Spring Romance

by Bailey, Tessa

  “I am. Nice to see you again.” I walked over, my hand outstretched.

  “Sorry, I’m greasy.” He held up his hands, making me drop my own. “What can I do for you?”

  “I was looking for Dash.”

  “Haven’t seen him yet this morning. Still a little early for him to get here.”

  It was only seven thirty, but I’d woken Dash up at six. I’d left for the newspaper early to spend some time with Dad. Dash had gone home to shower and change, then I assumed he’d be on his way to work. The garage opened at eight and I didn’t feel like leaving just to come back again.

  “Would you mind if I waited?” I asked Isaiah.

  “Not at all. Would you mind if I kept working?”

  “Go for it.” There was a black stool on wheels a few feet away. I took it, letting Isaiah return to the motorcycle as I took in the space.

  For a garage, it was bright and clean. The smell of oil and metal hung in the air, mixing with the crisp morning air flowing in from the open bay door. Car signs were hung on some of the walls, tools on others. It was nearly pristine.

  That Mustang was still in its stall. Ever since Dash and I had gone at it like wild animals on that car, I’d kept my nails painted hot-sex red. I smiled to myself, thinking it was my own dirty, little secret that the owner of that car would never know.

  “Dash told me that some celebrities get their bikes and cars redone here. Is that a famous person’s motorcycle you’re fixing up?”

  “No celebrity.” Isaiah chuckled. “This is mine.”

  “Ah. Were you in the club?”

  “Nah.” He shook his head. “I just moved here. But this one was cheap so I thought I’d get it. Fix it up.”

  That explained why it looked more like a dull mishmash of scrap metal than Dash’s gleaming Harley. Isaiah’s motorcycle had a lot to improve upon if it was going to fit in here.

  “Where did you move from?” I asked, but before he could answer, I waved my hand like I was erasing the question. “Sorry. That’s the reporter in me coming out. You’re trying to work and I’m distracting you. Forget I’m here.”

  “It’s okay.” He shrugged, still not answering my question as he went back to work.

  What was his story? He was handsome. Isaiah had dark hair cut close to his scalp. A strong jaw. If he smiled, I bet he’d be devastating. Except Isaiah never smiled. And there wasn’t much light in his eyes. Had it always been like that? There were so many questions to ask, but I held my tongue. I doubted he’d answer them anyway. Isaiah had this gentle way about shutting people out. It wasn’t rude or combative. But his entire demeanor said he was a closed book.

  The rumble of an approaching engine grew louder. I stood from the chair, assuming it was Dash.

  “Have a good day, Isaiah.”

  “Thanks, Bryce.” He waved. “You too.”

  Those eyes made me want to wrap my arms around him and never let go. They were so lonely. So heartbreaking. My heart twisted. Did everyone else know about Isaiah’s past? Did Dash?

  In the parking lot, I spotted a black motorcycle, but no Dash. So I walked to the office, finding the wrong Slater.

  Damn it. I should have looked more closely at the motorcycle along the fence before coming in here—in my defense, except for Isaiah’s, they all looked alike from behind.

  Draven stood in the doorway to what I assumed was his office. He wore a blank expression on his face.

  “Uh, sorry.” I took a step backward. “I was—”

  “Dash isn’t here.”

  “Right.” My choices were to wait here or run back to Isaiah. Easy choice. I was halfway to the door when Draven stopped me.

  “Come on in.”

  Assuming a polite smile, I walked into his office, taking the chair across from his behind the desk. Next time I came here in the morning, I’d wait until nine.

  “So . . .” Draven clicked a pen four times. “You met her.”

  “Her?”

  “Genevieve.”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  Draven kept his eyes on the pen. “What’s she like? Is she okay? Healthy and all that?”

  Well, shit. He made it hard to dislike him entirely. Especially with the guilt that laced his voice. He wasn’t making any excuses, not anymore. And there was a hint of desperation there. My heart softened. There was no questioning Draven had been an unfaithful husband. But he loved his sons.

