“I promise, Mom. He followed me here, he nearly blinded me with his headlights.”
Her blouse slips through my fingers as she runs for the door and out onto the front lawn.
I closely follow her, feeling safe with her here and the guy seemingly being gone.
“He was right there,” I sigh. “And he was at my work, waiting for me when I finished. Please believe me.”
“Of course I believe you, Florentina.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I ignore her full-naming me and let her pull me inside.
“We’re calling the police, now you’ve seen him you can give Sheriff Blake a description. What car was he driving?”
“Oh, um, I’m not sure.”
It’s not like I know models and stuff. It was silver, or maybe gold, I think it had a shimmer. I have no idea.
“It doesn’t matter, the sheriff will do his job and investigate. The town isn’t big enough to hide, whoever it is will be found.”
She’s dialling the local station before I can argue, but I guess I shouldn’t fight her on this. The guy has been following me around for god knows how long.
“Go and take your dinner out the oven, I saved you a plate,” she tells me and turns her back to make her call.
I dutifully follow her order and sit at the table where it is still set for me. My mom would never let me go to bed hungry or waste her dinners. She’s on the phone for a few minutes before she sets the receiver down.
“The sheriff is on his way.”
Willows Peak isn’t that big of a town so he’ll be here within the next ten minutes or so, and that’s even if he’s on the other side of town.
I eat while mom prepares a fresh pot of tea.
“It’s a bit late for tea.”
“It’s never too late for tea.”
I eat in silence and as I scrape the leftovers into the trash, the sheriff, or I’m hoping it’s him, is knocking at the door.
The sheriff has aged well, even in my eyes, you can tell he was a looker in his day. Standing tall at over six foot and having a thick head of hair, the ladies in town flock to him.
He’s always a hit at the fair, or at church on Sunday mornings. Even my mom, who never shows interest in men, has a bright smile for him.
“Sheriff Blake, please come in.”
Dumping my plate and cutlery in the sink, I straighten my sweater and plant a polite smile on my face as he steps in the room.
“Good evening, Mrs Rollins. What’s this about a stalker?”
“It’s my daughter, she’s been sensing someone watching her for a while and tonight she saw him, he followed her home.”
He sets his cloudy grey eyes on me and says, “Why don’t we sit, and you can tell me everything that happened? Don’t leave anything out, no detail is too small.”
So that’s what we do, I explain my version of events and then his lips purse together and the valley between his eyebrows deepens, a lot.
“Listen, I’m going to have my deputy walk you to your car when you’re on late shifts for the next couple of weeks and I’ll have someone drive by a few times a night. Apart from that, I can’t offer much more. There technically hasn’t been any laws broken.”
“That’s absurd.”
I’ve never seen mom this angry, the little vein in her forehead is ticking and I can see her trying her hardest to keep herself in check.
“It is what it is, I’m afraid. Unless he physically hurts her, or trespasses on your property, I can’t legally help.”
My dinner sinks in my stomach and I want to throw up. I may not have a choice and I pray I don’t vomit all over the Sheriff’s boots.
“Jake, I know you’re coming up to retirement but surely you can’t be this lazy.”
My gasp goes ignored as the Sheriff takes great offence by my mother’s words. My mom is never this rude and it terrifies me because it means she’s scared too. For my mom to be scared, the strongest woman I know, I should run now.
“I’m sorry I can’t be of any help this evening, it has nothing to do with my retirement, it has everything to do with the law. I’ll see myself out.”
He tips his head my way and heads down the hall. Mom doesn’t bother to follow him out until she hears the door click closed and then she goes and locks up. She makes the rounds and makes sure all the windows are shut and locked.
“The Sheriff isn’t the only one in town, if he can’t help then we’ll do it ourselves.”
“How? I ran from the car to the door tonight.”
“Leave that to me, sweetheart. You’re my world and no one is going to harm one hair on your head.”
There she is, the pillar of strength I need in her. Whoever this guy is, he doesn’t want to meet my mother.
Zachery
* * *
PAST
“Please, Zach. Come home, we need to talk.”
I listen to the tenth message my mom has left in the last twenty-four hours and hit delete. If I hear her voice one more time, I’ll smash my phone to pieces and the last thing I need to deal with is Cas on my back because he can’t get a hold of me.
I stare down at the headstone and it’s out of this world weird that I’ve passed this plot numerous times and never known it is my biological father lying in the dirt. Now it’s all I can think about; his corpse is all I can see.
I’ve always had this part of my life where nothing is easy. I see Leo getting what he wants all the time, I see the world fall at JJ’s feet each and every day and I didn’t care because I had my dad. Slade. Now I have nothing but the lies he told me, and I don’t understand. I would’ve still loved him having grown up with him married to my mom, no doubt I would’ve still patched into the club, all because I looked up to him, as a man, not just because he was supposedly my dad.
I feel nothing for the shell of a corpse here in the cemetery, perhaps if he was still alive and could answer the questions I don’t want to hear from my mom yet, it would be different.
