Running a hand down his face, Iron looked at Lance with a grim expression. “Lance, I’m not going anywhere. You don’t understand the panic you will be dealing with if I’m not here when she wakes up. She’s deathly afraid of hospitals since she was twelve and I am the only chance you’ve got if you’re going to keep her calm, so I’m not going anywhere.” Iron heard Lance sigh deeply before he dropped his hand from his shoulder and stepped back.
“Fine, I’ll have Mandy bring you something from the diner. Any requests?” Lance asked.
“Nah, anything’s good, just not a damned salad. That shit’s for birds and Animal’s old lady.” Iron laughed at his own joke, hearing Lance’s snicker over his jab at Animal’s old lady Sammy. She’d been through a lot but her idea of a meal left something to be desired.
Lance left and Iron resumed his silent observation of the figure on the bed remembering another time he had sat in a hospital waiting for her to wake up. She was twelve and her rivalry with Maryann had gotten out of hand. Roz was pushed off the top of a jungle gym and she’d broken her arm in three places. It had punctured through in one place and she had lost a lot of blood, which was why they’d had her hooked up to an IV when she awoke. Rozzy hated hospitals because the only time she’d ever seen them was when her father was at death’s door. Why the two twelve-year-old girls were on the jungle gym he would never know because she had refused to tell him.
He could still remember walking into the hospital to hear her screaming like a banshee. A nurse was forcing her back onto the bed and she was fighting for all she was worth. He walked in having been called by her mother to go check on her because she had to leave to go to work before Roz woke up or lose her job. Iron remembered being shocked that she was throwing such a fit. Walking over to the bed, he had leaned over the woman holding her down and spoken. He couldn’t even remember what he’d said, just the way her eyes were wild and tears clung to the corners.
Roz had calmed almost immediately, her eyes focusing on him as she seemed to settle. Iron remembered sitting with her all day because every time he tried to leave she had freaked. It was a good thing that she hadn’t needed to stay the night and they had let her come home with him that night because otherwise he would have been sleeping in the chair next to her bed just as he had last night.
Iron leaned forward putting his head into his hands, still unsure what held him here beside her bed today. His mind slipped into the past and he remembered the day he went to get her so long ago.
Winter 2133
Iron climbed off the bike, staring up at the little two-story house with a nostalgic feeling. Damn, it was good to finally be back here. He’d waited for two years to be able to come and get Roz. He wasn’t sure if she would be angry that he had taken so long to come back. She hadn’t been too happy with him the last time they talked. He felt his heart squeeze a bit at that thought.
Rozzy would likely be angry with him. It was going to be a hard sell to get her to forgive him but he felt a grin spreading across his face. He would make her forgive him. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to talk to her. It had been hell being away from her for so long and he was damned glad that his wait was finally over. He began walking up the drive, not waiting on Pansy who was climbing off the bike behind him. He needed to see his Roz and nothing was going to stop him now that he was this close to achieving that goal.
Taking the stairs on the porch two at a time, he was at the door and knocking, waiting impatiently for her to answer it. He knew it would likely be a shock for her that he was here. Last time he had talked to her was over eight months ago. She had told him that she wasn’t going to wait much longer on him to come back. Not that he could blame her but he had wanted to be a patched member before he came for her and that hadn’t happened until last week.
Now that he was a fully patched Blue Bandit enforcer, he could make a good life for the two of them and things wouldn’t be so hard. She wouldn’t have to slave away at the cleaners because he made more than enough to take care of them and if something happened to him, she would have the Blue Bandits to take care of her. He knocked again, a little impatient to see her, hold her, kiss her. Damn, he’d missed his Rozzy.
There was grumbling from the other side of the door before it was pulled open and a man stepped out. Iron didn’t recognize him but he was way too old to be anyone Roz was dating so it must be someone her mother was seeing. He stared at the man for a long moment.
“What the hell do you want?” the man, who wore a white t-shirt with what looked like beer stains on it, demanded.
