by Penny Dee
Some women don’t like the word.
My sister uses it like a javelin throw.
“You need to start working on your relationships with other people,” I mutter.
“I’ll think about it.” She gives me an amused smile over the roof of her car. “When they stop being a big bag of dicks. Thanks for bailing me out, little brother.”
“Hey, enough with the little.”
She winks before getting in her car.
Shaking my head, I walk over to my bike and climb on. I’m itching to get back to Bronte. A swell of excitement hits me right in the goddamn balls when I think about what is waiting for me when I get home. Our kiss still lingers on my lips as well as the memory of pinning her to the wall. And when I think about my hand between her thighs and how ready for me she was, my dick tells me to ride home quick.
Roaring out of the parking lot and into the late afternoon light, I can’t keep the grin off my face because I have a feeling I’m riding toward something so very fucking right.
My sixth sense tells me to get excited.
That everything I’m looking for is waiting for me back home.
I push my Harley through the late afternoon with a satisfied smile resting on my lips.
Dusky light slants through the trees fringing the road, casting golden beams through the shadows and bathing everything in a summer haze.
I’m less than a mile from home when I feel something hit me in the chest. It’s like a heavy thud against my cut, and I have to steady the bike when the split second of distraction almost sends me off the road and into a ditch.
It’s not until I pull into the driveway of my home that I start to feel dizzy. When I climb off my bike, my legs give way beneath me. Dropping to my knees, my hand goes to my chest and finds the hole in my cut. Dazed, I look at my fingers and see they are dripping with bright red blood.
The realization crashes through me.
I’ve been fucking shot.
BRONTE
I know something is wrong the moment he turns off the ignition. I’m standing on the porch waiting for him when I see him climb off his bike and fall to his knees.
Alarmed, I race down the stairs and across the lawn straight to him.
“Someone fucking shot me,” he groans, and I see the slick of blood coating his fingers.
I grab my phone from my jeans pocket. “I’m calling an ambulance.”
“No!” Jack bites out, handing me his cell. “Call Doc.”
“Are you crazy?”
“It’s a gunshot wound,” he says through gritted teeth. “The hospital will call the cops. We can’t… we can’t have them sniffing around... not with the harvest so close.”
“Fuck the harvest, you need to get to the hospital.”
“No.”
“You might need surgery, Jack.”
He looks at me with pained eyes, his face draining of color. “Call. Doc. Now.”
Panicking, I hastily bring up Doc’s number and hit the call button. “You’d better not die on me,” I say as I wait for Doc to answer.
It takes him three rings before he picks up. “Yeah, Prez—”
“He’s been shot,” I blurt out.
Doc pauses. “Jack?”
“Yes, you have to come quickly. He’s bleeding from a bullet wound. He said to call you because he doesn’t want an ambulance.” The thought that I might lose Jack suddenly hits me when I see the growing red stain on his T-shirt. “Oh fuck, there’s so much blood.”
“Where are you?”
“On his driveway.” Looking pale, Jack rolls forward and collapses onto the grass, his eyes half closing. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.”
“What’s happening now?”
“He’s unconscious.”
“Is he breathing?”
I lean down and hover over Jack’s mouth, feeling for his breath. “Yes, but only just. Please hurry. He doesn’t look so good, Doc.”
“Can you see the wound?”
I slide Jack’s cut to the side and push his blood-drenched T-shirt further up his chest until I see the bullet hole. Blood is boiling out of it like a geyser.
“Can you see it?” Doc repeats.
“Y-yes…”
“Okay, tell me where it is?”
“It’s on his right side about two inches from the middle of his chest and about a couple of inches above his nipple.”
Doc pauses, and his silence speaks volumes.
“That’s bad, isn’t it?” The alarm in my voice a dead giveaway.
