“No. They’re still trying to get him out. Mrs. Greeley’s dead. I didn’t see anything but mess. Terry—what did you see before they got here?”
Terry’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “I didn’t see it happen. Fitz was cleaning up after closing. I was in the clubhouse, cleaning the taps, and I heard some kinda shrieking crash like Godzilla was comin’ down the street. I ran out, and gas was gushin’ over the lot, and shit was crashin’ down and glass was breakin’ all over the place. I ran in, and that big old boat was in the middle of the garage, the wall was down, and all I saw was Fitz’s head and hair, all bloody. I couldn’t get to him, and he wouldn’t answer me. I called 911 and then you, Prez.”
“Jesus fuck,” Rad muttered. “Anybody call D? He should know about this.”
“I called,” Becker answered. “He’s not coming. I’ll keep him posted.” Delaney was keeping his distance from the club since his retirement. Becker went to his house in Bixby when he needed advice. But he’d thought the former president, who’d built all this, would want to be here tonight.
Simon stepped up onto the low brick wall between the lot and the alley and surveyed the scene. “We’re out of business for a while. Weeks, at least.”
With the Russian work bogged down, the station was the steadiest money they had coming in. But money was a problem to think about later. Right now, he wanted to know that Fitz would be okay.
He’d known that kid for several years. He’d watched him become a man, then brought him into the club. He’d been a neighbor, too—at the house Becker had rented before he’d bought his own. Another youngster with a troubled home he’d taken under his wing. His pathological need to be a good neighbor.
Shit, he ought to change his name to State Farm.
In the midst of all this catastrophe and worry, Becker chuckled quietly, thinking about Fitz, a neighbor kid he’d helped out who was now a brother and a friend. And Sage, who might be ... what?
He set that question aside. Now, he wanted to see Fitz come out of that wrecked building, and he wanted to see his face when it happened. Not a black bag.
“Something’s happening,” Simon said from the wall. Becker, Rad, and Terry joined him—yes, they were bringing out another stretcher. Becker climbed over and went onto the lot. He needed to see. He needed to know.
Covered in a yellow blanket, belted to a board on the gurney, an oxygen mask on his face and in IV in his arm, an immobilizer around his neck, and a thick bandage on his head, soaking with blood. But he was alive. Becker felt hands on his back and shoulder as Simon and Rad came up alongside him.
He turned and headed for the ambulance, meeting the paramedics there. “How is he? Is he gonna be alright?”
“We got him stable enough for transport. There’s no more we can tell you, except we’re taking him to Tulsa County.”
That was good; Rad’s old lady was a nurse there, and she generally worked it so the Bulls got special privileges. “Okay. We’ll follow you there.”
“Hold up,” a firefighter cut in, walking over from one of the tankers. “The cops are gonna want a statement.”
“Terry was the only one here who’s not on a stretcher now,” Simon pointed out. “I’ll stay with him. You and Rad go, and I’ll catch up.”
Becker slapped his VP on the shoulder and ran back to his bike.
CHAPTER SIX
When Becker roared off on his giant Harley, the first thing Sage did was put the rest of their supper away for leftovers and clean up the mess she’d made in his kitchen, and the mess they’d made, too.
For a dude, he had a pretty decent setup. His stuff was all sort of a jumble—dishes and silverware and glasses of all kinds, no more than a couple of any one pattern, some styles obviously old and others the generic styles Walmart pimped in every single sale circular every single week. Pots and pans were the same—some heavy old warhorses and some flimsy cheapos.
It was like he’d bought himself a few inexpensive sets over the years and then inherited the remnants of some older sets, too. Sage wondered if maybe his mom had died, and some of her things were in his use.
But there was plenty of everything, and he had the food stores of somebody who actually made himself meals regularly. A lot of packaged meat in the fridge and freezer, plenty of spices and seasonings and canned goods in the cupboards, a full stock of vegetables and condiments. Bread in the breadbox, milk, eggs, and butter in the fridge. He kept a nicer kitchen than her mom did.
