I loved hearing her pet name for me again.
“I know that you think the people I hang around with are…”
“Unsavory?” I asked with a faint smile.
“Sure. We can go with that. But, I need you to trust me. OK?”
I nodded. “OK.” I needed help. I’d take what I could get.
“My friend, Rock, is coming to your house tomorrow. You’re leaving with him.”
“I’m not leaving Beck.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t let you. Rock will take you and Beck outside of Frisco. You’re going to stay with his mom for a few days. She will take care of you. While you are there, she will watch Beck while you look for a place to stay…to live.”
I shook my head. “I’m not leaving Beck.”
“Fine. But it will be easier if you allow her to watch him. He’ll be safe. And driving around the Rockies won’t be easy with a baby.”
What the hell had happened? How was this my life? I glanced from the family picture of the three of us—Ian, Beck and me—centered on the living room wall, to my tiny son laying in Ari’s arms, to the damn papers on the coffee table. My options were limited, I knew that. I could stay and fight for Beck, but the reality was the Senator had the influence and affluence that I didn’t. She was alleging drug use? This was ridiculous. She was a monster. Now the sister that had somewhat robbed me of my past was navigating my future. I was putting my life and my baby’s life in her hands.
In the past twelve hours, I hadn’t had the luxury to grieve. My heart had been ripped out, kicked around and shoved back into my chest with little to no time to mourn. I packed as much as I could, mainly pictures and some clothes, and went over accounts and things with Ari. Ari thought it was best if we left anything of Ian’s alone. That way no one would take notice.
A low rumble caught our attention and we met in the hallway.
“I think that’s Rock. Though it sounds like more than one bike. Where’s Beck?”
I tilted my head back toward his room.
“Stay here with him.”
I back stepped until my back lay flush with Beck’s door. While I stood there with nothing in my hands, nothing to fight with, nothing to protect my son or myself…it hit me in that hallway that my entire past had been spent as a victim. Wounded when Ian found me, he helped rebuild a woman that had never really existed. I was Ian’s wife. Beck’s mom. But it was time to become Mela McKinley, and I had the opportunity to define who she was going to be. Never again would I stand ill prepared or unprotected. Ever.
Six minutes later, I stood with my mouth hanging open. A motorcycle gang stood inside of my house. Ian’s house. Jeans, chaps, boots, doo rags, tats, the whole shebang. All eyes flickered back and forth between Ari and me.
“Well, she’s your twin, that’s for sure,” Rock said, rubbing his hands together. We might be identical, but it was obvious he knew which one was Ari. His eyes lit when he looked at her.
“Nice to meet you,” I greeted.
“Mela. This is Rock, Mikey, Two, Duckie, Woody and Dano. Why’d you bring the whole crew?” Ari asked.
I started chewing on my lip. “The more people that know about this, the more likely it’ll be that they find me.”
Rock stepped toward me, causing me to back up a step. I still needed to work on this bravery thing.
“Mela. These men would die before they’d betray me. Hurting Ari’s sister in any way…trust me…they’d meet death.”
All five of them stared at me.
Rock was rough around the edges but very handsome. A scar stretched the length of his cheek but somehow looked sexy. He wrapped his arm around Ari.
“My thought was—the more bikes, the easier it would be for anyone to come and go without being detected. We brought the trike for the boy.”
Ari’s eyes flickered over to mine. Hesitation lurked in hers.
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“We think it’s best if we sneak Beck out. If they are watching the house then they won’t think a thing when the bikes leave.”
“Beck is going to be on the motorcycle?” My voice shot up an octave.
“No. Not exactly. The trike has storage,” Ari explained.
My eyes shot wider.
The guy they called Woody stepped up. “It’s vented storage. I’ll drive very carefully. And we’re only talking a short distance.”
His soft eyes bore into mine, trying to console me from across the room. “I’ll take care of him,” he assured.
I gripped my shirt, trying to pull it away from my chest. I couldn’t breathe, and it only seemed to worsen the more I tried.
