I take my turn splashing water on my face and borrow some of her toothpaste to finger-brush my teeth because I’m too lazy to walk outside and walk back in. Once we’re both ready, I grab her hand and lead her out of the room. We check out and she mounts the back of my bike while I call Chaos.
“Too early,” he answers.
“Hannah and I are goin’ to the McDonald’s down the road. Get your ass out here so we can take off after.”
“They got good coffee now, right?”
“Yeah. I think so. Even if it’s shit, I want to get home.”
“Right, brother—Boss, man, the whiney-ass bitch wants to get going.”
“What the fuck ever,” Boss says loud yet muffled which means he’s got his arm draped over his face to block out the light streaming in through the break in those ugly-ass hotel curtains.
“You comin’ or do I see you back at the club?”
“Nah, man, we’re getting up. Give us five, okay?”
Right. “Five’s all you’re getting,” I reply.
“Fuck off,” he says to my corresponding snicker.
Good to his word, they only keep us waiting for five more minutes before two cranky bikers wander out of their hotel room. I notice theirs has two beds. Then Boss walks the key into the lobby.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Chaos says to Hannah. “How you doing this morning? This knucklehead treat you right?”
Her face softens right before my eyes as those gorgeous lips of hers tip up in the corner in a slight smile. “Yes,” she responds. “He was very gentlemanly.” Then she sobers. "I’m… I’m okay. Yesterday was rough.”
“Understatement,” Boss calls over to us. “Glad we got to you in time. Blood’s gut feelins usually ain’t wrong. We’ve learned to trust ’em. I’m Bossman, by the way. But the brothers tend to call me ‘Boss.’”
“Hannah,” she introduces herself. “Thank you both for coming to my rescue yesterday.”
“You remind me of Liv,” Chaos says. “And I’m Chaos.”
“Nice to meet you too,” she answers. “Who’s Liv?”
“My sister,” I say. “Me and Chaos grew up together. My sister is like his little sister, too.”
“Yeah, little sister,” he mumbles in agreement.
“Where is she? Kentucky?”
“Nah, she’s back in Chicago. That’s where we’re from.” Chaos answers for me this time.
Boss cuts in. “Thought someone said somethin’ about Mickey D’s?”
I laugh as I mount my bike. Hannah wraps her arms around my waist to hold on while I back us out of the spot. My brothers trail close behind as I follow the old man’s directions from last night. Left out of the lot and a mile down the road, those big, beautiful golden arches reach up into the sky.
“Come on, sweetheart.” I hold my hand out to her once we park. She takes it, and we walk inside the building, getting lots of looks from the old timers who apparently congregate here for socializing. I’m used to the looks. It comes with being a Lord. We walk up to the counter and I turn to look at Hannah. “What sounds good?”
She leans way in my space to whisper in my ear. “I don’t have money.”
“Didn’t ask that. I asked what you want to eat. It’s time to order. We’re holding up the line and no one wants to get between Boss and his McGriddle.”
Hannah laughs softly, like I hoped she would. “I’d like the Big Breakfast, if that’s okay.”
It’s fine. The thing is what? Five bucks? It’s pancakes, scrambled eggs, a sausage patty, a hash brown, and a biscuit. I order one for myself too.
“Coffee or juice?” I ask.
She bites her bottom lip, as if it’s really a hard decision. “Coffee,” she finally says. “With cream and sugar, please.”
“Coming right up,” the silver-haired lady behind the counter says, pushing buttons on the machine. She must be popular with the over seventy set because several of the old codgers walk over to “talk” with her while she finishes up our orders.
Then we step aside with our number for Boss and Chaos to order. We walk to a table that seats four. A couple minutes pass and a runner delivers our trays. The breakfast is pretty good for fast food.
“I make really good pancakes,” Hannah says, stuffing a bite into her mouth. “My little sister is an excellent cook. She taught me all her best secrets.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask. “Maybe you can make me pancakes someday.”
Hannah sets her fork down on her Styrofoam tray to look at me. “Do you want that?”