“Don’t panic, sweetheart, you’re doing real well, and we’re going to get him through this, okay?” Doc is as cool as a cucumber while I’m holding my breath, certain I’ll collapse into a panicky stupid mess the moment fresh oxygen hits my brain. “Now, I need you to place a palm over the wound and apply some pressure. You got me? We need to slow the bleeding. Can you do that for me?”
I do as he says, but when I press down on the wound, blood rises like dam water between my fingers and dribbles down my pale skin in rivers of vibrant color.
“There’s so much blood,” I whisper.
“There will be, but you can’t let that distract you. I need you to keep pressure on the wound.”
I nod, even though no one can see me, and suck back my tears. “I will.”
“Is he still breathing?” Doc asks.
Again, I nod. “Yes…”
“It’s going to be okay, I’m on my way. I’m in the van we take on medic rides, so I’ve got everything I need to help him.”
“Okay.” I suck in a deep breath. “Doc..”
“Yeah?”
“Is Jack going to die?”
“Not on my shift, darlin’.” He sounds so confident, it takes the edge off my fear, but only just. “Now, I’m handing the phone over to Dakota Joe so you can explain to him what happened while I get what I need to help Jack.”
There is a slight pause before Dakota Joe’s voice sounds in my ear. “Bronte? We’re heading for the van and almost on our way. Now tell me what the fuck happened.”
“I don’t know what happened. He pulled into the driveway and collapsed. He said he’s been shot, but that’s all he said about it before he passed out.”
“He didn’t mention who did this?”
I know why he’s asking.
If Jack doesn’t make it, they’ll want to know who to go after for payback.
“No… yes… I don’t know… I’m sorry, it all happened so fast.” I squeeze my eyes closed. Get it together, Bronte. I suck in a deep breath. “No, he didn’t say who did it.”
Dakota Joe’s voice is soothing. “Hold on tight, sweetheart. It won’t take us long to get there.”
My tears take over, and I let his cell drop to the grass.
Keeping my hand pressed over the wound, I will myself to stay calm.
Please don’t die on me.
Instead of crying, I start to talk to Jack in the calmest voice I can muster. I tell him to keep fighting. I tell him he’s going to survive and that when he’s feeling better, he’s going to take me out to dinner as thanks for making me sit here with my hands pressed into his chest as I try to keep all the blood draining from his body. And he isn’t going to take me to one of those cheap places either, I say to him. I want a fancy restaurant with all the trimmings.
The minutes tick by, painfully slow, but I keep talking to him. Keep willing him to live, while I keep pressing my hand down on the hole in his chest, all the time thinking how ironic it is that something so small can be so devastating to the human body.
When Doc and Dakota Joe finally arrive, they quickly get Jack into the back of the ambulance, and while Dakota drives, Doc works on Jack as I watch on helplessly beside him.
Jack has passed out, but his eyes are half open, and I can see the sparkle of his irises as they stare back at me lifeless.
Fear weaves its cobwebs through me. He is bleeding profusely, and the thick, metallic tang of his blood fills the back of the ambulance.
/>
Every minute is excruciating. It’s like any second, I’m going to break down and start screaming.
Yet Doc’s confidence and innate calmness keep me cool. His voice never rises. Even when Jack doesn’t respond to a drug he injects into him, he moves like a man who knows his shit. If something doesn’t work, something else will.
He has nerves of damn steel.
While mine are as steady as wet noodles.
It’s terrifying seeing Jack so motionless. I can barely breathe as his limp arms sway lifelessly on the gurney as Dakota Joe races us toward the clubhouse.
I look down at my own blood-soaked hands, and the enormity of the situation hits me like a wall of water crashing over the top of me.
Please don’t die.
“You doin’ okay back there, bee?” Dakota Joe calls out.
Doc eyes me sideways. “Yeah, she’s doin’ great. Like a regular Nurse Nightingale.” He gives me a wink. “You can breathe now, bee. He’s gonna be okay.”
I give him a small smile. “You promise?”
He gives me another wink and whispers, “I super-secret pinky swear.”