“Duckie,” Rock said and motioned for one of the guys to help. The longer-haired guy rushed toward me.
“Let’s sit her down. Ari, was she hurt in the accident?”
I shook my head but at the same time pointed to the stitches beneath my hair. I couldn’t catch my breath.
“May I look at your chest?”
“He’s a doctor, Me.” Ari interjected.
Duckie didn’t look like a doctor. Dr. Duckie. What the hell was going on with my life?
I raised my t-shirt baring my skin to all of them.
“Look here, darlin’,” he said, pointing to my chest. “The seat belt secured you in place, but you’re bruised.”
Wow…I could see the complete outline of the belt diagonally across my chest.
“It’s gonna hurt when you breathe for a few days. May I touch you?”
I nodded. His calloused hand applied pressure to my ribs on both sides. “Hurt?”
“No,” I whispered and was suddenly overcome with grief. I didn’t want Dr. Duckie touching me. I wanted Ian. I wanted my husband. My prince.
Tears trickled silently down my cheeks.
“Ari,” Rock said, tilting his head toward me.
“Come on, Me. Let’s rest.”
Before I realized it, my hand shot up against her chest. Not in an aggressive way but just to stop her.
“What if we stay…Beck and I? What if we stay and fight? I’m his mother. The court can’t just take him for no reason?”
Ari bobbed her head up and down. “Then I’ll stay and fight too.”
“Why don’t we get her and the boy out of here, and you go to court to see what she’s up against? Trust me, outside of your attire, there is little difference. They’ll never know,” Rock said.
The look on Ari’s face made me nervous. Then she broke out into a full-blown smile.
“Do you know how long it’s been since I played like I was you?” she asked softly.
A tight smile pulled at my lips. For God’s sake, she was extraordinarily beautiful, and though in my head I knew I mirrored her—there was no part of me that felt it. Ian had done so much to reinforce that, but in that moment, I wanted to be invisible.
She was right, we used to swap in and out of classes…I was the science and English girl, she was math and social studies. It was clear early on with boys too. I’d sit through dates, movies, dinner…she took care of business in the bedroom. College was when guys started being inappropriate, groping me because she’d led them on or done more than she should. When she dropped out for the porn world…I had three years of peace until she became the focus of every man’s fantasy.
“Mela? What are you thinking?”
“I’ll go with Rock and take Beck. You go to court.”
She nodded. “Done.”
One of the guys held up his phone and turned his back to us. The back of his jacket read Scars of Warriors MC.
Everyone in the room watched him. I tried to figure out his name by process of elimination. He was either Two or Mikey.
“What’s up?” Rock asked him when he hung up.
“Marco just drove past. A black Lincoln is down the block. Wrong side of the street. Watching the house.”
Rock scratched his perfectly round bald head. “Mela? I should have asked this before. Are you opposed to weapons in your hous
e?”
“Like guns?”
“Yes.”
My earlier thought of protecting Beck flitted through my brain. “No.”
His terse nod addressed me. “Everyone unload. We are all staying here tonight. We will get them both out at daylight.”
Daylight? I would be leaving Ian’s house, my house, possibly forever at daylight. The sound of metal clanking brought my tearful eyes wide. The men were removing their jackets and laying guns on the counter in the kitchen. Ari’s arm came around my shoulders.
“Let’s go check on Beck.”
As my tears broke their barriers, I turned around, leaving a damn motorcycle gang with their arsenal of guns standing in my kitchen.
After checking on Beck around 3 a.m., I padded out to the living room where most of the men slept. Ian was the only person who’d truly ever taken care of me. Yet, as I stood looking around at the men sleeping on the sofa, recliner, and floor—a strange sense of safety settled through me. The guns that earlier had rested on my kitchen counter now rested next to each of them. Rock must have been in the bedroom with Ari.
