She carefully lay the 9mm on the counter before using both hands to take the shotgun. It was heavier than it looked. “I never got to actually use the guns in our robberies, Henry.”
“Jase,” said Henry, and waved his fingers. Jase hesitated only a second before he pushed through the group and came to stand before Henry. “Our arrangement remains—you stay with Maggie at all times, day and night. And you need to make sure she gets practice with these.” He pointed to the guns.
Jase and Maggie looked at each other. He seemed to look as tired and resigned as she felt. His anger from the night before was completely washed away by something new, something deeper, but just as dark.
“I’ll take care of her.” The words dropped from Jase’s lips sincere and quiet. Maggie was glad he couldn’t see her eyes behind her sunglasses.
~ SEVEN ~
After Henry had handed out some individual assignments to the MC, he adjourned the meeting and all Maggie wanted to do was get back to bed. She had even procured a few joints from Tommy, and she was looking forward to a day of lying around, napping, and seeing Jase as little as possible.
She waited at the bar, smoking and finishing off her coffee until Jase came to get her and the new weapons Henry had gifted her. She had no energy to deal with what had happened the night before, or even to be feisty with him. She knew control of this situation was no longer hers—if it ever had been. To be frank, she was almost relieved to be letting someone else strong and decisive take the wheel. Where had her own decisions led her to, anyway?
A few other bikers followed Maggie and Jase out to the parking lot, lighting up cigarettes and rumbling generally about the shooting. Maggie let Jase take the shotgun and shoved the unloaded 9mm into the waistband of her pants. Still feeling the general vulnerability of telling her story to all the men, she tried to distance herself from the group when she noticed a woman walking to the porch from the parking lot along the driveway. There was something familiar about the pattern of clothes she was wearing, like Maggie had seen the outfit before. The woman held a box in her thin arms.
“Hey, state your business!” came a gruff male voice from somewhere in the group. Instantly all the men turned and faced this potential threat. The woman froze in her tracks, her eyes wide.
Maggie started. “Oh my God-- Julie?” She said as she took a few steps forward.
“Maggie, stay back,” said Jase.
Maggie ignored him and continued towards her friend. Julie stared at her in half-confusion, half-fear. She was a waif of a woman with gorgeous bone structure and a sweet personality. Maggie hadn’t seen in her in months. “Julie, what are you doing here?”
Julie’s eyes began to flit from Maggie, to the gang of bikers looking ready to pounce, and back. The shotgun in Jase’s hand couldn’t have been comforting. “I-I brought you some of your stuff… your landlord called me to pick it up. He said he hadn’t seen you in a while and your… friends… they weren’t paying the rent.”
Of course, Maggie thought. Her whole focus had been on escaping Eagleton. She hadn’t thought of what she was leaving behind—like poor Julie, her emergency contact, having to pick up the slack. The landlord’s threats of eviction in the week prior to her escape had been the last thing on her mind. It occurred to her that this wasn’t the first time she had made such a mistake. Judging by the feeling of eyes burning into the back of her head, it was probably occurring to Jase at that moment, too.
Maggie blinked a few times and looked down, ashamed. “Julie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you into this. I was…. I had to leave in a hurry.” She took the box from Julie’s arms and thanked her. “How the hell did you find me here?”
“Well, I was…” Julie stopped, and made a few nervous gestures towards the men. “Can you… can you tell them to relax? I feel like I’m about to get tackled.”
“Jesus Christ, guys, stand down!” Maggie shouted, turning her head towards them. She heard shuffling in the gravel and boots moving back up on the wood of the deck. “Sorry, they’re a bit on edge. Shit’s not going great right now. You were saying?”
“When I got the call from your landlord, I tried getting in touch with you again. I only had your cell from when you worked at the pharmacy. I wasn’t even sure if it was working. I left voicemails that never got returned. But I was really concerned about you just disappearing and leaving things behind,” said Julie, twisting her rings around her fingers as she talked. “I thought I remembered you telling me where you had moved from, so I went back through my journals to see if I had written it down, and I had: LeBeau.”
“You and those goddamn journals,” said Maggie with a grin.
She smiled. “I took a few vacation days and thought I should come down and see if I could at least find your family… let them know what was going on. Or maybe they had even heard from you. At the least, they probably wanted your things.” She gestured to the box. “I asked at a few places when I got into town if they knew the Olivers, or Maggie Oliver, and I got sent here.” Julie eyed the clubhouse. “It’s not what I was expecting.”
Maggie wanted to hug the woman. “You are too damn sweet for your own good, Julie. This was beyond thoughtful. I’m sorry to have worried you, and put you through all this.”
“I’m just glad you’re okay,” said Julie. “I really thought something had happened to you.”
“Well, things did, but not that thing,” said Maggie with a genuine laugh. “You should come back to the house and we can talk some more—if you don’t have to head right back, that is.”
“I would like that,” said Julie.