  And wanted to know his daughter.

  “I only spent a few hours with her, but she seems healthy. She’s devastated about her mother. But she was sweet. Very kind. She looks a bit like you. She has your eyes and hair.”

  “Amina showed me pictures.” He swallowed hard. “She . . . she’s beautiful.”

  “From what I can tell, that beauty is inside and out.”

  “I want to meet her but I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” he said quietly. “I failed all my children, even the one I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah, you probably shouldn’t try to meet her. She, um, thinks you killed Amina.”

  He flinched, his knuckles turning white as he strangled the pen. “Oh. Right.”

  “If you want a relationship with her, we have to prove you’re innocent.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, we. I want the truth.” I’d asked him point-blank yesterday if he’d killed Amina. I believed now that he hadn’t. He’d cared for her. “I want to find Amina’s killer.”

  “For your story.”

  Was this for the story? That’s how this had all started, with my drive to prove myself as a journalist. To show the executives in Seattle I wasn’t a flop.

  Except I wasn’t a failure. When I looked at Dad’s career, he’d written countless stories and there wasn’t one that stood out above the others. There wasn’t one crown jewel he touted. Yet he was my hero. He wrote because he loved to write and spread the news.

  So did I.

  I didn’t need an exposé on a former motorcycle gang to prove my worth. I needed the truth.

  This was for me. And . . .

  “For Dash.”

  This was about saving his father from a life in prison. It was about identifying a murderer. It was about finding the person who might come after Dash one day too.

  Somewhere between the time he’d fixed the Goss printer and folded my towels, Dash had slipped into my heart.

  Could I get over his criminal past? Could I forget that he’d done violent, vicious things I could barely fathom? Yes.

  Because he wasn’t that man anymore. Not to me.

  Last night, as I’d watched him scrub my cast-iron pan and wipe down the counters from the biscuit mess, I’d realized how well we fit together. He’d held my heart in his soapsuds-covered hands.

  If only he wanted kids.

  Did that have to be a deal breaker? Maybe we didn’t have to face that looming end.

  I’d already given up on having children, so why make it a requirement to stay with Dash? Besides, I wasn’t sure if I could even bear children at this point. Maybe we’d be like the Caseys, my seventy-six-year-old neighbors who lived across the street. Mr. and Mrs. Casey didn’t have children, and every time I saw them, they seemed hopelessly happy.

  Hopelessly happy sounded like a dream.

  A new dream.

  The office door pushed open and Dash entered, followed closely by Emmett.

  “Hey.” Dash walked into Draven’s office, casting his father a brief glance before pretending he wasn’t there. Dash had shaved and showered after he’d left my house. His hair was still damp at the ends where it curled at his neck. It was a good look. A very good look. “What are you doing here? Everything okay?”

  I nodded. “I’m good.”

  Emmett crowded into the office, not looking at Draven either. Clearly in the time that Dash had left my house, he’d caught up Emmett on Draven’s adultery.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Draven’s shoulders fall. What had he expected? That after a day, all would be forgiven?r />
  Dash was crushed. His mother’s memory was sacred. Chrissy wasn’t here to punish Draven, so Dash was doing it for her.

  The only problem was, if we were going to find a killer, we needed to put feelings aside.

  “The reason I came here this morning was because I’ve been thinking about something and wanted to run it by you,” I told Dash.

  “Shoot.” He leaned against the wall, Emmett beside him.

  “The police found a murder weapon at the scene and identified it as Draven’s. We’ve been operating under the assumption that the knife was Draven’s. But we also think this was a premeditated setup. Could the knife have been a fake? You said that it had your name engraved on the side. What if someone copied it to set you up?”

  Draven shook his head. “They have my prints on it.”

  “Can’t prints be faked?” I’d seen it on a murder-mystery movie, so the question wasn’t entirely farfetched. Maybe they’d stolen prints from the handlebars on Draven’s motorcycle.

  Emmett nodded. “Possibly. Wouldn’t be easy.”

