But Marie saw him right off. “Bart! Honey!” She slid off her stool and came, creakily but quickly, to him. She’d been good friends with Bart’s grandmother. She had to have been eighty-five if she was a day, but she’d worked until just months ago, and she was still Marie through and through.
She gave him a big, warm hug. “Ooh! Look at ya!” With a pat to his now-bearded cheek, she added, “You’re gettin’ old, honey.” When he shrugged in answer, her smile faded away. “I know, I know. Hard times age you, don’t they. But it’s gonna be okay. You’re home, and it’s gonna be okay.”
Everybody knew everything about everybody in a town like this, and everybody the world over knew everything about a woman like Riley Chase, so he wasn’t surprised at all that Marie would speak so intimately to him. He appreciated it, frankly. Marie was the Bibi of Signal Bend. Everything flowed through her and her diner.
“I thought you retired, Marie.” He winked. “Speaking of getting old.”
“Oh, I did, I did. Now I make ‘em wait on me. Hah! But what’m I gonna do sittin’ around in the house? This is where the action is.”
By action, she meant gossip. Bart laughed and hugged her again. “Marie, I don’t know if you remember Lexi and Ian. And my little guy is Deck.”
She turned to the kids and smiled. “I remember, but I know you don’t remember me. You call me Marie, okay? Just Marie.” She held out her hand to Lexi, who took it politely.
“Pleased to meet you, Marie. I’m Alexa, but everyone calls me Lexi.”
“Aren’t you a sweet good girl! And you look just like your mama. People tell you that, don’t they?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lexi blushed and looked uncomfortable.
“Well, it’s true. Your mama was a sweet good girl, too. You’ll keep her with you, don’t you worry.”
Lexi nodded and freed her hand, and Marie turned to Ian, and then to Deck. Bart didn’t pay the same close attention to Marie’s introduction with the boys; he was still watching Lexi, who’d started to blink frantically.
Stepping around behind the boys, Bart went to her and hooked his arm around her shoulders. He said nothing, just pulled her close. She turned into him and pressed her face to his belly.
His girl had cried very little over the past three months, at least not where he could see. She’d been trying to be strong and brave, to step into the space her mother had left. She’d been taking care of him and her brothers. At the age of ten.
When her shoulders began to shake, Bart squeezed her closer and bent down. “You want to go, baby princess?”
She nodded.
He made his apologies to Marie, who made some of her own right back, and he collected his kids and got them back into the truck.
On the way home, he remembered that there was still no food in the house.
So he pulled out his phone and called Lilli.
~oOo~
When Lilli and Shannon left the house a few hours later, his boys were fed and their larder was full. Ian and Deck were sitting in the living room watching Star Wars. The first one. The real first one.
Cory, Havoc’s widow, had stayed behind to clean up.
Havoc had been—still was—Bart’s best friend. He’d died bravely but horribly in club violence and had left a wife, a newborn son, known as Loki, and a teenage son, Nolan—who’d been technically his stepson, but that hadn’t mattered.
Having left Signal Bend before Havoc and Cory met, Bart didn’t know her all that well. He knew Nolan, though, very well. And he knew that Havoc had loved the pretty brunette fiercely. He also knew that she’d had a difficult time coming back to the living after his death.
Bart could relate.
After checking on the boys, who shared their parents’ love of Star Wars and always sat rapt through each movie, he went back and knocked on Lexi’s door. She’d claimed not to be hungry, but she hadn’t eaten since lunch and the deli sandwiches Badge had sent the Prospect over with while the movers had still been there.
When she didn’t answer, he opened and peeked in. She was sitting on her bed, her jeans off, rubbing her leg.
He went in and closed the door. “Are you hurting?” At her nod, he went over and sat down, putting his hands over hers. She backed off and let him rub. “I’m going to talk to Tasha tomorrow and get you into PT again right away, okay?”
“Daddy, I want a horse.”
“You can have a horse.”
“No. I want to ride a horse. Gia told me that she does races and gets ribbons. I want to do that. And I want to do ballet again.”
“Lexi…” Her injury was too recent to know what kind of mobility she’d ultimately regain.
“Daddy, PLEASE. PLEASE!” Her face crumpled, and real tears took her over. “Please, I don’t want to hurt anymore. Please, Daddy, please.”
He let go of her leg and pulled her onto his lap, into his arms. “I’m so sorry.” He stroked her hair and held her close. Kissing her head, not knowing what else to do, he simply spoke to her, said things he hoped were true. “It’s going to get better. Your leg will get better, and your heart will, too. The pain will get better. I promise. I promise, baby princess.”
She sniffed and sighed, finally quieting. Then, in a small, young voice, she said, “I’m your baby princess because Mommy’s your princess.”
It had been years since she’d called Riley ‘Mommy.’ And what she’d just said had been a refrain between them when she was little. He smiled, feeling a bittersweet ache inside. “That’s right. My Princess Leia.”
“And you’re her Han Solo.”