“I’m looking for Rosalind and Margarita Martin. Are they here?” Iron asked, confused that this man was here in their house. Had they sold it? Were things that bad? Rozzy hadn’t said it was that bad for them the last time they spoke but perhaps she didn’t want him to worry. Fuck, that made him feel like a total ass.
“Yeah, they’re gone,” the man grunted, looking put out. “Now leave. I’m not in the mood for any bullshit today.”
“Gone where? Are they living in town somewhere or are they just out for the day?” Iron questioned the man, not caring much for his attitude.
“No, boy, they’re gone. Gone as in dead.”
Iron felt a ringing start in his ears and his chest felt like it had just been slammed with a two-ton anvil. Surely he had heard him wrong. No way had the man just said Roz was dead. That wasn’t possible, it just wasn’t.
“I’m sorry, you must be mistaken. I’m looking for Rosalind. She would be twenty, she’s five foot three, a little on the thin side and she used to live here.”
“Are you stupid, boy? I told you she and her momma are dead. They both died six months ago. Now get the fuck off my front porch.”
Iron couldn’t breathe because it just wasn’t possible that his Rozzy was dead. She was too young and he needed her. She couldn’t be dead. The twinge in his chest began to splinter, spreading over him in a cold wash of dread that seemed to make his whole body throbbing with such agony that he almost couldn’t bear it.
“How?” he demanded, still not believing that it was true, that this was really happening.
“Boy, get off my porch,” the man growled, looking angry, but Iron didn’t care. He was going to tell Iron how his Rozzy was dead because surely the man was wrong.
Rozzy couldn’t be dead.
“Look, we’re not leaving till you tell him so you might as well speak,” Pansy said from behind him, likely holding that knife he was so deadly with. He’d watched him cut up more than one man with that knife.
Pansy was one of the only prospects that Iron seemed to actually connect with. Most of the others were complete morons. Iron, having earned his patch, was the youngest member of the Blue Bandits and getting permission to come here had taken a while. He hadn’t wanted another delay by waiting on another brother to be able to come so he had asked Pansy, who he suspected would be getting his own patch soon. Grateful for Pansy’s help since the ringing in his ears seemed to be making it hard for him to think, Iron waited for the man to speak.
“Stupid girl tried to stop her mother from taking a header down the stairs. Margarita was drunk and she tripped and the foolish girl tried to stop her fall with her body. It broke Margarita’s neck and the girl’s internal injuries were too severe to fix so she died before they could get her into surgery. They buried her on the hill by her mama because I wasn’t paying for either of those bitches to be cremated. Now you’ve heard the story, get the fuck off my porch. ” The man turned and slammed the door with a finality that almost broke him.
He stared at the door, unable to process the words that the man had spoken. Anger flooded him at the man’s disrespectful tone and the way he’d slammed the door in Iron’s face. Iron didn’t want to accept that there was a world in which he couldn’t be with Roz. It wasn’t a world he wanted anything to do with because it tore him apart. Iron felt numb like everything was in a haze. Pansy laid a hand on his shoulder and Iron felt it but it was like he was in a d
ream. Roz couldn’t be gone, she just couldn’t.
“Come on, Iron. Let’s go.” Pansy led him to the bikes and Iron climbed onto his, still hazy and almost unable to think because Roz was gone. He should have come months ago, right after talking to her, and then this wouldn’t have happened and his Rozzy would still be alive.
“Can you follow me?” Pansy asked and Iron felt his head nodding in affirmation but he didn’t know why he was even bothering. He cranked the bike, following Pansy. He didn’t know where the other man was taking him and he really didn’t care.
When they stopped twenty minutes later at the cemetery, Iron was grateful for the other man’s foresight because this was where he needed to be. He climbed off the bike looking at the wooden crosses and wanted to roar but he held it in.
“What was her name again?” Pansy asked, grabbing his arm and looking at him with sympathy clear in his eyes.
“Rosalind,” Iron’s voice cracked and his throat felt dryer than a desert. Why? Why had this happened?