  Dash rubbed a hand over his jaw. “What knife was it again?”

  “Just a Buck knife,” Draven said.

  “With the cherry handle,” Emmett added. “I borrowed it once a few years ago when I went hunting.”

  Cherry? That wasn’t right. I dove into my purse for my yellow notepad, flipping to the page where I’d made a note about the knife’s description. It was the one thing Chief Wagner had told me weeks ago that hadn’t been in the press sheets.

  “Not cherry. Black. The knife found at the scene had a black handle.”

  “Your knife was cherry.” Emmett shook his head. “I’d bet my life on it.”

  My heart was racing. Maybe if there was another knife, we’d find a trail that led to the person who’d faked it. How many people engraved knives in Montana? We were grasping at straws, but it was something.

  Dash’s brow furrowed. “No, wait. You had a black knife, Dad.”

  Before Draven could respond, the office door opened again.

  “Morning.” What I assumed was Presley’s cheerful voice preceded her as she came into Draven’s office. The smile on her face fell when she spotted me in the guest chair.

  “Hey, Pres? Remember that knife you had engraved for Dad?” Dash asked. “The one you got him for Christmas a few years ago?”

  “Yeah. He said his other one was getting old and the engraving was wearing away. Why?”

  Dash pushed off the wall. “What color was it?”

  “Black, of course. You all love black.”

  All eyes shot to Draven.

  “Where’d that knife go, Dad?” Dash asked.

  “I, um . . . I think I left it in the office at the clubhouse after Presley gave it to me. Might still be in the box too.”

  “Seriously?” Presley put her hands on her hips. “That was four years ago. You never even used it?”

  “Sorry, Pres, but I liked the old one. It fit my hand.”

  Without a word, Dash stalked out of the office, Emmett close on his heels. I shot out of my chair, following too. Draven’s bootsteps thudded behind me.

  As we walked outside, I squinted at the bright morning sunlight. Dash picked up his pace, storming for the clubhouse. His long strides required me to skip a few steps to keep up.

  I hadn’t taken more than a few curious glances at the clubhouse in my trips to the garage. The building had always loomed, dangerous, shadowed by the surrounding trees. But as we got closer, details jumped out.

  The wood siding was stained a brown so dark it was nearly black. It had grayed in some places where the sun had faded the boards. The charcoal tin roof had a few droplets of dew that hadn’t burned off yet. A spider’s web grew in one corner under the eaves, thankfully far away from the door.

  There weren’t many windows, only two on the building’s face. They’d always been dark when I’d come here and now I saw why. Behind the dirty glass, there were plywood boards. The green stamp from the lumberyard showing in a few places.

  Dash marched up the two wide steps to the concrete platform that ran the entire length of the building. It was shaded by a small overhang of the roof. He fished out his keys from his jeans pocket and we all crowded at his back as he unlocked the padlock on the door.

  The smell of must and stale air wafted outside, followed by the lingering scent of booze, smoke and sweat. I gagged. Desperate for information, I shoved it aside and stepped inside behind Dash.

  We’d walked into a large, open room. Draven pushed past us, flipping on a row of florescent lights before disappearing down a hallway to the left.

  On my right was a long bar. The dusty shelves behind it were empty. The mirror behind the shelves was cracked in a few places. There were some tin beer signs and an old neon light. Only one stool was tucked under the bar. On my left, there was a pool table, the cues hung on a wall rack. Two flags were pinned behind the table: an American flag and the Montana state flag.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “Common area,” Dash answered at the same time Emmett said, “Party room.”

  I’d take The Betsy over the Tin Gypsy party room any day.

  “Knife’s gone.” Draven’s voice echoed in the room as he came rushing down the hall. “Given the fresh smudges in the dust on my desk, it was taken recently.”

  “Cameras.” Emmett snapped his fingers, already moving for a door behind the bar. “Let me see if they picked anything up.”

  Draven followed Emmett, leaving Dash and me alone.