I could say that I’ve always felt different, it would be true, but not with Slade. He was the one I could rely on and connect with. I fucking idolised him.
“Zachery?”
I don’t move and Aunt Alannah steps up beside me. Even if I wanted to ignore her, and tell her to fuck off, out of respect and fear for Cas, I wouldn’t disrespect her.
“The day we buried Billy, we buried four other brothers. Each one of them died because my uncle was a greedy bastard of a man.”
Everyone who wears the patch knows about Michael Blake and his need for revenge, it’s been used as an example not go down certain paths in life and so far, it has worked.
“It was all such a long time ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. The pain can be crippling like it’s still happening, especially since you found out the truth. I thought if you heard what happened from me, you might go home and talk with your parents.”
There is a bench further up the pathway, I know this because it was where I slept last night, and I lead Alannah over to it.
“Please don’t leave anything out, I need the truth.”
I light a cigarette and sink into the smoke.
“The truth hurts, Zach. Are you ready for the pain that can never heal?”
I nod and wait for her to begin. It’d be nice to feel something other than anger and confusion, if it happens to be pain, so be it.
“Michael had stowed me away at the cabin when I returned home from college. Back then, I wasn’t with Cas, we had our problems and it was the cabin that brought us together. Billy, your real father, had been ordered to watch over me and that’s where we became friends. He helped me, or I should say I helped him decorate the kitchen and we talked. There wasn’t much else to do out there.”
“Did you know him better than my mom?”
“I don’t know if I knew him better, we both knew different sides to him. You know how the club is, guys show up wanting to prospect, the president and brothers scope them out, I didn’t. How he was
before he came to town wasn’t how he was here.
“Anyway, we had been at the cabin a while, Cas and Sparky came around all the time and what none of us knew at the time, was we were there for a reason. Michael was banking on us being found by their enemy, Hunter Carson.”
I know these names, Hunter Carson was Bonnie’s dad and Michael killed him before Pope killed Michael.
“Hunter used Bonnie to get to me and when he came, he came for death. At first, I thought it was strange how many car doors were closing outside. It was too many and when I went to see what the commotion was, Billy was being thrown through the door. They weren’t like Lost Souls, they were animals. I’d never seen anything like them before. Billy didn’t stand a chance.”
Each beat of my heart feels like it’s trying burst out from my chest.
“What did they do to him?”
“I think you’ve heard enough about that, why don’t I move on.”
“I can’t move on, I need details.”
She relents and carries on.
“Hunter and his VP, beat him in front of me when he tried to help me. They kicked him, one of them even jumped on his head…” She chokes up and looks away.
I don’t think I can hear anymore.
“It took so long to get over what happened that day, when Hunter took me I believed Billy was already dead. It wasn’t until I healed, and Cas told me the full story of how it ended that the hauntings set in.”
“How did it end?”
“Cas worked out that Bonnie was Hunter’s daughter and was due to come and visit me. He brought the club with him expecting trouble and they found Billy dragging his dying body across the drive. He was trying to get to his truck to get me help. Cas made him a full brother and then he died in Cas’s arms. I’ve never known what was worse, the real memories I have of that day or the ones I have to imagine because I wasn’t there.”
I need a smoke.
I need to pace.
I need to hit something.
Fuck. I don’t know what I need.
“By the time your mom showed up with you, life was beginning to settle down. Cas was the new president, Bonnie had found her way to us, and the nightmares I suffered started to ease up. Slade took one look at your mom and fell on his ass for her, he took to you like he was your natural father. He didn’t do it because we all held guilt for Billy, he did it because he came to love you both and when your mom left with you and didn’t come back at first, he was lost. But…” she pauses, nudging her shoulder against mine. “He went to wine and dine her and ended up bringing you both home and the rest is history as they say.”
I’ve heard their story a hundred times and it makes me gag every time.
“I feel robbed.” It’s the first time I’ve admitted it out loud.
“You were robbed of knowing your biological father, but you were not robbed of a dad. Slade has and always will be your dad. You know that, Zach. He’s always dreaded this day, not because you’d know the truth, but because he was terrified you wouldn’t understand and hate him.”
I don’t hate him.
Not even close.
Well, not now I’ve had time to think about it.
“Go home, Zach. Seek the answers you need from them and then look around and see that nothing has to change, Slade is your dad in all the ways that count, your mom still loves you and made the decision to raise you with us, India is still your sister. Everything is the same apart from you know the truth about Billy.”
I’m not sure if it’s quite that easy, but I will go home and speak to my parents. Besides, my smoking tin is still in my bedroom and I need to get high to forget the last couple of days. All I want to know now is why they didn’t tell me?
I ride so fast I should be concentrating on the road and not how I left the most beautiful woman in town upset and wanting me. What the fuck is wrong with me?
Slowing my speed, I block out how she felt against me and my dick throbs angrily at me for not being put to use. It didn’t feel right starting something with her after her telling me about that creep and all I wanted was for it to be right between us. Fuck. I punch myself on the thigh and slow down. She was right, she knows what she wants and doesn’t want. I should have trusted she wanted me. She obviously trusted I wasn’t like the creep.
