by Bijou Hunter
“I’m not ready.”
“You’re more than ready.”
Scanning the family property I’ve known most of my life, I feel exposed by how the woods hide possible threats. I even think I see movement to my left. Stepping back in a panic, I only stop moving when my ass bounces against the RV.
“What’s the point?” I ask in a voice that doesn’t sound like mine.
“You need to quiet the noise in your head,” he says and reaches into his back pocket to remove the cap he wore the first day we met. I watch him cover his head and remember how I figured he was no one special when I saw him on the Harley. At most, he was a pervy club brother messing with the president’s dumb daughter. A week later, he is the most important person in my life.
“I’ll walk with you,” I say as tears roll down my cheeks. “This is where we live, and no one will stop me.”
Quaid holds my hand and guides me slowly past one of the garages until we reach where the woods begin. I hear the dogs barking and glance to my right. Wick and another dog, Chigger, playfully nipping at each other’s tails.
“The dogs would know if someone was around,” I say more to myself than Quaid. “They’d warn me.”
“It’s just a bit farther.”
Shuffling behind Quaid, I ignore the heat clinging to my skin, bees buzzing around my hair, and large horse flies banging into my legs. Even the bugs have gone nutty in the heat.
“Colton knew you were sad about those kittens,” Quaid says as we step under a tree Lily used to sit under when writing in her journal. “He wanted to give them a little memorial site.”
My gaze stops scanning the surrounding woods and focuses to the ground where four small wooden crosses surround a gray rock. Cut into the stone are the words, “Here lies MJ’s Golden Girls: Rose, Blanche, Dorothy, and Sophia. May they rest in purr.”
Laughing, I kneel down and run my fingers over the words. “I know he’s an idiot, but I love my brother so much. In fact, I love him enough not to hug him when I see him next.”
“I think he’ll like that,” Quaid says, caressing my head. “This is your home. No one can take that away from you.”
Nodding, I stand and wipe my cheeks. “It’s hotter than hell out here, but can I show you where I used to fish with Pop-Pop and Colton?”
“I was hoping you’d ask that.”
I lift my lips, needing a kiss before we begin walking. Taking his hand, I guide him through the thick brush toward a special place from my childhood.
Quaid and I have a million stories to share, and a lifetime to share them. Today is only the beginning.
THE OUTSIDER
Idoubt MJ will ever be the woman I knew for two days before the shooting. Long after Gary Lee Roy is rotting in a shallow grave, she’ll remain haunted by how her sense of safety in Ellsberg was only an illusion.
Two weeks after the shooting, she asks Colton to sell her moped. Riding it leaves her feeling too exposed, and she plans to borrow the family’s cars to run errands in the future. After her first trip to town alone, she decides she isn’t cut out for solo driving.
I suspect she fears running into a particular dead man walking. Not that she’ll admit this fact. Cooper and Colton can barely contain their rage regarding Gary Lee. If she says she’s scared to visit the town she grew up in, they’ll likely go off half-cocked and take out the asshole and his father and possibly a few other people. Colton especially has trouble remaining calm whenever MJ seems even the least bit upset.
“I think he might have emotional issues,” MJ whispers to me after Colton smashes a beer bottle in response to her banging her injured arm.
With no job and unwilling to visit town, she keeps herself busy doing chores for her family. Her arm slows her down in the beginning especially with the laundry, but by the end of summer, she’s taken on the job of house manager.
“I cook so you don’t have to,” she tells Farah. “Five days a week during the school year and three when you're a lazy bum on breaks.”
While a cleaning service still does the floors and windows once a week, MJ becomes the Johanssons’ laundress, cook, and animal care specialist—i.e., she feeds the dogs.
“I need a purpose,” she tells me one night in the RV. “You have a purpose.”
“That I do. Wait, what is that again?”
“You’re my bodyguard. Oh, and I’m sure you do important crap for the club too.”
