by Sophia Gray
“Miller and Brewer?” Ethan asked sharply.
“Yeah, they’re some guys my dad knows. I don’t know how he got involved with them, but they seemed pretty rough.”
“Yeah, I guess they are. They’re the ones who sent Michael and Bear to burn the place down, too,” Ethan said. “I heard them say it. So did William.”
Marta was watching the interaction with realization dawning on her pretty features. “Do you have first names?” she asked. “Not that I think there could be more than one Miller and Brewer.”
“I don’t,” Ethan said. “Bear just used their last names.”
“Warren,” Amelia supplied. “Warren Miller and Richard Brewer.”
“Oh my God,” Marta said and she sounded literally reverent. “This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for. Exactly.”
Ethan looked at his bandages and at Amelia in her hospital bed. Then he looked at Marta with a raised eyebrow. “Really?” he asked.
“Well, obviously not all of this,” she said impatiently, gesturing at the two of them. “I could have done without the shooting and the trauma. But do you two have any idea who Miller and Brewer are?”
“Assholes?” Ethan asked. “Because that’s about all I’ve got.”
“They own half of Vegas, using a variety of shell companies,” Marta said. “And we’ve all known that they were dirty for a while, but no one could pin anything on them! There have been so many rumors of drug trafficking around them that it’s ridiculous. It makes perfect sense now, all of it!”
“So then why don’t you educate us?” Ethan said, exchanging a bewildered look with Amelia.
“If they’re trafficking, they’d want to eliminate the competition,” Marta said, looking at Ethan like all the pieces were fitting perfectly.
“Okay, yeah, but we’re not trafficking anything,” Ethan pointed out.
“No, but you’re not the only motorcycle club on the face of the Earth, are you?” Marta asked impatiently. “There must be one that is and that one must be big competition. If Miller and Brewer found a way to shut them all down, they’d seriously screw over the one they want to get rid of.”
“Then why did they come after me so hard?” Ethan demanded. “Stratton was pretty focused on me.”
“You knocked his daughter up and then basically spit in his face with your charity drive,” Amelia said wryly.
“Exactly,” Marta agreed. “It didn’t start out personal for Stratton, at least not exactly, but you kind of made it that way. Miller and Brewer wouldn't have cared, as long as it was getting them the results they wanted.”
“Shit,” Ethan muttered, dropping into the chair by Amelia’s bed. “I guess I did kind of make myself a target.”
“That has to be one of the dumbest plans I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” Amelia said. “There’s so much that could go wrong!”
“On the face of it, yes, it really is,” Marta agreed. “But how else were they going to approach it without getting their hands dirty?”
“It sounds like I need statements from everyone.”
They all glanced up to see a tall man in a dark blue uniform standing in the doorway. His badge gleamed on his broad chest and the gun at his side made Amelia swallow hard. This was real. She was about to make a statement to the police about her father.
“Amelia,” Ethan said in a low voice, seeming to read her thoughts as he always did. “You know doing this is gonna incriminate your old man, right?”
Amelia nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
“There might not be any going back.”
She nodded again. “I know, Ethan. It’s okay. I have to do this.”
He reached out and took her hand in his uninjured one. “Is it okay if I stay with you?”
She looked at him steadily. Then, seeming to make a decision, she turned to the reporter and the detective.
“Can you give us just a few minutes before we start please?”
“Sure,” Marta said, sounding surprised. “We’ll just be right outside.”
Ethan thought that the implication was pretty clear. Don’t make a run for it because we’ll grab you in a heartbeat. Not that there was any way in hell that he was going to miss his chance to bring Stratton down.
A lot of memories had burned up in that fire, along with his and William’s bikes. And the ‘36 Flathead. Who knew how long it would be before he could find another one of those? But, mostly, he wanted to nail the guy to the wall for the hurt he saw in Amelia’s eyes when she talked about her father.
“What is it?” he asked when Amelia didn’t speak. “They’re gonna get impatient and we should probably get going with the statements before these guys go to ground and get really hard to find.”
“I want you to know why I left,” she said.
Ethan braced himself. “Okay. Yeah, I’d really like to know.”
“I don’t want to marry you.”
“Yeah, I got that.” It didn’t hurt any less, no matter how many times he heard it. “I wasn’t gonna push you about it. I mean, hell, you’re in the hospital.”
“No,” Amelia said. “I don’t think you understand. I don’t want to marry you just because I’m pregnant. I--”
“I didn’t ask just because you’re pregnant,” Ethan cut in. “Shit, is that really what you thought?” He pushed his hand through his hair and a small smattering of ash speckled her clean white sheets. “It’s 2017, it’s not like you’re gonna get stoned in the streets for getting knocked up.”
