Spark of Time: MacKenny Brothers Series Book 5: an MC/Band of Brothers Romance

by Kathleen Kelly

  “Not broken, but probably cracked. You have a shoe imprint on your side.”

  I pull my shirt back down. “We need to get going.”

  “Have a shower, and we will.”

  Nodding, I rise and hold out the car keys. “Can you get my suitcase out of the trunk?”

  Brandon takes them from me. “Go shower.”

  Charlotte is standing in the small bathroom, moving from foot to foot. “Have you finished talking?”

  Charlotte might be intellectually impaired, but she isn’t stupid.

  “Yes, honey. I’m going to take a shower, then we’re going to hit the road.”

  “Isabelle, where are we going?”

  “From here, we are driving to Houston. Ellington Airport. Brandon is going to fly home, and we’re going to fly a little further south.”

  “Why won’t you tell me where we are going?”

  I drag my t-shirt over my head and then take off my shoes and step out of my jeans. Charlotte’s intake of breath causes me to look at her. Her eyes are wide open, and she’s staring at my side.

  “It looks worse than it is, honey.”

  “Did Chase do that to you?” Her eyes fill up with tears.

  “Yes.” I cup her face with my hands. “But he can’t hurt us anymore. It’s why we can’t tell Brandon where we’re going. If he knows, Chase might hurt him. Okay?”

  Charlotte nods.

  I slip off my bra and underwear and step under the spray of water. It’s warm, and I immediately turn off the hot water. When we get to our final destination, maybe then I can relax.

  Charlotte leaves the bathroom only to come back moments later with my toiletries bag. She puts toothpaste on my toothbrush and hands it to me. Gratefully, I brush my teeth, and the minty freshness immediately makes me feel better.

  Turning off the water, I step out, and Charlotte hands me a towel.

  “Honey, could you get me a packing cell out of the bag? Each one has a full set of clothes in it.”

  “Any one?”

  “Yep. Whatever you think looks good.”

  The packing cells have mesh tops on them so you can see the different colored clothing inside. Charlotte comes back with a packing cell that has red showing through the top of it.

  “You look nice in red.”

  I wink at her. “Thanks, honey.”

  “Isabelle, we aren’t ever going back, are we?”

  Shaking my head, I pull on a bra and panties. “Never.”

  Charlotte hands me a pair of jeans, and I sit on the toilet to put them on. She’s quiet as she watches me dress.

  “Is there a brush in my bag?”

  Charlotte rummages through my toiletries bag and hands me a hairbrush. With some difficulty, I pull it through my long hair.

  “You should cut it,” suggests Charlotte.

  “You think?” She nods at me. “Okay, then I will. As soon as we get to our final destination.”

  Picking up my dirty clothes, I put them in the now empty packing cell, grab my toiletries bag, and walk out of the bathroom with Charlotte. Brandon has the television on. I toss my bags into my suitcase, zip it up, and look down at him.

  “You ready to drive?”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah, we should get going. I’ll sleep for the first six hours, then we can swap.”

  “I’ve already put our bags in the car, Charlotte. Do you want to ride up front with me while Isabelle sleeps?”

  Charlotte nods. “Okay.”

  I pull her in for a hug and walk hand in hand with her to the car.

  “Your shirt matches the car.”

  Looking down at my shirt, I smile. “Yep, you chose well.”

  Climbing into the back seat, I lay across it. It’s not very comfortable. Charlotte and Brandon sit up front. Charlotte reaches back, trying to touch me. Linking my hand with hers, she visibly relaxes.

  “Lottie, I can’t ride like this the whole way to Houston. We’re together again, and no one is going to separate us. I need sleep, honey.”

  Charlotte pulls her hand back. “Okay. Can we have the radio on?”

  “I’m so tired you could have a dance party in here, and I’d sleep through it.”

  Brandon laughs and reverses the car. “You two ready?” Charlotte nods. “Here we go!”

  Closing my eyes, I finally feel safe. Someone turns on the radio, and I fall asleep to George Michael’s “Freedom.”

