by Vivian Lux
“I had a responsibility to my Dad’s club—a responsibility to my sworn brothers, to my new old lady—and I just blanked the fuck out. That’s when that little shit made his move.”
I nodded. “Moloch.”
“I told my Dad he was a sneaky little fuck. Always with the rumors, the gossip. He liked to play the guys off each other like some sort of twisted little puppet master. But my Dad, he saw good in everyone. Everyone but me, I guess.”
I cringed and cupped my hand against his face.
“When he stepped up and called the election, I didn’t even give enough fucks to fight for my Dad’s position. Actually, when he won, it was a fucking relief. That meant I could get drunk more. I could just blot out the days in a whiskey bottle and not be accountable to anyone.
“Anyway, Nails comes up with this bullshit rule about how the girls who ride with us can’t be trusted, just ‘cause some Devil had the bad luck of sleeping with some low-level plant. The idiot got himself busted for soliciting a prostitute, but it never came back to the club. But that was all the inspiration Nails needed to say he needed to personally vet every new old lady brought into the clubhouse.”
Cade squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. “When he told me Pauline had left me, well, I believed him right away. I was so shitty to her. I left her days at a time. I was drunk nearly every morning. I had taken her away from her home, from her family. I made her swear never to call them because it would link me with the hold-up. She was stuck here in a new city, no friends, a shit man. Fuck, I’d have left me too.”
“You just gave up.”
“I came up here. I was up here all winter long. Wyatt came every few weeks or so, let me know that the club got this new business going, that Nails hired three new strippers, that sort of thing. He always was a political fucker, that Wyatt. He knows which way the wind’s blowing. He keeps his head down until the time is right to strike.”
I shivered, remembering him snatching the gun from my hand. Cade snapped his head over to look at me and closed his arms around me, pulling me close to him.
“I don’t trust him,” I hissed into his chest.
Cade stroked my hair back from my face and kissed my temple. “I know, Lainey-girl, I know. Someday you’ll see what I mean, though.”
I pulled back and looked up at him. “So you were in this cabin all winter?”
“‘Til the week of the meet-up.”
“In Flint Springs.”
He grinned. “Where I happened to run into a brazen little girl playing dress-up.”
I cringed. “I thought that was how biker chicks should dress.”
“I prefer the flowered skirt version.”
“Well, you have a chance to meet her again.”
“I do?”
I snuggled up to him. “Yes, you do. Because guess what?”
“What’s that?”
“You still haven’t bought me any new clothes.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “That’s not true. I got you the t-shirt!”
I tweaked his nose. “That doesn’t count.”
“You said you’d wear it for me. For special occasions.”
“I think Larissa burned it.” When I said her name, a wave of sadness pierced my heart. Cade felt me shudder and crushed me close to him again.
“I’m gonna be the man you need now, Lainey-girl. I promise you this. I’m going to be the man I’m supposed to be. From the moment I met you, I knew you were here to make me a better man.”
His words were heartfelt and sincere, but it was his kiss that tasted like a solemn vow.
Chapter 37
The first week in the cabin, we barely moved from the bed. One of us, usually Cade, would brave the chill of the cabin and leap across the floorboards in search of something to eat. We devoured everything in the cupboards in one extended picnic.
By the fourth day, we were eating stale Saltines while kissing under the covers.
“I think this is the last edible food in the house,” Cade intoned grimly, holding up one of the empty plastic sleeves.
“I guess I’ll have to eat you, then!” I grinned, and sank my teeth playfully into his shoulder.
“Ow! Okay, I get the hint, you savage.” He rubbed his shoulder in mock concern, then slid his legs over the bed. HIs jeans were still in a crumpled pile from where I had removed them days ago. “There’s a provisions store for campers eight miles down the road. I should be back soon.”
I groaned and wrapped my arms around his waist. “I’d rather starve,” I declared. “Come back in. I’m freezing now.”
He chuckled and bent to plant a kiss on my forehead. “I’m going to consider this me saving your life.”
I threw a pillow at him as he exited the front door, laughing. Then I laid back and stared at the ceiling.
My man was off to get provisions, and I was alone in his house. I looked around the room, taking in my surroundings for the first time.
Books and gear were strewn in the same haphazard piles. I saw his muddy boots by the back doorway, so caked in dirt they looked like they were growing out of the floor. The kitchen counters were spotted with grease and splatters of coffee.
I smiled when I remembered my fantasy of how I would turn his house into a home.
I sprang from the bed, shivering as my bare feet hit the freezing floorboards. I yanked on my clothes, taking a quick sniff. The days spent naked under the covers hadn’t soiled my only outfit, thank goodness.
I stood in the middle of the room, scanning the edges, wondering where to start. It was then that I spied the splattered cookbook shoved up on a shelf above the ancient TV.
Standing on my tiptoes, I could just reach it. I pulled it down and laughed out loud at the red and white checked cover. Better Homes and Gardens? I giggled out loud.