Maggie turned at the sound of approaching boot-steps on the gravel of the lot. Jase was sauntering up to them. Without asking, he took the large box from her in one arm, shotgun still in the other. “She should ride with us. Her car will be safe here, and we don’t want anyone connecting her with that house.”
Julie’s eyes widened again and she looked at Maggie. “Wow, you weren’t kidding about things happening?”
“I wish,” said Maggie. “Jase, this is Julie Montgomery. She’s a good friend that worked with me at the pharmacy. Julie, this is Jase Campbell.”
Hands full, Jase made an awkward closed-mouth grin and gestured with his fingers. Julie smiled and nodded at him. He took the lead to the SUV.
Once he passed, Julie caught Maggie’s eyes. Her eyebrows were raised. She gave an obvious look at Jase’s back and mouthed without speaking, “That’s Jase?”
Maggie felt the blood drain from her face. Julie couldn’t see how wide her own eyes were behind the big sunglasses. Maggie shook her head and waved her hands in thick motions that could not be misunderstood. In her head, she cursed herself for having actually acquired a friend that became close enough to tell some of her secrets—even if she was also very grateful for it.
Julie took her by the arm as they walked to the SUV and gave it a playful, knowing squeeze. Maggie couldn’t help but chuckle to herself, feeling better than she had in days.
The ladies let Jase drive them back to Maggie’s house. When shit started to really go down with Evan, she had cut off all contact with the few friends she had, with Julie being the closest. She felt guilty about it at the time, but then things got so intense that even that feeling was lost. Now, sitting in backseat together, they were able to chat and catch up as if they hadn’t lost months of time together. Maggie thought she saw Jase smirking at them from the rear-view mirror a few times.
Julie was a big fan of the Golden Age of Americana, and she immediately began gushing over Maggie’s temporary pre-war house. Maggie gave her the short tour while Jase hauled in the box of possessions Julie had brought down. He waited for them in the kitchen when they finished, drinking one of the beers Drake left. Maggie offered one to Julie and teased Miss Cabernet Sauvignon when she actually accepted.
After a few minutes of light conversation, Julie said, “This place is so beautiful! How long are you going to stay here?”
On instin
ct, Maggie turned and looked up at Jase. He was looking back at her with questions in his eyes. They both turned away with a bit of embarrassment. “I’m not sure,” said Maggie before she took a swig of beer. “For the foreseeable future, at least.”
“At least you could ask for a worse place to stay,” said Julie. “This is certainly an upgrade from the apartment.”
Maggie laughed. “Yeah, it is that.”
Julie’s question had more or less killed the playfulness of the atmosphere. Jase cleared his throat and mumbled that he was taking a cigarette outside. He wandered out to the shady backyard with his beer.
Julie gave Maggie a look she had been holding in the whole drive over. It was that wide-mouthed excitement that only women seemed to express, and it made Maggie laugh despite herself. She felt a deep flush moving over her face.
“I can’t believe that’s Jase!” Julie whispered, though still too loudly for Maggie’s comfort.
Maggie rolled her eyes and tried to contain her quiet laughter. She didn’t know what was so funny. Maybe just having Julie’s wide-eyed joy around all this death and pain was relaxing enough. After the years of horror she had spent with Evan, giggling about boys seemed like a rare, sweet surprise. She grabbed her beer and one of Julie’s hands and led her through the house back to her bedroom. She left the door open a just a crack.
“Keep your voice down,” said Maggie when they were alone. “Things are not great with that, either.”
“He’s so hot, Maggie!” said Julie with a little clap of her hands. “And you can tell he’s still into you.”
Maggie scoffed, digging through her pocket for the joints Tommy gave her. “Whatever.” She stuffed one in her mouth and lit it before taking a long, satisfying drag. She offered Julie a hit. At first, Julie hesitated, but then she seemed to shrug and accepted it with a giggle.
“I’m serious!” said Julie. She took a drag and came up from it coughing hard, which only made the two of them laugh harder. She waved smoke out of her face and passed the joint back to Maggie. “He was basically staring at you the entire time we were talking.”
“He’s my bodyguard,” said Maggie, shaking her head. “It’s his job to stare at me.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he hates it, too,” laughed Julie.
Maggie smiled and took another drag. She blew out the smoke without a cough. “He’s not the only one.”
“Oh, come off it,” said Julie as she snatched the joint. “How could you hate having that handsome strapping beast around you all the time?”
Maggie made an exaggerated groaning sound and fell to the floor with a laugh. Julie took a hit and laughed along with her. She joined Maggie on the floor one knee at a time and passed the joint.
“Let’s not talk about Jase, he might overhear us and his ego doesn’t need the meal,” said Maggie after she took a hard hit and exhaled.
“Okay,” said Julie. “Do you want to talk about where you’ve been for the last eight months?”
Maggie didn’t. She really, really didn’t. But she looked up and saw Julie’s earnest expression, and knew it was the right thing to do. “Yeah, I guess we can do that.”