In the kitchen, I grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and studied the pictures of Ian and Beck stuck with magnets on the front. A lump the size of Texas wedged in my throat as I silently cried, rolling the bottle of water over my neck, trying to find anything that might alleviate the pain.
“I lost my wife four and a half years ago.”
Startled, I dropped the bottle of water. Rock sat in a chair near the window in the dining room behind the curtain. A pistol rested on his thigh.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
He tilted his head toward the window. “Watching the front door. Making sure we have no visitors.”
I lugged a chair from the table and parked it near him. Once I sat, I drew my legs into my chest. “What happened to your wife?”
“Drunk driver hit her on her bike.”
“Motorcycle?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Bicycle. Seven-thirty in the morning.”
It seemed as if I had enough tears for the entire world—a never-ending supply. “I’m so sorry,” I choked out. “Is this where you tell me that the pain will fade?”
“Nope. Not a chance. It doesn’t really fade. I think about Dee every day. Never thought I’d love anyone ever again.”
In my heart, I knew I’d never love anyone again. Ever.
“But you did?”
Rock suddenly glided forward in his seat, the top of his gun making a hinging sound, and zeroed in on something outside. Within seconds two of the guys were in the kitchen with us and two were in the hallway, bearing down on the front door with their presence. How the hell did they hear that?
Rock’s barrel marked someone walking down the sidewalk out front.
“Who the fuck walks down the sidewalk at 3 in the goddamn morning?” Rock growled.
“We clear?” a voice from the hallway asked.
The only thing I could hear was my heart pounding in my ears and drowning out my panting. Instinctively, I darted in to check on Beck. When I rounded the corner, Duckie raised his gun, then immediately disengaged it, lowering it to the ground.
“I’m sorry, Mela.”
My wide-eyed stare didn’t falter. Slowly, he reached out to me.
“I told you Mela. No one will hurt your baby.”
I’d known these men only seven hours; yet, they’d kill for Beck and me. That sort of loyalty…protectiveness… was foreign to me.
Duckie sat in the rocker. “Go ahead and finish what you were doing. I’ll stay with the little guy.”
My future wasn’t even vaguely an image I could see. It was a thousand-piece puzzle in a box with missing pieces. Would Beck be raised on a motorcycle with guns within his reach? In order to get away from Ian’s mother, would we have to become different people…new identities?
When I walked past the living room, the guys had resumed their positions from earlier, and Rock continued to stand vigil at the window.
“Thank you for the protection…the help…all you’re doing for me.”
Using another chair for his feet, he kicked them up, relaxing back.
“Mela. I’m in love with your sister. I’d do anything for her. She wants you taken care of, protected. That’s what we’ll do.”
My chest swelled with gratitude. “So you did find love again?”
A low chuckle reverberated through his chest, and he glanced over at me.
“Darlin’, your sister knocked me on my ass like never before. With all due respect to Dee…” he took a deep breath. “I’d have killed for Dee. I’d kill for anyone of those guys in there. But I’d die for your sister, in a second.”
Warm tears streaked my face again as I listened to him.
“Does she love you?”
“Yes.”
“How do you deal with it? With her…line of work?”
He shook his head. “I don’t like talking about it.”
The room fell silent as he studied the front yard.
“She’s lucky to have you. To have all of you,” I whispered as I stood and slid the chair back under the table. Before I left the room, he spoke.
“I fell in love with her for who she is not what she does. I need her to stop the other on her own.”
I glanced back, offering him a tight smile. “I get it.”
“And Mela. We are leaving at daylight. We need to move before those people out there realize something is going down.”
Rock’s gaze left me and began watching the darkness once again. I swallowed the fear and anxiety lurking in my stomach. A tiny life counted on me to be strong and full of courage…I wasn’t going to let him down.
“Mela. Wake up.” The rough whisper ran through my ears.
As I came to, the pain of reality speared through me again. Ian…dead. The possibility of Beck being taken from me. Every time I awoke, I hoped for a different reality.
Duckie hovered over me.
