All the Sky

by Susan Fanetti

  As he eased his grip on her arms, the thunderous roar of Harleys approached, growing louder. Hav went out into the front yard to see Isaac and Show in the lead, Lilli and Shannon in Lilli’s SUV, and Len trailing. As they were pulling in, Dom, Omen, Mikey, and Badger, all coming from the clubhouse, came over a rise in the road together.

  ~oOo~

  They worked efficiently, plotting out a range for each group to cover. Isaac wanted Cory to stay at the house in case Nolan came back, but she shot the shit out of that idea. She called Bonnie over instead.

  Cory was so calm. Calm was probably the wrong word. Stoic was better. She was stoic. Like she had shut everything down but the parts she needed to find Nolan. She would not let Havoc touch her, flinching away from even the slightest brush of his hand. She wouldn’t let anyone touch her.

  They went out, at radii around the house, on foot, as Nolan had been, with a plan to regroup in two hours. They kept in touch by cell phone, and the day was cold but clear, so the reception was good, until a couple of the groups—including Havoc and Cory—got deeper into the woods.

  Twice, Havoc had tried to say something encouraging or comforting. Cory had simply raised her hand to cut him off. So they searched, the only words between them suggestions to check a pile of leaves or a deadfall. And Nolan’s name. Until they were hoarse.

  Nothing. Not even a sign of him.

  When it was time to go back for the status check, Havoc thought he was going to have to knock her out, after all. She didn’t yell or even fight. She just ignored him. She wouldn’t go. Not until he threatened to carry her bodily.

  She stumbled over a root buried in dead leaves and almost fell, and he grabbed her arm to catch her; then he used the opportunity to keep hold of her hand. She pulled at first, but her strength was no match at all for his, and finally she let him. They came through the tree line hand in hand. Omen saw them and came running.

  “We couldn’t get you on the cell. We got him. Lilli and Shannon are taking the SUV to him. Come on, I’ll lead you.”

  “Where is he? What happened? Is he okay?” Cory shook free Havoc’s hand and ran abreast of Omen.

  But Omen shook his head. “Just come on.” He broke into a run again, and Cory and Havoc followed suit. If Omen wasn’t saying Nolan was okay, then he wasn’t.

  When they got to her driveway, she broke for the Beast, but Havoc grabbed her hand. “No. Ride with me.”

  She tried to yank away, still not even bothering to argue, but he held fast. “If he needs a doctor, you’re gonna want to be able to help him, right? Not drive? Ride with me. Then you can ride with him.”

  She paused, considering, and then let him lead her to his bike.

  Was it only two days ago that he’d put the bitch seat on and taken her for a long, incendiary ride, the highlight of which had been fucking her while she hugged a tree in the woods outside the B&B?

  Then, she’d taken to riding bitch like it was nothing, molding herself to him, trusting him to lead her body. Now, he had to grab her hands and make her hold him tight. She was stiff behind him, fighting the turns, trying to keep distance between them. Jesus fuck, if this was his fault. If Nolan was hurt or worse because of him, the Horde. Jesus fuck. He couldn’t lose them. He didn’t know how he’d go back to the way he’d been. He’d thought he’d been content; he had been content. He’d been content with his past, his present, his future. But everything was different now. It wouldn’t be enough now.

  Chicks did—they ruined everything. But now he wanted to keep it ruined.

  Omen led them to a spot on the main road into town, about three miles from Cory’s place. Lilli’s SUV was there. Isaac, Show, and Len’s bikes were there. Everybody was down in the deep drainage ditch off the shoulder. That ditch was full of leaves, and the bottom six inches or so was water—frigid, ice-skimmed, rancid water. Cory leapt off the bike at the very second it came to a stop and jumped down into the ditch. Havoc followed, landing in soup past his ankles.

  Lilli was squatting, holding Nolan’s head. Shannon was at his feet. Len and Show were sliding a long, wide slab of wood—Havoc guessed it must have come from Isaac’s workshop—under him. Isaac was holding his body steady.

  “Nolan! Kiddo, God!”

  Isaac looked up at Cory’s cry. “He’s alive. He landed face up. He’s hurt and unconscious, and we’ve got to get him out of this cold water, but he’s alive. Hav—there are blankets in the back of the truck. We need them all.”

