Blind Devotion (Steel Jackals MC Book 1)

by Nancy Haviland

  With Josh.

  She turned the corner, aiming for the Steel Jackals’ clubhouse where he’d promised to meet her. He wanted to know about the marks she’d received from the summer-school classes she’d taken so she’d be ahead when she started her junior year the following month. She was already working toward qualifying for scholarships so she could go to college, at Josh’s urging.

  She looked up from the sidewalk and almost tripped when she saw flashing lights ahead. Her heart seized and then started hammering. Police cars. Oh…no.

  Please not one of mine, she prayed as she ran as fast as she could the remaining half block. She rudely pushed through the group of onlookers watching a police officer walk someone to one of the patrol cars. Please not Josh or Uncle Nick, please not Josh or Uncle—

  It was Josh. Handcuffed.

  “No!” she gasped, her blood turning to ice. “Josh!” She dropped her backpack, purse, and the sealed envelope containing her marks and ran to him on legs she couldn’t feel. “No! What are you doing?” She grabbed the cop’s arm and jerked. “You can’t take him! He’s mine!”

  “Aw, fuck.” Josh’s whisper was tight with regret, and she saw more of the same when he turned. His forehead had a deep crease and his jaw was ticking. “Gimme a second,” he said to the cop, who had to have seen she was having trouble catching her breath from the panic pouring into her. He and Josh exchanged a look. They obviously knew each other.

  “Take these off before you go.” She patted the cuffs and tried to get some oxygen into her lungs. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Tish—”

  “You didn’t, though,” she insisted, even though she had no clue what this was about. She just knew they couldn’t take her happiness away from her. “Please take these off,” she begged the cop as she tried to stop the metal of the cuffs from digging into Josh’s thick wrists. “Please! They’re hurting him!”

  “Don’t be long, man,” the officer muttered with a sympathetic look before walking over to stand a few feet away.

  “Don’t be— What?” she screeched.

  “Hey. Hey! Look at me. Right here.” Josh bobbed his head to get in her line of sight, making it impossible for her to ignore those gold eyes she so loved. “This is happening,” he said calmly. “You need to take a breath and relax before it goes from bad to worse. If one of these cops thinks to pull you away from me, shit’s gonna get critical real fast. Got it?”

  She shook her head and looked around for someone she could talk to. Someone who would listen to her, help her.

  “Tish-Tosh.”

  His nickname for her—one he thought she hated, but really, she secretly loved it—had her focus coming right back to him.

  “You’re gonna be okay, honey. I won’t be in long. Nick will take—”

  “Oh, my God, no,” she wailed. In meant he was preparing to do time. “You’re not going anywhere. You can’t. You’re mine, and I need you here.”

  With a pained grimace, he tipped his head back and glared up at the sky. “Two fuckin’ minutes? You couldn’t have given me two fuckin’ minutes to save her from this?” When he brought his head to rights, he looked into her eyes and his expression closed up in that way she hated. “Get her out of here. This isn’t good for her.”

  She looked around to see who he was talking to and found her Uncle Nick and the club’s VP right behind her. A large group of the others, all wearing their cuts, weren’t far behind. Silent support. Always.

  “No. I’m not leaving. You have to do something, Uncle Nick,” she implored as she clamped her arms around Josh’s waist and held on for her life. “This can’t be happening. Please tell me this isn’t happening,” she whispered fiercely.

  The next few minutes were a blur of pain and misery. How Tish made it through, she wasn’t sure. She felt Josh drop a lingering kiss to the top of her head, and then it took both Nick and Chase to peel her off. Once they were separated, the cop put his hand on Josh’s head and tucked that huge body into the backseat of the squad car. When he shut the door, Tish went wild and started screaming.

  Only, in reality, she had stilled, and not a sound was coming from her. The screams were deafening, but they were buried deep in her head. In her heart. Tearing apart her soul.

  “He’ll be out before you know it, Tish,” Nick said, his voice rough with something that sounded a lot like guilt.