“I tried calling you, Maggie. I guess I feel like… like maybe I failed you as a friend. I wanted to help you up, I couldn’t get you to take my hand,” said Julie. She handed the joint to Maggie and adjusted to sit cross-legged on the carpet, her back leaning against the bed. “Jordan kept telling me there was nothing I could do, but I just couldn’t accept that.” She giggled a little to herself. “Obviously—how else would I be here right now? I could never just give up on you, you know?”
Shame tore through Maggie’s mind and heart. She let the joint’s embers burn out as she held it between her fingers. “Jordan wasn’t wrong. I saw you calling me, Julie… I found the note you left in my mailbox. I was just too afraid to respond to any of it. I didn’t want…” Maggie had to take a deep breath. “I didn’t want you to see what I had become.”
“Oh honey. We all have our dark times. You know I watched my older sister go through her alcoholism. I know it’s not apples to apples, but well….I just mean I care about you anyway, even if you don’t care about you.”
“Part of me wishes I had called you,” said Maggie. “But part of me could never live with involving you with dangerous people.” She felt a strange sensation that Henry had told her those exact words at some point in years passed. And like Henry had with her, Maggie kept Julie at the perimeter of her life.
Julie nodded sadly. “I’m sure none of your decisions were easy ones at that point.”
Maggie cleared her throat. “No, they weren’t. Neither was the one to cut loose and make a run for home. But things got out of my control. Evan had soothed some need in me for that first little while, and then suddenly it felt like I was sliding down a muddy hill with no way to stop myself.”
“Everything seemed to be going so well before you met him,” said Julie. “You didn’t seem unhappy. I’m surprised there was something missing that he somehow filled. You seemed like a whole person.”
Maggie had replayed those transitionary months so many times in her mind, but she had no answers for either Julie or herself. “I was, in a lot of ways. But I just… there’s something inside me that isn’t right, Julie. It’s been there since I can remember; since I was a little girl. It won’t settle or shut up, no matter what I do. It’s like a big black ocean that lives inside my chest, and it’s always sloshing around, always storming. I can never find a way to keep it still… at least not for very long.”
Julie’s eyes welled up with sympathetic tears. “Oh Maggie. You feel that way all the time?”
“Not all the time,” said Maggie before she could stop herself. “I mean, sometimes it’s… sometimes it’s still. Sometimes it’s calm.”
“Like when?”
Before Maggie could answer, two stern knocks came on the bedroom door. Jase stuck his head inside the bedroom and looked at Maggie.
Like now.
“Jesus,” said Jase as his face scrunched up. “First night in a new house, and you decide to hot box the place?” He waved his hand and watched the collected smoke from the joint swirl in the sunlight.
Both Maggie and Julie started to giggle. Maggie took advantage of the distraction and hoped Julie would forget about the question she had asked. She re-lit the joint, took a puff, and offered it up to Jase. “Don’t be jealous, we wouldn’t leave you out.”
Whatever humor had been on Jase’s face died the second she said the word ‘jealous’. She got no pleasure out of seeing the stricken look behind his eyes, too subtle and far away for Julie to pick up on. But neither did she want him around her after what he had done last night.
She expected anger, but instead she saw only exhaustion pass over his face.
Julie must have missed it. “Yeah, Jase, why don’t you come have a seat and join us? I’ve heard so much about you!” She gave Maggie a very obvious grin that Maggie returned with a stern, bitchy look, pulled tight to hide her embarrassment.
Red flushed across Jase’s face. His eyes widened just a bit. “Is that so?”
“Oh, yeah, Maggie could never shut up about you!” It wasn’t the truth—in fact, it had taken many months before Maggie trusted Julie enough to even mention his name—but truth wasn’t Julie’s goal. This was more of a mini-seduction into conversation.
Jase looked over to Maggie, as if to verify whether Julie was honest. Maggie could only look at him for a second or two before the discomfort became too much. She realized that probably made her look guilty of Julie’s charges, but she just took a hit and said nothing.
“I guess I’m one of those guys that’s better enjoyed from a distance, then,” said Jase. His flat voice made clear that he wasn’t in the mood for any cheeky antics regarding his feelings. He pointed at the joint in Maggie’s hand. “Don’t burn the house down, alright?” He didn’t wait for a response before he ducked out of the room, footsteps heavy down the hall towards the ki
tchen.
“Yeesh,” said Julie with a little laugh. She took the joint Maggie still had outstretched. “Someone needs a nap.”
Maggie’s smile faded. “No, Julie, you don’t get it. He absolutely hates me. He told me to my face he doesn’t care about me.”
Julie seemed like she was going to crack another joke, but she stopped when she saw the real pain on Maggie’s face. “Hey, honey…” she reached out and took Maggie’s hand. “It’s okay. He won’t be mad forever. I wasn’t kidding about what I said earlier—you can see it all over him that he cares about you, I don’t care what he says about it now. He’ll come around and forgive you. He’s here protecting you, isn’t he? If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”
“His job?” said Maggie.
Sanctum: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel Page 7
