by Lane Hart
A pretty woman with blue hair walks into the bedroom and stops abruptly, her brows raising in surprise. I vaguely remember seeing her a few times before. Her mouth moves but nothing comes out.
“What?” I ask her in annoyance. How long have I been out? I’m sweaty and smell awful, so I’m guessing a few days. Not to mention my head itches like it needs a good wash. When I try to reach up with my hand to scratch it, it takes ten times the usual effort, as if my arm weighs a thousand pounds. Finally, my fingers make it to the back of my head so I can give it a scratch.
When the blue-haired woman still hasn’t said anything, I ask her, “Who the hell are you?” She opens her mouth to respond and still I hear…nothing. It must be this pounding in my head, drowning everything out. Even scratching at my scalp intensifies the pain. Letting my arm fall back down to my side, I say, “Actually, I don’t care. Just tell me where I can take a piss.”
The much-needed shower will have to wait since I barely have the energy it takes to stand up. And I don’t even protest when the woman grabs my elbow to help me walk out of the room and to the bathroom across the hall. She may need to hold my dick too.
Nah, there’s no fucking way I’m going to admit I’m so weak I can’t hold my own dick to take a piss.
Once my bladder is relieved, I flush the toilet and brace my weight on the sink counter to wash up, finally looking at my reflection in the mirror.
It’s not pretty.
My hair is tangled and three times its normal size, my skin is pale, and with all the bandages covering my upper body, it looks like I ran through a briar patch, naked, several times.
Fuck it. I need answers more than a makeover right now, so I turn the knob to step back into the hallway…and startle when I come face to face with every goddamn member of the Savage Kings in the hallway.
“What are you all doing here?” I ask.
The blue-haired woman is the only one who moves her mouth, yet all I hear is a whooshing sound in my head.
“Huh?” I shout over the roar as War and Torin grab each of my elbows and steer me back into the bedroom like I’m a fucking cripple. “What’s going on?” I ask them when we’re back in the room. “Why won’t anyone fucking answer me!” I yell after I flop back down on the mattress.
Blue-haired woman shoves a notebook in my face and her finger points to the handwritten words.
It says, “There was an explosion and your eardrums blew so you may not be able to hear us.”
The word explosion catches my attention. Honestly all I remember is the fire. I had no idea how it originated.
“Yeah, I remember the explosion,” I tell them. “Who did it?”
The guys all shrug their shoulders in the universal gesture for no fucking idea. At least that doesn’t need to be written down by anyone.
“So my eardrums are fucked. Is that why there’s whooshing and ringing in them?” I ask even though it’s obvious.
Blue-haired woman nods and then takes back the notebook to write again. When she returns it to me, it says I need to see an audiologist.
No shit. I hate the roar and not being able to hear a damn thing.
“Fine,” I mutter. “Anything to make this stop – Wait, Jenna?” I ask when I remember seeing her in the replay of hell that seemed to go on for years. I look at each of the guys’ faces, waiting for their lips to say something. Instead of speaking, blue hair hands the notebook to Torin.
Fuck.
I know what his handwritten words are going to say before he even shows me the notebook. All he writes is, “She didn’t make it.” Goddamn it all to hell.
“No! No, God, no!” I exclaim as I scrub my palms down my face. How did this happen? How the fuck did this happen! One minute she was there, standing in my office, talking to me and now…now she’s gone? Oh, shit. Her daughter! Ruby! “She has a kid…what about her kid?” I ask them.
I don’t need to look at them to know that they probably had no clue Jenna was a mother. Hell, even I didn’t know until the morning she came to Avalon, right before the explosion…
We have to find her kid, that’s just all there is to it. Screw my hearing and finding the person responsible. Taking care of Jenna’s daughter is the least we can do to make up for the fact that she’s gone.
Poor kid.
She’ll never have a chance to know her mother. While Jenna didn’t come out and say it, I’m guessing she didn’t have any family around to help her out, otherwise she wouldn’t have been at Avalon, asking me for an advance when the place went up in flames.
Someone, Torin, pulls my hands from my face and holds the notebook in front of my face that says, “We’ll take care of her kid and make the person who did this pay.”
Fuck. I’m all for vengeance but finding and killing the people responsible won’t do a goddamn thing to bring Jenna back. All she was trying to do was the best she could for herself and her daughter. And because she made the stupid decision to dance in our club, the Savage Kings’ club, now she’s dead.
My mind is a million miles away as the guys all start to leave the room, except for Torin who writes something else down in the notebook.
“Liz came to see you. Do you want me to try and find her? Ask her to come back?”
“No,” I blurt out, not even needing to consider his offer. While I’m surprised she came by after the way things ended between us the other day, it’s not safe for her to be associated with the Kings. Especially now with shit blowing up. She doesn’t belong in our world. She has everything going for herself and I’ll only drag her down. Liz was right to not want more with me. I get it now. It was stupid for me to think that the two of us could ever really be together when we’re so different. She’s good and I’m…not.
