“Get out, Rack,” Johnnie ordered. A nomad and Outlaw’s cousin—brother—at one time, Rack had all but kissed Johnnie’s ass to stay on Logan’s good side. Once Logan disappeared, he’d had to tow the fucking line with Outlaw. Big Joe would have it no other way. “Stay far the fuck away from Meggie and Zoann.”
Not responding, Rack stomped out of the room. Johnnie thrust his fingers through his hair and walked to the side of Outlaw’s bed.
“It’s John Boy.” As expected, Outlaw didn’t move and Johnnie squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Aunt Patricia is out in the waiting room.” Nothing. “If you die, I think she’ll die with you.”
Outlaw groaned and his eyelashes fluttered. “Megan…?” he whispered and closed his eyes again.
In his drugged up state, Val didn’t think Outlaw knew anyone sat vigil and watched him so intently. They took his movements and word as an encouraging sign.
Johnnie nodded. “He’s going to be fine,” he said, his relief clear.
“Yeah,” Mortician agreed, standing. “I think he finally found somebody to live for. For that shit alone, I’d fucking die to protect her.”
As they made their way to the cafeteria, Zoann’s coworkers stopped her and asked about Christopher’s condition. As far as she knew, he’d stabilized. She hadn’t had a chance to get all the details before she’d walked in and found Meggie going up against Rack.
Of all people.
Now, though, she didn’t know what to say to the younger woman. Except…“Thank you,” she said quietly as they stood side-by-side at the coffee station.
Meggie rubbed her eyes again. She looked exhausted. “For what?”
“For saving my brother.”
She nodded and went about fixing her coffee in silence before finding a small table near the window to stare listlessly out of, her sad eyes touching Zoann.
As a member of the staff, she had access to the small courtyard outside and she desperately needed fresh air at the moment. “C’mon,” she urged, not waiting for Meggie but heading toward the locked doors, accessible only with her key card. She pulled it out of her pocket and slid it over the magnetic reader. Like magic, the doors opened and cool fall air hit them.
Meggie headed for the stone bench sitting amidst shrubbery and trees. She sipped her coffee and then combed her fingers through her hair.
Setting her own cup next to Meggie, Zoann rifled through her purse for a brush, handing it to Meggie once she’d found it.
A smile touched Meggie’s lips. “That bad, huh?”
“No,” Zoann said honestly. “I just thought you’d prefer a brush over your fingers.”
“I don’t have dandruff or anything,” she said, taking the brush from Zoann and running it through her hair after setting her coffee aside.
“I didn’t think you did.” She hadn’t thought at all. She just needed something to occupy their time and fill her headspace with thoughts other than of Rack holding her legs open and watching her bleed. Those memories didn’t help the shame, guilt, and satiation over the time she’d spent with Matthew. Needing something to do, she went behind Meggie and grabbed the brush from her to do the task herself.
“You two aren’t very close, are you?”
Zoann paused her hand, not sure how to answer that.
“Kind of like me and my daddy are…were,” she amended softly. “I didn’t see him often, but I knew…I knew I could always count on him. But he’s dead.”
Unable to deal with the hurt in Meggie’s voice, Zoann dropped the brush into the girl’s lap, picked up her coffee again, and sat, facing the opposite direction. She’d offer no condolences for Big Joe’s death. To her, he fell in the same category as Rack and Cee Cee. Obviously, though, Big Joe had only shown his daughter the best of himself.
“Did you come for him?”
“My mom needed his help.” Meggie rolled her shoulders, then leaned over and covered her face with her hands, her elbows on her knees, ignoring the brush as it slipped onto the stones. “I needed his help, I mean, for my mom. Thomas is going to kill her eventually and I can’t get her to fight back. I’ve called the police and she denies everything and that gets me in trouble with her husband. I can’t make her do anything, but Daddy would. He’d at least get her to leave.”