“Good,” I reply weakly. “Because you can’t break a pinky promise.”
BRONTE
Someone slides a shot of whiskey in front of me.
“He’s gonna be okay,” says a calming voice.
I look up and met the ice-blue eyes of Abby, Boomer’s wife. We’re sitting in the kitchen back at the clubhouse.
Over the next few hours, the clubhouse will fill with old ladies, girlfriends, and family as the club goes into lockdown because of the assassination attempt on Jack.
Assassination attempt.
That’s what they’re calling it.
At the severity of the situation, I fight back a new wave of anxiety.
Doc is working on Jack in the makeshift clinic in the basement in what used to be the cold store room back in the days when the clubhouse was a hotel.
Despite Doc’s reassurance, I still feel weak with worry. “I hope so.”
Abby sits next to me. She’s the type of cool you can’t imitate. With her icy blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, she looks like a Viking shieldmaiden. She brings an air of calm with her, and her tough outer shell is comforting as fuck.
“Doc would’ve sent him to the hospital if he didn’t think he could handle it.” She nods to the whiskey. “It’ll help.”
I take her advice and throw the shot back, tensing at the burn as it slides down my throat and into my chest.
“Are you sure not taking him to the hospital is a good idea? I mean, they have all the medical equipment, and this is a clubhouse. What if something happens, and Doc doesn’t have what he needs to help him? What if he can’t save him?” My mind is jumping all over the place because I am panicking. “What if me not calling an ambulance means Jack dies?”
Abby places a comforting hand on me. “Relax, he’s going to be fine. Like I said, Doc would’ve sent him to the hospital. Hell, he would’ve driven him there himself if he thought it was the right thing to do. But he didn’t because he knows he can save Jack. He’s got this.” She gives me a gentle smile. “It’s going to be okay.”
She pours a second shot for me and one for herself. We clink shot glasses and throw back the scorching whiskey—both of us relishing the burn.
Abby is a true biker queen. She was born and raised in the MC. It was her grandaddy, Hutch Calley, who started the Kings of Mayhem back in the late sixties.
A few years ago, when Abby still lived in Mississippi, her twin brother had been a member of the Kings of Mayhem mother chapter. However, he’d been murdered by a psychopath obsessed with making the club pay for his sister’s death. When Jack and the Tennessee Chapter visited for the funeral, Abby and Boomer became close. Over the following months, their friendship grew into something more, and after trying to make their long-distance relationship work, Abby eventually relocated to Flintlock for love.
Now they’re married.
“So how long has this thing between you and Jack been happening?” she asks.
My eyes dart to hers. “Oh, no, you’ve got the wrong idea—”
She holds up her hand and fixes me with her piercing eyes. “Don’t even try, girlfriend. I know lovesick when I see it. Now spill… what’s going on with you and our president?”
I don’t have the energy to lie. “Nothing has happened yet, but it was going to. He was coming home, and we were going to…” I think about the way he kissed me up against the wall. I can still feel the phantom brush of his lips against mine, and my chest aches with longing to feel them again, “… things were progressing.”
Abby pours us both another shot. “Do you love him?”
I stare at the glimmering amber liquid in my shot glass. “I’ve always loved him,” I whisper. It’s true, because I have. I’ve loved him my whole life. Only that love has worn many different faces over the years. Now, it’s something deeper, something special, and being in each other’s world isn’t enough anymore.
I want all of him.
“I’d like to say you get used to it, but you don’t,” Abby says.
I give her a puzzled look, not sure what she means.
“Being in love with a biker,” she says. “But you learn how to ride out the hours between them leaving and them coming home safe to you.”
“I’m not sure he feels the same way as I do.”
She smiles and it’s warm and kind. “I’ve seen the way you look at each other. He feels the same way.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because in all the years I’ve known Jack, I’ve never seen him look at another woman the same way he looks at you.”
Her words are comforting, and when they mingle with the alcohol in my veins, I feel warm and hopeful.