I just said I did, didn’t I? “Yeah, sweetheart. I think that’d be great. I miss a homemade breakfast that doesn’t suck. Usually, it’s the prospects who cook now that Dawna…” I let that thought trail off. Hate thinking about Dawna. She’s the president’s old lady. Took care of us until the cancer came back. She’s been fighting it most of her life, but it aggressively metastasized. The prognosis isn’t good.
The brothers look down at their plates, not eating after I bring up her name. Shit, I didn’t mean to bring the group down. Hannah can’t miss our reactions to my stupid foible and has the good sense not to ask about it. Instead, she flashes me a half-hearted smile and says, “Then I’d be glad to give you a breakfast that doesn’t suck. It’s the least I can do for what you’ve done for me.”
“Any man worth calling a man woulda done the same,” Boss replies.
“Still. I wouldn’t be here to eat pancakes without you three stepping in.”
Right. Next subject. I can’t think about that or I’m liable to head back to that rig, dig up his ashes, and destroy them all over again just to prove a point.
“I’m bringing Hannah back to the club with us. She doesn’t have any place to go and I ain’t leaving her to hustle on her own.”
A stupid smirk creases the side of Chaos’s mouth. He thinks he knows me so well. “Figured,” he says. “You haven’t let her hand go once when you’re walking.”
“It ain’t like that,” I argue.
“Of course not.”
Fucker.
“Don’t know what Duke’ll say, but I don’t guess he’ll let a vulnerable thing swing out in the wind on her own. Especially not right now,” Boss says to me before tipping his head to look at Hannah. “We’ll get to keep ya at least until we find ya a forever home.”
Hannah smiles as she balls up a napkin, whipping it at Boss’s head, and we all laugh. We have to get going. Several hours on the road before we hit home and the weather’s holding out for now, but the sky’s looking dicey at best. I’m guessing Missouri’s in for one hell of a storm. And who knows what we’ll face by the time we hit Kentucky, it being winter and all.
I use my phone to find the closest leather shop. If this girl is riding on my back, she needs a jacket and a helmet to fit. We take a detour, about an hour out of our way—that’s including the shopping—but at the end of it, Hannah has a new jacket, helmet, and boots. Proper riding gear. Then we point our bikes in the right direction and head for home.
Hour after hour passes. We pull off only once to fill up and take a pee break, then we get right back on the road. I’m not stopping again until we reach home. It’s cold and the flakes are just starting to scatter. Roads are still good enough to ride, but they won’t stay that way for too much longer.
With a shivering Hannah clinging to my back, we hit the city limits of Thornbriar and I’ve never been happier to see this tiny town. She can get the tour later after we’ve rested, eaten again, and take my truck. The bike’s getting put up for the winter.
At the top of the mountain, we pull onto Lords property again, waiting for the prospect to open the gate for us. “Home sweet home, Hannah,” I call over my shoulder. She gives my waist a brief squeeze, telling me she’s ready to be here.
The brothers and I park out front of the clubhouse. I empty my saddle bags. Hannah swings her bag crossbody and we walk to the door, which I hold open for her to step inside first.
“We’re gonna have to talk
with Duke. Don’t know if he’s here or at home.”
She nods. “Do you want me to wait here?”
“I suspect he’ll want to meet you,” Chaos says, stepping up behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders.
“Okay,” she says, straightening her jacket and smoothing down the nonexistent wrinkles on her jeans. “Okay. I’m ready.”
“We gotta call ’im first,” says Boss. “Sit tight. Have a drink. Warm up.”
“Right.” Hannah sort of half laughs out the word. Her cheeks pink. It’s fucking adorable.
I pull a stool for her in case she wants to sit. I’m not surprised when she passes. We’ve been sitting for a long-ass time, but she does accept the brew the prospect behind the bar slides her way. He slides cold ones to each of us, too.
“To home sweet home,” I say, raising my bottle.
Hannah lifts hers too. “To home sweet home.” We clink the bottles together and each take a long pull. The cool feels good going down, even though we were chilled only moments before.
