Hard Drifter

by Debra Kayn

  Lena reached up and grabbed on to Thad's hand. He squatted down and brought her hand to his lips. If he could take her pain away, he would.

  Sam taped the covering on loosely to her thigh. "This is only to soothe your skin. Tonight, take it off and let the air reach it, but keep it clean. You don't want an infection where the blister popped."

  "Check her toes, too," said Thad.

  The paramedic lifted her foot. "Any pain?"

  "No." She wiggled her toes. "It's mainly my leg and my eyes. My nose. I walked into the pepper spray."

  "Ouch." Sam looked at Thad. "What did you use to treat her eyes?"

  "Water. Milk. Then, washed her down with dish soap." Thad's head pounded, and he ran his tongue over his split lip.

  Sam nodded in approval. "That's the best remedy, besides time. Stay away from smoke, and any strong smells for the rest of the day, so the lining of your nose and your eyes aren't further irritated. Besides that, I don't think you'll need to go to the hospital."

  "Thanks, Sam." Lena leaned toward Thad.

  Sam stood and directed his attention toward Thad. "Do you want me to look at your lip and eye before we go?"

  "I'm fine." Thad licked his swollen lip.

  The paramedics gathered their things and left the house. Thad stepped over Lena's outstretched legs and sat beside her on the couch. He looked to Wayne. "When she feels up to it, will you take her back to my place?"

  "I'll take you both. One of them stabbed your front tire on your bike." Wayne held Clara to his chest, stroking her back.

  He shrugged the damage to his Harley off. Nothing mattered at the moment except making sure Lena was comfortable.

  "Chuck, will you stay with Clara while I run them home?" asked Wayne.

  Chuck's mouth tightened. "Absolutely."

  "Ingrid is at work and Gracie is at the bar. I'll call Paxton and Pauly and have them keep the women there until I can get them both home." Glen popped a piece of gum in his mouth.

  "Bring my sister here," said Clara.

  Glen nodded. "Will do."

  Lieutenant Gomez walked in the front door and approached the couch. "Thad, I need you and Lena to make a statement."

  "Later." He lifted Lena's hand and inspected her fingers, making sure she had no other marks on her.

  "It needs to be done now." Lieutenant Gomez cleared his throat. "Jose Martinez is at the hospital under police custody. He went into cardiac arrest in the ambulance. He's being worked on in the emergency room as we speak."

  He should've kept hitting him. "They came after Lena. I'm sure there are witnesses you can ask up and down the street. I was keeping him away from her."

  Gomez stepped closer. "And, I'll get to the witnesses when I'm done questioning you. Right now, I have three men being transported to the station and one man who could be dead. I need a solid play by play of what went down from you before I move forward."

  Lena rubbed his thigh. "It wasn't Thad's fault."

  "Lena and I were at Vavoom's, talked to you, and left there to come to Wayne's house. Two cars blocked our way. I jumped the curb after recognizing one of the drivers was a Tigres member. I cut across the back street, and the asshole I beat up stopped me five houses down from here. He wanted me to remove my pistol. I refused. He moved, and I beat the shit out of him, hoping the other three fuckups would come after me but they went to Lena instead."

  "He had a knife and said he was going to kill me. Thad's life was in danger, too." Lena moved her leg and grimaced. "Two of the other men had a knife. I saw the weapons in their hands when they circled me."

  "Who made the first intention to harm?" asked Gomez.

  "I did," said Thad.

  "That man did," said Lena at the same time. She looked at Thad. "Say he did."

  Her mouth hardened and she lifted her chin. He kissed her forehead and whispered, "It will be all right."

  "He hit you first. I watched him charge you," she whispered. "He started it."

  He pressed his lips against hers, silencing her. She tried to protect him, but he'd done nothing wrong if the asshole lived. If Martinez died, he'd take his chance with a judge and jury.

  "He threateningly came at me. I defended myself and Lena," he said. "When I found the other three surrounding Lena, trying to grab her, I took out Martinez so I could go protect her."