  I’d been so busy inspecting the room, I hadn’t noticed him. He stood frozen, staring blankly at a pair of double doors directly in front of us.

  “Hey.” I walked to his side, slipping my hand in his. “Are you okay?”

  “Haven’t been here in a year. It’s strange.” He squeezed my fingers tight. “It was easier to stay away. To shut it out.”

  “Do you want to wait outside?”

  “Had to face it sometime.” He pulled me to a hallway on the right of the party room, different than the one Draven had taken when he’d gone in search of his knife. “Come on.”

  The hall was dim, with closed doors on both sides. From the outside, the building didn’t seem all that large, but it was deceiving. Though not as tall, it had to be at least double the size of the garage.

  Dash kept hold of my hand but jerked his chin at one of the doors. “This was where some of the guys would stay if they didn’t have a house. Or if they just needed to crash.”

  These were their rooms. “Did you have one?”

  He stopped at the last door down the hallway, using a different key from his chain to unlock the deadbolt. Then he pushed the door aside.

  The smell in here was different, still dusty but there was a hint of Dash’s natural spice clinging to the air. There was a window, boarded up like the others. And a bed covered with a simple khaki quilt stood in the middle of the room.

  No pillows. No end table. No lamp. Only the bed and an old wooden dresser in the corner.

  “This was your room?” I stepped in farther, letting go of his hand to flick on the light. Then I walked to the dresser, swiping my finger through the coat of dust on top.

  “This was my room.” Dash leaned on the doorframe. “I thought maybe it would look different. Feel different. Thought I’d miss it.”

  “You don’t?”

  He shook his head. “Maybe I would have two days ago. But not now.”

  Oh, Dash. I hated standing by, watching as his heart broke. I hated that something he’d held dear, something he’d once loved—the club—had been tainted.

  “What’s this?” I walked over to the bed, picking up the leather square folded neatly on top of the quilt.

  “My cut.”

  “That’s what you call your vests, right?”

  He nodded, stepping up behind me. “When you prospect the club, you get a cut. It has the club’s patch on the back and a prospect patch on the front.” />
  “How long did you have to prospect?”

  “Six months. But Emmett and I were exceptions. Normally it’s about a year. Long enough we knew the guy was serious. That he’d fit in.”

  “Then what happened?” I unfolded the vest, laying it carefully on the bed. My fingers ran over the white patch below the left shoulder, the word President stitched in black thread.

  “Then you’re in the club. You’re family.”

  I turned the vest over, staring at the patch on the back as Dash looked on. “This is beautiful.”

  The few pictures I’d seen of the Tin Gypsy emblem had been in black and white from old newspapers. But in color, the design was stunning. Artful and menacing at the same time.

  The club name was written at the top in Old English lettering. Beneath it was a detailed and carefully stitched skull.

  A skull, exactly the same as the tattoo on Dash’s arm.

  One half of the face was made entirely of silver thread, giving it a metallic feel. Behind it was a riot of orange, yellow and red-tipped flames. The other half of the skull was white. Simple. Except for the colorful head wrap over the skull and delicate, almost feminine stitching around the eye, mouth and nose. It was like a sugar skull with a harsh, violent edge.

  Live to Ride

  Wander Free

  Below the skull, the words were stitched in threads grayed from years of wear.

  How long had Dash worn this cut? How many days had he put it on? How hard had it been to fold it up and leave it here, collecting dust in a forsaken room?

  Dash put a hand on my shoulder, turning me into his chest. His hands came to my face. His mouth dropped to mine. And he kissed me soft and sweet, like a thank-you.

  When he broke away, he dropped his forehead to mine.

  “I bet you’ve kissed a lot of women in this room,” I whispered.

  “Some,” he admitted. “But none were you.”

  My eyes drifted closed. This was not the right place or the right time for this conversation, but questions hung between us, begging to be asked. “What’s going on, Dash? With us?”

  “I don’t know. It’s more than I thought it would be.” He tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “You kind of snuck up on me.”