  She shook her head and disengaged herself from his arms. Taking one step toward her sun, she tried to see beyond his shuttered expression. He didn’t allow it, but that was okay, she saw him anyway.

  “I love you.”

  It was the first time she’d ever uttered those words to another person. She didn’t shout them. She didn’t repeat them. She said them once. Then stood there and watched her life disappear down the street.

  A few hours later, she was sitting on one of the puffy couches next to the pool table in the clubhouse, frozen to the bone. Nick had gone to the bathroom, leaving her alone for the first time since they’d taken Josh away. What did he think she was going to do? Kill herself? She made a soft sound. No. That would be silly. She couldn’t be with Josh if she was dead. She couldn’t visit him. Couldn’t wait for him. Be there for him when he came home. Right now, she simply needed her questions answered. Why wouldn’t anyone tell her why he’d been arrested?

  She glanced to the side when a dark shape rushed to her. Expecting to see Chase’s dog, Nom, Tish was surprised when it turned out to be Rachel. She was hunched over as if trying to hide in plain view. But there was no one left to hide from. Everyone had gone home except for Tish, Nick, Chase, and two of the other guys.

  Rachel landed on her knees at Tish’s feet. “I’m sorry,” her mom whispered, eyes wild because she was high. “I’m sorry.”

  The repeated whisper was eerie enough to raise the hair on Tish’s nape, but she nodded anyway, accepting her mother’s idea of condolences even though they didn’t mean much right then.

  “I didn’t mean to take him away from you. I know how close you are. Sorrysorrysorry…”

  The bottom fell out of Tish’s stomach. “What did you say?”

  “I didn’t mean it. It was an accident!” Rachel hissed. “I grabbed his jacket and put it on to go down the street to make a buy. I thought it was Nick’s!” She glanced behind her, as though afraid someone might catch her tattling. “When I came in, I tossed the jacket but forgot my shit in the pocket because I took a bump outside. When the cops landed with the warrant and pushed us all to the side, I was too scared to grab my stash ’cause I bought double this time and I wouldn’t have made it to the door without them seein’ me, right?”

  Tish sat there, her eyes wide, her heart barely beating as she listened to this selfish person once more try to excuse her behavior.

  “When the cops waved the jacket around and Josh put his hand up to claim it, I almost fuckin’ died. Then they took my shit out of the pocket, and, well, I couldn’t say anything then! You wouldn’t have either! And…and he didn’t even seem to care!” She was talking fast and no longer whispering now because she’d spotted Nick and Chase coming from the back hallway. Both men looked livid. “Ask anyone! You know what he said? You know what that asshole said?” She deepened her voice to imitate Josh. “‘Better me than you. Go home and take care of Tish.’ Like I need him to tell me how to take care of my kid.”

  As her uncle and his VP descended and all but dragged Rachel away, it was at that moment, after everything they’d been through, that Tish’s love for her mother finally died.

  ONE

  Three Years Later

  “Is this okay, Tish? I’m strapped for time tonight.”

  Trying not to smile, Tish nodded and got out of her co-worker’s car at the end of her street rather than at the foot of her driveway where she was normally let off. “No worries. Tell Meredith I said hi.”

  “Will do. ‘Night.”

  With a chirp of his tires, Brian took off to have sex with one of Tish’s fri
ends. She’d known them both since seventh grade. Lucky, too. It had saved her dying from embarrassment when she’d overheard Meredith’s breathy message on Snapchat telling Brian to hurry home because she “needed him.”

  Tish started down her street, the quiet that would have enveloped her small area of the world at two a.m. non-existent because of the cicadas serenading by the thousands. When sex was on offer, one didn’t dawdle with good manners, she supposed. Instead, you dumped your friend on the side of the road and hauled ass home. She wasn’t only amused by that, she was envious, but wouldn’t dwell on the whys. Not tonight. She felt weepy. Maybe her period was coming. Or maybe she was miserable because she was sweating her ass off. She pulled her T-shirt away from her damp skin and tried to fan herself. It being August in Arizona, the effort was pointless.

