by Krane, Kasey
The other bikers drifted off, probably to take a nap - getting up at four in the morning had to be rough if you’d only gone to bed at two - and Judge pulled me to him in a bear hug. “I’m proud of you, Carmen; Bishop just needs some time to come around. I think he’s mostly pissed because he didn’t think to pull that stunt himself.”
I grinned up at him. “Yeah, well, I didn’t either. Jules’s a hell of a firecracker. Remind me to never piss her off. She’s got a devious streak a mile wide.”
“That’d be his Jules all right,” Judge said, and laughed. “I don’t think Bishop quite knows what he got himself into just yet, and I’m not going to be the one to tell him.”
We walked outside into the bright sunshine, already hot at 9 a.m. He swung onto his motorcycle and I slid in behind him, shockingly growing a little more comfortable with riding. I’d feel better when she had a helmet on, but I was surprised to find that I didn’t abhor riding a motorcycle like I’d always expected I would.
I snuggled my face against Judge’s back and closed my eyes as we roared through town. We came to a stop in front of…
I looked at the house - house, really - in front of me, and then up and down the street. Then back to the house.
“Judge, is this the old Miller house??” I swung my leg off the bike, and started walking up to the house that didn’t look a damn thing like the decrepit old house Judge and I had made out in during high school.
Okay, the house we fucked in, let’s be honest.
It was a Deming School tradition - slip into the abandoned house through the back door and then let the make-out sessions begin. There was a piece of shit couch in the living room that was the site for more lost virginities than that couch really had any business claiming. It was old, dusty, and for some reason, just the coolest.
“Yeah, I bought it about ten years ago,” Judge said at my elbow.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe it!” I exclaimed. “All of the windows are there, and the trim seems to be in one piece, rather than, you know, hanging at weird angles.” Actually, the house looked much better than my glib words gave credence to - instead of the broken, jagged windows of before, Judge had installed old leaded windows with colored glass. The porch, which had been sagging and in danger of falling in at any moment when I was in high school, was now straight and simply gorgeous, with carved wood details that lent the house a stately but friendly personality.
I drank the lines in with my eyes. “How long was the Miller house uninhabited before you bought it??” I asked, turning to him finally, tearing my eyes away from the miracle in front of me.
“Ten years, although it sure looked like it’d been abandoned for a hundred,” he said with a laugh. “Birds had been nesting in an upstairs bedroom for a while, and I had to hire guys in hazmat suits to come in and clean it all out, because the ammonia from bird shit can make you ill if you breathe it in. It’s been…a hell of a project. I’d say that you’d never believe everything I did to the place, except you saw it at its worst, so I think you know exactly what I did to the place.
“C’mon,” he said, grabbing my hand, “if you think the outside is stunning, wait until you see what I did to the inside.”
He pulled me up the front walkway and into the gorgeous leaded double doors that served as the front entryway. We stepped inside and the sight literally took my breath away.
This…this was where Judge and I had screwed around in during high school?
No.
Fucking.
Way.
From the gorgeous trim work to the crown molding to the stately chandelier to the gleaming wood floors, it was like a whole new house. Fucking gorgeous house. “Was that crown molding there in high school??” I asked, astounded. It’d seemed like…well, considering our amorous activities here, and, you know, the position of my body during said amorous activities, that I would’ve noticed something like that.
Okay, maybe not. Judge was too fucking sexy and it’d been hard to remember to breathe during our fuck sessions, let alone stare up at the crown molding.
“Most of it. Some of it had deteriorated so badly or had simply fallen off completely, and I had to pay for a local carpenter to replicate the missing portions so I could install it to match. Then I painted the whole thing so you couldn’t tell where the replication ends and the original began.”
I looked at him and couldn’t help it - I laughed. “Oh my God, the bad boy biker did all of this. You do know that paying for replicate crown molding so you can restore your piece of shit house automatically takes you off the bad boy list, right?!”