  He nodded and turned, but Omen was already pulling them out of the hatch. He tossed them down to Havoc. More bikes were coming; Badger, Dom, and Mikey pulled onto the shoulder.

  Cory couldn’t get closer and eventually stopped trying, making way for the men to get Nolan out of the ditch. Havoc stayed back, feeling ineffectual. God. The kid was blue and still, covered in mud and grime. Leaves. Blood.

  He looked like a body, not a boy.

  Cory grabbed the blankets out of Havoc’s arms as soon as they had Nolan on the shoulder, and she went to her son, covering him with each one, tucking them under his blue chin. “Come on, little cub. Let me see your eyes. Be okay. Be okay. Please be okay.” She looked up at Isaac. “How long for the ambulance? Somebody called 911, right?”

  Isaac shook his head. “Never get here in any kind of good time. We’ll put him in Lilli’s truck, take him ourselves. A friend of ours is an ER doctor at County. She’s waiting. So let’s go. You ride with Lilli. We’ll get you there fast.”

  ~oOo~

  Once Tasha Westby, the Horde’s doctor friend, and the rest of her trauma team had Nolan on a gurney to rush him back to the ER, she stopped Cory and Havoc at the door.

  “Best you wait outside, and give us room to work. I’ll be out as soon as I can.” She patted Cory on the arm and followed Nolan through the doors.

  Cory sat in the first seat she came to. There was no other open near her. The ER waiting room was crowded, and now it was even more full. But Isaac called the Horde together in a corner near the door. Havoc positioned himself in the group so that he could see Cory.

  Lilli came up to him. “We’re going for coffee. How does Cory take it?”

  “Cream. No sugar.” He didn’t think she’d take it at all, but he was glad they’d offered.

  Then the women were gone, and Isaac held a quick, impromptu meeting of the Horde.

  “My guess with what we know now, this is a hit and run. I’m gonna say accident—too imprecise to be intentional. So it’s not club. But we got somebody hit a kid and left him for dead. Even if he wasn’t a club kid, I’d want the fucker who did it. Badger, Omen, Mikey, do a patrol. See if anybody around town’s got a new dent. Maybe tellin’ a story about a deer across the road. Dom—make sure we got nothin’ weird goin’ down around us. This weed run has been givin’ me some kind of twitch, ‘specially since the drop. Those guys weren’t right, I don’t think. So sniff around. Let’s make sure this wasn’t a hit on the club.” He turned to Havoc. “The rest of us are sitting vigil unless you say otherwise. This is your boy hurt. You tell us what you need.”

  His boy. His boy. He looked over at Cory, who was sitting with her arms crossed, staring at the doors they’d taken her son through. Her boy.

  She was his woman. Unless she didn’t want to be. After this, maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she’d understood something about him and about the Horde that was more than she could take. Even if Nolan came through this, even if it had nothing to do with the Horde, maybe she would be done.

  The pain that thought caused him weakened his knees.

  Show put his hand on Havoc’s shoulder. “Brother? You want us here?”

  He didn’t want to be alone. “Yeah. Until we know, anyway. Yeah. Thanks.”

  ~oOo~

  After a little over an hour, Tasha came out, her white coat covering scrubs that were a different color from the ones she’d been wearing when they’d gotten there. She’d changed to talk to them. Havoc didn’t want to think too hard about what that meant.

>   When Cory saw her, she stood, and her head turned to scan the room. She was looking for him. Even in the midst of all this, he felt a shimmer of relief at that simple look. He went to her, but when he put his hand on her back, she tensed and pulled away, and the shimmer faded out.

  Tasha led them through another door to a small room. Havoc thought of these rooms as Bad News Rooms. When doctors had good news to report, they didn’t usually seek privacy.

  He could tell that Cory was thinking something similar, and this time, when he tried to touch her, reaching out for her hand, she let him take it. In fact, she clutched her fingers tightly around his.

  “He’s on his way up to surgery now. I’ll take you up to that floor in a few minutes. But I wanted to give you the update I have. Bear with me; it’s better if I just make a list, and then answer your questions after.”