He didn’t have a dishwasher, so she found some Joy under the sink, next to a blue plastic drainer, and she washed the dishes by hand. Washing dishes in an empty house was one of her favorite chores. The soothing, repetitive scrubs and swirls of a sponge over glass or china or steel, the pert scent of lemon dish soap—she stood at the sink, warmed by water, and felt calm and clean as she let her mind wander in safety.
Tonight, her mind didn’t go far. All she could think about was Becker. Not just where they’d been heading when he’d gotten that call, but everything about him. These few hours since she’d pulled up and found him working on his lawn had been nonstop amazing.
Every part of the night had been a revelation. Riding his Harley with him, feeling his body moving as he navigated streets and corners, was almost like sex, and she’d been literally weak in the knees with lust when he’d parked in front of the shop. Then, strolling through the shop with him, watching him just know what he needed to fix her car—sure, he was a mechanic, so of course he knew, but still it had been sexy to watch. Every time he’d needed to move on, he’d set his hand at the small of her back, and every time, he might as well have put that hand between her legs, the pleasure was so strong.
And he’d known the clerks on shift there. Sage had stood at his side, feeling a powerful, unfamiliar pride just to be with him, watching the way he was with other people, other men. Relaxed and friendly. He’d made a pretty sexist comment about little girls who didn’t know from cars, and the men had laughed, but Sage hadn’t minded, as she normally would have. She’d been too pleased to have that intimate connection, to be worthy of a joke like that. There’d been something like possession in it, and she’d liked it a whole lot.
Then they’d come back to his house—another lusty ride on that steel beast of his—and he’d worked on her car, not minding that she watched him. He’d even tried to teach her, and she wanted to learn, but she’d been too distracted by her rioting mind and body to learn about spark plugs and air filters and whatever. All she could think about was how much she wanted to be close to him.
But when he’d rolled under the car, she’d felt extraneous, standing on his driveway with nothing to do, so she’d said she needed the bathroom. Which she had.
She hadn’t intended to snoop, exactly. But she’d been curious and wanted to know everything she could about him. He didn’t seem all that interested in sharing, so she’d looked around. The house was about the same size as hers—little, with just two small bedrooms and a bath—but it was so much nicer. The floors gleamed, and the walls were smooth and painted in a greyish-beige that should have been bland but was warm and bright. Bright white paint for the woodwork. Nice lighting, beautiful tile work in the kitchen and bathroom, new appliances. This neighborhood was full of old bungalows that had seen better days, but here, inside, Becker had something new and bright and beautiful.
No mouse poops in the backs of these cupboards. She figured he could turn on a light in a dark room and not see roaches scurrying for the shadows, either. A lot nicer than her house, even though they shared a fence.
Who, exactly, Becker was—that was harder to ascertain. Aside from the careful affection obvious in the work of the remodel, there wasn’t much that described the man who lived here. His LPs and CDs—an overwhelming preference for heavy metal, with a dash of 80s hair-band wannabes thrown in. His books—a surprising mix of pulpy spy novels, thick histories and biographies, one heavy tome called The History of Art, and two whole shelves of, like, actual lit
erature, including an anthology of Shakespeare’s plays. The tools and engine parts scattered in the living room. Otherwise, there wasn’t much to see. He had nothing hanging on the walls in any room except a round clock on the wall in the kitchen, no knickknacks or anything else anywhere that might have been bought or given as a memento or just because.
His second bedroom was given over to storage and random junk collection—and an enormous steel gun safe. The bathroom was clean, and his white towels were good quality. He used Prell shampoo and Dial soap. An electric razor sat in a holder beside the sink. His bedroom had a queen bed with fluffy pillows and nice grey linens, made nicely. The furniture in that room matched. It might as well have been a hotel room.
The living room, with his albums and books and engine parts, and the kitchen, with its plentiful and eclectic assortment of tools, were the only rooms that really suggested someone had made this his home.
