“Holy shit!” Caleb muttered. “He’s here already?” Cecily tried to pull her hand from his, but he clamped on. “No, Ciss, this is good. It won’t be hours of waiting, and Simon’s the center of attention. This is your in.”
“Shit, Caleb. How do I…”
“You walk in. With me.” He lifted their linked hands and kissed her fingers.
She stepped out of the elevator and back into the Bulls’ fold.
Caleb was right—nobody noticed them at first. A crowd four and five deep circled Simon, who kept straight-arming people who got too close to the burrito in his arms. His son. Caleb stood with Cecily at the edges and simply watched.
It was Delaney who saw Cecily first. He stepped out of the crowd and walked over. Cecily’s fingers tightened around Caleb’s.
“Well, hey there, gingersnap. Fancy meeting you here.”
“Hey, Uncle Brian.”
“How you doin’, pretty girl?”
“I’m okay. Is Deb okay?”
Delaney grinned. “She doesn’t fuck around, that’s for sure. But she’s good. Everything went smooth.” He took his hands from his pockets. “You think you got a hug for an old man who’s missed you, Ciss?”
She hesitated, her clench around Caleb’s hand undiminished. And then she let him go and opened her arms. Delaney pulled her close and squeezed her so hard she squeaked.
Caleb’s eyes shocked the hell out of him by burning and going blurry. He coughed into his hand and got control of himself.
“There’s my girl,” Mo said, walking up. Delaney let Cecily go, and Mo took her hand. “Come. The women are going in to check on Deb while the men fuss on the baby out here.”
Cecily turned to Caleb. “I…”
He’d promised her he’d stay at her side, so he smiled and offered her his hand.
She shook her head. “I’m okay. I think I’ll go with them.”
That was good. She was more comfortable with the women. But she’d made a big stride forward with the club, too.
Caleb watched Mo lead Cecily and the other women—Joanna, Leah, and Jenny—to the ward doors. Jacinda was home in bed, no doubt. She was something like six months pregnant and had been on bed rest for the whole summer. Willa was already in the room with Deb, he knew; she helped the old ladies in labor even if she wasn’t on shift as a Labor & Delivery nurse.
Now the room was full of Bulls and their kids. A whole lot of burly, tattooed men babytalking and making silly faces at an infant with his eyes squeezed shut. Simon just stared down at his boy, his face a still life of awe.
On the edges of the scene, Caleb took it all in. Yeah. This was his family.
Delaney stepped up to his side. “You did good, son.”
“Sorry, Prez?”
“That girl and her sister are the closest I ever got to kids of my own. She hasn’t let me near her in three years. You brought her back. Nobody’s been able to do that since Dane died. Even Mav couldn’t get it done. I wanted to kill you when I heard you used her like a cheap lay, and I won’t say I was happy when I heard you were spending time with her now. But I was wrong.”
“I’m not with her to bring her back to the club.”
“I know. But she came back holding your hand.”
~oOo~
First thing Tuesday morning, the fourth of September, after a long holiday weekend of playing hard and drinking harder, the Bulls assembled in the clubhouse to see Eight Ball off. Mo was there, and Willa and Leah, laying out a light breakfast. Occasionally, someone would try to break up the somber mood with a joke or sarcastic comment, but each one dropped like an anchor to the floor. Eight Ball sat and sipped at coffee. He picked at the plate Mo made him but didn’t eat much.
Of all his brothers, Eight Ball was the most challenging to care about. He said and did shit sometimes that made Caleb want to flatten his face. He was an asshole to everybody, especially to women, and he was a redneck through and through. A few times during Caleb’s prospecting years, Eight Ball had called him ‘Chief,’ and ‘Tonto,’ Geronimo,’ and even ‘Red Man.’ He’d played it off like he was just being funny, but Caleb knew that people only said those words out loud, ever, if they were thinking them all the time, not just for ‘humor.’
He’d taken it, because he was a prospect and abuse was part of the deal, but the first time Eight Ball had dropped a ‘Chief’ on him after he had a Bull on his back, Caleb had called him into the ring. He’d lost—Eight was a brawny fucker who’d been a varsity offensive lineman in high school, a fact he never failed to mention once he had a few beers in his belly—but he’d made his point.
For all his numerous flaws as a human being, however, Edgar ‘Eight Ball’ Johnston was a damn good Bull. He was loyal to the bone, and he did what had to be done. He’d been an enforcer for years, which meant what he’d had to do was often bloody and cruel. Since Dane’s death, when Ox went up to VP, and then after Ox’s cancer diagnosis and retirement, Eight Ball had become Rad’s right-hand man.
He’d dropped his bike on the interstate a couple years earlier and fucked up his leg. His recovery and rehabilitation had been slow and imperfect, and since then, he’d been more erratic—short-tempered and quicker to impulsive violence. But he was still a good Bull.
And Caleb was sad to see a brother lose a big chunk of his life to a stupid, impulsive mistake. He’d killed a guy who’d deserved it, a guy the club likely would have killed anyway. But the club would have done it clean, in a way that kept them all protected.
