back door, I can see the damn dog sit on a rock he seems to have claimed as his perch, overlooking the lake below, but he doesn’t even acknowledge me. Maybe he needs more time to get used to the name the boy picked for him.

  He knows how to listen to Ouray when he whistles on his fingers—a piercing sound that hurts my ears—and after practicing, for maybe an hour, Ahiga mastered the skill as well. I’m the only person in this household who cannot seem to do more than spray spit all over my hand.

  I turn to Ahiga, who is shoveling down some cereal. Can you call him? He’s back on the rock.

  We’ve had him for just a week, but already he’s made his preferences clear. Ahiga, then Ouray, and way at the bottom of his priority list is yours truly.

  Ouray told Ahiga if he wants the dog, he’s to feed it and clean up after it, which he’s done so far. I hope it lasts once the newness wears off.

  This whole sitting on a rock business started on Monday, when Ouray decided Jack didn’t have to be put on a leash back here. There isn’t any fencing, and I was worried the dog would run off, but Ouray was convinced he’d come back. He sniffed around, peed on a few blades of grass, and sat on that damn rock for an hour and a half before he came back to the house.

  I flinch at the sharp sound of the boy’s whistle, and immediately Jack comes trotting to the house.

  Did you pack his food like I asked?

  In my backpack.

  Good, grab your stuff, and don’t forget Jack’s leash. We’re late.

  Today we’re moving my stuff. There’s really no rush, because I paid up to the end of October, but with a busy month ahead, it makes sense just to get it over with. Both Ouray and I received our all-clear so he can drive, and I hope to be back on the schedule as of Monday.

  I
was able to stand in the small viewing room at the police station while Damian and Keith questioned both Wheels and Dario, neither of whom were particularly forthcoming. Unfortunately, Britney hadn’t been released from the hospital yet, there were some complications with an infection she incurred in the hospital and she’s only now turning a corner. Damian says he hadn’t been able to get much more from her than I had that first night, so we’ve all been waiting to put the thumbscrews on her.

  Jill’s husband, Hanshaw, was questioned as well, and he’d been able to offer some information on a possible motive, albeit under duress. He mentioned a meeting he’d accompanied Wheels to late July, in Corpus Christi in Texas. He’d met with a couple of ‘businessmen’ looking for protection for the transport of stolen arms through the Rockies.

  The old man had been gung-ho—the money offered hard to refuse—but the organization wanted him to guarantee or force an alliance with other MCs on the route to ensure safe passage. It was clear that would be a problem.

  Wheels returned to Shiprock and put the proposal on the table, but with the potential for violence between the historically friendly MCs—something few had the stomach for—the club voted him down. Hanshaw thought that would be the end of it.

  Apparently not for Wheels.

  Ouray is waiting outside when I drive up to the clubhouse. I’ve barely stopped and Ahiga is already out of the vehicle, Jack on his heels. Ouray ruffles the boy’s hair when he passes him and disappears into the clubhouse.

  “Move over,” he says stalking up to the driver’s side.

  “Seriously? You can’t even let me drive to my place? It’s five minutes down the road.”

  “Spent almost two weeks being chauffeured around and it was torture. I’m driving.”

  I roll my eyes at the dramatics, but move over anyway. “Where are the guys?” A couple of the brothers had offered to help.

  “At your place moving the big furniture outside.”

  “What? Already? I haven’t even gone through my—”

  “Sprite,” he cuts me off, as he steers the Traverse onto the road. “They’re not doing anything to your stuff. They’re making you a staging area so it’s easier to sort through.”

  I beg to differ, but I keep my mouth shut. After all, the guys are giving up their Saturday morning to help.

  Sure enough, Kaga, Wapi, and Honon are toting what furniture I have out of the house when we come up my driveway.

  “Whatever you don’t want, one of the guys will drop off to the Salvation Army. The rest we’ll load up and take to the other house. Then we go inside and tackle the small stuff.”

  I’m immediately overwhelmed. Having to pick and choose what stays and what goes suddenly seems more than I can handle. “I can’t decide,” I mumble.

  Ironic, because if you’d asked me to describe the furniture in my place, I would’ve drawn a blank on at least half of it. But standing in front of it, I realize even that ugly dresser I picked up from a yard sale years back would be hard to let go of. These things...are the constant in my life. The reliable. The walls may have changed regularly, but my not exactly appealing furnishings have turned every new place into mine.

  I hadn’t realized agreeing to move in with Ouray wasn’t really the risk—letting go of my stuff is.

  “Look,” Ouray says softly so only I can hear. “You don’t have to decide now or even at all. There’s room in the garage, and I bet we can get most of this in there and still have room for the bike and the Traverse in the winter. You can take your time.”

  I slip my arm around his waist and give it a squeeze. He’s right, I don’t have to make any decisions. But holding on to my security blanket of stuff like some kind of contingency plan, in case things don’t work out, is not the message I want to send to a man who just now proves again he is very much worth it.

  “The dresser can go,” I point to the ugly thing. “The couch, it’s almost falling apart and I like yours better.” As I’m listing the things I can absolutely do without, the guys load them in Ouray’s old pickup, while he moves behind me, his strong body at my back and his chin coming to rest on the top of my head.