With no one else on the road, I turn around and speed up again when I’m heading in the right direction. Back to town. Back to Nina.
I didn’t make it very far and when I ride onto her street, I go to slow but as soon as her house comes into view, my gut drops.
Someone is looking through her window. Is this Vincent? I don’t register coming to a stop outside her house or jumping off my bike. My actions gain his attention and like a deer in the headlights, he freezes and then darts off up the street. I give chase and I’m so close to reaching out to grab him when he makes a sharp left and I skid out on someone’s wet lawn.
I stumble as quick as I can onto my feet and he’s gone. Literally gone. I cannot see him, I cannot even hear his feet pounding the ground to get away.
What the fuck?
I give it a minute before I’m not seeing black spots in my vision from running so fucking fast and turn back. Nothing around me moves or makes a sound as I turn onto Nina’s street again.
There is only one light on and it’s coming from her living room. Coming to a stop on her lawn, I take one last look around and see nothing. I continue up to her door and knock twice. She’s still pissed when the door opens and fuck me if she isn’t the most beautiful woman on the earth.
“Why did you come back?”
I go to tell her about the guy snooping through her window but then I see her chest rising and falling rapidly. It’s not the shit she wants to hear from me right now.
“I…Um…”
“You came back to kiss me, didn’t you?” she grins like she’s won the best prize at the town fair and steps towards me.
She runs her finger down my arm and holds onto my hand. She’s so sure of herself and I like it, a lot. I have no clue what I’m sure about anymore apart from her. I’m sure coming back here was the right decision. One, because I stopped that creep and who knows what his plans were and secondly, because I need to have her under me.
“If you want to kiss me, and fuck me, you’re going to have to make the first move. The last time I did, you knocked me back.”
In one swift move, I’m lifting her up and she’s wrapping her legs around my waist.
My mouth lands on hers hard and she soon opens up for me. Everything she gave to me on her couch not that long ago, I give back to her. I push her up against her wall and kick the door shut as we move. She shoves my cut over my shoulders and letting go, one arm at a time, it drops to the hall floor and my shirt is quick to join it.
This needs to even up, she’s more overdressed than I and we can’t have that. Carrying her through to her bedroom, I don’t think she knows we’re on the move and that turns me on more than anything. She can’t get enough of me, as much as I with her and it’s heady.
My arm aches, it burns under the weight of carrying her, but I enjoy the pain and mix it with the lust for her.
Her skin is so soft against my fingertips as I drag her top up her chest and over her breasts. Bucking her hips, her slight exhale of air hits the room and straight at me.
“You’re breath-taking,” I murmur, leaning down to steal the rest of her breaths.
“I should tell you something, and don’t think I didn’t tell you just cause I wanted to fuck you.”
She rolls onto her side and rests her head on her hand as she looks at me.
“Tell me.”
“When I came back, there was someone looking through your window. I chased him, but he got away from me.”
“That’s because you smoke too much,” she laughs but it’s strained.
“What are you really feeling? Do you think it’s Vincent, your stalker?” I ask her.
“If it was and he’s back, I’m not
going to hide or run this time. He isn’t going to rule my life anymore. I’m older and stronger now, he should be afraid of me this time.”
I can’t help but smile and hers quickly fades. Something is running through her head and when she jumps up, I’m only given a few moments to admire her body before she’s covering it with a robe she plucks from the back of her door.
“Maybe you should go,” she sighs, not looking at me.
“I can stay, what if he comes back?”
“No, you need to go. Now,” she says, adamantly. “If he comes back, I’ll make him regret it. I told you, no man will ever have the power to make me fear them again.”
She’s working herself up. I throw the sheets off me and snatch my boxers and jeans from the floor.
“If he comes back, call me.”
“If he comes back, I’ll kill him.”
A pain shoots up into my neck I look at her so fast. A shiver runs down my back hearing her speak like a killer. A good shiver.
“Oh yeah? How do you plan on doing that?”
I’m not mocking her. I wouldn’t doubt anyone’s intentions, I’m genuinely interested.
She throws me off at every turn and I’m becoming addicted to finding her out.
“I don’t know, but he’s not going to ruin my life anymore. Don’t think you can come around here trying to be the hero either.”
I stop myself from laughing at her.
“I wouldn’t dream of it, darlin’.”
She narrows her eyes and stays quiet as I finish dressing and then she’s ushering me out to the door.
I manage to turn around before she shuts the door in my face and put my foot over the threshold, she isn’t shutting me out yet.
“I’m not regretting tonight, we had sex and it was good, very, very good. I just think it’ll be best if we didn’t see each other again,” she quickly tells me.
Seriously?
“If you want this to be a one-time thing, I won’t like it, but I’m not going to play games.”
“That’s good to know, now, you can go.”
What the fuck is happening? Stepping back onto the porch, I give her the space she’s desperately needing and mutter, “Fine by me.”
His Ride or Die : Sons of Lost Souls MC Book Three Page 8