And then I had an idea. Blowing the dust off the spine, I opened it to the index and ran my index finger down the B column. When I saw the list of recipes, I jumped up and banged the doors of the cupboards open, rooting through the stores until I had pulled out the listed ingredients. I was silently impressed that Cade had everything available.
As I waited for the dough to rise, I poked around until I found the remote for the satellite TV. After several tries, I finally figured out how to turn it on and began flipping through the seemingly endless channels.
I was mindlessly clicking through when a familiar pair of eyes stared back at me. My heart leapt into my throat when I recognized the picture of Pauline. It was the same that had been shown a hundred times or more, but this time, the story that accompanied it was different.
“...five months. This morning, Ms. Cornwell reported for work at the First Bank of Plank County as if nothing had changed. She is not speaking to police and her family has closed ranks, but sources close to the case believe her reemergence may have something to do with a string of high-profile, gang-related deaths in the state...”
I switched the TV back off again with a smile. She was showing up for work, trying to live a normal life. I hoped she could find her way. I left the TV and the worry it brought me and returned to my dough.
When Cade ducked through the front door, the smell of baking bread was there to greet him. I smiled up at him.
“Your oven is filthy.”
“You can bake?”
I grinned. “Nope. This is the first time I’ve ever attempted something like this. Darryl’s trailer only had a two-burner stove.”
“What on earth made you want to bake bread?”
I looked down at my feet. How could I explain to him the way he made me feel? How could I make him understand that I had never felt at home before?
“It seemed like something I should do now,” I settled on at last.
He arched an eyebrow at me, then nodded as if he understood. He set down the sack of groceries and sniffed the air appraisingly. “Smells like you know what you’re doing.”
“We’ll find out in...” I glanced at the timer.
“About forty-five minutes.”
“Good. That gives us just enough time.” He lunged at me, and I squealed and darted away, laughing. He had almost cornered me when we heard the knock on the door.
Instantly, he was on alert. “Get down Lainey,” he hissed.
I flattened myself against the floorboards, fear washing over me. I heard him open the bedside drawer where I knew he kept his gun and I swallowed to keep the bile from rising in my throat.
Not again, not again, not again, I chanted in my head.
Cade moved carefully to the door, his gun held aloft. Without a window to peer through, he was opening blind.
“Who’s there?” he called, his voice low and menacing.
“Turner, it’s Wyatt. Let me in.”
Cade let out his breath in a whoosh and turned the door handle. Wyatt stomped in, puffing his cheeks against the cold mountain air. Cade folded him into a half-embrace and they clapped their palms against each other’s backs in unison.
Wyatt smirked at me. “What’re you doing on the floor, little girl?”
Cringing, I tried to lift myself back up with dignity. I brushed the front of my clothes, but only succeeded in getting streaks of flour across m only shirt. “Hi,” I muttered.
He sniffed the air. “Bread, Turner?”
Cade grinned proudly. “It appears Lainey can bake.”
“Well, we still have to find out for sure,” I reminded him.
“That’s not something I would have guessed about you when I first met you, little girl.”
I felt my cheeks flush red. “Fuck off, Wyatt.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. It is what it is and it can’t be helped and all that bullshit. I got bigger things to worry about than how we got to know each other.”
Cade shot him a look. “What’s going on?”
“Elections, Turner. We just had ‘em.” Wyatt shook his head. “You won, you stubborn piece of shit. You won, and the guys that went for Nails are pissed about it.”
Cade stood stock still for a moment. The rising bread was filling the house with the scent of homemade deliciousness. But it seemed it would now go uneaten. I walked over to the oven and switched it off, listening intently as I did.
“How bad?” Cade asked, his voice a million miles away.
“Pretty fuckin’ bad.” Wyatt leaned up against the arm of the couch and crossed his arms. “So far as I can tell, they’re thinkin’ two different plans of attack. One is to get you taken down for murder. Ain’t nobody around who can’t say they saw you kill Nails with your bare hands. The other is to pin the shit Nails was up to on you.”
“What shit is that?”
“I’m only just figuring that part out. But when we went back up to the hill to clean out the white house, there were people already up there, having a look around.”
“What kind of people?”
He exhaled. “Not the kind of people I want sniffing around in my business.”
Cade nodded and then turned to me with a look on his face I had never seen before. I smiled and went to stand with him, resignation flooding through me.
“Lainey, I need to go back.”
I nodded. “I know you do. This is part of you being a better man.”
He nodded and reached for his jacket hanging on the hook. I watched Wyatt walk out of the door and out to his bike.
“Lainey-girl, wake up. You can wear my jacket again if you’re cold.” Cade was looking at me impatiently.
I shook my head in surprise. “What?”
“We have to go now. Let’s move.”
My heart leapt. “I’m coming with you?”
He looked confused. “You ride with me now. That means always.” He stretched out his arm and I half-leapt, half slid across the floorboards to join him.
His bike was waiting for us, gleaming in the mountain sunlight. I settled on to the seat with a grace that surprised me.
And when Cade started the engine, a delicious thrill shivered through me. I wrapped my hands around his torso and rested my head on his broad back. No matter what happened next, this was where I wanted to be.
THE END