  Rolling onto my good side, I smile. How appropriate.

  I wake up to Charlotte stroking my arm. Rolling over, I groan in pain as my sore body protests.

  “I’m awake.” I scrub a hand over my face and slowly sit up. We’re at the airport. “What the hell? How long was I asleep for?”

  Brandon is grinning at me. “Fourteen hours. You were out cold.”

  “You snored.” Charlotte giggles.

  “You should’ve woken me.”

  “Charlotte kept me entertained, and we stopped a few times. How are you feeling?”

  “Good. I need a bathroom.” Running my tongue across my teeth, I frown. “And I need to brush my teeth, oh… and coffee.” Yawning, I stretch, and my side immediately protests. “Let’s get going.”

  Charlotte is the first to open her door and get out.

  “You’re really doing this?” asks Brandon.

  “There’s no turning back now.” His gaze flicks to Charlotte. “I’ll never see her again?”

  Shaking my head, I lean forward and place a hand on his shoulder. “One day. But not for a long time. Chase will be looking for me. I can’t go back to him.”

  Brandon nods, his lips in a firm line. “No, you can’t.”

  He opens his door, and sadness washes through me. Not only have I up-ended my own life, but Charlotte’s as well. She’s leaving the only city she’s ever known and all of her friends. The family didn’t approve of her friends and made it hard for him to visit her, but he persisted. Morgan helped and would often take Charlotte out to meet him. I’m thankful to him. Without his help in getting Charlotte to Jacksonville, we wouldn’t be here now.

  Charlotte opens my door, and I slide across the seats to get out. Opening my handbag, I take out five thousand dollars and hand it to Brandon.

  “What the hell?” he asks.

  “Take it. I have more money. Use it to get home. It’s my way of saying thank you.”

  “No. I did this for Charlotte. I don’t need a payday.” He thrusts the money back at me.

  Shaking my head, I zip up my handbag and point at the trunk. “Open her up, we need to get going.”

  “Isabelle, take it back.”

  “No.”

  I walk around to the back of the car and wait.

  Brandon looks up at the sky and then levels his gaze at me. “You’re stubborn, you know that?”

  Laughing, I say, “I’ve been called worse.”

  Brandon nods and opens the trunk. We each reach in and grab our bags. Charlotte’s and mine are suitcases on wheels, and Brandon’s is a duffle bag. He locks up the car, and we walk toward the terminal.

  “Can I know where you’re going?”

  “No,” I say flatly. “We’ll contact you when it’s safe.”

  Once inside the airport, we find a sign to show us the different flights. In less than an hour, there’s one back to Chicago. Brandon buys a ticket and comes back to us, holding up the slip of paper.

  “I should go through security.”

  “Can we go with him?”

  “No, honey. We aren’t ready to leave yet.”

  Charlotte’s eyes well up with tears, and my heart breaks. Brandon is her best friend. Because of my mistakes, she’s losing him. A lump forms in my throat, and I hug him.

  “Thank you,” I choke out and then step away.

  Brandon pulls Charlotte in for a hug. “We’ll see each other again, Lottie. I promise.”

  Charlotte says nothing but clings to him as she cries. Brandon puffs out his cheeks and lets out a breath, then holds her a
t arm’s length.

  He kisses her forehead. “See you soon, Charlotte. Take care of your sister,” his voice is thick with emotion. He nods at me, turns, and walks through security. Brandon stops on the other side, spins around and waves, then disappears around a corner. Charlotte and I cling to each other, openly crying.

  “Come on, honey, we need to rent another car.”

  “But I thought we were flying from here?”

  “No. We can’t take the chance that Chase might follow Brandon. We need to go to Dallas and fly from there. It’s just over three hours.”

  Charlotte nods and looks a little defeated. “I hate him.”

  “Me too.”

  I pull her toward the car rental desk and pull out another ID. With Morgan’s help, I got five IDs for myself and two for Charlotte. It takes no time at all to get a car, and we hit the road. This time we’re in a small silver Chevrolet Spark. It was the only one they had left.

