Beard Mode (The Dixie Warden Rejects MC Book 1)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “What’s wrong?” Mom gasped, but instantly stopped the moment she saw me running towards my sister.

  Before I could breathe or even blink, my sister had her arms around me, and we were bouncing around and crying into the other’s neck.

  “You’re home!” I wailed.

  “I’m home!” she wailed back.

  “Jesus,” my father groaned. “This is fucking ridiculous.”

  Then Sunny was there, too, in the middle of our hug, as was my mom.

  “Ahh, guys,” Davis broke in. “I think there’s something wrong with Aunt Imogen’s arm.”

  Everyone broke away from me, and I held my arm up only to find bright red blood seeping into the fabric of my shirt.

  Then I found myself with my dad on one side, and my man on the other, both fussing over me.

  “I’m okay,” I promised.

  “You probably ripped the stitches,” Aaron murmured, taking hold of my elbows and guiding me in the direction of the bathroom that was closest to the living room. A bathroom he’d never seen before, but somehow instinctively knew was there.

  My dad beat us there and pulled out the First Aid kit from the medicine cabinet, setting it down on the bathroom counter before sweeping all of Davis’ Legos on to the floor.

  “Davis, come pick this shit up!” he yelled. “And if I step on a goddamn Lego this morning, there’ll be hell to pay!”

  Davis came to pick up the Legos that Dad had swept to the floor, and I hopped up onto the counter to get out of his way, trying not to laugh at the haggard look that crossed over my nephew’s face.

  “At least you didn’t have to live with him when you were growing up. Imagine how bad we had it,” I teased him.

  Davis’ mouth twitched.

  Wisely, he picked the Legos up while Dad started to remove things from the kit next to my thigh.

  “Bathroom is too small. Your mother is so damn stubborn.”

  I snorted.

  My mom was stubborn.

  Dad had offered my mother the house that they’d lived in when we were younger, but she’d refused. She hated people thinking that she was living off of my dad, even though my dad hadn’t been a doctor yet when they’d bought it.

  “This place isn’t so bad, Dad,” I said carefully, knowing it was a sore subject with my parents.

  Something that the two of them constantly fought about.

  “If y’all didn’t live here, you wouldn’t be walking around with a chunk of meat missing out of your arm,” he pointed out.

  Why did he have to be so logical and shit?

  “If we didn’t live here, I wouldn’t have met Aaron again,” I told him.

  “Pops said he came to your shop. So that argument isn’t valid,” Dad countered.

  Aaron’s eyes shone with amusement.

  I noticed he didn’t contradict my father, though.

  “Whatever,” I muttered. “We like it here…it’s cozy.”

  And close to Aaron.

  “Uhh,” Clarabelle said from the doorway. “The dog is looking at us like we’re supposed to feed him or something. Do you have anything we can give him?”

  “What are you having?” Aaron asked absently as he started to clean my wound.

  “Eggs, sausage, pancakes, and biscuits,” she answered.

  “He can have the sausage and eggs, but don’t give him any of the other stuff. I have a very strict diet of food that I’m allowed to give him. Or if you want, you could send Davis to my apartment to grab his bowl and food off the counter.”

  My sister nodded her head and ducked out of the bathroom, but not after giving me glee-filled eyes.

  She was happy for me.

  I could tell just by that one look.

  I winced as Aaron pulled on something while cleaning the wound. I hissed out a breath and turned my head away, burying my face into my father’s chest as I did it.

  He lifted his arm and wrapped his big hand around my head, pulling me tightly into his chest.

  “I thought you’d get shot while you were deployed when you were eighteen. I never entertained the thought that you’d be shot at home.” My father’s deep, rumbly voice cut into my thoughts.

  “It won’t be happening again,” Aaron promised. “I have surveillance on her twenty-four-seven. Either me or one of the boys is on her until we’re sure this gang threat is gone.”

  “Moving in with fucking gangs. Your mother really knows how to pick ‘em,” Dad muttered under his breath.

  “I heard that!” Mom yelled from the kitchen. “And if you’d just say it already, I’d move back in with you, but no! Not Cooley!”

  I could feel the curiosity practically rolling off of Aaron in waves.

  “You’re wondering why,” Dad muttered.

  I pulled my head away and stared at my arm, immediately wishing I hadn’t.

  Aaron chose not to give in to his curiosity, fortunately for both him and me. Instead he was all business.

  “Think you need a couple more stitches. If your dad has the stuff, either he or I can do it. But you need them done, so regardless of him having the supplies, you’re getting it done.”

  I clamped my mouth shut.

  I hated stitches.

  Hated.

  I’d had them eighteen times over the course of my life, though, so I should be used to them by now.

  Hell, I’d just barely gotten the ones out that Davis’ asshole father had forced me to get thanks to his ‘accidental tripping’ scheme he’d pulled.

  “I’ve got everything you’ll need right here,” Dad said, pulling out another box from the cabinet. “Imogen is an accident waiting to happen. She’s had stitches multiple times since she was born.”

  Aaron barked out a laugh.

  “I can see that,” he murmured as he picked up a piece of gauze and held it firmly to my wound.

