Beard Up

by Lani Lynn Vale

  My child.

  Biggest. Fuck up. Ever.

  Now, it was a waiting game. I was gathering information on my parents. I was funded by the government. I had a team, a leader of that team who made sure that I had access to anything and everything I needed. I was a rogue who did what I had to do when I had to do it. I had the power and the resources to do whatever I had to do to get the information the government sought. Once I had all the information they needed, I’d hand it over to my contact and watch as my parents went up in a puff of smoke.

  And I’d be the one to pull that silver handle that watched them fry.

  That was a promise.

  “Because I haven’t gotten enough information on them to issue warrants for their arrests,” I finally answered. “I got close once, and my father tried to have me killed. Started to go after my family.”

  “And what happened then?” Sean continued questioning. Always so curious.

  I looked at him.

  “I faked my own death.”

  His eyes went wide.

  “And you left them,” he guessed.

  I nodded once.

  “And Silas is protecting them?” Sean’s voice sounded strangled.

  Silas finally spoke up.

  “Been doing that for a while now, but once I realized how deep this ran, I pulled in a few old buddies.”

  “Who?” Sean was beginning to sound impatient. “Not to sound like a dick here, but I need some more information. If you’re not watching over them well enough…”

  “Joker.”

  All his words stopped completely. I could hear the fucking leaves swaying and blowing each time the wind blew.

  “Well…” Sean said. “That’ll get the job done.”

  Silas snorted.

  I grinned.

  “And the boy that was living next to your wife?”

  I gritted my teeth.

  “A serial widower,” I answered. “Been married four times, and each wife has died of a heart attack well before they should’ve ever had to worry about that shit.”

  “Just fuckin’ kill him and get it over with,” Sean grunted. “We aren’t stupid. We know he had something to do with it, and I haven’t even seen the file yet.”

  I chuckled, and then that chuckle vanished just as quickly as it came when Sean’s next question pierced the quiet night air.

  “When you get everything you need on your parents…what then?” he asked. “Are you getting your family back?”

  I looked up at the night sky.

  There wasn’t a star in sight.

  God damn city, always fucking up the stars.

  “It’s not that easy,” I sighed. “I’ve been gone for a really long time now. She may not want me back.”

  Chapter 6

  I married the man who was willing to start my car for me on cold mornings.

  -Text from Mina to Audrey

  Mina

  I was sick to my stomach. I didn’t want to do this. Oh, God. I didn’t want to do this.

  I looked over at my baby girl, sleeping blissfully in her bed, completely unaware of my turmoil, and closed my eyes in mortification.

  I opened a can of worms, and now I couldn’t figure out how the hell to get them sealed back up in the can again.

  This thing with Josh had gotten so far out of hand.

  When I’d told him two weeks ago that I would go out on a ‘friends only’ date with him, it had never occurred to me that he would take that opportunity and run with it.

  He’d wormed himself into my life, and I had no clue what to do or say to get him out of it. I’d plainly told him how I felt in the very beginning, and it was like he’d taken that with a grain of salt.

  Where I thought I had put up a clear roadblock, Josh just figured all he had to do was find a detour to get where he wanted to go.

  And, apparently, he wanted to be with me.

  I didn’t want to be with him, though. I wanted him to go the hell away and not come back. I wanted him to get out of my life and to leave me alone after he left.

  But after what happened earlier, I wasn’t sure what I had to do to get him out of it.

  Hell, he didn’t even live next to me anymore, and he was still ruining my life.

  I knew that I was leaving, though. That thing was concrete.

  I’d already packed all of Sienna’s and my things that we were taking with us. I’d waited until Josh would have gone to work, and then loaded our car up so full that I wasn’t sure that Sienna would be comfortable enough on the ride to where we were going.

  But, at this point, it didn’t matter.

  She either had to deal with being uncomfortable for a few hours, or I was going to be forced into having sex with a man who I didn’t want in my house, let alone anywhere near my person.

  I was leaving.

  The rest of our stuff was being put into storage, thanks to movers. They would handle the rest of the packing and moving, as well as the cleaning of the house after we left.

  I’d resigned from my job at the hospital, and I’d found a nursing contract in Uncertain, Texas that would last for the next four weeks while I tried to decide what in the hell I was going to do next.

  The clock on the wall struck nine, and someone knocked lightly on the door.

  I turned to stare at the door with uncertainty and sighed.

  That was because I knew the man who was standing on the other side of the door, and this one didn’t scare the absolute shit out of me.

  Nodding to him, I carefully closed the door to Sienna’s room and walked towards the door.

  He saw me coming and waited patiently for me to get there. The moment I opened the door, he handed me a stack of newspapers and a dozen eggs.

  “Hi, Lynn,” I said to my other neighbor as I opened the door.

  Lynn was a good guy.

  He looked like a harmless man, but I saw the way he watched things. He moved and acted exactly like Tunnel had when we’d go out to eat, or run to the supermarket.