Zoann didn’t know if Meggie talked to be comforted or if she did so to inform Zoann about the reason she’d ended up with Christopher. Or, maybe, stress made her blurt her life story. Whatever the cause, her words led to a burning question. Christopher was an asshole, but Zoann didn’t want a girl to use him…who was she kidding? He used girls all the time. But he’d never brought one to the hospital and refused to leave her side, after footing the entire bill.
“And you’re with Christopher because you have nowhere else to go? Because you two are lovers? Why?”
High color swept across Meggie’s features. “He fascinates me. He…I’ve never met anyone like him. He’s so amazing.”
“He’s an asshole,” Zoann retorted before she could stop herself.
Meggie sidled a glare at Zoann. “Perhaps, he has a reason to be an asshole to you. I don’t know you, so I’m not sure. But for every one of his actions, he has a valid cause.”
“How long have you known him?”
“A couple weeks.”
“After a couple weeks you think you know everything there is to know about him? He’s a fucking biker. Sooner or later, he’ll walk away and leave you.”
“I know,” Meggie said slowly. “I don’t know why you asked me about my reasons for being with your brother, but I’ll be right at his side as long as he allows me. I swear I’ll always take care of him.”
Zoann’s topsy-turvy emotions had her flipping from side-to-side. This wasn’t her business and she shouldn’t care one way or the other if some random chick fucked over Christopher. However, the chick in question needed a safe haven to protect her heart—her very life—from bikers.
A rap on the door made Zoann gaze in that direction and she groaned when she saw her mother standing there. Silent, she went and opened the door so Patricia could slip in. Once the glass door was securely locked, Zoann turned and smiled when her mother hugged her and kissed her cheek. Her heart ached at the worry in Patricia’s brown eyes, although she didn’t notice Zoann’s feelings as she focused on Meggie.
“Hello,” Meggie murmured, coming to her feet.
Patricia nodded.
“I need to get back to Christopher.”
Not waiting around, Meggie left, leaving Zoann alone with her mother.
“She’s very young,” Patricia began with a sniff and dropped onto the bench.
Zoann sighed. “Does it matter? She’s making him happy.”
“That’s Joseph’s girl.”
So? Zoann wondered at her mother’s tone. And words. Meggie didn’t ask to be “Joseph’s girl”. For whatever reason Patricia had forgiven Big Joe and, later, became his lover, Zoann didn’t quite understand.
Her face crumpling, Patricia glanced away. “Don’t get that look.”
“What do you want me to say, Momma?” Zoann asked around her usual bitterness at the thought of her mother being with Big Joe. He’d held her down and—
Patricia dropped onto the bench and looked at the shrubbery. “He did what he had to do to protect you from a pregnancy.”
“So you’ve told me over and over again when you care to let me talk about it.”
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am that this happened to you, my beautiful girl. If I could’ve traded places with you, I would have. But you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She hesitated. “Caught in a misunderstanding of club business.”
Something else she’d heard over the years from her mother. But she always suspected Patricia hid information from her, then she’d call herself an idiot. Momma had absolutely no reason to withhold anything. “Big Joe’s dead now,” Zoann said quietly, and winced at the tears rushing to her mother’s eyes. “Can I…I-I need help, Momma. It s
till hurts inside so bad.”
After last night with Matthew and throwing up in the wake of such pleasure, she had to face it once and for all. She’d done her best to bury it, but she wanted to have a normal life. She’d always been the type of person to talk out her problems.
“No!” Momma flared as usual. “It’s no secret of how I conceived your brother. I dealt with it on my own and you will, too. It’s our business. No one else’s. You’re better than blabbing out your problems to strangers.”
She licked her lips, feeling like that helpless seventeen-year-old again. “Then let me go back to volunteering at the crisis center.”
A year after her rape, she’d began volunteering at a rape crisis center. Two months later, the center’s director had called her into her office to let her go, citing an inability to handle the victim’s trauma. Big Joe had called the lady and told her Zoann threatened suicide.