  Looking up at the stars as she walked, the urge to get emo grew. All those millions of beacons in the universe were right where they belonged. Hers wasn’t.

  She swallowed the growing knot in her throat, and concentrated on the sound of her boot heels clicking. She hated August. But wouldn’t always. In two years, it would be her favorite month. She looked forward to that particular August the same way she used to look forward to Sundays. She hated Sundays now, too. But wouldn’t always. When Josh came home, they might become her favorite day.

  As she neared the house her uncle had moved her into shortly after her beacon had gone away, the cold anger that now lived within her bubbled up to make her eyes sting. She missed him. God, how she missed him. Not a day went by that she didn’t yearn for him. It was unnatural.

  Or maybe it was true love.

  Yeah. It was. She’d known that for years now. And she wanted her love to come home so badly it was a constant physical ache in her chest. She wanted him never to have left her. She wanted her mother to change places with him. It was Rachel who should be behind bars, serving a five-year sentence for illegal possession of a controlled substance, not Josh. But, no. Rachel was roaming free, shooting up and hopping from one dealer’s bed to the next, happily feeding her addictions. While Josh remained locked away, alone, his freedom gone for something he’d had nothing to do with.

  It was too bad he’d gone full-Josh and cut off Tish’s visits without telling her why. She could have helped him through this. And seeing him once a week would have been heaven compared to this…nothing.

  She pursed her lips and paused when she reached her dark house. The only person who might know why she’d been shut out was her Uncle Nick, but he was too loyal to say shit. Too loyal, and too busy. Eighteen months ago, he’d been honored with a VP patch. At the same time, Chase had been called up and was now the President of the local chapter of the Steel Jackals MC. He probably knew what was behind Josh’s decision, too, but Tish wouldn’t dare ask him. It just wasn’t done.

  Yawning, she got her ass in gear and dragged her feet up the walkway. She might sleep in tomorrow. Time passed when she was asleep. She didn’t work until seven, which was unusual. Her regular shift on Saturday was four until close. It was a long day, but she could always use the tips, which was why, if it wouldn’t interfere with school, she took any hours offered. She’d just started back for her final semester at the local community college and didn’t want anything to get in the way of her finishing.

  Taking her keys out of her purse, she glared up at the light that was once again out above the door. She banged her fist to the right of the doorbell and squinted at the brightness that slammed into her eyeballs. She stood there, blinking while her vision came back, then unlocked and entered the house.

  As she closed herself in, her smile returned. With any luck, by the time Josh came home, the graphic arts business she planned on starting up after graduation would be thriving and she’d be able to brag—

  A scream was belting from her throat before she even thought to scream. She stumbled back and slammed into the door as a chair scraped and the dark shape of a man flew through the shadows at her. Terror was an electric buzz that raised the hair on her arms and legs when a strong arm snaked around her waist. At the same time, a wide palm covered her mouth and she heard the most amazing sound.

  “Easy, Tish-Tosh,” the familiar voice rumbled into her ear. “It’s just me. We don’t want to wake the neighbors with your enthusiastic greeting, do we?”

  With her body pressed against heat and steel and her heart trying to beat its way out through her mouth, she managed to shut down the shrill sound.

  She pulled in some much-needed air, and with every inhalation, a scent she’d know anywhere burrowed in and memories came. Josh dragging himself up from their sofa to make her lunch and walk her to school. Josh picking her up at the end of the day and her proudly getting onto the back of his bike while her friends ooh’d and ahh’d because he was so intimidating and beautiful. Josh and Uncle Nick standing at the back of the auditorium, scaring all the other parents because they were proudly wearing their cuts as they clapped and whistled their approval while she took a bow after collecting a first-place ribbon at a local spelling bee. And that last tender hug he’d given her when he’d told her not to come back to the prison to see him anymore.

  She had no hope of processing the emotions that rose in her. “Josh?” she tried to say but was hampered by his hand covering half her face.