“Dammit, there goes my membership to that club,” he said with a grin.
“This is just…this is amazing.”
I heard the slow clicking of nails on wood then, and looked up to see a black lab, white in its muzzle, and lumber slowly into the room.
“Turbo?” I said. The dog’s tail began to wag and he moved with increased speed towards me. “Oh God, Judge, he was just a puppy during high school. I can’t believe you still have him!” Turbo nudged his nose into my hand, begging for pettings, tail going a hundred miles a minute. He didn’t seem to have arthritis there.
“I think he remembers you!” Judge said with a laugh as I dropped to my knees in front of Turbo and hugged him. He licked my ear and I squealed with laughter, which only encouraged him more. I buried my face in his fur and he nosed my hair, smelling me. After all this time, he was making sure I was okay.
As I finally got up and we began to wander around the house, Turbo stayed on my heels, never letting me leave his sight for a moment. It was obvious that he didn’t want me disappearing on him again. I would occasionally reach down and pet him absentmindedly, which sent his tail into a frenzy every time. I loved it. I hadn’t dared to get a pet, not with my hobo lifestyle, and I hadn’t realized how much I had missed having a dog until now.
We toured the house and I oohh’d and aahh’d over every detail of Judge’s home, which was great fun until I was struck with the painful realization that this house was the perfect symbol of why we didn’t work out after high school. I had wanted to go to college somewhere exotic (or at least not New Mexico, for God’s sakes) and then travel the world. I wanted to be a schoolteacher so I could make a difference, sure, but it didn’t hurt that I would have summers off. I’d spent the nine years since graduation traveling to every continent in the world - including Antarctica - and having a grand time. I hadn’t wanted to settle down, not even with Judge.
But now…as I listened to him talk passionately about the differences in farm sink styles and replication lighting and refinished hardwood floors, I realized that I hadn’t had any of this…any meaning in my life.
Meaning had come from teaching underprivileged students in rundown areas for a year or two, and then moving on to the next school in the next country over. Meaning had come from spending my summers taking outrageously exotic trips all over the world. And it had been great and fun and liberating, but in the end, what did I have to show for it? Other than having some great stories to tell around the dinner table, I hadn’t built anything lasting.
It was depressing. How had Judge, biker in the Dead Legion MC, ended up being the stable one??
But as he showed me the intricacies of a 1920’s flush toilet that operated by pulling on a chain, I realized that it only made sense. Judge had been raised in the largest house in town, built by his great-great-(whatever)-grandfather way back in the day, and the Michaelson family had passed it down from generation to generation, adding, restoring, and repairing it along the way. Unlike my father who’d wanted the best and the newest and the greatest and had built a stupidly huge house in the new trendy part of town when I was in high school, the Michaelsons had held onto the tradition and the stately lines of their family home.
In so many ways, Judge was totally different from his family but in this respect, it seemed like he’d been bit by the Michaelson bug.
As he showed me the unfinished bath
room upstairs and the intricate backsplash he was in the middle of installing, exhaustion hit me hard. I struggled to keep my eyes open and listen to the differences between ceramic and porcelain tile, but he finally caught my elbow and said, “Oh Carmen, you should’ve said something.” I slumped against him, happy to have the struggle against gravity taken from me. It was a battle I was going to lose soon anyway.
He scooped me up into his arms and carried me down the stairs to the master bedroom on the first floor. I tried to open my eyes and admire my surroundings as they went, I really did, but my eyelids felt weighted down by heavy stones and I felt the will to even fight it slip away.
And then he was pulling a light blanket over me and kissing my forehead and I was gone, falling into that comforting darkness.
10
Judge
I looked down at my sleeping Carmen and smiled to myself. Some things never change. I was going to have to change her nickname to Sleeping Beauty if she kept this up. Although, I wanted it to be noted, I’d carried her without huffing and puffing this time, although, again, she’d been asleep and unable to notice it. Dammit. I need to carry her around more when she’s awake. It’s a little easier to impress her when she’s awake. Not that she’d seemed impressed with my muscles at the hospital, though, so maybe I need to carry her around when she’s awake and not pissed at me.