Boss already has his phone to his ear talking to Duke. When he hangs up, he looks to all three of us. “Prez wants to meet Hannah when we talk with him. We gotta go to the doublewide. Dawna’s havin’ a bad day.”
Shit. I hate hearing that. She’s a good woman. Been like a mother to us, even though she’s only like ten years older. “Gotta go back outside one more time,” I say, taking Hannah’s hand again. “Can bring your drink if you want it.”
She holds on to the bottle, probably for something to do with her hand. She tries to keep a brave face, but I can see her trepidation in her eyes. It’s a short walk across the forecourt to the baby blue doublewide with the white wraparound porch that Duke had built for Dawna. Boss raps once on the side door to announce our arrival before heading inside with us following closely behind.
Dawna loves to be surrounded by flowers and her style of decorating looks like a flower garden vomited pink and blue flowers all over her living room and kitchen. But hey, who am I to judge? There ain’t nothing that man wouldn’t do for his woman. He’d take her cancer in a heartbeat if it were possible.
“In the bedroom,” Duke shouts to us and we make our way down the hallway to the master at the very back of the home.
He’s sitting in a chair next to her bed spoon-feeding Dawna broth. It’s hard to see her like this, a shell of the woman she used to be—thin, frail, bald and weary as compared to the vibrant personality of her good days with a full head of burnished chestnut hair and eyes that told every emotion she held. It’s no wonder the prez fell for her like he did. She’s the kind of woman a man falls for. No halfway.
Her eyes still show every emotion, just the emotions they show, I don’t want to see. I don’t want her to go through them and I don’t want Duke to have to go through them. It sucks. They should have a lifetime together.
Fuck, I’m rambling.
“Quit staring and come on in here,” Duke barks at, well, me because I’m the one standing in the doorway keeping Boss and Chaos from entering.
I try to cover for my slipup. “Wasn’t staring. Just lost in my own head. Dawna, you up for a new visitor?”
Her voice is weak and shaky when she answers. “Heard it’s a girl.”
I tug Hannah’s hand to get her to step around me and she doesn’t hesitate or even blink twice at the sight of the president’s old lady. “Hello,” she says. “I’m Hannah Brown.”
“Hannah…” Dawna begins coughing hard enough to shake her body. I tense up because, like the other brothers in the room, we’re all just waiting for her to die. Fuck not being able to help her. Of anyone, it shouldn’t be her.
But Hannah does something I don’t expect. She walks over to the bed and sits on the edge closest to Dawna then starts rubbing her back to soothe the coughing fit.
“Use the oxygen,” Hannah whispers. Dawna’s hooked up to an oxygen tank and uses one of those nasal cannulas. She tries taking in shallow breaths because she can’t take them in any deeper, but I’ll be damned if the coughing doesn’t ease. “Do you need a drink?” Hannah asks her.
“Water,” Dawna answers. Hannah turns to the bedside table to pick up a glass of water, holding it in front of Dawna’s mouth for her to take tiny sips. Tiny sips are all she can keep down.
Duke stares, as bewildered as the rest of us that this person who doesn’t know Dawna or Duke jumped in to help a dying woman. The room smells like death. There is so much more to this girl than I originally thought.
“Go. Talk with the brothers,” Dawna manages to say to Duke.
“If you trust me,” Hannah says, “I’ll stay with her.”
Duke looks to me because I brought her here. I nod. Don’t know why, but I know that Hannah is good people and can handle this while we talk to the prez about the shit we found on the road.
Including the trucker.
Fuck. That ain’t gonna be fun.
3.
Hannah
Seven years ago…
“Thank you for that,” Dawna says in her wheezy whisper. I hate hearing anyone sound like that, but the coughing has eased all the way.
“You don’t have to talk,” I say, continuing to stroke my hand down her back.
She blinks and nods, collecting herself. We keep that up for a few minutes before she’s ready to talk again. “I’m dying,” she says.