After that, she’d almost committed suicide. She’d been so miserable, her thoughts, anger, and pain directed to Christopher—all bikers—turning inward and almost eating her alive. Big Joe thwarted every attempt she made to help others or to get help. Now, though, the overbearing man was gone and the others didn’t care enough about the situation to interfere as long as Momma didn’t protest.
“None of that, Zoann.” Patricia gave her a level, steady look. “We are on the peripheral of Christopher’s world, but we have to protect him.”
She’d heard that often enough, too, but so many years had passed, what could possibly happen? Besides…“Protect him? He never protected me.”
“You’re a strong, sensible woman,” Patricia said softly. “You’re twenty-six-years old. Old enough to know you can’t expect others to do for you what you do for them. You know you have no business entertaining thoughts of volunteering anywhere which is why you’re asking me. For validation I refuse to give to you.”
“We can go together.”
“I love you so very much, Zoann. But…please. Forget this. Deal with it on your own. Please. For me. The fate…Christopher’s happiness depends on your silence.”
“You’re so unfair!” she cried. Why should she care about Christopher’s happiness?
“This is life. Life’s unfair. I know you’ll never understand why I took up with Big Joe. I was lonely and hurt. He explained a lot to me. A lot. My father….” She closed her eyes and swiped at the escaping tears.
“What about Granddaddy?” she asked, curious, the devastation in her mother’s voice cutting through her.
“He was a complicated man and…I came to terms with everything with the help of Joseph. I know that’s difficult for you to understand but you have only two choices: accept it and forgive me or don’t accept it and don’t forgive me.”
Her mother made her so angry, but how could Zoann not forgive her? They had issues but Patricia loved Zoann as much as Zoann loved her. They were friends, too.
“Okay, Momma.”
Getting to her feet, Patricia held out her arms and Zoann eagerly stepped into them, refusing to fall apart here and now. She had to suck this in. If not for her brother, than for her mother, who’d had to raise the product of her rape. Not once had she ever withheld her love for Christopher, either.
Zoann could do this. She could.
“As for this Meggie girl,” Patricia began, patting Zoann’s hair and stepping back, “I don’t care if she’s Joseph’s daughter or not. Christopher’s my son and he deserves a girl who’ll stand by his side no matter what. A young girl like her hasn’t lived enough to know the meaning of love or loyalty.”
Meggie seemed nice enough and if her mother forgave the man himself enough to sleep with him, Zoann could overlook Meggie being his daughter.
“Christopher needs—”
“MOTHER!” Zoann said in exasperation.
No woman on earth would ever be good enough for Christopher. If she ever found a man she trusted enough to bare herself to and get pregnant for, and she had a son, she’d never be so blinded that anyone he brought home wouldn’t suffice.
“Give her a chance. I-I mean if he truly cares about her as much as I think he does, then you’re just going to have to learn to deal with her. She swears she’ll take care of him.”
“She’s saying that because she has nowhere else to go.”
Zoann noticed Matthew and Johnnie walking to the sandwich counter. Johnnie wore a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, minus his cut, but he still caused heads to turn. And, they knew it, too, openly flirting with whatever woman who caught their eye. It shouldn’t bother her that Matthew bent and whispered to a short-haired girl. They’d only had last night together. She’d needed him and he’d been there.
There was nothing more to their encounter than that.
Chapter Seven
Two pink lines.
Pregnancy test number five produced the same results that one, two, three and four had. Zoann was expecting Matthew’s baby. That had to be wrong, though. How many days late was her cycle?
Early pregnancy test, Zoann. They didn’t have that label for nothing. When she went on duty, she’d go to the lab. If Sylvie wasn’t too busy, Zoann would get her blood drawn.
Glancing at the stick again, she sat on the edge of her bed, thinking of Matthew. Somehow, after the first night, he’d gotten into her panties a lot, although she’d convinced him to forego oral sex.
Two days ago, full of fresh bruises he’d earned in a fight that he claimed left the other motherfucker looking worse, he’d pressed her to suck him off. She’d ridiculously demanded he leave the club and their argument ended up out of control.
“It’s that stinking club and those whores you hang around who put these ideas in your head.”