“Yes, I am.” He was going to cry soon, too. He’d have sworn he’d emptied his tears the night before.
“I really miss her.”
“Me, too. But Marie was right. I know it made you feel weird when she said it, but she was right. Mommy will always be with us, and we’ll never let her go. Not ever.”
His little girl nodded against his chest.
“Will you come out and get something to eat? Lilli brought lasagne. She’s a really good cook.”
Lexi shook her head.
“Can I make you a plate and bring it in here? With a class of milk? There’s brownies, too.”
“I don’t want a brownie, but you can bring a plate, please. Is there fruit?”
“Apples straight from Cory’s orchard, yep. I’ll bring one of those, too.”
“Thank you.”
He kissed her head and settled her in bed, under the covers and propped on her pillows. He’d bring her one of her pills, too. She didn’t like the way they made her sleepy and dizzy, but he thought she needed some relief and rest.
As he got to the door, she said, “Daddy?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Should we call them Aunt and Uncle, like at ho—like in California? Aunt Lilli and Uncle Isaac, like that? That’s respectful, right? And they’re our family, too?”
He hadn’t wanted to force that on the kids. But maybe it would help them; he hadn’t thought of it that way. Riley would have seen it right away—that what the children called their family would help them know they were family. He hadn’t missed the way she’d cut off the word ‘home,’ however. “Yes, they’re our family. That would be good, Lex. You’re right. And this will be home. You’ll feel it, I promise. Sooner than you think.”
“I know. I like it. It’s just…”
She didn’t finish, but she didn’t need to. A lot of words could end that sentence, and every one of them would be true. “I’ll get your supper. I love you, baby princess.”
“I love you, too, Daddy.”
~oOo~
Cory had the kitchen gleaming when he went back in. “Thank you so much. You didn’t have to do all this, really.”
“I like cleaning the kitchen. Doing dishes, all of it. It’s soothing. And everything’s shiny when I’m done.” As he went to the refrigerator and pulled out the pan of lasagne, she asked, “She’s going to eat?”
“Yeah. She’s just feeling b
lue and wants to be alone. Her leg hurts, too.”
“I heard about how she was hurt. She’s a brave little girl.”
“Yeah, she is.” He found a spatula and lifted out a square, setting it on a plate from the drainer.
“That bravery will get her through. That, and you and the boys, and being here. She’ll be okay. You all will.” She made a strange sound, like a laugh but not exactly, and he looked up and met her eyes. “Sorry to be in your business. I just…I know. I know how it hurts, and I know you can stop hurting and still love who you lost. You’ll be happy again, and one day you won’t feel guilty when you feel happy. Then you’ll know you’re okay.”
What Bart felt in response to all that was relief and gratitude and irritation and defensiveness, all rolled into one confusing, heavy ball bouncing on the floor of his gut. It made him feel sick to his stomach. He wanted to hug this woman he barely knew for understanding, and he wanted to throw her out on her ass for telling him what he felt.
Unable to do either of those things, he said, “Thank you,” and left it at that.
In his tone, she must have heard something closer to the urge to throw her out, because she blushed lightly and hung the dish towel through a drawer pull. “Okay. I’m going to get out of your hair. You call if you need anything. Really—anything at all. Call any of us. We’re here.” She walked up to him and kissed his cheek, and then she turned and left, calling a goodbye to the boys as she opened the door.
He heard the screen door screech, and even now, it made him feel a little better.
Then he finished putting his brave, hurting daughter’s supper together, got a dose of pain meds out for her, and got back to the business of caring for his children.
FIVE
“You talked to Len? He’s been working with the Humane Society, taking overflow from the Longmeadow Ranch. He’s fostering five or six horses, I think. Might be a couple that would be good for the kids.”
Sitting under the big tree outside Isaac and Lilli’s house, Bart took a draw on a bottle of Bud before he answered Isaac’s question. “I haven’t, but that’s a good idea. I’m just worried about Lex. What if she can’t do it? How much heartbreak can she take?”
The men were watching Lilli and all the kids, who were standing at the paddock fence feeding apples and carrots to the Lunden herd of horses. Their daughter, Gia, was fourteen now, and Bart could see that she was going to be giving Isaac fits, because she looked just like her gorgeous mother—and he could see that Isaac was already on guard. She seemed a take-charge girl like Lexi. Maybe that was what first-born girls were like.
Their son, Bo, who’d just turned twelve, stayed at step or two apart from the group and watched, his hands hanging oddly at his sides. Bo had Asperger’s. Bart had prepped his kids, telling them that Bo thought about things a little bit differently from the way they thought. So far, his kids were taking Bo in stride, and Bart had noticed him inching closer to the goings-on this afternoon.
His kids, especially Lexi and Ian, were used to being the oldest kids in the family. They’d been the only kids in the SoCal clubhouse for several years. Bart had been a little worried about how Lexi would react to the significantly older, and similarly Type-A, Gia. He was pleased to see that her reaction seemed mainly awe.