  Gomez's mouth twitched, and he dropped his gaze to the incident report he filled out. "Did any of the other men threateningly touch you?"

  "No," he said.

  "Lena?" Lieutenant Gomez looked at her. "Did any of the men touch you?"

  "They would have if I hadn't of had my pepper spray in my pocket." She rubbed her nose which was still red around her nostrils.

  "You felt threatened?"

  Lena gawked. "Yes. Absolutely. That man, the one who hurt Thad, said he was going to kill me. He said I killed his grandma. I still don't know what that means and ...oh, my God. Someone needs to call Yvonne, Shannon, and Gabi. There could be more gang members going after them."

  Gomez held up his hand. "I already have officers outside their houses, until we know the rest of the members won't seek revenge."

  "I don't understand," said Lena. "None of this is making any sense. Not the threats, not them showing up and trying to hurt me. Why did this happen? Why would he think I killed anyone?"

  Gomez lowered his report. "We were going to bring Martinez in for questioning, but when we arrived at the Tigres house, it was shut up tight. Now, we know they came after you."

  "But, why?" Lena exhaled. "I'm so sick of not knowing."

  "When the detectives went through the 911 records, we had no call-ins for gang activity. They looked closer at the individual calls, took the names, and met with our gang investigation team, and ran a sorted record of names through their program, leaving out all female callers, the elderly, and going on gut instinct. We found a call for a 10-C-2 that came in from a linked gang member in the system already."

  "What's that?" asked Thad.

  "Heart attack." Lena grabbed his hand. "Did I take the call?"

  Lieutenant Gomez shook his head. "Yvonne was the dispatcher. The caller gave the address to his grandma's house as 31st and MLK where she had collapsed and wasn't breathing. Dispatch put the address through as 34th and MLK. The ambulance took over twenty minutes to arrive, and the 10-C-2 was DOA on arrival."

  Lena closed her eyes and reopened them. "Because of the one-way street making it impossible to get back to 31st Street," she whispered.

  "Between you and me, Martinez blamed the call center for his grandma's death because of the delay in arrival," said Lieutenant Gomez. "He had no way of finding out who was the dispatcher, and targeted all the female employees who worked that day because he knew he talked to a female."

  "We're only human," she said, inhaling deeply.

  Gomez nodded. "No one would find Yvonne or any of you at fault. It's an emergency situation. Addresses are exchanged. Sometimes the caller messes up, and...mistakes happen in a tense situation."

  Thad stood. "I need to get Lena home. If you need anything more from me, call, and I'll come to the station."

  "You know the drill, Bowers. I need you to cooperate with the P.D. Don't make this any more difficult than it is for yourself." Lieutenant Gomez nodded at everyone in the room and walked to the front door.

  The lieutenant's radio went off, and Gomez paused, pushing the button and tilting his head toward the mic. "ETA ten minutes."

  Over the radio, a male voice said, "We've got an update on the suspect at the hospital. Jose Martinez is being moved up to ICU. The doctors said he can be questioned in two hours."

  Lieutenant Gomez turned, looked at Thad, and said, "It looks like you won't be facing a murder charge, Bowers. Considering Martinez and the other three gang members were low on the Tigres totem pole, I would take a guess that the leader isn't going to pick up where Martinez left off."

  Lena's head fell forward, and she cradled her face in her hands. Thad gave a short n
od, motioned for Wayne to get the car ready, and picked Lena up. He needed to get her back to his house where she could come down from the attack. Because when the adrenaline went away, she was going to fall hard and he planned to be there to soften the landing.

  Chapter 32

  A week after the attack, Thad walked away from Lena's house alone and rode off on his Harley. Lena stared out the window from her living room. He was upset with her. He'd barely said two words to her before they'd left his house.

  It took her until last night to find the courage to sit down with him and tell him she wanted to go home. Her work had given her a week off to heal, and she was due in at the 911 center tomorrow morning. She needed clothes, a good night's rest, and to prove to herself that she could spend the night alone after everything she'd been through.