Unlike the buttons he’d unwittingly pushed when he’d called her a slut, he hadn’t come back and apologized for all the filthy names he’d rained upon her. They hadn’t spoken since he’d stormed out of her house.
For most of her life, she’d lived on the periphery of the club. She didn’t quite understand the huge role it always played in their lives, but their brotherhood was sacrosanct. Blaspheme to the Holy Trinity? Fine. Talk against their MC? Issues arose. And demand they love? Not done.
Maybe, he was leaving, anyway. He no longer resided at the club, instead living somewhere else. Without explaining why, he’d rattled off the address before their fight.
With one week to Christmas, she had a lot to be thankful for, her brother’s life most of all. Bringing her and Val back together, too. She wanted Val to spend the holidays with her in Long Beach with her family. She’d apologize about her role in their argument and entice him with the fact that Christopher had arrived at the house three days before. Her mother was over the moon and, wonder of all wonders, seemed to have fallen in love with Meggie.
Zoann was anxious to know the girl a little better. Christopher was angry with her—again. He’d wanted Meggie to stay with Zoann and Zoann had agreed if he lost all contact with her.
Meggie didn’t seem to be the type of girl who’d be happy with a biker for the rest of her life. Getting her away from the MC was the only way Zoann could protect her. Sooner or later, Christopher would leave her high and dry. He just didn’t have it in him not to hurt others. Patricia had shed bitter tears over him. As had she. Sooner or later, Meggie would, too.
Maybe, over the holidays, Zoann and Meggie would get a chance to talk. Right now, she needed to talk to Val, explain to him about the pregnancy tests. Picking up her phone, she started to dial his number, her gaze falling on the pee sticks. No, maybe, she needed to show him. How could she tell him over the telephone he’d be a father with the way they’d parted ways the last time? Face to face, she could see his reactions.
She aborted the call and headed for the bathroom. On her way to work, she’d stop at the place where Val was staying. If everything went well, she’d go through with her plans to invite him to spend Christmas with her.
Only a few bikes were parked in the yard of Val’s new residence.
A man with a blond ponytail sat on the porch railing, talking to Rack and Zoann heaved in a breath. Joey looked a lot like his father, even though he had the reputation of a snake, hence his road name.
She parked her car yards away from them. The bright light shining on her allowed Rack and his beady eyes to watch her. Since she’d driven all this way, she picked up her phone and dialed Val’s number, but it went to voicemail.
She threw her cellphone aside and leaned against the steering wheel, scowling when her purse fell over and coins clanked everywhere. She must not have zipped her bag up.
Great.
She’d collect her stuff and break the news to Val over the telephone. No way would she get out and get anywhere near those bikers. As the thought crossed her mind, Rack knocked on her window. Ignoring him, she put her car in reverse, gasping when Joey loomed behind her. She slammed on her breaks, glaring at Rack tapping the glass again.
She jabbed the button and rolled the window down, praying for safety and wondering if she should’ve just run over Joey. “What?”
Rack pulled a toothpick from the side of his mouth and tapped her nose with it.
“Oh my God, you’re so gross,” she complained, scrubbing her nose and swearing his spit burned her skin. “I’ve been contaminated with hazardous material.”
“Nothing but spit on it, Zoann,” Rack growled.
“From your mouth and we all know your mouth should be condemned as a threat to humanity.”
Snake shoved Rack aside, guffawing like a lunatic. He snatched open her door and stepped aside, bowing and making a sweeping gesture toward the porch. “You’re here for Val, I suppose.”
Fucking idiot. The oddity of the scene clicked into place. Christopher and Snake were mortal enemies, so Val—or Rack—should have nothing to do with him.
“I can talk to him later.”
Snake grabbed her elbow and yanked her out, his vicious satisfaction twisting her stomach. She tightened her jaw, his lascivious smirk cluing her in. “You know, don’t you?”
Death Dwellers Motorcycle Club:: Fifteen Bad Boy Biker Books Page 129