Ian, too, under normal circumstances a loud, physical kid, had so far been respectful of Bo’s difference. Maybe being raised in the clubhouse had given all the children a sense of tolerance, a instinctive way to take people as they came.
He hadn’t assimilated the knowledge completely while he’d been making the decision to leave Madrone, but Signal Bend had even more children than SoCal, and there were a lot more children older than, and of an age with, his kids. SoCal had only started growing into multi-generational family within the past few years. Missouri had Gia and Bo; and Loki, who was ten, just like Lexi; and Millie and Joey Ryan, nine; and Badger’s kids, Henry, who was eight, and Megan and Caroline, just a year apart at four and three. There were a couple of babies, too—Badger and Adrienne had little toddler John, and Double A had a newborn daughter—but most of the kids were older.
Lexi and Ian had always been the teachers, the role models, the instigator and the monitor. Here, they’d get a chance to follow, too. Bart thought that might be good for them. Watching Lexi’s starry-eyed attention to Gia, he was pretty sure it was good.
Isaac finished his beer and set the empty on the grass at his feet. “Three months isn’t long, brother. She’s still got some primary healing to do. Get her back in PT and talk to her therapist. Maybe she won’t be barrel racing with Gia, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say she might be able to really ride someday. Look at me.”
Bart did exactly that. Isaac had aged noticeably since Bart had last worn a Missouri rocker. In that time, he’d been shot and nearly killed, and he’d done a long, hard stretch in prison. His long hair and beard had gone heavily grey, and he limped a lot like Lexi did. But he’d ridden his old Fat Bob two thousand miles to be with them when they put Riley to rest, and he’d ridden two thousand miles home, and once upon a time he’d been paralyzed from the chest down.
“You want to set her in a saddle today, see how it feels? We can put her up on a block so she doesn’t have to push herself up, and Wally’s a gentle old bum.”
“I don’t know.” He was more worried about her heart, if sitting a saddle hurt her, than he was about her leg.
“Bart—she’s gonna be okay. Her and the boys, and you, too. Don’t put yourself between ‘em and the world too much. You can’t protect ‘em from everything, and if you try, that’ll hurt ‘em, too.”
Everybody had advice for him, and sometimes it made him tired to hear it. Hearing it from Isaac, though—he took that to heart. Even so, he wasn’t sure he could just throw his kids out into the world, not after what they’d gone through. “What they saw…”
Looking back across the yard to Lilli and the kids, Isaac answered, “Lilli was Lexi’s age when her mother killed herself, and she sat alone with the body for hours. I was twelve when my mom hanged herself in that barn over there. Nolan was sixteen when Hav came home like he did. Gia and Bo went without a dad for seven and a half years of the most important part of their childhood. A lot of us’ve dealt with fuckin’ hard shit, as adults and as kids. But look at Lilli. Nolan. Gia and Bo. Me. Fuck, look at Show and his girls. Pain changes you, but it doesn’t have to ruin you. It can make you stronger. If you got people around to hold you up while you heal, it’ll make you stronger. So hold your kids up, but don’t hold ‘em down.”
Bart watched his girl rubbing the nose of a black horse with a wide white blaze. That was Wally. When she stopped, he bumped her lightly, the horse version of a hug. She giggled—giggled!—and wrapped her arms around his nose. Christ, Bart could see the big lug sigh with pleasure.
“Okay. Okay.”
He stood, and Isaac did, too. They crossed the yard and joined their family.
Isaac put his hand on Lilli’s back. “What do you say about saddling some of these lazy bums up and letting the kids walk the yard?”
Lilli turned to Bart, who nodded, still feeling worried, but also ready to let Lexi try.
“Sure,” Lilli smiled directly at Lexi. “Would you like that, honey?”
“Daddy?” Bart’s girl’s eyes were huge with hope—and some worry of her own.
“You listen to Lilli and Gia, and you be careful, but if you want, it’s okay with me. I’ll lead you.”
Lexi turned to Wally and nodded. “Yes, please.”
“HORSIES? We can ride?” Deck bellowed. A couple of the horses shied slightly at his shriek. Wally’s ear barely twitched.
“You can ride,” Lilli laughed. “Gia, Bo, want to mount up and head the posse?”
~oOo~
A storm rolled in that night, long after the kids had gone to sleep. Bart woke them all up, and they went out on the screen porch in back and watched the show, listening to the drum of rain on the tin roof.
> ~oOo~
The first Friday of their new life in Signal Bend, exactly, to the date, thirteen years after he’d shrugged off his Night Horde kutte and lain back in a tattered old recliner while Tony, their tattooist friend, blacked out his club ink, thirteen years after he’d put Signal Bend to his back, leaving the Horde in order to save it, Bart sat at the magnificent, gleaming dark ebony table that Isaac had made with his own hands. He spread his hands wide and flat over the wood, as if its touch itself could bring him peace. And it did.
Calm & Storm (The Night Horde SoCal Book 6) Page 34