  Three of the Tigres members who'd come after her were in jail waiting for their trial. The one who attacked Thad remained in the hospital recuperating from his injuries. Thad had met with the leader of Tigres on Tuesday and was given the news that there would be no retaliation. Not that she believed them, but she had to keep living her life.

  She walked away from the window. Her phone vibrated. Pulling her cell out of her pocket, she quickly answered after seeing who was calling.

  "You can't be home already. You just left," she said, not needing to say hello.

  "I'm sitting at the corner."

  She walked back to the window and spotted Thad bundled in his leather Notus Jacket with the phone to his ear.

  "Are you going to be okay?" he asked.

  She let her forehead fall forward to the window. "I promise. If I'm not, I'll call you."

  "I already miss you."

  She smiled sadly. "I miss you."

  "My bed is going to be cold tonight," he said.

  She laughed. "So will mine."

  "This is fucked up." He growled. "I'm getting pissed."

  She exhaled, feeling herself weaken. "In about eight hours, you'll be going to work. You can sleep in an extra hour because you won't have to take me to the police station beforehand. I can start driving my car which I'm looking forward to."

  Her excuses were lame, even to her. They'd coordinated living together and worked around their schedules without any problems.

  His silence over the phone spoke volumes. She could imagine his hand in a fist, frustrated with her.

  "Go home and get some sleep, Thad. Answer all those calls you've been ignoring all week. Your friends miss you and need you." She stepped away from the window and walked over to the couch. Sitting down, she curled up against the arm. "Call your mom and tell her thank you for the flowers she sent me."

  He grunted. "I'm going to love you."

  She squeezed her eyes closed. Last night, she'd confessed to falling in love with him and in the next breath told him she wasn't sure what it all meant or how she should feel. He'd accepted her halfway admission. But, he still hadn't made love to her.

  They'd gone without sex for a week since her leg got burned. At first, she understood his reasons to refrain, but when her leg scabbed over and the pain was gone, and he still refused, she'd imagined at least ten reasons why. None of them good.

  She swallowed and whispered, "I'm going to hold you to that promise. I don't want to lose you."

  "That ain't happening."

  She waited, and when he remained silent, she said, "Night, Thad."

  "Night, babe."

  The call disconnected. She tossed the cell to the other end of the couch and tried to fill her lungs with air. She wasn't breaking up with him. She only needed time to herself.

  The convenience of staying at her house wasn't the main reason she wanted to come home. While looking at the calendar on her phone to see what bills she'd need to pay, she realized she hadn't had her period since right before she met Thad. The week of upset stomach and throwing up only compounded her stress. Thad had always worn a condom, but she'd missed two days of birth control pills the first time she stayed at his house.

  While it was possible to get pregnant using condoms, her chances were slim. Like, rare. Two days of missing her pills shouldn't have mattered because condoms were the backup plan. That's what her doctor had advised.

  What was impossible was being pregnant. She couldn't have a child. She'd make a terrible mother, having no experience at what it was like to have a good mom.

  Her lack of period was probably caused by all the stress she'd been under. First meeting Thad, finding out her mother was dying or probably dead now. Learning the man she'd never met but was told was her father wasn't really her dad. And then, finding out some big-shot lawyer in downtown Portland by the name of Alexander Grimaldi could be the guy who got her mom pregnant with her. She rubbed her forehead. Not to mention fearing for her life and hiding away because gang members wanted to kill her.

  Yeah, she'd had a lot of stress.

  Once she started acting like her life was back to normal, and her body realized most of the stress was gone, her hormones would straighten out, and she'd have her period. It's not like she hadn't skipped a period before. She had a few times since she'd started at age thirteen.

  She stood, grabbing her phone and ignored the voice inside of her that it'd been two, almost three months, since she'd had a period, and that had never happened before.