“We’ll get you a doctor’s appointment for today. Your hearing is going to come back,” Torin writes down next.
I hope he’s right.
Chapter Five
Elizabeth
It’s been three days since Cooper was hurt, since I saw him, and he told me to leave. Still, I can’t help but worry about him. I need to find out if he’s okay. And once I know for sure that he’s recovering from his injuries, then I’ll go back to trying to forget I ever met him.
Cooper still isn’t answering his cell phone or responding to my texts, so I call the only other person I know who has probably been in touch with him and the other Savage Kings – Jade.
“Hi, Liz,” our sheriff says when she answers. “I bet you’re not calling about a case but about a man.”
“How is he?” I ask. There’s no point in trying to pretend that’s not what I reached out to her for.
“You’re really worried about him, aren’t you?” she asks, like that’s some type of surprise.
“Well, yeah. He could’ve died!” I remind her. “He didn’t, though, right?”
“You care about him, Liz,” she says, her voice full of sympathy. “No one even knew the two of you were seeing each other,” Jade points out. “How long has it been going on?”
“Um, well, about two years, but we both agreed to not make a big deal about sleeping together.”
“Two years, really?” she repeats in surprise. “And no one knew. I hate to break it to you, girl, but I think you should probably cut ties while you can and move on. Trust me on this, the bombs are just the latest disaster for the Savage Kings. They won’t be the last.”
“Fine, I will. I just want to know if Cooper is okay,” I reply in exasperation. I hear her message loud and clear. It’s what I’ve been telling myself over and over again several times a day.
“He’s better,” Jade says on a sigh, and my entire body feels lighter in my desk chair. “Torin told me that he had a time with an infection but is fighting it off. He also said that Cooper finally saw an ear doctor about his hearing. He didn’t get great news but he’s up and around again, hearing whispers at least, which is better than nothing.”
So what she’s saying is that Cooper is getting up and around, phy
sically capable of texting me back and hasn’t done so. I really should take the hint and move on.
Easier said than done.
“Liz, look, there’s something you should know,” Jade starts. “I’ve been debating whether or not to tell you…”
“Well? What is it? Tell me!” I demand of her.
She exhales loudly into the phone before going on to say, “The woman they found with Cooper…”
“Jenna, yeah, I remember her,” I say since I can’t stop hearing the way Cooper moaned her name. Her name, not mine. When he eventually recognized me and said my name, it was quickly followed by, “You shouldn’t be here.”
“She was naked,” Jade says.
“Huh?” I ask in response to her random statement since I was too busy replaying the conversation in my head.
“Liz, Jenna wasn’t wearing anything when they pulled her from the building. She was in his office and naked, except for her shoes.”
“Oh,” I mutter when I finally realize exactly what Jade is saying to me and why.
“I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this,” Jade says, but I barely hear her.
Cooper and Jenna must have been screwing when the explosion happened. Or they had been right before or were getting ready to…
See, this is exactly why I tried to keep things casual with Cooper, so that I wouldn’t be devastated when I found out he was sleeping with someone else.
And it’s not like I thought he wasn’t hooking up with the strippers, despite him once saying that he doesn’t fuck his employees.
Now I’m glad that we ended things the last time he was in my office; because if we hadn’t, I would be in agony after hearing about Cooper with another woman.
It still hurts to find out, but it’s the best possible way for me to finally, once and for all, move on and try to forget I ever met the sexy biker.
Cooper
I still feel like shit the day after I was able to get out of bed. My entire body seems to hurt with even the slightest motion. The headache is the worst, and everyone sounds like they’re talking to me over a roaring wind. At least I’m starting to hear whispers of voices again. If I could just get some uninterrupted sleep, without nightmares of the explosion constantly jerking me awake, I think I would feel a lot better.
Despite the way I feel, I have too many things to do to just crawl in bed and wallow around in my self-pity. Nearly dying has made me appreciate the life I’ve been given, and I want to do more. I want to be a better man. To do the right thing whatever it takes.
First, I need to find Jenna’s kid and make sure she’s taken care of properly. Then, I’m gonna find whoever the fuck did this to her and make them pay.
“I need you to get Jenna’s address from Reece and take me there,” I tell Cedric since he’s my chaperone, driving me around now that the rest of the guys are out of town.
I can see the kid’s lips moving when he responds from the driver’s seat of the parked van, but I have no fucking idea what he said. This hearing loss is getting really fucking old. The doc better be right about it being temporary.
At least Cedric puts his cell phone up to his ear a moment later, which I hope means he’s doing as I asked.
When he cranks the engine and drives us down some unfamiliar streets, I take it he was able to get Jenna’s address from Reece.
I remember Jenna mentioning that one of her neighbors babysat for her but was going to be unavailable soon, so I’m hoping that neighbor still has her kid and hasn’t turned her over to the Department of Social Services.
Cedric parks the van in front of a brick, three-story apartment building. He starts to get out before I remind him, “You need to bring the board and translate.”