  The further we get away from the airport, the quieter Charlotte becomes. When we finally get to Dallas, she’s been silent for an hour, which isn’t like her. Turning off the car, I reach over and put her hand in mine. “Talk to me.”

  “Why was he so mean?”

  “Chase?” Charlotte nods. “Some people just have something missing inside of them. I thought I could fix him, but I couldn’t. This is all my fault.”

  Charlotte opens her door. “No, it was his fault. He was always mean to me too.”

  My head snaps in her direction. “What?”

  “Chase, he was always mean to me. He made fun of me.”

  “Lottie, why didn’t you tell me?”

  She shrugs. “You loved him.”

  My heart breaks in two as I stare at her. It’s true, I loved him in the beginning. Taking her hand in mine, I hold it to my face.

  “Promise me if anyone ever makes you feel bad or is mean to you, no matter who it is, you’ll tell me.”

  Charlotte nods. “I promise.”

  “I mean it, Lottie. You’re the most important thing to me.”

  “Family first, always?”

  “Yes, honey.”

  “But isn’t Chase family?”

  All the air rushes out from my lungs, and I want to scream at the mess I’ve made of things.

  “No. You would never hit me, and I’d never hit you. Real family doesn’t hurt each other.”

  Charlotte nods, but she has a frown on her face. She pushes her door open wider, and we both get out of the compact car. The trunk is so small that only Charlotte’s bag would fit in it, and mine is across the back seat. Once we have our suitcases and are rolling them toward the airport, I stand in the line for a cab.

  “Aren’t we getting a flight?”

  “No, honey. We’re going to buy a car and drive to our final destination.”

  “Why?”

  Not wanting to tell her I’m worried about security cameras and that Chase will be looking for me everywhere and using his considerable wealth to find us, I shrug and pretend to laugh.

  “Road trip!” Charlotte frowns at me, and I know she can tell how false my bravado is. “I thought we’d get to know each other again and how better to do it than together on the road?”

  Charlotte snakes an arm around my waist. “Whatever you say, Isabelle.”

  I kiss the side of her head and move us forward in the line. No man will ever get between us again. I’ll never let another man treat me the way Chase did. The town we’re moving to is the very essence of small-town America. They still have a main street with mom-and-pop shops.

  One reason I picked it is because a bakery came up for sale. It’s similar to what I had in Chicago with an apartment above it for Charlotte and me. It’s a two-story building in the heart of town. I won’t be doing events, but I’ll be making pastries and bread and doing what I used to do when our parents were still alive. The building in Chicago was their dream. Mom made all the pastries, and Dad served coffee out front. I took it in another direction when they died, but I don’t want to do that in the new town.

  Chase might search for me, and a new events company would probably hit his radar.

  A bakery serving coffee won’t.

  It’ll mean investing a good chunk of my money to buy it, but it will also be security for Charlotte and me.

  Isabelle

  The man who owned the bakery, Mr. Whistler, Craig to his friends, sold it to me after a bit of negotiation. His wife wanted him to retire so they could spend more time together, but I’m under the impression he didn’t really want to sell. To sweeten the deal, I told him he was welcome back in the shop any time and that I could probably use the help.

  The upstairs apartment hadn’t been used in a long time. Everything was dusty and needed a good clean and the odd repair. It took a month for the bakery to change hands, and during that time, Mr. Whistler let us renovate the apartment. Charlotte wanted her room painted a soft yellow while I painted the rest of the apartment white. The apartment consists of a bathroom, two bedrooms, a living room, and an open plan dining room and kitchen in one long narrow room. One of the best things about the building is we have access to the rooftop.

  Thankfully, Mr. Whistler let us keep the sale of the bakery a secret. I told him I didn’t want to lose business, but I truly didn’t want the local paper doing an article on me and putting my photo in it. The fewer people who know about us, the safer we’ll be.

  It’s been nearly three months since we moved here. My days are hard as I work in the bakery all hours. Charlotte is a big help. We purchased a coffee machine, and we both took lessons on how to use it. She makes a better Americano than me, and the customers seem to love her. We work six days a week and take Mondays off.