The Shasta chapter cuts my ass loose after a call from the Ellsberg top dog. River wishes me the best and snickers how his door will remain open in case I need to come crawling back.
Cooper welcomes me as one of his top-tier members—albeit grudgingly. As his enforcer, he gives me the “enviable” task of playing club liaison with the Roche family.
“They’re downright fond of you,” he says and gives me a knowing smile.
“But don’t kill them, right, boss?”
“I never said that.”
Cooper finally stops treating me as an enemy invader during the halfway mark of our RVing trip to the Grand Canyon.
“Pop just loves that big ole hole in the ground,” MJ says when we pack for the trip. “It makes him nostalgic for when he was a kid.”
The road trip is a huge affair. The top-tier guys all come along with their wives and some of their kids. Lily sticks close to her parents while Colton joins MJ and me in a separate RV. Even Cap and Audrey drive their brand-spanking new camper up from Tennessee to tag along with the caravan.
I have no experience with handling a massive vehicle, so Colton does most of the driving. MJ sits in the passenger spot so she can bond with her brother. Since his tribute to the kittens, she’s been especially sweet to him. I suspect they won’t be able to keep that up for long once we’re on the road.
“One day, Pop will be dead like Pop-Pop, and I’ll have to carry on the tradition of our summer RVing trips,” Colton announces on our first day.
“No,” MJ says.
“No, what?”
“No, Pop won’t die, and you can’t carry on anything because you suck.”
Colton shoots her a dirty look, but she never notices since she spots geese flying overhead. I sit behind the bickering siblings who spend half the time shitting on each other and the other half talking about how they’re superior to the other Johansson kids.
“Audrey kisses Pop’s ass,” Colton grumbles while driving through Missouri.
“Lily kisses Mom’s ass,” MJ says, and they share a nod.
“I think it’s a birth-order thing,” Colton explains. “Lily is the first and parents always fucked up their first kid. Look at Scarlet.”
MJ glances back at me and smiles. “She’s Tucker’s daughter.”
Nodding, I appreciate her help with filling in the many, many holes in my Johansson/Ellsberg knowledge.
“Then Mom and Pop did right by you and me,” Colton continues after flipping off Vaughn in the passing RV. “But then by the time Audrey came along, they were tired and really just didn’t care enough to raise her right.”
“So very true. Poor badly raised Audrey. I’d feel sorry for her if she wasn’t sucking up all the attention with her beautiful baby bump.”
“Anyone can get pregnant,” I say, feeling left out behind them. “Surviving gunfire takes real effort.”
MJ decides my words warrant her ditching Colton and moving to the kitchen table to be closer to me. She takes both my hands in hers, and I like how casually she moves now that the pain isn’t a concern. “Did you ever want a brother growing up?” she asks me.
“No,” I lie.
“You were lonely and wished you had a brother to hide with you in the backyard,” she says, seeing through my bullshit. “You have one now with Colton. He ain’t perfect, but he exists.”
“That was fucking beautiful,” her brother says, snickering. “I always wanted a brother, not that anyone asked. Three sisters killed my spirit many days, but I persevered because I was born Johansson tough.”
MJ looks at the back of her brother’s head, narrows her eyes as if ready to respond negatively, and then shrugs.
“I’m glad you exist,” she says rather than whatever she was first intending. Her gaze finds me and remains glued to my face. “By the end of this trip, you’ll know my family so well that you’ll try to run once we return to Ellsberg. I’ve already hidden your bike keys. You’re not going anywhere, bub.”
Grinning, I lean forward until our lips meet. “Whatever you want, Missus Reynolds.”
Two nights before our trip, MJ agrees to marry me. She insists we go to the courthouse the next day.
“We could be decapitated on the trip,” she says when Cooper and Farah ask about the rush. “I want to die married to this man.”
“Why are we dying?” Cooper asks, but Farah shakes her head in a way that says she’s heard this concern before.