As the time neared for Delaney to drive Eight Ball to turn himself in, Maverick hunkered in with him, his hands on Eight’s shoulders, their heads nearly touching. Maverick was the only Bull to have done hard time recently—Becker had done a long stretch when he was young, but that had been decades ago, and he never talked about it—and Mav had spent hours during the weeks between Eight’s sentence and this day preparing him for life inside.
By the time Delaney stood and said, “Eight. We gotta go, brother,” conversation in the party room had stopped entirely. Even the jukebox had gone silent.
“Yeah,” Eight Ball said. He clapped Maverick on the shoulder and stood up. Before he took his kutte off, he crossed his arms over his chest and grabbed two fistfuls of the leather. “Goddammit,” he muttered.
“Head down, brother,” Maverick said, standing as well. It was a thing he said all the time, when shit got hard: Head down, shoulder to the day.
Eight Ball laughed darkly. “My shoulders ain’t like yours, Mav. They only hold so much.”
“They’ll hold enough. Keep your wits about you and your head on straight. And it’s Groddo you want to get in front of, fast as you can. You tell him Helm said to make contact, and you’ll be okay. You keep their ink off your back, though, brother. I mean it. You come home wearing a fucking swastika, and I will carve it off you myself. We don’t want that shit in here.”
Eight Ball nodded. Sighing out the weight of the world, he shrugged his kutte off his back, folded it carefully, and handed it to Maverick.
“Okay, D. Let’s roll.”
The Bulls started to head toward the side door, where they’d say their goodbyes, but Mo pushed through them. “Wait, love. You don’t leave without a hug from me.” She grabbed Eight Ball’s arm and turned him to her—and suddenly, he was crying. Caleb’s mouth dropped open. He’d never seen anything like that from Eight before.
“I’m sorry, Mama. I’m so sorry.”
Mo wasn’t his mother, but Eight worshipped her as if she were. The one woman he really cared about. She wrapped him up in her arms. “You be a good boy, Edgar. You’ll be okay if you do what Mav says. You’ll be okay.”
His head buried at her shoulder, he nodded. “I’ll try.”
“Nonsense. You’ll do. And we’ll be here waiting.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“A hundred and two, still.” Cecily set the ear thermometer aside and laid her hand on Kelsey’s forehead. The little girl was flushed and hot, and she closed her
eyes at the touch. “You want some more juice, sweetie? Or Sprite?”
Kelsey shook her head and squeezed Miss Shorty, her cat, who’d taken up sentry duty on her girl’s chest. Her eyes didn’t open. School had been in session barely a week, and already the poor thing had caught some horrible bug.
This term, Cecily was teaching GED prep and basic literacy classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and leading a creative writing workshop on Wednesday nights, so she’d been free on this Tuesday to cover for Jenny while she handled some trouble with her father.
Though Jenny had called at the crack of what-the-hell that morning, Cecily never minded helping out. She loved kids generally, club kids especially, and Kelsey and Duncan best of all.
Duncan had been kicked out of another preschool—he had a tendency to fight when he got mad and, at three years old, had already beaten up something like four kids and a teacher. Jenny was a stay-at-home mom for the most part, so she’d given up on preschool for Duncan and asked family to help out when she needed to be off without him. Jenny and Maverick were currently arguing about whether their violent preschooler needed counseling. Jenny was pro, Maverick was con.
It was none of Cecily’s business, but as someone with some experience in being angry and scrappy, if anybody asked her opinion, she’d point out that Duncan wasn’t violent at home, ever. He was loud and rambunctious. He broke shit all the time, but only because he did everything at Mach Five. But he was bursting with love and sweetness, too. It was only at school that he acted out violently. In her opinion, that mattered. Duncan was frustrated. He didn’t fit the world they put him in.
Sadly, the whole world was cut that way, so if he didn’t fit in preschool, he wouldn’t fit in kindergarten, either. Or grade school. Or middle school. Or high school. Would counseling help that? Should it?
She wouldn’t be one bit surprised if in twenty years or so Duncan Helm were walking around with a Bull on his back. The place where violent misfits found their slot.
With a kiss to Kelsey’s hot forehead, Cecily tucked the afghan around her. Home sick from school, she was getting the time-tested Sofa Healing Therapy. “Okay. How about some TV? You want to pick the program?”
“JAY JAY!” Duncan shouted. “JAY JAY!”
“I think we should let Kelsey choose, Dunc. She’s sick today.”
“JAY JAY! JAY JAY!” Duncan shouted. Chunk barked, offering his endorsement of anything that made noise. Those two were going to grow up to be a tag-team crime scene everywhere they went.
“It’s okay,” Kelsey sighed. “You can watch Jay Jay, Dunc. I don’t mind.”
“Tankoo Kessie.” He ran over and gave his sister a kiss. Shorty glared at him, on alert in case he got too boisterous around her sick girl. “JAY JAY JAY JAY!”
“Alright, alright.” Happily for them all, this was the time slot for that show. Cecily picked up the remote from the mantel—where they had to keep it, or Duncan would smash the buttons until he’d reprogrammed the whole thing—and put PBS on. Jay Jay the Jet Plane was a ridiculous show, but currently Duncan’s absolute favorite. Cecily and Kelsey preferred Bear in the Big Blue House.