  When I crawled out of bed at three in the morning to go downstairs and start making bread, I checked our orders and found one for a custom cake. The customer wants a slab with an edible picture on the top. These are easy enough to do, but he’s also sent through the specific type of cake he wants.

  Most people ask me what we normally do, and they rarely request a particular cake or send me a recipe. Shaking my head, I wander downstairs with the laptop tucked under my arm. After I put the bread into the ovens—the dough was resting overnight—I respond to the email.

  This isn’t a problem. Thank you for your order. Payment can be forwarded via PayPal, and we look forward to working with you.

  Isabelle Lewis.

  No sooner do I hit send than an email comes back to me telling me I need to deliver it at a specific time. Huffing to myself at his audacity, he explains it’s for his brother’s engagement party, and due to circumstances beyond his control, he can’t attend, and I’d be doing him a huge favor.

  If this were Charlotte, I’d probably be this pushy too. So, I agree with his terms and send him an invoice. Closing the laptop, I make myself a flat white and start making the cupcakes to put in the cabinet for later this morning. I’ve got six hours to make everything for today and need to get a hustle on.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come?” asks Charlotte as she helps me load the cake into the back of our little van.

  “I’m sure. Put your feet up. I should be home in an hour, tops.”

  Charlotte yawns loudly. “I’m tired.”

  I give her a quick hug and climb into the van. The sooner I deliver this, the sooner I can get home and relax.

  The address for the cake delivery is on the outskirts of town where it’s mainly farmland. When I pull up in front of the house, the music is so loud that I can hear it with the windows wound up. There are motorbikes and cars parked everywhere. Opening the door, I lock the van and walk up to the front door. I knock loudly, but no one answers. The music is coming from around the back of the neat home, so I walk around the side of the building and out the back.

  There’s a marquee and what looks to be hundreds of people dancing, laughing, and having a good time. This is nothing like the parties at the Kelly house. Here, no one is concerned with looking a certai
n way—they are only interested in having a good time.

  I watch as a man hits a teenager over the head, then tries again only to miss, and the teenager bounds away laughing. He’s clearly had a lot to drink. Unfortunately, his eyes land on me, and he staggers toward me.

  Jamie

  I agreed to let Maddock have his surprise engagement party out on my farm. The only problem is it means the entire Loyal Rebels MC also gets invited. I’ve always kept myself separate from Kyle and Sean’s MC life. When we thought we lost Maddock all those years ago, I blamed them, even though it had nothing to do with them. The MC attracts danger like a moth to a flame. It’s not something I’ve ever wanted to be a part of, but it’s hard to separate my family from it.

  I’m chatting to one of the MC women who burst into tears when Maddock got down on bended knee to ask Cherie to marry him. I’ve no idea who she is, but obviously, she felt fairly invested in my brother.

  “How long have you been associated with the MC?”

  Her mouth drops open. “I’m a friend of Cherie’s. I’m not one of those… whores.”

  She turns on her pretty little heel and walks away from me. Maybe she wasn’t so invested in my brother after all. Maybe she was simply happy for Cherie. Whatever the case may be, I’ve blown it with that one.

  A shrill whistle pierces the air, gaining everyone’s attention. “Yo, Mad! Woman here for you,” yells Kyle.

  “I bet she is!”

  “Probably wants to send him off in style!”

  “He’s taken, sweetheart, but I can show you a fucking good time!”

  The teasing comes fast and furious. Looking at the petite blonde, she’s gone beet red and has her eyes averted to the ground. She’s dressed in a chef’s uniform, and there’s something else about her, a vulnerability that makes me move closer to get a better look.

  Maddock and I stumble toward the pretty lady. Mad elbows me as we get close to her, and I shove him for good measure. Mad shakes his head at me.

  “Hello, I’m Maddock,” he says to the woman.

  “I’m Isabelle Kelly… I mean Isabelle Lewis.”

  “You don’t know your name?” asks Kyle