Amelia’s mouth dropped open. “Then why did you ask me?”
“Because I fucking love you!”
“Well, you never said that!”
He looked at her. “I guess I didn’t, did I?”
“No,” she replied emphatically. “You did not.”
“Well, I’m saying it now. I love you, Amelia. No matter how fucked up your old man is. No matter what other shit we’ve been through, or shit that’s coming down the pipeline from what we’re about to do. I love you and I don’t wanna spend my life without you.”
Amelia threw her arms around him and he gave a small grunt of pain when she smacked the gunshot wound.
“Sorry,” she said against the side of his neck.
“It’s okay. You’re worth the pain.”
He pulled back just enough to cover her mouth with his. The kiss went on and on, growing deeper and deeper until Marta knocked on the door. “You know,” she called. “This sort of pushes the limits of a reporter’s patience.”
Ethan pulled back, tracing the curve of Amelia’s cheek with his uninjured hand. “Ready, baby?”
She laced her fingers with his. “I am if you are.”
“Come in,” Ethan called. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
Epilogue
“Would you please put that down before Ethan kicks my ass?” Ryan asked, yanking the box out of Amelia’s hands. “Go sit in the shade like a lady, okay?”
“There’s nothing in it except for pillows,” Amelia protested.
“Yeah, but he’s irrational,” Jimmy pointed out. “Stop trying to be helpful and just sit down and look pretty.”
“Sorry, that’s taken,” Penelope said, fluffing her hair with the hand that sported the diamond Taylor had bought her the week before.
She did almost everything left-handed these days, hoping people would notice and make admiring comments. Most of them did, but only because it was so obviously what she wanted them to do. Her enthusiasm was too cute for anyone to want to harsh her buzz.
There wasn’t a sparkler on Amelia’s left ring finger. Not yet, anyway. She and Ethan had talked about it and decided to put their money toward the house they’d found to rent and for baby things. There would be a lifetime to find a ring and a stable start to their family was at the top of the priority list at the moment. But Amelia made a point of pointing Penelope’s ring out every time she saw it sparkle or flash.
“Wait,” she said, letting her mouth drop open in exaggerated shock. “A
re you really engaged?!”
Penelope grinned and thrust the ring under Amelia’s nose. “I didn’t tell you?” she said, continuing the joke.
“I think I might have heard something about it,” Ethan said as he walked by with a stack of boxes. “Maybe seven or eight hundred times, or something. Give or take.”
Penelope flipped him off and he laughed.
“You’re going to hurt your back,” Amelia said. “Or your shoulder.” His shoulder had healed well, but it would always hurt. She usually rubbed it at night for him and, even though he never complained about pain through the day, she could tell he appreciated it.
He put the boxes in the truck. “Nah, I’ve got another twenty good years.”
“And think how much more you’d have if you lifted with your legs,” Amelia replied.
He slung his arm around her shoulders, dropped a kiss onto her hair, and walked back into the house for the next set of boxes.
“I can’t believe you’re really leaving,” Penelope said. “You’re gonna come back for the wedding, though, right?”
“If you don’t go ahead and ask me to be a bridesmaid, I’ll cry all the way to Texas,” Amelia said, only half kidding. The latter stages of her pregnancy were making her even more emotional than she’d been before.
Penelope laughed, her face lighting up the way it always did when she talked about the upcoming ceremony. “I’ve been wanting to ask, but I wasn’t sure you’d want to do it. It’s not going to be too fancy, you know. It’s not gonna be the kind of wedding you’re used to.”
“Yeah, you two actually like each other,” Amelia said. “I’d be honored, Penelope.”
Penelope flung her arms around her and Amelia laughed, returning the hug.
“Take it easy,” Ethan cautioned from under behind the boxes he was carrying now.
“Ethan!” Amelia exclaimed. “It’s just one hug. And you’re about to drop--”
Ryan dove and caught the box that teetered off of the top of the pile. “Now that’s teamwork, boss.”
“What’d you call him?” William asked from his place in the truck. He was organizing the boxes the others were putting in.
“Former boss,” Ryan corrected himself. “Sorry, current boss.”
“I guess I can let you slide this once,” William said magnanimously. “How much more shit do you have anyway?” he went on, addressing Ethan this time.
“Not a lot,” he answered. “And if you can’t handle loading a truck, how the hell are you gonna handle running this club?”
“Hey, this truck is loaded perfectly,” William shot back.
Amelia rolled her eyes.
“I saw that,” William said.
“I did it so you would,” Amelia returned, making everyone within earshot laugh.
Eventually, the last boxes were carried out, loaded up, and the truck closed. They all sat down on the small front porch, some of them on the steps when the porch got too crowded. Everyone but Ethan and Amelia opened a beer and they all sat in silence for a few moments.