After the visit to the audiologist yesterday, Torin went and bought me a small dry erase board with a black pen that clips to the top of it. The pen even has a sponge on the end to easily erase.
I fucking hate the damn thing, but it’s come in handy since I can’t exactly ask my brothers to come closer and whisper their words in my ear.
Five minutes later, and we’ve not only found the college-aged woman who lived next door to Jenna but talked to her long enough to find out she’s leaving for school in two days. When Jenna never returned to pick up her child, the poor girl thought she had no choice but to call social services.
I shouldn’t be angry at her but I am. Lately I’m pissed off at pretty much everyone, myself included.
“Call War and ask to speak to his wife,” I order Cedric when we get back in the van and I slam the door. It’s like I have my own personal Alexa or Siri to do my bidding, only I wouldn’t know if this personal assistant talked back.
Getting the state involved is exactly what I was trying to avoid, although it’s not like I had any idea what I would do if the neighbor still had the baby. What the hell could I do? Offer her money to take care of the kid indefinitely? No, I couldn’t put that sort of responsibility on a teenager.
Could I take on that responsibility myself, though?
When Cedric gives me a thumbs up while the phone is still held up to his ear, I assume he was able to reach War.
I need a plan, but it’s so hard to think on about two hours of sleep and with the goddamn whooshing in my head that won’t stop!
When Cedric then looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to ask a question, I say the only thing that comes to mind. “Ask Nova how the foster program works, specifically how I can adopt a kid in the system.” When he stares at me without opening his mouth or even blinking, I toss the dry erase board and pen down onto his lap. “Write down everything she says,” I tell him.
Am I actually going to do this? I don’t know a damn thing about taking care of kids, especially babies. I’m not sure if I had ever been around one before Torin’s kids came along. I’m certain they are a huge obligation and that’s it. That’s the extent of my knowledge.
Still, I know in my gut that if I don’t try and help this little girl for her mother, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.
Cedric writes a paragraph in sloppy cursive while holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder. It takes me forever to interpret his words. There are applications that have to be filled out with proof of a steady income, background searches, home visits, and even training that is required first.
“Ask her what she thinks my chances of getting approved are,” I instruct Cedric. He gives me another wide-eyed, confused look before his mouth moves.
It’s disappointing to see the words he writes down in response to that question.
Nova doesn’t think I have any chance at fostering a kid because I’m single, a member of the Savage Kings MC, and manager of a strip club.
It’s not like I would walk into the social services office wearing my leather cut, for fuck’s sake. And, for paperwork purposes, I’m sure I can leave off the Savage King membership bit, simply stating the name of the business I manage without going into specifics of what goes on inside. The one thing I can’t do anything about is the fact that I’m single.
Or can I?
All it takes to get a marriage license is a willing woman. It won’t be easy to find one, but it’s not impossible.
“Ask Nova if it would help if I were married,” I tell Cedric with a slap to his arm.
He erases the previous information on the board and writes one word in all caps, “YES.”
“Yes, getting married would help?” I repeat, and he nods in agreement. “Great, then all I have to do is convince someone to marry me. If Miles can do it, then I sure as fuck can too.”
Of course, Liz’s face immediately pops into my mind. I started falling for her the first time we met, and the way I feel about her has only grown stronger over the past two years that we’ve been fooling around together.
It’s one hell of a long shot since Liz refused to let me take her out on a date. Asking her to marry me seems highly improbable. Still, she’s my first choice. I won’t ask anyone else until I know for ce
rtain that Liz has said no.
And despite how much I’ve been trying to avoid dragging someone amazing like her into my world of blood and death, if I have to be married to get custody of Ruby, Jenna’s kid, then I want it to be her. If she’ll agree.
“That’s all I need from Nova for now,” I tell Cedric. “Hang up and then take me across the bridge to Beaufort.”
Chapter Six
Elizabeth
“Liz?” Barb’s voice asks through the phone’s intercom while I’m typing up a sentencing brief for tomorrow’s hearing.
“Yes?” I respond, letting my fingers pause on the keyboard to see what she needs.
“You have a visitor,” she replies. “Mr. Cummings is here to see you.”
Picking up the receiver so that I don’t have to yell for everyone outside my office to hear, I whisper, “Cooper is here? What is he doing here?”
“Should I send him on back?” Barb asks. It’s not like she has a clue why he’s showing up just days after he was blown up.
“Ah, yeah,” I reply as I quickly run my fingers through my hair. I seriously doubt that he’s here for sex after how bad of shape he was in when I last saw him, and thanks to the fact that he was sleeping with another woman. So why the hell is he here?
Guess I’m about to find out.
My office door is open wide since I was working inside alone, so a moment later Cooper is filling it, along with a younger raven-haired guy in a plain leather cut, holding some kind of board in front of his body.
“Sorry to stop by without making an appointment first,” Cooper says as he hobbles in, looking as if he’s still in pain.
“H-how are you?” I stammer since I wasn’t expecting him and because he looks…awful. Not that he isn’t still handsome; he just looks like he’s in pain and not all of it is the physical kind.