  “So tell me about this gang business. Do I need to take my girls home with me?” Dad got down to business as he started laying out supplies next to my hip.

  Aaron broke right into the discussion as if it was the most normal thing in the world to do.

  “You know about the member of the Hollow Gang shooting the police officer, right?” he asked for confirmation.

  “Yeah,” Dad’s voice was husky. “I was on shift the day it happened.”

  Aaron’s hand tensed over my wound, and a wave of pain flashed through me before he was cursing and pulling away.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

  I patted his hand. “I know.”

  He shook his head before stepping back.

  “After you.”

  Dad scooted in and started to work as Aaron spoke.

  “Kevin Turner—the shooter—seems to have started a movement for the Hollow Gang. Maybe it was the boost they needed, I don’t know.” He cracked his neck. “There were two main rival gangs in Mooresville. The Hollow Gang and The Eighth Street Gang. Both pretty toxic in their own right, but with them against each other its caused some sort of inner city gang war. They’re all trying to prove their worth,” he swallowed. “I’d complained about Kevin Turner selling drugs outside next to the kids’ playground—and he, according to him, had been tasked with killing the ‘pig’ who was trying to put a crimp in their hose.”

  “What was that yesterday, then?” Dad asked as he rubbed orange colored antiseptic on my wound.

  “Yesterday, according to the guy I shot in the shoulder, was an escalation. They pushed The Eighth Street Gang by showing in their territory—letting them know they weren’t afraid.” He laughed darkly. “The first person to flash the gang sign at them got shot.”

  Dad growled in frustration, but didn’t stop as he injected the area surrounding my wound with lidocaine.

  Aaron nodded his head.

  “Apparently, the bottom three apartments are leased by three of the gang members. One of whom is Kevin Thomas,” Aaron continued. “Though we got a lot more ou
t of Kevin’s little brother than we did out of anybody else.”

  “Illegal,” Dad said. “Why the hell is that kid not a ward of the state?”

  “Slipped through the cracks I guess,” Aaron replied. “I honestly thought the kid had a mom, but apparently she’s been missing for about a year now.”

  “Odd,” I muttered. “They were here when I first arrived. She worked at the Dairy Queen.”

  Aaron shrugged.

  “I haven’t seen her here at all. Regardless, he’s now a ward of the state, and we have three quarters of The Hollow Gang in lock-up at the county jail.” He sighed. “Though it’s likely that they’re going to be released in the next forty-eight hours. They’ve all been given warnings that any further breaking of the law will be seen as a hostile threat to the police and appropriate action will be taken—whether it be a speeding ticket by one of them, or one of them flashes a gang sign at the rival gang and a police officer happens to see it. They fuck up, they’re going back in. Simple as that.”

  Dad chuckled quietly as he threaded the first stitch.

  “So my girls should be safe?” he asked carefully.

  Aaron hesitated too long, and my dad latched on to the silence with both hands.

  “Right.” He nodded his head. “They’ll be coming home with me. End of story.”

  “Oh, boy,” I murmured. “Mom should freakin’ love that!”

  ***

  Mom’s scream of outrage as Dad closed the door to his house had me wiping my hands down my face in embarrassment.

  “My mom is normally a pretty laid back woman,” I informed him.

  Aaron’s answering smile was enough to make my knees wobble.

  “So…your parents?”

  I burst out laughing.

  “My parents…,” I smiled. “They’re definitely one of a kind.”

  “So what happened to make them that way?” he asked as he offered me a helmet—a new one that’d appeared today. One that allowed me and him to talk through a microphone instead of having to scream into each other’s ears over the roar of the engine. I guess the ability to talk to me while riding was enough to make him wear a helmet.

  “My dad didn’t thank my mom for cooking him dinner. According to the ‘discussion” that Sunny overheard,” I explained.

  Aaron blinked.

  “What?” he asked.

  I nodded my head and mounted the bike behind him, breathing a sigh of relief when we pulled away from my parents’ curb.

  “Exactly what I said. He forgot to thank her—one too many times, I might add—and she grew frustrated and left. He was too stubborn to go look for her, and it all degraded from there.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  My smile overtook my face.

  “Exactly,” I said. “They still have sex. He has her on his insurance. He pays for her car while Mom pays for his life insurance. Literally they share everything but a last name.”

  He pulled onto the main highway that would lead us back to our apartments and let the bike open up.

  The loud rumble of the pipes reverberated off of the underpass walls as we passed through.

  Aaron just shook his head. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever…”

  Then his phone rang, interrupting what he was about to say.

  Pulling over quickly, he placed both feet on the ground and fished the phone out of his pocket.

  I admired him as he did.

  The way the muscles in his forearms played against his skin had me moaning in appreciation.

  With a quick tug of his helmet, he had it off and held in one hand.

  Holding one finger up, he held it there for a moment while he pressed the ‘accept’ button on his phone and placed it to his ear.

  “Hello?” he answered, leaning back into me with annoyance clear on his face.

  “What do you mean they’ve all been released?” he asked. “Even that shit, Kevin?” His lips thinned. “Who the hell can afford a five-million-dollar bond?” he paused as my belly started to turn over inside my body. “How long has he been out?”