“Gonna be weird without you around, man,” Taylor said. “Can’t believe you’re ditching to be a cowboy.”
Ethan snorted. “I’m repairing equipment on a ranch. Trust me, I’m not gonna be rounding up anything but parts and tools. And I expect y’all to keep that new building looking good.”
“We’re gonna trash the place the minute your back’s turned,” Ryan said. “We’re gonna be the party chapter of The Angel’s Keepers.”
William reached out and clipped him across the back of the head. “You still thinking of starting a chapter down there?” He asked Ethan.
“Yeah,” Ethan said. “I’m gonna feel the place out, see what the local scene’s like, but I’m gonna give it a shot once the kid gets here.”
“And when do you start your job, Amelia?” Penelope asked.
“A week from now,” Amelia said, unable to keep from grinning. “I’ll work right up ‘til I have the baby. Then I’ll take a little bit of maternity leave and then go back to it.”
“What are you gonna do about a babysitter?” Penelope asked. “Are you still going to be able to swing it?”
“I can actually take the baby to work with me,” Amelia said happily. “They have a little employee daycare that I’m going to use for nap times and things like that. It’s a really family friendly place to work.”
“It was cool of Aubrey to put in a good word for you,” Penelope said.
“It was, but she didn’t need it,” Ethan replied, linking his fingers through Amelia’s. “She had that director wrapped around her little finger.”
Amelia grinned, proud of herself and not afraid to show it. “I kind of did.”
“That’s what happens when you know your stuff,” Jimmy said, holding up his fist for her to bump.
He would know. He’d helped her prepare for the interview and he’d proofread the countless résumés she’d sent out. In return, Amelia had introduced him to Aubrey. The two of them talked almost nightly now and Amelia’s hopes were high. She’d never been a matchmaker before, but from the way Jimmy grinned when Aubrey’s name was mentioned, she thought her first try could be counted a success.
“Have you heard anything more about the investigation?” Taylor asked.
“We’ll have to be around for the trial,” Ethan said. “But we don’t qualify as a flight risk, so it was okay to go ahead and move. We’ll just have to come back. It’ll be a good vacation.”
“Glad they locked Miller and Brewer up,” William said.
“Yeah,” Ethan agreed. “Not even their lawyer could get them out of it once Michael squealed. And they’re the fucking definition of flight risk.”
“That Bear guy turned on ‘em, too, didn’t he?” Ryan asked.
Ethan nodded. “He wasn’t too happy with the way they treated him after he did everything they wanted.”
“Everything except actually kill you,” Taylor said.
Ethan grinned. “Yeah, that was kind of the important part. But he could back me up about the drugs, so thank God Brewer’s paranoia got a little out of hand on that one.”
Amelia nodded, but she didn’t speak. Bear had been missing two fingers when the police found him in one of Brewer’s hiding places. Even though he’d been a horrible person, willing to kill for an insultingly low ten thousand dollars, she would not have wished that on him. She wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
“Have you heard from your dad at all?” Penelope asked.
Amelia shook her head, brought back to the conversation going on around her. “No, not since he was charged. He’s out on his own recognizance, but he wouldn’t even see me when I went to get my stuff.”
“Really?” Ryan stared at her. “That’s seriously fucked up. You nearly lost the baby because of his bullshit!”
Amelia shrugged sadly. “I called him right after he was released and he said if I would rather throw my life away than do what was right, there wasn’t anything he could do.”
William snorted. “Yeah, ‘cause roasting me and Ethan alive was the right thing to do.”
“And putting you through so much stress that you could have lost the baby,” Penelope said. “That was right, too, of course. What does he consider ‘right’?”
“He wants me to recant my statement,” Amelia said. “And say he was coerced into working with Miller and Brewer. The thing is...I don’t believe it for a second. He took the deal with them to be able to keep his seat as the Nevada State Representative and he let everything else fall by the wayside. Pretty soon, he didn’t care about anything but winning. He would have covered for them if they’d managed to kill Ethan.”
She reached out as if to make sure that he was still beside her and whole. He draped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side.
“What a jackass,” Penelope said. “And he still expects you to do what he says. He doesn’t even care that he’s not going to see his grandchild?”
“He said the baby wo
n’t be legitimate. That it’s not his grandchild.”
“Fuckhead,” Taylor said. “You’re better off without him.”
“I hate it that he doesn’t care,” Amelia admitted. “But I’m trying to focus on all the people who do.”
She looked around. The Angel’s Keepers had been an amazing support system and she was really going to miss them. But the thought of living near her best friend had its perks, too. Especially if Jimmy fell in love with her and came to live in Texas too so she could truly feel like a matchmaker.