“Okay, we’ll find her. All right?” Pansy asked and Iron nodded, unable to speak again, his mind too lost in the roaring mass of pain and a sense of defeat. It took them about ten minutes to find the cross marking her grave. Iron fell to his knees beside the little wooden cross and felt his mind shatter into a million pieces.
Tears filled his eyes as he stared at the cross bearing her name and he almost couldn’t think because his mind was too chaotic. It was filled with refusals and the need to rage at something. Unable to bear the hurt inside him, he pounded his fists on the ground roaring out a painful denial. Iron didn’t know how long he sat there beside her grave punching the ground and roaring but when he stood, his hands were swollen and his voice was hoarse.
He moved to where Pansy was standing next to the bikes having left him to his grief. He realized that there was one last thing he had to do. Lifting the soft leather from the saddlebags, he felt another hard ache pound through him. His chest hurt as he lifted it to his face inhaling the scent of leather that clung to it before he walked back to Roz’s grave.
He knelt there beside her and whispered softly, “I love you, baby. I know you would have loved riding with me and wearing my patch. I’ll––I won’t forget you.” His voice was broken as he trailed off, still unable to let the soft leather go. “I’m sorry I was late. I didn’t know, baby, I didn’t know we were running out of time.”
He then used his knife to cut a slit in the leather vest so that he could slide it over the wooden cross leaving it with her where it belonged. His patch would never be worn but it would always be right where it was supposed to be.
Here, with his Rozzy.
Iron got to his feet looking down at the grave one last time, a coldness settling inside him, one that he knew would never go away because she wasn’t there to warm it.
His heart was now as cold as the ground in which she lay and he wasn’t concerned as he walked away that he had just left a part of his soul lying on the ground beside her because it was hers anyway. When he reached the bikes, he took another long look at the wooden cross with the leather vest that should have been given in a joyful celebration but was now only a reminder of what he had lost.
“You ready?” Pansy asked, making Iron turn to look at him.
“Yeah, let’s ride,” he said, climbing on his bike and cranking it. They were roaring away minutes later. Iron never looked back to see the wind blowing the leather vest or the leaves that fell all around the little grave. He never worried about the part of himself that he had left with Roz because she was all he had ever wanted and now that she was gone it didn’t matter anymore.
Chapter 4
Present Day
Roz stirred, her mind a hazy mess of thoughts as she slowly awoke. At first she wasn’t sure where she was as she blinked her eyes looking at a white tiled ceiling. She felt achy and bruised but most of the pain was gone. A slight panic overtook her for a moment until she remembered she wasn’t with the Headhunters anymore. Toby’s image came flooding into her brain and she remembered seeing him moments before she passed out. She twisted her head looking around the room searching for him.
She had looked for him for four years before she had given up and settled in Grandyville, a little town that bordered the Blue Bandits territory. It was a quiet town and they didn’t have much trouble until just recently when the kidnappings had started. Her eyes landed on Toby sitting beside her with his head resting on the edge of her bed.
Reaching out, she lay her hand on his head, surprised when he jerked awake, sitting up to look at her. His eyes were the same bright green they had always been except they held a hardness she hadn’t seen in him before. He had changed, she realized, taking in his face, which was no longer slender and boyish. Instead it was rough and hardened with a slight scar over his lip that looked like it must have been a nasty cut at one time.
He was clean-shaven and his hair was cut short, it was only about an inch long. It made her a little sad that he wore his hair that way because she had always loved his raven-colored locks. She watched him silently as he watched her. She didn’t know how long they sat there staring at each other but he eventually spoke.
“How do you feel? Are you in pain?” His voice was huskier and deeper than she remembered.
“No,” Roz managed to get out, her voice slightly hoarse from the dryness of her throat. “Toby––” she began, but he interrupted her.
“Iron,” he said, making her brow furrow. What did he mean, iron?
“I––I don’t understand.” She watched him, confused.