  “Two hours…you’re fucking joking right?” he bellowed, causing me to wince when he screamed not just into the phone, but in the headset as well. “No, I honestly don’t fucking care why they’re out. Or if they did what they were being accused of. They know I live here. They’ll be coming after me next, and Imogen’s with me.”

  That’s when the first gunshot sounded.

  Then a second. And a third. Followed by a forth.

  “Son. Of. A. Bitch,” Aaron hissed. “Get away from the bike!”

  I dropped down and started to scramble off of the bike, instinctively falling to the ground where I could put the bike in between me and the shooter.

  Shots peppered the ground at my feet, and I gasped, scrambling backwards.

  The minute I was as far as I could go, Aaron yanked me back up and onto the bike, starting it up with a throaty roar.

  He shot off the side of the road, gravel spitting as he accelerated.

  Before he could get up to a decent speed, however, a car that I’d seen multiple times over the last couple of months pulled into our path—effectively closing off our escape route and practically forcing us into the trap they’d set for us.

  The next minute was a mess.

  There were cars and vans everywhere.

  Being in town, I was confused on where the shots were coming from, and where I should look.

  Every time I looked left, something happened on my right.

  Every time I looked right, a car would crowd us on the left.

  I lifted my feet and brought them in as close as the bike and Aaron’s hips would allow.

  Aaron braked and swerved, narrowly missing a van with its back doors wide ass open.

  I’d just started to react by pulling up Aaron’s shirt and fisting his police-issued gun that was at the small of his back when I was plucked clean off the back of his bike.

  Fury and confusion consumed me, and I started to flail.

  Whomever had me, though, threw me down into a dark van and slammed the doors shut.

  “Go before he fuckin’ hunts us down!” Someone bellowed. “I’ll shoot him if I can.”

  Seconds later, the passenger who was yelling orders shouldered the shotgun and cocked a shell into the chamber.

  Heart beating frantically, I got up to my knees and crawled toward him.

  My eyes glanced briefly out the window to see Aaron’s fury-filled face only a few feet from the window, and I knew what was about to happen.

  The man that kidnapped me aimed.

  “No!” I screeched, pulling the man’s hand back forcefully. “No!”

  The loud bang of the gun had me gasping and leaning forward to see where the bullet hit.

  The moment I got into a position that I could see, though, the man that’d thrown me into the back of the van yanked me back down again. Hard.

  So hard, in fact, that I landed on my side, rolled, and hit my face on the metal side of the van.

  The shotgun blasted, and a terrible crashing sound filled my ears as something hard hit the ground and skidded.

  I shot to my hands and knees, only to fall back down when something heavy and hard hit me over the back of the head.

  A wave of nausea overtook me and I passed out. Scared out of my mind that that crash had been something—anything—other than what I knew it’d been.

  Chapter 18

  You never have to worry about me cheating on you. Though I might eat your food, which for some people is worse.

  -Text from Imogen to Aaron

  Aaron

  I woke up on my back, staring at the night sky as a halo of lights took over my vision.

  Groaning, I rolled over to my side and promptly vomited the contents of my stomach. The movement had cost me. Greatly.

  My face throbbed, and I was fairly sure I couldn’t breathe, but other than thos
e two things, I wasn’t all that hurt.

  Well, not that I realized.

  My hands stung as I planted both palms into the asphalt and heaved myself to a seated position.

  The moment I was up, I started to black out—my vision becoming hazy before clearing, only to become hazy again.

  There was something wrong with my knee, as well as my elbow.

  And I could feel warm wetness on my face that I could only assume was blood.

  What did me in the second time, though, was letting my eyes wander down to my knee only to find a piece of shiny metal sticking out of it at about mid-thigh.

  Stupidly I brought my good hand up and touched the metal in surprise, only to lose consciousness the moment the metal wiggled inside of my leg.

  ***

  “His face—the left side—it is severely damaged. Something needs to be done, or it’s going to heal so that he can’t see.”

  I struggled to the surface.

  Surely I was hallucinating. I couldn’t possibly be fucked over in the same department twice in my life…right?

  “He wasn’t wearing a helmet. I’m worried about brain swelling, and possible brain bleeds,” the man who’d said my face was damaged—again—continued.

  I licked my dry lips, and I tried to pry open my eyes.

  “I have him on Morphine for any pain, as well as an antibiotic. What I’m waiting for now is permission to take him to surgery for his face. If we don’t do it now, the swelling could cause any number of things to happen. None of which he wants or needs right now,” the doctor continued.

  “Where do you want me to sign?”

  My mom. Why was my mom here?

  “Here’s the papers. Do you know if he has insurance?”

  This was a different person. A lady.

  “Yes,” she whispered shakily. “Though I’m not sure if it’s active. He just started a job with the police department.”

  “He’s a police officer?”

  The doctor again.

  “Move.”

  Tommy Tom.

  “I said, get out of my way. I’m taking him up to surgery.”

  Then I felt someone moving me, pushing me down a bright hallway.

  “Anything on Imogen?”