by Ward, Kira
Nathaniel inclined his head slightly, then pulled Nola toward the door. In seconds, they were astride his bike, flying through the streets to their place, to that quiet spot beside the lake.
They didn’t speak at first, just sat on that grassy spot, holding each other. Slowly, Scribe began to tell her about Waco, about the other motorcycle club that had moved into Texas without asking the Bandidos’ permission. It was a turf war, he said, one that was sure to come to a head very soon. In fact, he was surprised it hadn’t happened yet.
“But they let you come home.”
“Bear made the call. He decided if Bandidos were going to get hurt, it should be the ones from the Waco charter, the ones who started the fight to begin with.”
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t get caught in something bad.”
Nathaniel’s arms tightened around Nola for a second. She could feel the tension in the movement, could feel it in his shoulder where she was resting her head.
“This is the life I live, Nola,” he said softly. “Something bad always happens. And one day, it’s going to happen to me and to everyone in my club. It’s just the reality of it.”
“I know.”
He kissed the side of her neck lightly. “I don’t think you do.”
And then his cellphone rang, as though some cosmic god was laughing at them.
Nathaniel spoke a single word into the phone and then he was jumping to his feet, pulling Nola along with him.
“We have to go.”
They raced across town to a house Nola had never laid on eyes before. She learned later that it was the Bandido’s clubhouse, a beautiful brick building that housed most of the single members of the club—including Nathaniel—and their offices and meeting rooms. The living room had been converted into a bar/entertainment area that boosted every game console ever made and most of the games that went along with them. There was also a massive sound system, a couple of pinball machines, and vintage video games. Nola could imagine the club members having a good time in this room.
But not tonight.
The massive flat screen television that took up nearly the entire back wall of the room was tuned to the news. Images of blood and gore intense enough to be something transmitted over satellites from a war zone filled the room. But it wasn’t a war zone. It was Waco.
There’d been a shootout between two rival motorcycle gangs, the reporter was saying. Police were on sight, but were not effective in quelling the fight before someone pulled a gun. Nine people had been killed, all members of the rival gangs.
Sobs filled the room, women crying for people they knew, for cousins and brothers, for the lovers of their sisters and friends. Club members—big men covered in tattoos—sat defeated, their faces pale as their eyes remained glued to the television.
And the images…Nola pressed a hand to her mouth as the screen filled with the bloody sheet that covered one of the victims. Others, wounded and bleeding, sat on curbs and in the back of ambulances, their wrists caught behind their backs with handcuffs, their eyes dull with defeat and shock and grief.
“Bastards!”
“Son of a bitch!”
Words of anger and fear rose in the room around Nola, brothers grieving for brothers.
“We have to do something,” Skidrow said, moving to the front of the room to block the images. “We have to redeem our brothers.”
“We should ride!”
“We should hunt down those damn Cossacks!”
Bear jumped to his feet and held up his hands. “Listen brothers, let’s not be hasty. We can’t go running into this fight now. Don’t you see?” He gestured toward the television. “They will be prepared. They will be waiting for us. We must wait and be smart about this!”
“No,” someone yelled. “We have to show them that they can’t walk onto our territory and do something like this! They have to learn a lesson!”
“What are we going to do?” Nathaniel called, moving around Nola to join Bear at the front of the room. “Are we going to get ourselves killed too? Or arrested? What good will we do our brothers if we end up in the same place as them? Bear’s right, we have to be smart about this.”
“You were there, Scribe,” Skidrow said. “How could you encourage caution?”
“Because I was there. Because I saw this coming and knew that my brothers were headed down a path they could not walk away from. I won’t stand here and watch you do the same.”
An uneasy silence fell over the room. Someone punched a wall and walked out of the house. Someone else followed. But everyone else just fell silent.
Nathaniel turned to say something to Bear and in that moment, a new image came up on the television, another of the dead. But this one…he had blond hair that fell in strings around his face, a tattoo that showed just above the collar of his white shirt. There was a sheet over his face, but it had fallen over, revealing the dingy patches on his jacket. He looked so much like Nathaniel that Nola suddenly had a flash of the future, of sitting in a room like this, staring at images of these same men lying bloodied and dead on some asphalt parking lot in front of another big chain restaurant.
Of Nathaniel dying a violent, bloody death.
She had to get out of there.
She rushed out the front door and was immediately sick in the rose bushes that brightened the front porch. Someone came up behind her and pulled her hair out of the way, holding it until she was finished and then sliding a clean handkerchief into her line of sight.
“Thanks,” she muttered.
“Anytime.”
When the nausea eased, she looked up to find one of the club members—his patch said Wolf—standing beside her. He had a cigarette stuck between his lips and he was staring out into the street politely, not focusing on her.
“You’re Scribe’s girl.”
She nodded.
“He talks about you. The girl who’s going to be a doctor someday.”
She nodded again, even though she wasn’t as sure about it as he apparently was.
“It’s tough, this stuff. But I guess it’s just a part of this lifestyle.”