“My name, it’s Iron now, Rosalind,” Toby––no, Iron said and she felt her heart squeeze a bit inside her because he hadn’t called her Rozzy or Roz. When they were younger he had always called her by her full name only when he was mad at her. It hurt that he was calling her that now.
“Right, I see, so it’s Iron then?” she asked, testing the name out on her tongue and trying to think of him as Iron instead of Toby. It helped that his gaze which rested on her was hard and unyielding, almost cold even.
“Yes. Now why aren’t you dead, Rosalind?” Iron asked, his jaw hardening as if he were clenching his teeth. Roz winced; that was a long story and she wasn’t sure from the way he was staring at her that she wanted to tell him about it.
“I––well I––” she began to speak but was saved by a man walking in, followed by Laci who rushed into the room moving up beside the bed. Laci took her hand, holding it tightly in her own. Roz sat up, swinging her legs off the bed and standing to hug the other woman.
“Oh, thank God! I thought they were lying to me when they told me that you were okay. I was so scared when I saw you fall out of the truck and then that biker took off with you. I was so worried.” Laci barely took a breath between words and Roz grimaced.
She met Toby’s green eyes with hers, silently apologizing for the interruption.
He just stared at her with a blank look she couldn’t read and Roz realized that she didn’t know him anymore. The man sitting in that chair wasn’t her Toby, the young man who’d held her the night her father died; he was Iron, a biker who she had no way of predicting.
“Sorry, Iron. She wouldn’t calm down until we let her in to see your girl,” the man who’d entered before Laci told him, looking a little annoyed. She looked from Iron to the man and back again trying to assess their moods.
Were they still in trouble?
She was certain when she saw Toby that he would never hurt her but now she wasn’t so sure. This man wasn’t her Toby and that meant she would have to figure out if she needed to be concerned with getting the girls away from these men or if they were finally safe.
“Damn it, Bull, I told you to keep the girl away until I had a chance to talk to Rosalind,” Iron growled, anger evident in his tone as he glared at the other man.
“I know, but the girl was threatening to continue screaming her head off and frankly I wasn’t in the mood.” Bull looked sheepish as he
spoke and Roz watched him for a moment wondering if Laci was safe with him or not.
“Are you okay? Where are the others?” Roz asked Laci, looking at the younger woman.
“They’re all fine. They’ve given us all exams––even Thea,” Laci said, looking pale as she said the other woman’s name. Seeing Thea being raped had frightened the girl and Roz wished she could have protected her from the sight of that horror. It hadn’t been a pretty sight even for her and she knew better than anyone that there were monstrous people in the world.
Roz felt her mind going over the past again and for a moment she was lost in thoughts of her mother’s death and the need to flee from the only home she had ever known. Shaking her head to dislodge the thoughts swirling around inside her head, she looked over Laci’s shoulder seeing Iron was watching her with a hard unblinking stare.
“That’s good. Everyone’s safe?”
“Yes, they even told us they would take us home if we want. They haven’t hurt any of us yet,” Laci whispered, but not low enough that the two men didn’t hear it.
“I already told you, we don’t hurt women!” Bull exclaimed, looking angry. Laci shivered and leaned into Roz’s side.
“She’s a kid and she has been through enough without you yelling at her,” Roz snapped at him, unable to be silent.
“I know she’s a damned kid but we’ve been nothing but nice to her in the past few hours and she was screaming like a fucking banshee. If we were going to abuse her we would have done it by now,” Bull retorted, anger still evident in his voice and posture.
Roz gritted her teeth glaring at him. “Maybe if you moderated your tone and acted like a decent person for a little while, she might not have been screaming her head off!”
“You think that’s my fault? That I’m the reason she was yelling?” he asked, looking appalled before he pointed at Roz. “Oh no, sister, that’s your fault. You’re the one who fell out of the damned truck into one of my brothers making him refuse to allow anyone near you. So her freakin’ out is on you, not me.”
Melted Iron (Blue Bandits MC Book 3) Page 4