“Is Mommy going to be home soon?” Kelsey asked, without opening her eyes. Cecily didn’t like how lethargic she was. She was eight years old and usually called her mother Mom now, so saying ‘Mommy’ made her seem even sicker. Jenny had said earlier, when Cecily had arrived for babysitting duty, that Kelsey had almost died from meningitis a few years ago, so she wanted an extra sharp eye on her. This was probably just a nasty cold, but still, it was unsettling to see this bright-eyed little miss so dull.
“I don’t know, Kelse. As quick as she can. And your dad will be back tonight.”
“My granddaddy is sick, too. That’s where she is.”
“I know.”
“He’s dying. I heard Mom tell Daddy on the phone.”
Cecily crouched beside her head. “Do you know what that means?”
That got Kelsey to open her eyes. “I’m not a baby. It means he won’t be alive anymore.”
How was one supposed to talk to a child about death? Cecily had no freaking idea. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Kelsey shook her head and closed her eyes, and Cecily let out a whoosh of relief. No existential dilemmas to solve today. “I just want Mommy.”
“She’ll be home as quick as she can, sweetie.”
Her cellphone rang, and the Helms’ landline, both at the same time. Because her phone was closer, she grabbed that first. Caleb. She answered with a smile. “Hey, baby.”
“Are you watching television?” He sounded tense, and she clenched at once. A tense Bull meant trouble.
Trying not to jump to conclusions, she kept her voice calm. “Yeah. Dunc’s watching Jay Jay. Why?”
“Flip it to the news. Any news channel. Right now.”
“What happened?”
“I…I don’t know how to say it. Just turn it on.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry.”
That wasn’t an answer that scared her less. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m okay.”
There was no way she could change Jay Jay without a toddler mutiny, so, with a quick check to make sure the kids were settled enough—Duncan sitting on the floor before the television, Mr. Chunk’s head in his lap, Kelsey resting on the sofa under the guard of Miss Shorty—she ducked into the kitchen and turned on the little under-cabinet set there.
She couldn’t make sense of the image on the screen. “What—that’s—what happened? Is that New York? The World Trade Center?” Of course it was. She turned up the volume, then turned it right back down when Caleb answered.
“A plane crashed into one of the towers.”
“Oh my God. Oh my God! Was anybody hurt?” What an absurd question. One of the World Trade Center towers was on fire. Of course people were hurt. “Oh, my God!”
In the background on Caleb’s end of the call, she heard someone yell, What the fuck? Then, as she watched, the second tower exploded, and she screamed.
Caleb yelled, too, and dim roars of shock burst at her from the phone. He was at the clubhouse, obviously. “Holy shit, it’s not an accident. This is an attack. I’m coming to get you.”
“Cissy?”
She slammed the television off and spun around. Kelsey stood in the doorway in her almost-outgrown Little Mermaid nightie, her long hair knotted with restless sleep. She rocked back and forth on her unsteady little feet.
“It’s okay, Kelse. I’m sorry I yelled. I was just surprised at something Caleb said. Everything’s okay. Come on, let’s get you tucked back in.” She took Kelsey’s hand.
The landline phone rang again.
“Cecily!” Caleb snapped. “Did you hear me?”
“I did! You don’t have to come for me. This isn’t New York. We’re okay.”
“I’m coming. I want to be with you.”
The landline was still ringing. Duncan was screaming that he didn’t want Dora, he wanted Jay Jay—the program had changed. Chunk was barking. And the World Trade Center was burning.
“Fine!” she yelled into the phone. “Fine, come!” She ended the call and threw her phone onto Mav’s recliner.
Shaking, her mind a blender on puree, Cecily got Kelsey back on the sofa, her pillow fluffed and her covers tucked. Shorty took up her watch again, purring loudly and making biscuits on Kelsey’s chest.
Then Cecily turned to Duncan. “Jay Jay is back in his hangar until tomorrow, Dunc.” She grabbed the remote and put the television on Disney, for Bear in the Big Blue House. Duncan yelled in protest for another few seconds, then got caught up in the program and settled. Grabbing Chunk’s ear, he plopped down to watch and was quiet.
The fucking phone was ringing again. She ran and grabbed it. “Hello! Helm residence!”
“It’s me, Ciss. Where’s Jenny?”
“Hey, Mav,” she breathed. Tears were trying to push their way up her throat, but
she swallowed them back down. “She’s with her dad. I’m on rugrat patrol.”
“Do me a favor and keep the kids away from the television today, okay?”
“I’ve got it on Disney. Caleb called and told me. I had the kitchen TV on, but it’s off now. There was just a second explosion.”
“I know. We’re sitting here at Ethel’s truck stop, and the whole place is quiet. We’re all just staring at the televisions. You okay?”
It was such a weird question to ask. She was sitting in a suburban house in Tulsa, nowhere near New York City. But she wanted to ask him the same thing. “Yeah. You?”
Stand (The Brazen Bulls MC Book 7) Page 19