“Then you’re okay with your brothers dying in a parking lot like that?” she asked. “It’s okay if it’s for the right reasons?”
“It’s never okay. But it’s something you learn to accept when you live an outlaw’s life.”
Nola shook her head. “I don’t know if I could ever accept this.”
Nathaniel chose that moment to come outside. He didn’t react to her words. He acted like he hadn’t heard them. Instead, he just nodded to Wolf and said, “Tell Bear I’ll be back in an hour or two.”
Wolf nodded as he watched Nola and Nathaniel walk to his bike.
He drove her home. “I’m sorry,” he said as he helped her out of her helmet. “I never should have brought you there.”
“I would have found out about it eventually.”
“Yeah, but—“
“It could have been you.” She looked up at him, tears spilling from her eyes. “One of those guys lying on that hot asphalt, sheets over their faces…one of them could have been you.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“This time. What about next time?”
Nathaniel touched her face, tried to draw her closer to him, but she pulled away.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
“Nola, please, don’t do this.”
She shook her head as she backed away. “If you had died there tonight, it would have just been over. I wouldn’t have had the chance to say goodbye.” She turned and looked up at the rental house she shared with her mother. “I’ve done that already. I don’t really want to do it again.”
He came up behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders. “You knew who I was when we began this.”
“I did. And that’s my mistake.” She pulled away from him, unable to turn around and look him in the eye because she knew if she did, she would never have the strength to do this. But she had to. For her own sanity
. And for the protection of her baby. “Goodbye, Nathaniel,” she whispered, her voice breaking as she stumbled to the door and closed it firmly behind her.
She slid onto her bottom and waited. It seemed like a lifetime, but it finally came, the sound of his bike echoing off the houses on her street as he rode away for the last time. And that’s when the last few pieces of her heart shattered and fell away.
Chapter 8
“You have to get out of bed, Nola.”
She shook her head, not that her mother could see it. It was buried under her blankets, as it had been for nearly a week.
“At least eat something. I made that chicken soup you like.”
Her mother tugged at the blankets. As they began to slide away from her face, Nola got a face full of chicken broth aroma, and her stomach twisted on itself, sending her rushing for the bathroom. Her mother followed, tugging her hair out of the way as Wolf had done on that night…The End. That’s how she thought of it, as The End with capital letters.
Her mother wet a cloth and pressed it to the back of her neck.
“Saltines first thing in the morning,” her mother said. “That always helped me.”
Nola glanced at her mother. “Helped what?”
“The morning sickness.”
Nola stood, catching herself on the edge of the sink as her vision darkened on the edges. She ran cold water over her hands and wet her face, rinsed her mouth.
“How did you know?”
Her mother laughed. “Once you’ve been there, it’s not hard to recognize the symptoms. I knew the first time you stood too fast and you nearly passed out.” Her laughter turned into a sad smile. “That’s how your father knew, too. He knew you were coming before I did.”
Nola brushed past her mother and went back into the bedroom, sitting on the bed and pulling the blankets up into a pile on her lap.
“I would have told you. I just hadn’t figured out how.”
Her mother sat behind her and wrapped her arms around her. Nola curled up against her, lying in her arms like she used to do when she was a little girl. Tears threatened, burning her throat, but she managed to hold them back. For the moment.
“He loves you, you know.”
“I know.”
“He comes every day, asking to talk to you.”
Nola glanced back at her mother. “He does?”
“Yes. And I tell him every day that you’re sleeping. Only today did he ask if you were ill.”
“What did you say?”
Her mother shrugged. “Just that the pregnancy was wearing you out.”
Nola jerked away, twisting to stare at her mother. “You didn’t!”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because he didn’t know.” Nola jumped off the bed and kicked around the discarded laundry on the floor, searching for a pair of jeans. She couldn’t imagine what he was thinking. He must be so angry…
“Why didn’t he know?”
Nola glanced at her mother. “You don’t understand.”
Her mother’s eyebrows rose. “Oh? What don’t I understand? That he’s in a gang? That his life is dangerous?” She shook her head. “I don’t see how any of that matters.”
“Mom—“
“He’s that child’s father. He has a right to know.”
Nola snagged her leather jacket and headed for the door. “Well, thanks to you, he does know.”
She drove first to the lake, a part of her hoping he would be there, waiting. When she saw his car and didn’t see his bike, she knew. And it scared the crap out of her.
She drove too fast to the east side, trying to remember all the turns he had made that she only half paid attention to. And then she saw the house, sitting at the dead end of a cul de sac. The moment she stepped out of the car, she could hear voices raised in excitement.
The clubhouse had a backyard like the one at Bear’s house, hidden behind a wooden gate. This one was bigger, missing the small fire pit, but impressive in the normalcy of it. That is, of course, without the legion of bikers who were currently egging on a fist fight that was growing quickly out of hand on the perfectly green and well-manicured lawn.
Nola recognized Nathaniel immediately and screamed his name, but someone grabbed her from behind and pulled her back before she could distract him.