“I know,” I answer. It’s abrupt and probably should’ve been said with some tact. Like I should’ve told her there’s always hope or some shit to brighten her spirits. I can’t help but think she’s beyond spirit lifting. I’ve seen my fair share of the dying. Most of them men wasting away from cirrhosis of the liver or lung cancer, but I’ve had to nurse them as best I could being young because I had to earn my keep.
Dad and all his wisdom never felt like kids should get a free ride, as he called it. I called it being a kid and thus needing my needs met. Semantics, I guess.
Surprisingly, she laughs at my abruptness.
“Thank you for that, too.”
“For what?” I ask.
“For not coddling me or trying to blow smoke up my ass about how there might be something—” She begins coughing again. I help best I can again and wait for her to finish. Finally, she wipes the tears that have formed in her eyes and gives it to me straight. “My husband is having a hard time accepting that this is the end. We’ve been together since I was seventeen.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too. He’s lost so much already. I don’t know how he’s going to go on, you know?”
“I’m sorry for you, too.” I have a hard time looking her in the eyes because dying people don’t like pity. And it’s not pity, really. I don’t know this woman, but she looks like she had a lot of life in her at one point, and clearly, she has the love and respect of at least the men in this house. But my guess, it’s farther reaching than that.
“Me?” she asks. “Nah, sweetheart, I’ll be gone. I won’t be missing anything. Besides, I’m tired. So tired. I love Duke and I love my life, but I’ve been fighting this for most of it and I’m ready to finally rest.”
“I get that.”
“Do you?” she asks, as if that’s a foreign concept for her. “You’re the only one around here who does, then. I can’t talk to any of them about it because they get so upset. Especially Duke. He took me on knowing I’d die sooner than him, knowing we’d never have kids or any of the things married couples look forward to in life. He’s been the best husband a woman could ask for. But he doesn’t get it.”
Most people don’t. Death is such a sticky subject and she’s right; she’ll be gone. Her husband and the men here will be the ones dealing with the after effects of her passing. Still, she has to have things on her mind, things to wrap up her time on this Earth and she doesn’t need to hold guilt for hurting the man she loves by unburdening herself. Who would’ve thought? The one time my childhood upbringing comes in handy. “I don’t know how much time you have left, but you can talk to
me about anything okay? As long as I’m here, I’ll be here for you.”
“Where you going?” she asks.
“Well, Blood brought me here, but I don’t know where I’ll go from here. I’ve got no money and no one good waiting for me.”
“You’ll stay here, at the club,” she says. It’s firm. She means it.
“Do you think your husband will go for it?” I ask, carefully keeping the excitement from my voice. I don’t want to give myself away.
“He’ll do anything I ask of him. Don’t worry.”
“All I have is worry, Dawna. My life is one big worry.”
“Running?” she asks, and I nod. “Bad or really bad?”
“Really, really bad,” I answer honestly. Dawna reaches her frail hand out to take mine resting on her lap. She squeezes it gently.
“Had a feeling when you walked in,” she says. “The brothers will take care of you.”
That would be great. I’ve been around bikers my entire life and can tell simply by the four I’ve met that the Lords are different.
Duke clomps back inside the bedroom wearing a hardened scowl that he shoots directly at me. “Time to go,” he says.
Well, it was good while it lasted. I raise my hand to gently cup her cheek. “I’ll be back, okay?”
“Okay,” Dawna answers, closing her eyes. A single tear slips down over her cheek to hit my hand. But it’s not my place to stay. I push up from the bed and walk over to Blood, who’s waiting in the doorway.
The man simply takes my breath away. I consciously try to hide it when the gasp obviously leaves my lungs. He’s so tall with all that strong, lean muscle. Not bulky like Boss who looks like his father might have been a tank. Even when Blood’s upset seeing a woman he cares about dying in her bed, he stands straight, shoulders back, square chin up. The man carries himself with confidence. He knows who he is and moreover, likes who he is. From that thick head of feather soft strawberry-blond hair I’ve been itching to run my fingers through since I realized he had such thick hair after the emotion of knowing I was safe from that trucker eased, all the way down to the shine on his motorcycle boots.
Blood Revealed (Brimstone Lords MC Book 6) Page 3