Before I can say anything, Doc walks in with Dakota Joe and Paw, so I stand and brace myself for bad news.
“Is he okay?” I ask.
“Yes. He’s resting.” Doc gives me a reassuring squeeze on the arm. “You did good today, darlin’.”
Inwardly, I relax but only a little.
I try to smile, but my nerves are too fried.
“How is he?” Abby asks.
“He was lucky. The bullet missed his organs and lodged in soft tissue. He’s on some pain medication and antibiotics so he’ll be out of it for a while.” He looks at me. “You can relax, sweetheart. He’s out of the woods.”
I realize I’ve been holding my breath and exhale deeply. “Can I see him?”
“He’s unconscious because of the drugs and needs rest. But I guess I can’t stop—”
I don’t hear the rest of what he says because I’m already on my way to his bedroom. When I reach it, I pause at the door and take in a deep breath to steady my crazy emotions.
Inside, Jack is unconscious on his bed with the sheet pulled down to his hips and his arms resting beside him. He’s shirtless, but there’s a bandage wrapped around his chest, holding a dressing in place over the bullet wound.
Beside him, a heart monitor records his heart’s steady beat. Next to that, an IV line drips antibiotics into his veins.
I kneel next to him and take his limp hand in mine.
Then, without warning, my tears break free and stream down my face.
JACK
I’m hurting like a motherfucker, but I’m going to live. Floating between being awake and unconscious, I live in a weird world of fractured thoughts for a week. I’m delirious and high, my brain splintered and spangled with kaleidoscopic images of things both real and unreal. I have conversations, imagined and actual, while my body fights the bullet’s path of destruction through my chest.
I’m fucked up.
But I’m also healing, and by the end of the week, I’m able to open my eyes long enough to have a conversation with Doc that actually makes sense.
“Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty.” Doc is changing a saline bag tethered to my arm by an IV. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been shot,” I say, trying to sit up.
Doc helps me. “You’re a lucky sonofabitch. Bullet missed vital organs and got lodged in soft tissue. You’ve had a bit of a fever from a mild infection but nothing too damn serious. If I were you, I’d buy a damn lottery ticket.”
“I don’t feel fucking lucky,” I reply, closing my eyes as a wave of nausea weaves its way through me. I’m dizzy as fuck.
Doc checks my wounds and changes the dressings. “You’re healing well. You’re a fit motherfucker, I’ll give you that.”
“It’s all the fucking practice.” I’ve been shot three times in my life, so I’m getting good at it.
“I want to get you out of bed and walking about today.”
“Great,” I say pushing back the blankets. My legs feel like cooked spaghetti, and my head feels like mush, but I’m itching to find the motherfucker who did this to me. “I’ve got some payback to serve up.”
Doc pushes me back toward the pillows. “Whoa there, cowboy. I want you up walking, not gunslinging your way through any plans for revenge.” He gives me a look that tells me he means business. “Today you walk, tomorrow you do whatever it is you need to do to make this right.”
I hate being told what to do, and I’m an impatient asshole. But if the pain on one side of my chest is anything to go by, Doc has a point. I need to rest, so I sink further into the pillows.
“Besides, you have a visitor,” Doc says, a small smile toying on his lips. “She hasn’t left since you were brought here.”
He’s talking about Bronte. I have vague memories of her sitting beside the bed, holding my hand, and stroking my arm.
“She hasn’t?”
“She was determined to stay here until you were lucid.” He looks at me knowingly.
“She’s a good kid,” I say.
“Hey, ain’t none of my business.”
Doc isn’t one for gossip. Or judgment.
“I’ll leave you be for now. But when I return, you’re eating something, and then we’re going for a walk.”
As he leaves the room, Bronte walks in. The last time we were together, I was about to tear her clothes off her. The memory makes my dick twitch which, in turn, makes me smile. I can barely keep my eyes open, and I’m weak as fuck, but at least my dick still works. Even with a catheter rammed into it.