Two years after the death of her father, she’d met Gabriel. She’d been at a party with friends when he approached her and asked her to dance. He was handsome and had a bad-boy vibe that she liked, but he wasn’t a complete asshole. They left early and spent hours just talking. When he finally kissed her goodnight at her door she had tingled all the way to her toes. She wanted to invite him in to spend the night but hadn’t, the good girl in her preventing her from taking a man to her bed on a first date, no matter how much she wanted to. After their second date, she did, and it had been magical. She was twenty at the time, and though she wasn’t a virgin, never had it been like that night.
She sniffed quietly and wiped her eyes, her tears done as she remembered and smiled. She was living with a roommate at the time who had a steady. She and Gabriel were in her room when Lynne and Joey arrived home, and they wasted no time before going to her bedroom to start fucking, as well. Stella had heard Lynne and Joey making love before, but with Gabriel pleasing her at the same time, it had turned their passion up to eleven. They harder they fucked, and the louder they got, the harder and louder Lynne and Joey had fucked.
Even though they had started first, she and Gabriel had outlasted her roommate. Joey had left in the middle of the night, but Gabriel had stayed until morning. Stella smile again as she remembered how, after Gabriel left, she and Lynne had compared notes and giggled about the previous night.
The sex had sealed their relationship, and within two months they were steady and exclusive. Nine months after that, when Lynne moved into a place of her own with Joey, Gabriel had moved in with her. In the year they had been dating she had fallen for him, and fallen hard. He was her world and she would do anything for him.
It hadn’t been easy. Gabriel had no real skills other than a strong back and a willingness to work hard, but he was reliable, always willing to go the extra mile, and good with people. He’d gone to work in a masonry yard for more money and more reliable hours, with the hopes of working his way up in the company, and things where looking up.
When the company closed, he’d become despondent and nothing she did could lighten his mood. He was desperate for work, to feel like his was contributing, but every door seemed to be closed to him, which only made him more desperate and dejected.
Her tears returned. She’d finally gotten the break she had been waiting for, a chance to move into the bakery at On A Roll . She loved to bake, and was good at it, and had been lobbying hard for a chance to prove herself. But on the day they should have been celebrating, he had called and dumped her. No explanation, no nothing, only stating he didn’t love her anymore and he wouldn’t be back.
As her tears rolled down her cheek, she gasped softly as she remembered how sick she’d felt, like she’d been kicked in the stomach. She’d begged him to come home, that whatever it was they could work it out, but he had been resolute.
Three days later she’d come home from work to find his clothes gone and his key on the table. She had hoped beyond hope he would change his mind and return and give them another chance, but seeing the key made her realize he was gone forever.
The next three weeks were a blur. Even now she could only remember fragments. She knew she had gone to work each day, and had cried inconsolably in her Grammy’s arms most nights, but that was all she could remember. Then the greatest shock of all came. Katrina.
She was more than a week late on her period before she even realized she was late, and a new panic set in. She was pregnant. She didn’t understand how and though she took the home test, twice, she still couldn’t believe it and had gone to the doctor.
She’d cried again when the test came back positive, uncertain what to do, unable to understand how she could be pregnant when she had been so careful. During the discussion with the doctor she realized it was probably her fault she had gotten pregnant. Though she couldn’t remember for certain, it was possible she had run errands after picking up her pills and had left them in the hot car, which had potentially damaged their effectiveness.
In shock she had told her mother what happened and Consuela had flown into a rage. She hadn’t asked about any sexual relations and Stella had never discussed it with her, not wanting to further strain their already fragile relationship. Consuela had had expressed shock Stella was having sex outside of marriage and disowned her on the spot, wanting to have nothing to do with her daughter or soon to arrive granddaughter, calling Stella a puta and condemning her to infierno . Stella had fled her childhood home and that was the last time she’d seen her mother.
Grammy encouraged her to make amends if possible. It wasn’t right she and her mother shouldn’t be on speaking terms, but every time Stella tried to call Consuela, she never answered and her voicemails were never returned. She’d driven by the house several times but her mother’s car was never home, so she’d finally given up.
As Katrina came to term, Stella had tried again, but a strange voice answered her mother’s number and told her she didn’t know anyone named Consuela. She’d then driven by her parent’s home, only to discover a new family had bought the property and moved in.
She’d called her maternal grandparent and, between her crude Spanish and their rough English, found Consuela was back home in Costa Rica and no longer wished to see her. They were aware of what had happened, and though they didn’t approve of her having sex out of wedlock, they were relieved she hadn’t aborted the child. Before she hung up, they expressed hope she would come to visit them again someday and bring her child.
That was over four years ago, and though she had called twice more, trying to reach her mother though her grandparents, she’d had no luck and finally given up. She hadn’t seen her maternal grandparents since she was a little girl and hoped one day Katrina could visit her great-grandparents, but for now she simply didn’t have the money for airfare.