“Let me go!” she demanded, turning on the man who’s arms were like steel bands around her waist.
“You have to let him do this,” a rough voice said in her ear.
Skidrow.
“No,” she groaned, watching as Bear landed several hard punches to the side of Nathaniel’s head. “No, they’ve got to stop before they kill each other!”
“That’s kind of the point.” He pulled her further back, away from the crowd. “He’s doing this for you,” he hissed in her ear. “He asked Bear to let him leave the club so that he could be with you and your unborn kid. Bear refused.”
“Why?”
“He can’t let every guy who knocks up some college kid out of the gang. Then they’d all be looking for creampies like you.”
Nola jerked against his hold. “I don’t want him to do this.”
“Yeah, well, it’s his only choice. If Scribe wins, he gets to walk away.”
No, no, no…She didn’t want this. She had never wanted this. She jerked against Skidrow again, but then her knees went weak as she watched Bear land another solid punch against Nathaniel’s jaw, sending blood and a couple of teeth flying. He was destroying his beautiful face, destroying everything that had mattered. All for her.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she fell to her knees, sobs tearing at her chest. She knew how it would end. Bear was so much bigger than Nathaniel. There was no way he could beat him. Each blow seemed to vibrate through the air, slapping her across the face. This was her fault. If not for her, Nathaniel would have been content to be Scribe for the rest of his life. And it would have been his life, on his terms. He would have been okay with that.
But everything changed when he met her. And now…he was going to die for her.
She couldn’t do this. She pulled herself up to her feet and turned away.
The crowd fell silent.
It was over.
“I won’t do this,” Nathaniel’s voice suddenly rang out. “I won’t kill you. I love this club too much to strip them of another brother. But I won’t inflict this life onto my child.”
A small murmur rose in the crowd. Then it parted, and Nathaniel, bloody and bruised, his face so swollen that she hardly recognized him, but alive…He was alive as he walked on his own power away from everything he had ever known.
He had won the fight, barely, as Bear lay borderline unconscious on the ground.
“The jacket,” a garbled voice mumbled behind him. “If you’re not a member, you can no longer wear the club patch.”
Nathaniel paused, his eyes falling on Nola for the first time. Slowly—clearly he was in a great deal of pain—he peeled the jacket from his body. He held it up, studied the patch for a long moment before he folded the jacket and handed it to the man standing to his left. Then he limped to Nola, resting his weight on her shoulder and allowing her to guide him out of that yard.
Epilogue
“Over there,” Nola said, gesturing toward the kitchen as another mover came in with a stack of boxes. “Just try to leave us a walking space.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the man said as he dumped the boxes off to one side of the room.
Nathaniel walked up behind her. “I think you missed your calling. You should have been a foreman.”
“A foreman of what?”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. As long as you’re in charge of something.”
She laughed, turning in his arms to steal a soft kiss. “Doctor’s boss people around, too.”
“True.”
The baby made a funny noise. Nathaniel leaned close to wipe a small bit of spittle from his lips.
“When does he start talking?”
&nb
sp; “He’s only six weeks old. You might have to wait a few more months.”
Nola studied Nathaniel’s profile as he studied their baby. There was a scar on his face, a thin line over his left eye where he had to have fifteen stitches after his fight with Bear. It was the only mark that hadn’t healed in the weeks and months after. At least, the only visible one. There were others… She sometimes caught him staring off into space, his thoughts closed to her. She knew he was thinking about his brothers in those moments, that he missed being Scribe with the only family he’d ever known. But they were his family now…Nola, the mother, and their little boy—Truman Donald Watson. Truman for his paternal grandmother’s beloved authors, Donald for his maternal grandfather. He was a beautiful boy, perfect in every way. And he seemed to make Nathaniel happy.
He had a job now, working the night shift as a forklift operator. He sold his motorcycle to buy them a house…this house. It was smaller than the one Nola grew up in, but it was in a good neighborhood, and it wasn’t too far from her mother’s rental.
It wasn’t quite the dream Nola once had. But life has a funny way of creating new dreams, doesn’t it?
“Hey, babe, I think Truman has something for you.”
Nola groaned. “He can’t possibly be dirty again…”
She leaned over the little bassinet and her eye was immediately drawn to something sparkling in the sunlight on the baby’s chest. She touched it, tugging it from the little pacifier clip it was attached to.
“Nathaniel…”
When she turned to him, he was down on one knee.
“I know we’re a family, and we really don’t need a piece of paper to prove it to anyone. But I love you and I want the whole world to know just how much.” He smiled as he slipped the diamond ring from her hand and slipped it onto her left ring finger. “Marry me?”
“Of course I will!”
She laughed as she threw herself into his arms, nearly knocking them both to the floor in her enthusiasm. They kissed, and it was still like the first time, still the most amazing sensation she could ever imagine experiencing. She wanted to stay there forever, to get lost in him forever. And now…forever was beginning to seem possible.