That someone was Gary Becker. His full name, she’d learned without snooping; there was still a scatter of mail on his dining room table. He was forty-four years old; that much, he’d told her himself, because he thought that was too old for her.
Which was ridiculous nonsense. If she thought he was hot—and oh boy did she—and he thought she was hot—which he pretty obviously did—then what the fuck difference did the numbers in their ages make?
He also thought he was too ‘bad’ or ‘dangerous’ for her. Whatever. Like she was some trust-fund princess from the ‘burbs.
What she knew was how she felt around him: safe, at ease. She liked listening to him talk, and felt noticed when she talked. She enjoyed poking at his resistance and watching it fall. And man oh man, she liked when he put his hands on her. And his mouth. And all his parts. She wanted more of those parts.
Like that ginormous part inside his jeans. She really wanted that one.
It was more than simple lust, though. She wanted more than a fuck. The feeling she’d had riding to the auto-parts store hadn’t abated. If she wasn’t falling in love with this guy, she was most definitely infatuated.
She wanted to be with him. Which was what she’d been feeling when she’d decided to make him supper. It had been a thank you, yes, but really, she’d wanted to pretend that this was her house, and he was her man. She’d wanted to feel like a woman having a real life, making supper while her man worked outside.
Sage finished the dishes and went to wipe the table down. These windows looked out on the back yard, and past it to her own back yard. From here, she could see more than half the back of her house—the small porch and back door, the kitchen, the dining room. Her own room was obscured by the decrepit metal shed that held little but spiders and some previous resident’s rusted-out tools.
The kitchen lights were on at home, and her mother was washing dishes, just as she’d been. Sage stood at the windows, with this cozy, cute little house at her back, and watched her mother from a distance greater than two lots. Sage was built like her mom, slight in all ways, and had grown up being told they could be sisters. But not anymore. Her mom was seven years younger than Becker but looked fifteen years older. She was still thin, and she kept the grey out of her hair, though she colored it a brown lighter and redder than it had been naturally. But a hard life full of need and abuse showed on her skin like a chronicle. Even from this distance, Sage could see it.
Maybe her mom was a junkie. She didn’t use until the evenings—when Sage had been little, she’d always waited until after bedtime to get really wasted. And she didn’t use the same stuff regularly—she took whatever was provided, and was satisfied with it. But Sage couldn’t remember a night that her mom hadn’t gotten wasted. For her whole life, her mother’s routine had been coffee and cigarettes in the morning, wine and cigarettes after lunch, and whatever came her way after supper.
They’d always been on assistance, and Sage had always gotten free breakfasts and lunches at school. Sometimes, Sage would go days eating only at school, but somehow there’d always been wine and cigarettes at home.
In Sage’s memory, her mom had never had a job. When there wasn’t a man, she’d gone in search of one. There had always been men willing to move in, or move them in, and take advantage under the guise of taking care. For a man who would pay the bills, her mom would do almost anything and allow almost anything to be done to her. But she’d drawn the line at Sage.
Maybe that was why, in spite of everything, she’d never doubted her mom’s love. As weak as her mom was, she’d never tolerated for Sage the things she’d bear for herself.
If only Sage had figured out how to help her mom be stronger for herself. But she didn’t seem to want to be.
As she watched, Denny came up behind her mom and put his arms around her. She eased into his embrace, tipping her head to the side so he could suck on her neck. This was how it was between them—and it hadn’t been much different with most of the men who’d come through her life. After an explosion of violence, there would be peace. A week, a month, rarely more than that. Until the next bad mood, the next mistake, the next inconvenience or disappointment.
That deceptively sweet moment changed tone, and suddenly Sage was watching Denny fuck her mother, shoving her head toward the sink and thrusting brutally. She knew this scene, knew the sight and sound of smells of it, and tonight she didn’t need to witness it.
She spun around fast enough to feel dizzy and hurried away from the window.