“You feeling ok?” he asked.
My neck craned around him to see an empty crib. Oddly, I knew Beck was ok.
“Achy,” I answered. “Beck?”
“Ari has him. But the lil’ bugger is hungry.” He winked.
It was then that I noticed the fullness of my breasts and the sudden tingling that accompanied my milk falling.
In the kitchen, Ari cradled Beck tenderly in her arms. I couldn’t help but wonder if he could tell the difference between us. Ari wore what looked like my yoga pants, my Chicago Cubs sweatshirt and my tennis shoes. A sharp contrast from her ripped jeans and off-the-shoulder halter-top she wore yesterday.
“As much as I adore this little fella…I got nothin’ for him, and trust me, he’s nudging them.” She grinned as she handed Beck to me.
Rock instantly stood, swirled his finger in the air, then pointed to the other room. The entire gang vacated the room leaving Ari and me alone so I could breastfeed.
As Beck attached, I covered myself, then stared at her. “Wanna tell me why you’re in my clothes?”
She poured herself a cup of coffee, then sat next to me.
“Rock’s plan is that I take Beck out for a walk…looking like you. Once Beck and I are around the block, you and he are going to take off.”
Fear flickered in my eyes.
Ari patted my hand. “Me. This is going to work. Trust me. Trust us. These guys will take care of you.”
Beneath the blanket, Beck feasted. His life was in my hands, and I was entrusting it to complete strangers. Yet, somehow I trusted these people more than Beck’s real family.
Within forty-five minutes, I was dressed in Ari’s inappropriate, bright red halter and ripped-up jeans and my hair was up in a messy bun with a bandana weaved through it. As I stared at Ari in my clothes, emotion overwhelmed me. We’d finally reconnected; yet we stood face to face saying farewell once again. Her brown eyes resembled muddy water as her tears fought to not fall too.
“We aren’t saying g
oodbye,” she said, her lip trembling.
I nodded, consequently forcing my tears to break free.
“Never,” I whispered. “I love you. Thank you for…”
“Keeping my sister and nephew safe? Don’t thank me. I owe you.”
She spun on her heels and nearly stomped to the front door.
“I’ve never been for a walk around an entire block in my life. I’ve been around the block but…” she laughed and stopped next to Rock. “Keep her safe.”
Rock kissed her forehead. “You know I will, darlin’.”
I leaned down and kissed the most precious thing in my life. A small bandage covered the cut they had glued together at the hospital. I was banking on the hope that I would see him in a few short hours. He smelled like sunscreen, but I still inhaled his scent as deeply as my lungs would allow.
And just like that Ari and Beck were gone.
She’d only been gone about 15 minutes when Rock rallied the troops to the kitchen. My stomach twisted in a painful knot as I stood, waiting for his instruction.
“Mela and I, Duckie, Two and Dano are going left out of the drive. Woody and Mikey are going right. Roach is down the street working on road construction, watching to see how many vehicles move after we leave. If we are followed, we have a car behind the pub downtown where we will go. Woody and Mikey, you two will drive to the Harley store. Everyone knows our signals. Questions?”
A hundred questions rummaged through my head, but I stood quietly waiting for someone to step up and say how crazy this was. As they talked through the details, I looked at the tattoos on their arms. I was sure each one told a story.
“Let’s saddle up.”
Saddle up? Did that mean we were leaving? Rock’s hand rested at the small of my back.
“Once we are on the bike, Ari usually looks over my left shoulder and holds onto my gut.” He winked. “Sexy, I know.”
Rock didn’t have a gut. I tried to smile but wasn’t sure it made it to my lips.
“I’m scared,” I squeaked out.
“I know. I got you.”
I’d never hoisted my leg up and over anything other than a bicycle. The minute the garage door opened, a rumble so loud…so intense that I felt it in my chest, roared to life. I wanted to cover my ears but instead, I held onto Rock and stared off into the horizon over his left shoulder.
Scars and Tats Page 3