  Cory nodded, and Tasha began her list. “His injuries indicate strongly that he was hit by a vehicle.” Cory’s hand tightened more, and he brought his other hand over and held her hand in both of his.

  Tasha went on. “We’re bringing his body temperature up, and he doesn’t seem to have suffered any frostbite. He had a few minor lacerations on his face and arms, and those have been sutured. The hypothermia might have saved him from some other kinds of problems, since it slowed everything down a little. He has four fractured ribs. One of them punctured a lung. That’s the most pressing issue. His right leg is badly fractured in two places, including a compound fracture of his femur. He’s lucky it didn’t catch his femoral artery. He has a moderate to severe concussion, which we’re monitoring to make sure swelling doesn’t become a serious problem. We don’t want him under general anesthesia for too long, but we need to get his lung repaired. So they’re going to work on that now. They’ll do temporary sets of his leg fractures until a day or two, maybe three, when he’s strong enough for another surgery. Then they’ll pin his leg and put him in a full cast.”

  She took a breath and smiled a very doctorly smile at Cory and then at Havoc. “I know that’s an overwhelming list, but he’s in fair condition, and when his lung is repaired and working, he should be stable. He’s really quite lucky, considering. That’s a lame thing to say, I know, but when Isaac called me, I thought I’d end up sitting here with you delivering much worse news.”

  Cory nodded. “When can I be with him?”

  “After he’s out of surgery and recovery. It’ll be a few hours, but I’ll take you up now.”

  They stood, and Havoc stopped Tasha before she opened the door. “Hey, Doc. Is there a way you can know what hit him?”

  She laughed a little. “Real life isn’t like TV, Hav. But from what I’ve seen in my years down here, I’d say it was a big truck. F-250, something like that. He’s a tall kid, and the impact injuries are pretty high.”

  F-250 didn’t narrow the field much in their part of the world, but Havoc nodded. “Thanks.”

  When Tasha left the room, Cory held Havoc back. “You can go.”

  Looking down into her blue eyes, empty of him, all his anxiety and doubt and confusion crystallized into a hard stone inside him. But it became something he could comprehend. Something he could deal with. And it gave him room to confront the things he’d realized. What he wanted, and who he wanted. How he had changed and why. He stood there, staring down at her, and knew that he would fight. Even if she didn’t want him, she would have to fight him to get free.

  “No. You are trying to shut me out, Cory. But I’m not gonna let you. I’m here. For you, and for Nolan. I’m here.”

  “I don’t know why. I don’t know what we are. What you are.”

  “We have some talkin’ to do, then. But not now. Now, I’m here with you. The why is easy. I love him. I love you. Never said those words to any woman but my ma and sister. Never thought I would. Can’t imagine ever sayin’ ‘em to anybody else. So I’m here.”

  She blinked, and he could see that he’d reached her. But she said, “I don’t know if I want you here.”

  “Then fight me. See if you can take me. Because that’s the only way I’ll go.”

  When he took her hand, she didn’t pull away.

  ~oOo~

  Cory wasn’t comfortable with a crowd of people waiting with them, so Havoc asked everybody to head out, and they sat alone together and waited for Nolan to come out of surgery. She was still quiet and aloof, but she wasn’t holding him so far away any longer, and he took the victory he could get.

  A different doctor came out eventually and sat with them, describing the procedures they’d done and what Havoc and Cory could expect when they saw Nolan. They were keeping him heavily sedated, because they had not yet pinned his very badly broken leg, and keeping him from moving it was paramount. He was in traction, and was very pale, though no longer blue. He was on a ventilator, while his lung recovered sufficiently to do its work. But he was stable, and they expected him to make a full recovery, though it would take some time.

  Finally, late in the afternoon, they were allowed to see him. He looked worse than Havoc had been prepared for, but he was there, and alive, and expected to be okay. Cory went to him and took his pale, limp hand, bringing it to her face to hold it close.

  “Hey, little cub. Mommy loves you.”