As I watched her sleep, her flushed cheeks and wild dark brown curls giving her a cherubic air, my joy at having her back in my life began to fade.
Judge, what the fuck are you doing?
I could only stare down at her in silence. I really didn't know what I was doing, but I was pretty sure I was going to regret it. Last time I’d welcomed Carmen into my life, she’d messed around, she’d had fun, and then she’d left. She’d left me behind and traveled the world and I’d never been the same since. Bishop had been right - the drinking and the women had gotten out of control after Carmen’s first departure. Could I handle her leaving again?
Because she was still the same person. And I was still the same person. And we’d make the same fucked up decisions again. And I’d be left behind, broken pieces scattered to the wind.
She didn’t want commitment. She didn’t want to be tied down. She wanted to live in hostels and backpack through Europe and never know where she’d go to sleep the next night. I wanted…well, I wanted this - an old, beat-up house that I could return to its former glory through blood, sweat, and a whole lotta passion. Every corner of my house was stamped with my personality now, and that was exactly how I wanted it. I wanted a home that I could pass on to my children and grandchildren.
But without Carmen…the idea of trying to fall in love and marry someone else sent a bolt of panic through me. Since Carmen had walked out of my life all those years ago, I’d never found anyone who came even close to filling her shoes - sparking that same love and desire and fierce protectiveness inside of me that Carmen had. She’d been my all, and when she left, she’d taken a chunk out of my soul that I’d never been able to replace, no matter how many antique finds I had discovered or sheep I had fucked or whiskey sours I had drank.
But with Carmen…that sent a bolt of panic through me too. She left you before - she’s going to do it again. You can’t trust her. You can’t rely on her. And you sure as hell can’t fall in love with her. Again.
I was angry at myself - being around Carmen was like being high on a drug. It felt so goddamn good when she was there, but when she left, the high crashed and the aftermath was ugly. And here I was, getting right back onto that rollercoaster again. Dumbass.
“C’mon boy, let’s go,” I said softly, and walked out of my bedroom. Turbo thumped his tail on the bed, but didn’t move. I looked back, frowning. “C’mon, Turbo, we gotta go. She needs her sleep,” I said in a loud whisper. Carmen didn’t seem to hear me, but neither did Turbo. He settled down on the foot of the bed, where he always slept at night, and put his head down on his front paws. And then, he had the audacity to close his eyes!
“Fine, be that way!” I grumbled, and then headed out to the garage. Maybe pounding some nails out of old wood so I could reuse it as wainscoting in the upstairs bathroom would put me in the better mood. Bonus points if I managed to complete the project without smashing any fingers in the process.
I was really getting my pounding on and feeling better about life, liberty, and the world in general, when I heard a car pull up in the driveway. It was probably the first Dead Legion coming to take up watch over my house. They were going to switch out guard duty, three guys, every six hours, around the clock. It made me grateful yet again for the support that my brothers gave me.
But when I stepped outside, it was two Deming policemen stepping out of a police car that greeted me.
I waved at the guys in blue and then pulled out my cell. “Police are here,” I texted Bishop, and then pocketed my phone. I went over to greet the men, shaking Officer Davis and then Officer Lopez’s hands.
“Is Carmen Williams here?” Lopez asked, once the pleasantries were over.
“Yeah, but she’s asleep at the moment,” I said. “Head wounds are nasty sons of bitches.”