While Consuela had abandoned her, Connie stepped in and filled the gap. She had gone with her to the delivery room and helped her after she was released from the hospital. She continued to encourage Stella to call Gabriel and tell him he had a beautiful baby girl, and though she had picked up her cellphone many times to do so, she had never pressed send. It would only make a difficult situation worse.
With Connie’s help and steadfast support, Stella had made it through the difficult time and returned to her job at the bakery. She was developing a following for her breads, and June had continued to give her more freedom while increasing her responsibility and pay.
With a sigh, she picked Katrina up and carried her to her room. That was a steadfast rule Grammy had suggested Stella follow…never allow Katrina to sleep with her except when ill. She knew it was sound advice, but sometimes her bed was so lonely and cold, having even Katrina’s small presence was a relief.
She placed Katrina in the bed and covered her, kissing her on the forehead before returning to her own room. She cleaned her face and brushed her teeth, getting ready for bed. She had stopped wondering what might have been between her and Gabriel years ago, but tonight the thoughts intruded again. She shook her head as she watched herself in the mirror.
Girl! You need to stop thinking like that! It’s over! It’s been over for years! There is no more maybe, or should, or could. He made his choice and you’ve moved on. Deal with it!
She spat the toothpaste into the sink and looked at herself again. “Fuck it!” she growled at herself. I’ll see what he wants, let him say what he wants to say, then tell him he can go fuck himself and to leave me alone.
She smiled at herself in the mirror, pleased with her plan. If he showed up again and asked to talk, she would give him what he wanted then tell him to stay the hell away from her.
CHAPTER NINE It was almost four before Doc and Royal arrived back in Greenfield with the safe. It was a hand-me-down from the mother chapter in Charleston, a big, heavy bitch that would meet their needs for the foreseeable future. At almost four feet tall and two feet wide, the beast weighed over thirty-five hundred pounds and
was pure hell to move. They wanted to get the safe now, before all the walls were up, to make moving the safe easier. In effect, they were building the clubhouse around the safe.
When they arrived in Charleston for the safe, Royal was at a loss on how they were going to move the lump, but six guys and an engine hoist made short work getting the vault into the back of Doc’s truck. On the trip back, Doc called Hot Rod and a rented hoist was waiting when they arrived. They removed the tailgate and carefully backed the truck up to the large double door, secured the safe to the hoist, lifted it, and drove the truck out from underneath.
Tony grinned as the men grunted, strained and swore as they slowly worked the safe through the doors and into the clubhouse. “I thought you guys were a motorcycle gang, not a bank,” he teased when they paused before rolling it across the clubhouse.
“We’re a club, not a gang,” Doc said, shaking his right hand trying to get some feeling back into his fingers. “We operate strictly on cash, so we need a place to keep it. This is the old safe from the original chapter. They bought a new, bigger, one and gave us their old one, just to get it out of the way.”
“You’re not worried someone will break into it?”
Royal chuckled. “Good luck with that. The walls are five inches thick, the door eight, and, as you can see, it’s heavier than a dead preacher. Anyone who tries to open this bitch had better have some extra time on his hands.”
Tony chuckled and turned back to his work as the Kings put their backs into rolling the vault into the corner of the clubhouse that would eventually become the chapel, the room where club business was conducted. It was almost six before they had the safe where they wanted it, then it took them another hour to upright the thing and get it level.
Tired, bruised, sore, and stinking of sweat, Royal rode to his apartment. Now that they had a place to put it, the next thing was to pick up the seed money for the new chapter and get it in the safe, but that was for another day. Right now all he wanted was a hot shower, a cold beer, and something to eat, in that order.
He was stripping out of his clothes the moment the door shut behind him, walking straight to the bathroom without a pause. The water felt glorious, washing away not only the dirt and sweat, but also the aches he had collected shoving that bastard of a safe around. After scrubbing himself clean, he stood under the water for a long time, allowing the heat to leach out the accumulating soreness.
Finally feeling human again, he dried and dressed. As he sat on the mattress on the floor, putting on his socks, he realized the one thing he missed most was a chair. That was the next thing on his list of items to purchase: a place to sit. He had put aside every penny he could while living in Charleston, enough to get himself started in Greenfield, enough, maybe, to make a nice down payment on a little house. He’d clawed his way out of his dead-end life and he wanted to put down roots, maybe find an old lady and settle down like Doc, Hot Rod, or Hammer.
He stood and shrugged into his colors, running his fingers through his hair before walking out the door. He rode for a while before stopping at a place that caught his eye, the clever name making him smile as the looped the bike in the road before pulling into the parking lot.
He walked into Handlebar , pulling off his sunglasses and slipping them into the pocket under his vest. The bar was full of bikers, not surprising given its name, and they eyed him balefully as he entered.
“What’s on tap?” he asked as he stepped up to the bar.