We make it a quick ceremony and plan to throw the reception when we return. “I’m splurging for twenty people at Pickles in Paradise,” she tells her parents after the ceremony while the four of us share a meal at Zaxby’s. “You can pick the twenty.”
“Are we included in that number?” Cooper asks.
“Yeah.”
“So really like thirteen people then,” Farah mutters. “Your pop and I had a real wedding surrounded by our loved ones. I had bridesmaids and a bachelorette party.”
“I saw the pictures,” MJ tells her mother. “You were beautiful. Is that why you told me that story? Were you fishing for a compliment?”
“No, I was trying to make you feel guilty or as if you were missing out on something.”
“Oh, well, maybe next time,” MJ says, patting her hand. “I don’t have any friends for bridesmaids, and I don’t want to watch a man dance around in a thong. This was much better. Now I can die knowing I belong to Quaid Leonardo Reynolds.”
“No,” I tell her.
“Lincoln?” she asks, still trying to figure out what my middle initial “L” stands for.
“Shouldn’t you know the name of the man you just fucking married?” Cooper bitches.
“It’ll be just one more surprise out of a billion that we’ll share in our life together,” she says, feeling me up under the table. “Laurel?”
“No.”
“Lonnie? Louis? Larry? Loco?”
“None of the above.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she coos, nuzzling my shoulder with her lips—inspiring growling rage from her father. “I didn’t fall in love with your middle name.”
I kiss her softly, ignoring her father’s bear noises and her mother’s attempts to soothe her irate husband. Cooper couldn’t deal with our affections that evening, but he’s pretty oblivious to it by the time we stop on the second day of our trip. He even picks me for his touch football team that night.
“Don’t embarrass me,” he whispers after a huddle in the grassy section of the RV park.
“I won’t, as long as I’m the one to end G.L., but I’m cool with you watching me gut him.”
“No-go. I’m the one who ends him.”
“Fuck you both,” Colton whispers, though he isn’t even part of our team.
Okay, so we still disagree on who gets to kill Gary Lee Roy. Otherwise, my growling father-in-law makes a concerted effort to include me in his Johansson circle. It’s more than he does for Cap Hayes, who admittedly seems very uninterested in being a Johansson when he has a better family back in Tennessee.
“Come on down to White Horse,” the giant says to me after the game. “Audrey and I will take you out and show you how much better we live in the Butternut State.”
“No,” MJ says from her chair next to her sisters.
Shrugging, I don’t know if I’m ready to meet another weird family after just getting used to this wild family. “You heard the ball and chain.”
MJ gives me a sly smile, and I sense this will be our new con. I’m the easygoing guy who says yes while she’s the grumpy one who shoots down people’s ideas. How can they be mad at her when she’s got that brain thing? Then again, Gary Lee tried to kill her, but soon, he’ll disappear, and people will get the message about screwing with Miranda Johansson and her wise sex partner from out of town.
THE ODDBALL’S FAREWELL
Before Quaid, I never considered getting married, and I wasn’t particularly interested in having kids. Once he stole my heart, I’m in a rush to have everything. We marry weeks after he rides into my life. I get pregnant the first month he rocks my socks off. Our yurt is set up in time for Halloween. Life goes from zero to a hundred faster than necessary, but I need to feel settled after Gary Lee showed me how short life could be.
Though the yurt lives up to my expectations, I’m nervous what Quaid will think. We choose a thirty-foot yurt with front and back doors. One faces to the south just like my parents’ house. The other opens to where the RV is parked. I’m giddy at the sight of my circle house set up near my parents’ dream house. Giddy, but so damn worried about what my very quiet husband is thinking.
“It really is a big fucking tent,” Quaid says standing inside our yurt for the first time.
“Do you hate it?”
“It feels right. Like a place I never knew I needed but fits me perfectly.”
Quaid wraps an arm around me and looks up at the pitched ceiling. He smiles in a sexy content way that says he’s a fan of our new domain. I think a part of him has gone a little nuts living in the RV, mainly because it’s tiny with the two of us bumping into each other. When we sit outside, though, he always relaxes. Now he has the open feel he needs. Soon, we’ll install a deck out front so we can enjoy the beauty around us. Pop hurries us to finish the porch so he can hang out and drink beer at my “hippy house.”