  They sat together at his bedside, holding hands, and watched him. There wasn’t much to say, so they didn’t talk. After the room went dark, Havoc got up and turned on a light near the door. His stomach rumbled, and he realized that neither of them had anything to eat or drink the whole day. They hadn’t even had a cup of the coffee Cory had made that morning, or what Lilli and Shannon had brought them in the ER waiting room.

  He sat back down and put his hand on her arm. “Cory, let’s go. You need to eat and get something to drink, and you need to rest.”

  “I’m not leaving him.” She didn’t move, just stared at her kid.

  He took her chin in his hand and turned her, trying to be gentle. But he was taking her out of here. “He’s not gonna wake up tonight. They don’t want him to. He won’t miss you. And they’ll call if anything changes. If it does, I can get you here fast. But right now, I’m gonna take care of you. I’m taking you out to get food, and then I’m taking you home to get sleep.” He grinned. “You know what I’ll do if you won’t go willingly.”

  “Knock me out? Seriously?”

  “No. But I don’t mind you kicking and screaming while you’re hanging over my shoulder.”

  “Security would never let you get away with that.” There was a ghost of smile at the corners of her mouth.

  “You’d be surprised what I can get away with. But do you really want all that drama?”

  “We have to talk, Hav. There are things I don’t—”

  “I know.” He pushed her fingers through her hair, brushing it back from her temple. So soft. “But not now. Today has hit its quota.” He stood. “C’mon. Let me take care of you. See how I do.”

  Nodding, she stood and, after pressing a soft kiss to her son’s pale forehead, she let Havoc lead her out.

  ~oOo~

  He wanted to get her home, and neither of them was in the mood to spend much time at a restaurant, so they stopped at a Wendy’s for burgers and fries. Cory was still quiet, but Havoc was feeling calmer about it, no longer feeling like he was losing everything at the exact moment he understood what he had.

  It was a cold night, and she didn’t have gloves, so he tucked her hands into the pockets of his kutte while he rode, and she laid her head on his back, trusting him again. And damn, the feel of riding with a woman like Cory, a woman he loved, wrapped around him, her body moving with his—it was amazing. Totally worth fucking up the lines of his bike for the bitch seat.

  He was horny as all hell when they got back to her place, but he wasn’t going to try to get something started. She needed rest and comfort, not him grunting and sweating over her like the animal he was. He got her into the house and took her coat. While he hung it and his kutte and coat up, she went into the k
itchen.

  When he got there, she was standing, staring at a little post-it in her hands. He stepped up behind her and read it over her shoulder. From Bonnie.

  So glad he’s going to be okay!

  Whatever you need, I’m here.

  Love you! –B

  She wasn’t moving, except the note was starting to shake more and more in her hand.

  “Cory? Honey?”

  And then she just dropped. Straight to the floor, like she’d been shot.

  He went to his knees. She was curling into a ball on the floor. “Cory, fuck! Are you hurt?”

  She was crying—sobbing, her chest and shoulders hitching hugely with every wail. Havoc hated crying women. He generally thought that tears meant one of two things: weakness or emotional blackmail. He loathed the first and was impervious to the second.

  Except that wasn’t true, not now, in this moment. Now he felt something else. He picked her up and held her close, on his lap, and she instantly hooked her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest.

  She’d been so calm and contained all day. Closed off. He understood what this was, this loss of control. He wasn’t sure why Bonnie’s note had done it, but it had taken her to the end of her tether.

  He wanted to comfort her, and that was a new thing. Uncharted waters. He wasn’t sure what he should do, besides hold her. Should he say something? Were there words that could help her? He didn’t know them. So he didn’t say any. He just sat on the floor of her kitchen and held her on his lap while she soaked his shirt with her tears. He kissed her head and left his lips there, resting lightly on her. He felt a kind of calm, sitting here with her like this, and that made him feel a little guilty.

  His mind had been on one hell of a trip since he’d met this woman. One hell of a trip.

  She cried until he thought she’d worn herself out, and then, for a few minutes, she was quiet, still holding him hard, nestled against his chest. Then she turned her head and kissed his neck. And then he felt her tongue trailing along the edge of his beard, just above his Adam’s apple, and he went hard, completely and immediately. That spot, man. He hadn’t even known that spot turned him on, but she’d found it shortly after they’d gotten together.