  Always watchful. He could see a weapon on someone from yards away. Hell, I wasn’t even sure how Tunnel had known some of the things he’d known. He hadn’t worked in law enforcement for long before he’d passed. A half a year at most once he’d graduated, but that was enough to get a whole lot of experience. It was like cop years aged like dog years. It was as if he was in their heads somehow, and this man, Lynn, was the exact same way.

  “Hey, darlin’,” he said. “You going somewhere?”

  I looked at my car that was packed to the brim with our stuff.

  “Yes,” I didn’t see a point in lying to him. He was a nice guy, after all, and he had taken good care of me and Sienna after Tunnel had passed away.

  Tunnel would have liked my neighbor, although he hadn’t lived here long enough to have met Tunnel. Lynn had moved in days after Tunnel’s passing.

  I hadn’t had to mow my own lawn since Tunnel had done it last over six years ago, thanks to this man standing in front of me and the rest of Tunnel’s club.

  “Are you selling your house?” He looked at my car, and then back at the house beyond where I was standing.

  I stepped back and gestured for him to come in.

  He did, and took a look around, almost as if he were assessing if there were any threats inside.

  “I’m not selling my house, no,” I shook my head. “I have a new nursing contract in Uncertain, Texas and I’m going there for a few weeks. It’s really good money, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity since Sienna’s starting a different school next year.”

  He frowned.

  “Why so fast?” he asked. “Are you taking your cat?”

  I nodded, and felt my phone buzz on the kitchen counter.

  “I am, and it does seem fast, yes. But I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Now that Sienna’s off for summer, it’s the best possible time to go,” I added, picking my phone up and glancing at the di
splay.

  Unknown (9:28 PM): Who is that in your house?

  I threw the phone down on the counter. He must have seen Lynn come into the kitchen. He may have moved, but he was still watching me.

  “Problem?” Lynn asked.

  I shook my head. “No, just work,” I lied. “They weren’t happy that I was leaving.”

  That, at least, was the truth. My boss was stunned that I was leaving. Since I’d started working there when I turned twenty-one, I’d worked on that same floor. Then, when all the shit with Josh had started to go down, I gave my two weeks’ notice. Unfortunately, I’d done the two weeks’ notice by taking vacation for two weeks, which, legally, they couldn’t stop me from doing.

  I had over four hundred hours built up of sick leave and vacation time, as well as extended illness time that they had to pay me according to company policy, and they were not happy to be losing me.

  I’d thought about just telling them I needed a month or two off, but when I’d broached that subject with my boss’ boss, I was not only told no, but I was told hell no. So, with no other choice, I’d quit.

  “I’m sure. It’s a surprise to me, too, and we talk nearly every day…at least when that other guy isn’t over anyways.”

  I immediately felt like shit about that. That was truer than true.

  Lynn was older than me. I’d guess late thirties, mid-forties, and he’d been married when I’d met him. But soon after he’d moved in, the wife had moved out, and I’d watched it all go down from my front porch in disbelief.

  She’d been caught cheating, and he’d kicked her out of their house. She’d begged and pleaded, and then she became angry, going as far as to hit his car with a metal sprinkler to show her displeasure at being caught.

  Then the cops had arrived—Loki and Trance, two members of the Dixie Wardens MC, Benton, Louisiana chapter—and had taken her away in cuffs.

  After that, Lynn had cleaned out her shit, set it on the curb, and I’d watched as the movers came to pick it up the next day. She was never to be seen again, and Lynn had established his place in our fucked up neighborhood.

  We had an ex-preacher, who no longer liked to preach, directly across from me. Lynn, who I assumed was a cop at some point but never had it confirmed, lived next to him. An ex-con who had been convicted of killing his wife—though I’d looked the story up when he’d first moved in, and apparently his wife had been about to run him over with her car at the time. Though, he’d had no clue that it was his wife, at first. He had just reacted to a car that was coming at him in a parking garage, and he had nowhere to go since he had a pillar on one side, and a concrete guardrail on the other.

  Then there was the sex offender.

  Though, she wasn’t actually one. At the age of eighteen, she’d had a boyfriend who was sixteen. The parents had found out about their relationship and had her arrested for statutory rape of their son. They had a really fancy lawyer, and she didn’t have money for an attorney, a good one or otherwise. So, she had to use a state appointed lawyer who didn’t give one flying fuck about her since she wasn’t paying. The young girl had been charged with statutory rape and would be forever labeled as a sex offender. Though, she was really far down the block, and I didn’t see her all that often because she worked nights.

  The person on my right was an older man who’d lost his entire family during Hurricane Katrina, and barely ever came out of his house unless he absolutely had to.

  Then you had me.

  Everyone knew my story.

  And I’d thought that, at the time, Josh had fit on this street, too. But I’d been wrong, and I had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn’t really a widower, either.

  A man who was in mourning didn’t latch onto his neighbor and not let go.

  “You’re distracted today,” Lynn said. “Do you need help with anything?”

  My eyes flicked to Lynn’s, and I shook my head automatically.

  “No,” I grimaced. “I’m okay.”

  Second lie in five minutes. Good going, Morrison.