  She walked into the kitchen and stood in front of the fridge. Despite her plan to ask Thad to clean out the food during one of his trips to get her a few outfits, she'd forgotten. Mainly, she'd forgotten because he'd just made love to her or her responsibilities were no longer the first thing on her mind because she was staying at Thad's house.

  Ignoring the kitchen for the night, she turned out the light and went to her bedroom. Her unmade bed invited her to lay down. It was late. Almost midnight. Normally, she'd be asleep by now.

  Kicking off her shoes and stripping out of her clothes, she set her phone on her nightstand and crawled into the mess of blankets on her bed and rolled, covering herself up. A sigh escaped her. She'd missed her pillows. She had four.

  One for her head.

  One for the side of the bed, because she hated rolling in her sleep and brushing a bare arm against a cool wall.

  One for behind her, because it was nice to feel something, someone, at her back.

  One pillow she cuddled to her chest.

  Now she recognized that she'd always slept as if there was someone beside her. But pillows couldn't come close to competing with having Thad in bed with her.

  When she slept with him, there was no mistake that a man cuddled against her at night. His arm was either around her or over her as if making sure she never escaped when he closed his eyes. His hands found her whether she faced him or had her back to him. On her breast, her ass, her hip.

  He made it impossible to dream about anyone else but Thad.

  She closed her eyes and squeezed the pillow to her chest. He had her wondering what it would be like to spend one day with him, just the two of them, with no disturbances. Would he work on his motorcycle in the garage? Would she finally find the time to try out the new exercise video in his living room? Would he cook her a burger on the grill while she made a salad in the kitchen? Afterward, would he take her for a ride, maybe back to Astoria Column? The next time would be better than the first time. She wouldn't hold back. She wouldn't put demands on him. She'd love him.

  Groaning, she flopped on to her back.

  How could she not have noticed how uncomfortable her mattress was? It was too soft, and there was a dip in the middle where she slept.

  She flung her arms out to her sides, hitting the cold sheet, and brought her arms back to her body. Thad's body had acted as her personal furnace, always keeping her and the bed warm.

  Frustrated, she squirmed until she laid face down and curled her arms under her pillow. Needing to stop comparing what she lost when she decided to spend the night alone, she concentrated on the things she must do in the morning before work.

  Pay her electr
icity bill.

  Take the garbage can to the end of the driveway for pickup after cleaning out her fridge.

  Start a load of laundry and at least get the clothes in the dryer before she left.

  Buy a pregnancy test.

  She pounded her head against the pillow. No, she wasn't going to buy a test. She wasn't pregnant. It was stress. She'd put on her Fitbit and make sure she got all her steps in for the day, and that would help her body relax.

  If Thad were here, he'd help her relax. She burrowed deeper into her pillow. He had skills with his hands, his cock, his mouth, and even with one look.

  Her body warmed. She pushed to her hands and knees on the bed, looked around in the dark, and flopped back on the bed, rolling to her side and curling her knees to her chest. He had bad ass skills that reached across the town and got her hot and bothered even when they stayed in separate houses. What kind of man could do that?

  None.

  Zilch.

  Only a biker named Thad who promised he was going to love her.

  She reached out and grabbed her phone to check the time. It was already three o'clock? She'd tossed and turned for three hours? God, she was going to be a wreck tomorrow, and she had to answer emergency calls for twelve hours.

  Scrolling through her phone, she landed on Thad's contact page. Without a second thought, she pushed the call button and put the cell to her ear.

  He answered on the first ring, "Babe?"

  "I love you."

  "About damn time," he whispered, his voice thick.

  "Will you come over?"

  "Be there in ten minutes."

  She closed her eyes. A rush of relief left her shivering. She had to tell him what was going on with her.

  "Okay," she whispered. "Ride carefully."

  She disconnected the call and laid there without moving. Her life changed the moment Thad had walked her home from Vavoom's. There were things she was sure about before meeting him that had her confused and rethinking her opinion. Could she be a mother to a child? Would the child love her like Thad or hate her like her mother?

  Chapter 33