  It takes all of five minutes to reduce the pile to a few manageable pieces I actually like.

  “Do you think we should keep my queen to replace the boy’s twin-size?” I ask Ouray, tilting my head back.

  He looks down at my face with a smile before dropping a kiss on my nose. “He’ll probably grow into it soon enough.”

  “Right. Guys? We’re keeping the bed.”

  When one o’clock comes around, I pull the door to my cottage closed.

  Wapi has done the drop off at the thrift store, the rest of my things have been carted to their new home, and this place is spic and span, ready for the next tenant.

  “Ready to see what Momma has for lunch? Or do you want to get started on those boxes waiting for you?”

  “Lunch first, pick up boy and dog, and then take us home.”

  “Good plan.” Ouray throws me a wink before starting the engine.

  As we drive away from my little house on the hill, I don’t even look back once.

  OURAY

  “He was in love with her.”

  Every head turns in Wapi’s direction.

  I invited the cubs in for this powwow in my office and the room is packed. The meeting was two-fold. First of all to welcome Paco back into the fold—he was released earlier this week—and because I needed to clear the air. I still feel guilt over not being straight with my brothers—with the exception of Kaga—and feel responsibility for Rowtag’s death.

  I spelled it out in detail, the how and why of events leading up to and including the scene last week in Aztec, and the reactions are mixed. Yuma in particular seems angry, and I make a note to take him aside after.

  I just described finding Rowtag dead behind the container where Luna and the boy were being held, when Wapi speaks up.

  “With Britney,” Paco confirms, his face haggard. It hadn’t been easy for him to hear the truth about the woman he’d been carrying a torch for.

  Wapi shoots a guilty glance at him. “Yes. He didn’t care she was way older. Said she was showing him a whole new world. I thought at first he was talking about...well...sex, but then he mentioned doing a few ‘jobs’ for her and boasted about something big in the works. I never got what he was on about.”

  “Why’d you keep that to yourself?” Paco asks.

  “I just thought it was Rowtag being Rowtag. He was always showing off and talking big. It wasn’t until after your woman,” he nods at me, “had her brakes messed with that I got worried. He never liked her, but was even more pissed at her after she had the accident. I asked him point-blank what crawled up his ass, and he admitted Britney had asked him to ‘take care of the bitch’ but she hadn’t been happy with the results. After that I tried to warn her he was up to something.”

  “But you never brought it up with me, or with any one of your elders,” I point out and he hangs his head.

  “No. I thought maybe he’d snap out of it. The club was all the family he had, like it is for me. I was afraid he’d get tossed out, and maybe even me.”

  I look around at my brothers, trying to gauge the mood, but having a hard time of it. Some sport a damn good poker face.

  Right. Time to put it in their hands, it’s the only way.

  I nod at Kaga, who’s the only person who is prepared.

  “You’re gonna have to come with me, Wapi. Looks like we’ll both be on the chopping block today.” When he looks up at me confused, I clarify, “You and me, we need to earn back their trust. Come on, we’ll grab a beer.”

  I sling an arm over the kid’s shoulders and walk out, closing the door behind me. We’re not even halfway down the hall when he suddenly dives into the bathroom, puking up his guts.

  “Everything all right?” Luna asks, jumping up from the couch.

  “What are you doing here? I thought you were unpacking boxes?”

 
; “Momma called. Said something was up and you might need me here.”

  I throw a scowl at Momma, who is leaning unapologetically in the kitchen doorway, her arms crossed over her chest. “Had to be done, and you know it,” I tell her.

  “May well be. Still don’t mean you’ve gotta take what’s comin’ on yer own.”

  “Okay, what are you two talking about? And what’s wrong with Wapi?”

  “I’ll take care of the boy,” Momma announces. “You two talk. I put your smokes on the bar.”

  Smartass. I’ve been trying to quit since I got knocked over the head. Without much success I have to admit, but at least I’m limiting my smoking to the clubhouse. No longer at the house.

  I grab Luna’s hand, snatch my pack up with the other, and head outside for the picnic table, where I light one up.

  “I’m waiting,” Luna says, bulging her eyes when I look at her.

  “The brothers are deciding on Wapi’s and my future with the club.”

  “Wait. What? Why?”

  “The cub knew something was up with Rowtag and didn’t share. As for me, I haven’t been straight with them. Trust is our strongest bond, and not only have I betrayed their trust in me, I doubted my trust in them. Up to the brothers to decide how to move on from there.”

  “Could they kick you out altogether?”

  “It’s possible,” I confirm, taking a long drag.

  “But the club is your life—”

  “Was. For thirty-two years. It’s the only real family I’ve known until now. Now I have a boy, a dog, and my dream woman waiting at home.”

  “Who is she?” Luna teases with a smirk on her face.

  I tag her behind the neck and touch my nose to hers.

  “Love you, Special Agent Luna Roosberg.”

  “Love you right back, Mr. Mark Strongbow.”

  Then I kiss the sass right out of her.

  TWO FUCKING HOURS.

  Luna just left to go check on Ahiga. She didn’t want to leave him alone too long with just Jack for company at the house.

  I saunter into the clubhouse, in search of another beer. I already had three. This takes any longer and I’m diving into the hard liquor.