  “Unless you gave someone else permission to use that nickname you hate, yeah, honey, it’s me.”

  He released her and went to step back, but she was having none of that. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him as tightly as she could. She tried her best not to cry by swallowing repeatedly, but it didn’t help.

  “Whoa,” he chuckled, wrapping her up again.

  She closed her eyes and savored the sound as her tears overflowed. Her breathing slowed, and the world paused as everything inside her aligned once more. All she was reconnected, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Tish came to life. Body and mind, she felt herself bloom. For this man. Gone went the desolation she’d suffered through without him. The resentment and confusion she’d felt since he’d shut her out disappeared…

  “Oh, my God,” she breathed around the beauty of it.

  The sigh that followed was the slowest, happiest sound she’d ever made.

  TWO

  “Josh,” she whispered once he’d dropped his hand. “You’re home. Oh, m-my God, you’re really h-here.” She pushed her face into his neck and tried to compose herself. She was shaking uncontrollably. “I m-missed you s-so much.

  “Got that.” He pressed a tender kiss to her hair and ran his hand over it as he held her tightly enough to let her know he’d missed her, too. But it didn’t last. “Okay. Enough with the strangle.”

  When she didn’t budge, he reached up and untangled her arms. He pulled them from around his neck and walked away. A second later, light flooded the room. “What the fuck are you doing out so—?”

  He’d come around to face her, and because she was gawking through another squint from the brightness, she didn’t miss how his big body slowly seized up, his face darkening into that don’t-fuck-with-me look he’d always effortlessly worn.

  He stared.

  She stared.

  He was just as she remembered, but at the same time different. He looked…grim. As if he hadn’t smiled in ages. Standing at a rock solid six-three, his warm golden eyes were dull, his tattooed skin paler than she’d ever seen it. He still wore his dirty blond hair in a faux-hawk that was tousled and long enough to flop onto his forehead.

  “You look fuckin’ different.” His voice was a low growl. Angry sounding. “This what you wear to work every night?”

  Her knees continued to knock, and she was beginning to think her heart would never slow. Swiping at her wet cheeks, she looked down at her uniform of cut-off denim shorts and a black T-shirt with “The Greedy Serpent” emblazoned across the chest. She hurriedly kicked off her black and gray cowboy boots because they looked out of place in the house. They weren’t so conspicuous when
four other servers were wearing them as they traipsed around the wooden floors covered in peanut shells, but here they looked as if Tish was playing dress-up.

  “Yeah. They make us.” She slipped her socks off and stuffed them into the tops of the boots before padding over to stand closer to him. If she didn’t think it would send him running, she’d have hopped up and sat on his shoulder, cradling his head like those monkeys who over-love their owners. Not that Josh owned her. Which was too bad.

  “How are you? Are you okay? How are you even here right now?” she belatedly asked, shakily sighing in pleasure at this spectacular turn of events.

  When he didn’t reply but stood staring down at her with narrowed eyes, she inched even closer and reached for one of his tattooed hands to bring it to her cheek for an affectionate rub.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” she whispered in wonder as she continued to drink in the sight of him.

  His brows slammed down, and he patted her shoulder in an uncharacteristically awkward move before extracting his hand and going over to push the chair in at the table. How long had he been sitting there in the dark? What had he been thinking about? His time in prison? What he would do now that he was out? Return to running the salvage yard he and Nick owned together, she guessed.

  How the hell was he out? Did he hate her mom for putting him away? And, in effect, hate Tish, too? She’d been too afraid to ask him while he’d been inside, but that would explain both why he’d stopped seeing her and the get-it-away-from-me look in his eyes right now.

  She didn’t voice any of her many questions but stood silent. Waiting.

  “Good behavior has its perks,” he finally said. “So does knowing the right people.” He swiped a finger across the counter as if doing a white glove test. “Why the fuck are you out on your own this time of night? Doesn’t the bar have a day shift you can work? And who the hell has been cleaning this place? It looks as if no one lives here, yet I can smell you all the fuck over it.”