  “You know, if you ever have a problem, you can come to me, right?” Lynn pushed.

  I looked away, not able to handle the fierce protectiveness in Lynn’s dark green eyes. Green eyes that looked so much like Tunnel’s that it sometimes hurt.

  Greatly.

  I think that was why I’d first latched onto Lynn as I did. He’d reminded me of Tunnel.

  No, not really outwardly.

  Where Lynn was a tall drink of water, Tunnel was more of a shot of whiskey straight to the soul. He’d affect you faster and harder than anything else would.

  Lynn was tall, muscular, but built more like a runner whereas Tunnel was tall, really muscular, and built more like a football player. Though, he didn’t have a thick neck and too many bulging muscles. He was more of a running back rather than a lineman.

  Lynn had brown hair that was bordering on silver, whereas Tunnel had curly dirty blonde hair that he shaved off because he hated his curls. I’d, of course, adored them. I’d love when they started to get long enough to curl.

  But Tunnel and Lynn’s eyes, they were so similar to each other’s that it was almost uncanny. I’d never met anyone with their eye color, and the minute that Tunnel died I’d met Lynn. Yeah, it was no wonder that I’d latched on and didn’t let go.

  “Yeah, I know,” I nodded. “I’m nervous. Really nervous. I’ve never worked anywhere else.”

  Conversation went sort of back to normal after that. We talked about how Lynn’s job was going–he’s a broker of some kind. We spoke about how Sienna was doing at school—terrible. We spoke about where his job was taking him to next month—South Louisiana. And we spoke about what my plans were once I got down to Uncertain. This, I still had no clue about, but I at least had an apartment to stay at thanks to the hospital hiring me.

  Later, as Lynn was leaving, I halted him at the door.

  “I’ll be back in a month or so…and then, I’d really love to talk to you some more. You seem kind of sad,” I told him, studying his face.

  All the animation quickly slid off of his face.

  “Sure thing, darlin’,” he grinned, pasting on his playful smile. “That sounds good.”

  I watched him walk down the driveway, and then cross the street into his yard, before closing the door.

  And only then did I go look at the messages.

  There were four.

  All of them from him.

  Son of a bitch.

  Who is that?

  Why is he there?

  Call me immediately.

  I’m coming over.

  I closed my eyes as my belly started to revolt.

  Then I walked to the front door again, locked it up tight, and ignored the door when he did finally come over. I just prayed that he didn’t see me packing.

  ***

  Lynn

  “She’s moving.”

  “She’s what?” Ghost asked semi-irately.

  “She’s moving. She’s packed her car up and she’s leaving. In the morning, as a matter of fact. Going down to Uncertain, Texas where she has a nursing contract with a hospital down there for the next month.”

  “Why is she moving?” Ghost asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “No,” I agreed. “Not unless that little peckerhead is still bothering her. I saw her glance at her phone, and the disgust on her face was enough to make me wanna laugh when she read whomever texted her. It was that asshat Josh. I know it.”

  “Guess he didn’t get the memo.” Ghost muttered.

  I knew what that meant.

  The man, Josh, was about to get the memo…and painfully.

  Too bad by the time I got to her house, it was already completely empty. Oh, and let’s not forget that Ghost’s entire club watched a grown man nearly cry.

  Chapter 7

  I wish everything was as easy as getting fat was.

  -True shit

 
; Mina

  A month had passed, and I had not received one single phone call or text message from Josh. My contract was fulfilled, and I was hoping that my life could get back to normal.

  I’d even gotten my job back. With the same pay and hours.

  Thank God.

  What I didn’t get, though, was the feeling of peace.

  Something else was wrong, because I knew that Josh wouldn’t just give up as he had.

  Something had happened, and I wanted to know what.

  But to learn that, I’d have to actually contact Josh, and that sure as hell wasn’t going to happen. No way, no how.

  Sienna was glad to be back in her home with her own things, as well as the space to do whatever she pleased.

  But, most of all, she was happy to have her motorcycle club family back in her life. Her surrogate fathers coming around and bringing her things just because they could.

  Hell, she wasn’t the only one who missed it.

  Chapter 8

  Some people will only love you if you fit into their box. Don’t be afraid to shove that box up their ass.

  -E-card

  Ghost

  It was three hours into Mina’s arrival back home when Josh tried to make his first move.

  I had the house under surveillance, and after a call from one of Lynn’s men, I was there within thirty minutes. I arrived just in time to see Josh stepping out of his car, his eyes focused on the front door.

  “Guess you didn’t get my message,” I murmured.

  Josh stiffened, not having realized that I, nor anyone else, was close to him.

  He was heading up the front walkway to Mina’s house—my house—and hadn’t once looked to see if he was alone.

  I wanted to smile, but chose to allow him to think that I wasn’t as fucked up in the head as I was.

  “How did I know that you’d be here the moment I arrived?” he chided.

  I didn’t answer him.

  “How did I know you’d be here the moment she got back home?” I shot back. “How did you know she was here at all? All she did was drive into town. You got some lookouts?”