“Budweiser, PBR and Bud Light,” the bartender said.
Not his first choice in beers, but he wanted a cold mug and not a bottle. “Give me a Budweiser.”
The barman expertly filled his mug and plonked it in front of him. “Three bucks.”
“Keep the change,” Royal said as he tossed a five on the bar and pulled his beer to him, taking a sip.
“Out of your territory, aren’t you?”
Royal turned to face the voice. The man was older, maybe fifty, sporting long greasy hair and beard, and was at least a hundred pounds overweight. There was another man of about the same age and build standing behind him. “We just opened a new chapter in Greenfield. We’re still setting up.”
“So you think you can just move into town and muscle everyone else out?”
Royal squinted at the guy. “We’re not trying to muscle anyone out. We coexist with the other clubs in Charleston. I don’t see any reason why we can’t do the same here.”
“Yeah, well, this isn’t Charleston. This is our bar and our town.”
Royal took another sip of his beer as he looked the bar over. There were at least ten men who appeared to be in the same club as big mouth, with perhaps ten more who wore a mixture of different patches, along with a smattering of women. There was no way he wanted to tangle with ten men, much less more if the other men came in on the side of the loud mouth.
His beer wasn’t even half finished, but he didn’t have his brothers to back him up and this was a fight he didn’t want. “Thanks,” he said to the keep as he rose.
“Hey! Don’t turn your back on me,” the fat man snarled, grabbing Royal by the shoulder and spinning him around.
“I don’t want any trouble,” Royal said softly, putting his hands up in a placating gesture as he stepped slowly backwards, trying to defuse the confrontation.
“Well, we don’t want you in our town,” the man snarled as he took a step forward. He reached out to grab Royal in one meaty fist, but all he touched was air.
Royal grabbed the hand as the bully reached for him, and twisted the wrist hard away from him, quickly rotating it as far as it would go. The thug wasn’t fast enough to compensate with the turning of his arm, and Royal heard the snap of his opponent’s wrist and elbow. As the first man went to the floor, bellowing in pain, his brother stepped in. He threw a wild left that Royal ducked under, then took the opportunity to grab the man’s right hand while he was off balance and spin him around, bringing the thug’s arm up and behind his back. The man’s roar of pain was added to the shrieks of the man on his knees as he cradled his mangled arm.
As the men’s brothers rose to their feet, Royal backed off on the pressure of the man’s arm just a bit as flicked open his knife and brought the tip to the man’s throat to press it in just enough to make the man hiss in pain and terror. “I told you I don’t want any trouble,” he growled. “Your man there has a broken wrist and elbow. This asshole is about to have a wrecked shoulder and a slit throat. It’s time to decide how badly you want to dance.”
“You can’t take us all,” one of the man snarled as handguns began to appear.
“Cut that shit out!” the barkeep roared as a shotgun appeared in his hand.
Royal glanced at the keep and noticed the shotgun was pointed at the group of men on their feet, not him. “I’m going to back out that door. I would advise you to let it end here before someone else gets sent to the hospital.”
“Go on! Get out, and don’t come back!” the keep thundered.
Royal nodded as he dragged the brute backward with him. When he reached the door, he paused. “I could have killed you, or ripped your arm off, but I didn’t,” he growled into the man’s ear, “Don’t try me again or you’ll have a lot more than a sore shoulder. Do I make myself clear?”
The man nodded ever so slightly, the point of the knife still against this neck. “Go tend to your man.” He pulled the knife away and gave the lout a hard shove that sent him stumbling back into the bar as he backed out. He quickly sheathed his knife to free his hands, and then moved to the side of the door. He waited a moment and, as expected, two men came rushing out.
A quick jab to the throat of the first man as he passed sent him stumbling to the ground, his hands going to his throat as he gasped and gagged. The second man tried to turn to face Royal, but he was too slow, far too slow. Using his momentum against him, Royal stepped in behind him and wrapped his arm around the man’s throat and cinched it down tight, pressing the man’s head forward into the chok
e with his other hand and compressing the carotid arteries to starve the brain of oxygen. In less than ten seconds Royal felt the man go limp and he let him go, allowing him to fall to the ground. He would wake up in a few moments feeling lightheaded and disoriented, but with no other damage.
He waited a moment longer but nobody else came out. Watching his back he moved quickly to this hog and mounted up. His sunglasses were hopelessly mangled from the chokehold he put on the last guy, so he tossed them onto the parking lot in disgust, thumbed his bike to life, and roared away before anything else could happen.
Pissed off over what happened he prowled the streets of Greenfield until he had regained his balance. Once he had his calm, he stopped at another bar. This time he was able to enjoy is beer in peace and nobody hassled him. Whether it was because it was a friendlier bar, wasn’t full of bikers, or he was in no mood to take any more shit off of anyone and it probably showed, he didn’t care.
BENT AT THE ALTAR Page 30