“We need to break in the damn thing,” he grumbles, barely hiding how excited he is that one of his kids has put down roots so close to his place. Something especially important with Audrey nearly ready to pop her kid out in Tennessee and Lily now living in an old-lady-style house in downtown Ellsberg. Out of his three girls, I bet he never expect me to be the one who never left him. If he’s bummed about this turn of events, he doesn’t show it.
Not like he shows his horror at my plan for a bathroom/kitchen solution in the yurt.
“We have the RV,” I tell him.
“You need a toilet in your place.”
“It’s right out the back door. I walked farther to take a dump in your house when I was growing up.”
“You need a real toilet.”
“I don’t want to spend that kind of money yet. Besides, we don’t know what we'll want once baby Mowgli is born.”
“No, on the name,” Pop says, giving my still flat stomach a smile. “And yes, on a toilet.”
Quaid watches us bicker, remaining silent since he knows I can’t lose against my father.
“What about in the winter when it’s zero degrees out here?” Pop asks, glaring down at me.
“Oh, if it’s that cold, we’re sleeping in your house.”
Pop smiles, thinking he’s won. I don’t know if he realizes Quaid and I will be bunking together in this scenario, but he seems pretty damn proud of himself for defeating me in an argument.
We do retreat to Mom and Pop’s house when the temperature reaches under ten that first winter. Mostly because my feet won’t warm up and Quaid demands I get into the main house for the night. I am so proud of him for taking charge until I realize he just wants to watch a football game on the big TV with Pop and Colton. Sports sure makes warring men into the bestest buddies.
“You could fit a crib in the corner of your bedroom,” Mom says when I hang out with her in the kitchen while the men talk shit about whatever team they don’t like. “I know you don’t like when life is complicated. Just come in here and sleep when you want.”
I glance back into the living room and then whisper to Mom, “Is Gary Lee dead yet?”
“No, baby.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Did you
ask Quaid?”
“He says Pop is waiting.”
“For what?”
“He’s your man. Can’t you sex the answer out of him?”
Mom gives me a disapproving look as if I’m not supposed to know she and Pop have sex. I swear lately she turns into Lily at the drop of a hat. I guess she’s picking up the slack of old-lady habits since my sister moved out.
With Pop always pulling his bear routine and Mom now pretending to be ninety, I know they won’t like my choice in baby names.
“Duh,” Quaid says, laughing when I mention my worries one night.
“I’m not naming our baby something boring like Miranda or sexy like Quaid. Our kid needs a unique moniker that will annoy people for many years to come. Preferably something Tucker can’t pronounce correctly.”
“Your standards are high, but that’s why I love you,” he says, laughing again. “Though I do have an idea to ease your parents into whatever name we choose.”
Psychological warfare is what Quaid calls our plan. To make Mom and Pop agreeable to my choice, I need to wear them down with worse options first. Ah, my man is quite the evil sonovabitch when he puts his mind to something.
The first stage begins even before we know we’re having a girl. During family meals, I throw out possible names for both genders. Pippin, Peaches, Precious—a lot of P names actually—and my parents respond with the expected disapproving looks. They’re already on edge with Audrey’s impending birth to a boy she and Cap haven’t named yet. Mom and Pop are expecting something dumb like Pippin, Peaches or Precious.
“I bet it’s fish related,” Pop says one night during dinner. “His sister gave her kids weird fish names.”
By the time Audrey names her newborn son, Keith, I’ve set the stage for my parents’ hatred of whatever I pick. That’s when I double down on the hippie theme.
“I’m thinking Rainbow,” I announce during Christmas shopping.
Mom gives me that look she gets whenever one of her kids does something extraordinarily stupid, and she’s second-guessing her parenting skills.