She was here, in this house, bright and clean and safe. Waiting for Becker. Who was thousands of miles above Denny on the scale of decent men.
~oOo~
She’d meant to be awake when Becker got back, and spent the next couple of hours listening to music and flipping through his books, keeping her promise not to snoop. Around midnight, she took a worn paperback of John Steinbeck’s The Pearl and went to Becker’s bed—he’d said that was where he’d wanted to find her when he got home.
Around two o’clock, she finished the slim novel and set the book aside. Wow, what a depressing story. She lay quietly, staring up at Becker’s ceiling, studying the shadows of his still ceiling fan blades, cast by the bedside lamp, and thought about Kino and Juanita and little Coyotito.
Sadness always made her sleepy. Swaddled naked in Becker’s very soft, very nice sheets, in a completely quiet and peaceful house, Sage could no longer keep her eyes open.
The next thing she knew, the peace in the house was broken by a heavy, steady noise, like a waterfall. When she woke all the way up, she understood that she was hearing his shower. He was home. Her heartbeat went to speed-metal level as she sat up. Jeez, she felt giddy. That was lame.
Seduction wasn’t a skill Sage had had to learn. From the time she’d first had sex—at fourteen, with a sixteen-year-old boy who sat with her on the school bus—when she’d wanted it, she’d simply said so, and she’d never really been rejected. Her few actual relationships had all started out the same way: she’d asked if they wanted to fuck, they’d said yes, and then they’d wanted to stick around.
Those had been boys, though. Becker was a man, and he seemed put off by her direct approach. Or if not put off, at least confused. Maybe he’d like it better if she let him take the lead? Of course, every time he had, he’d pushed her off, so no. No more pushing her off. No way. Therefore, she would keep the lead firmly in her own hands.
Still, though, what should she do? Pretend to be asleep so he could ‘wake her up’? Strike a sexy pose? Get into the shower with him?
Oh, wait. That was a good idea. Without thinking more about it, Sage folded back the covers and padded out of his room.
The bathroom was at the end of the dark hallway; a thin ray of bright light gleamed around the closed door. At the door, she tried the knob—not locked. She opened it.
The air in the room was heavy with steam, enough that it swirled visibly before her eyes, and an acrid odor that took her a second to place as gasoline. His clothes were heaped on the toilet; it smelled as if they’d been soaked in unleaded.
In the few moments that she watched, he didn’t move. Sage’s impression was of deep fatigue. He seemed weary, and maybe sad. What had happened? She hadn’t asked him for details, intuiting that he wouldn’t want to share with her, and he hadn’t offered any. But it had been bad enough for him to tell the person on the phone to call 911, and for him to drop the very important thing they’d been starting to run to the trouble.
Deciding that joining him in this particular shower wasn’t such a good idea after all, Sage pulled back and eased the door closed. She went back to his room, sat on his bed, and waited.
It was hard to keep still. Though she could be hyper, especially when she was stressed, this restlessness felt unusual. Everything around Becker seemed unusual. Maybe that was why she felt so anxious—things she normally took for granted weren’t true when she was with him. He’d turned the page on her atlas, found a map she hadn’t explored yet.
The water turned off, and she couldn’t sit still any longer. She stood, went to the door, changed her mind, turned back, stood by the bed. Why the hell was she so antsy? Like she was backstage on Senior Night again, dressed as Miss Yost, the guidance counselor, waiting to belt out ‘Do Ya Wanna Touch Me.’ For which she’d earned a three-day suspension.
She felt scared, but not scared. Just full of butterflies. The alarm clock on Becker’s nightstand said it was almost four a.m., but it might as well have been noon for all the energy in her blood.
Finally, the door opened, and the question of where she should go was resolved. He stood there, holding one of his thick white towels around his waist. The weariness she’d sensed in his posture while he showered, she could now see clearly on his face.
“You’re awake.”
“Yep. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Long night.”
Lead (The Brazen Bulls MC, #8) Page 8