Bishop pulled up in front of the house under the shade of an acacia tree and cut the engine on his Harley. “Hey guys!” he called out, hanging up his helmet and then striding up the front walk. He must’ve already been on his way - police must’ve called him before they came over. God, it’s nice to have the police in your back pocket at times like this…
“Listen, I’m sorry to do this to you guys,” I said protectively, “but I’m not gonna wake Carmen up. She needs her slee—”
“What’s going on?” Carmen asked me through a yawn, standing in the front doorway. Turbo was firmly planted by her side. “I heard voices—” She saw Davis and Lopez and then behind them, Bishop. “Oh, hi! Sorry, I didn’t see you guys.” Her voice was thick with sleep, her hair tousled, her clothes rumpled, and a big giant white bandage was wrapped around her head.
I was pretty fucking sure I had never seen such a gorgeous woman in all his life.
11
Carmen
I squinted against the bright New Mexico sun. My head was throbbing and all I really wanted was to take some painkillers and go back to sleep, but these guys were all here for me. I had to do my best to help them however I could.
Help them find Maggie.
“Let’s go in out of this heat,” Judge suggested, and we all moved to the living room. I settled into a gorgeous Mission couch, which was wonderfully even more comfortable than it looked, and Turbo jumped up beside me, half sitting on me, squashing me beneath his weight. He seemed to be taking his self-appointed duty as my protector seriously. I grinned at him and he licked my face in response.
If nothing else good came out of this hellacious mess I found myself in, at least I had Turbo back again. As a puppy, he’d lived up to his name and even if he’d grown old and slow in my absence, his heart was still there. I had missed his love almost as much as I’d missed Judge’s…
“So, Miss Williams, let’s start with the kidnapping,” Officer Lopez said, taking the lead. “What happened on that bus?”
I felt the stares of all of the men trained on me and I swallowed hard against the rising panic bubbling up inside of me. The last thing I wanted to do was to relive that day.
“Well, as I already told the El Paso police,” I started out defensively, knowing that this sounded slightly bitchy but dear God, didn’t anyone understand that this had been, by far, the most awful day of my life? Why were they forcing me to relive it, again and again and again?
“We were on the bus, on the way to church camp. It’s a long bus ride and the girls were all getting antsy and tired of being on the bus, so when the motorcyclists pulled up on either side of the bus, they all got excited. They were loud and shiny and something to look at other than cacti and mesquite bushes. The riders surrounded the bus though, forcing the driver, to stop, and then they busted onto the bus. The firs
t guy had a shotgun in his hand and was waving it around. The girls were screaming—”
“Hold on, how exactly did you describe the gang members to the El Paso police?” Bishop interrupted.
“Ummm…” I stared at him, confused why this would matter but trying to remember. I had been in and out of consciousness when the Tucson police had questioned me, and the whole conversation was a little fuzzy around the edges. “I just called them motorcyclists, I think. Why?”
“Do you realize that the El Paso police would then be looking at any motorcycle club? God, Carmen, you helped frame the Dead Legion, especially after you—” he pointed a finger at Judge accusingly, “then up and kidnapped her! We’re lucky we’re not all wearing shiny silver bracelets right now!”
Judge leaned over and grabbed my hand comfortingly and I looked beseechingly at the Deming policemen. “I promise you, it wasn’t the Dead Legion! They would never do anything like that. They’re a clean gang - all they do is fundraisers and charity events!” The police officers exchanged glances and I felt Judge tense up beside me. Bishop looked at me as if I’d lost my damn mind.
Ignoring Bishop for the moment - something I was all too happy to do - I plunged on. “It was absolutely the Sangre. They’re well known in that area - everyone is terrified of them. I saw their leather vests and the tattoos on their necks. You’d have to be stupid to go into that area in Mexico and not be aware of the Sangre. That’s why I got so nervous when I saw them pull up, even before they made the bus slow down. The girls are little and naïve and didn’t know, but Maestra Martinez and I knew that they’d be trouble from the beginning.
“Once they got onboard, the leader hit the driver over the head with his gun and then he shot Martinez and then me. I still…I have no idea how I ended up at the Doctors Without Borders Clinic. I never even woke up until I’d been moved to the Trauma Center in El Paso.”
