by Susan Stoker
It was a beautiful night. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky; the stars were shining brightly over his head. As the police car pulled away from the warehouse, Cruz wondered how it wasn’t raining. With the way his heart hurt, it should’ve been foggy and raining.
He closed his eyes and swallowed hard as a tear, the first he’d shed over a woman, ever, fell from each eye and dripped onto his leather vest and slid down the fabric. It wasn’t manly, and it wasn’t macho. But he couldn’t stop those tears if his life depended on it.
Chapter Nineteen
Mickie sat on a bench under a large tree, watching as cemetery workers nearby lowered Angel’s coffin into the ground and began filling the hole with dirt.
The last week had passed in a blur. After watching in shock as Cruz was led out of the warehouse in handcuffs, Mickie had been pried away from her sister’s body by the EMTs who had been on the scene. They’d treated her for shock and had even given her a shirt to wear since she’d been shivering and was obviously not dressed appropriately.
She’d been extensively questioned by the police and the FBI for hours. Mickie had to call their parents and let them know about Angel. They hadn’t shown a lot of emotion, but they’d at least had the decency to show up for the service and the funeral.
Angel’s friends had been questioned as well, and Mickie hadn’t heard from many of them. Li had texted her to let her know she’d started seeing a counselor and was in therapy. Most of the women weren’t so hooked on the drugs that they’d needed in-patient treatment, but Mickie hoped like hell they were all getting some sort of help. It wasn’t as easy as it might seem to wean yourself off of a drug like cocaine, even though they hadn’t been using for a long time.
Mickie allowed herself to think about Cruz for the first time in a week. She’d been busy, too busy to really think about all that had happened. But now, sitting in the fresh air, on a beautiful day that wasn’t too hot for Texas, watching her sister being put to rest, Mickie could think.
A part of her had expected Cruz to show up at either the memorial or the graveside service, but she hadn’t seen him. Mickie lowered her head and stared at her hands. Cruz. She’d asked about him when she’d been questioned by the FBI and no one seemed to know of him, or at least they weren’t admitting it to her. Even with evidence that might suggest otherwise, she refused to believe he was an actual part of the motorcycle club. He’d been too protective that night. Too concerned about making sure she was safe.
Mickie chuckled under her breath. Now she was acting like Angel. Refusing to see what was right in front of her eyes.
She pulled out her new phone and fiddled with it. She’d had to get a new one because the FBI had confiscated her old one due to the video she’d taken.
She’d turned on the video feature right before she’d entered the warehouse that night. It had recorded until her phone had run out of memory. It had caught most of Cruz’s words as the night had progressed. The video was shaky and made her nauseous to watch, but if Mickie closed her eyes, she could still hear Cruz’s words. Some had been harsh and crude, but it was the others that she clung to in her head.
“Hang on, I’ll cover you in a second.
I’m not going to hurt you.
She’s mine until I’m done with her, and I don’t fucking share.
Turn your head, hon. Don’t look.
We’ll be lucky if we get out of here in one piece.”
He’d tried to reassure her. He’d kept her safe.
Mickie was cried out. She felt like she’d been crying for a week straight, but her eyes welled up once again. Damn.
“Hey, Mickie, right? Can I sit?”
Mickie looked up in surprise to see a petite, shorter-than-she-was, brunette, gesturing to the concrete bench she was sitting on. “Uh…” Mickie didn’t want her to sit, didn’t want to share a bench when there were several others in the cemetery this woman could sit on. She wanted to be alone.
“My name is Mackenzie Morgan. We talked on the phone…”
Mickie struggled to remember, then suddenly it came to her. “Mack?”
“Yeah. So…can I sit?”
Mickie moved over without thinking and nodded.
“Thanks.”
They sat there in silence for a moment before Mack started to speak. “He asked me to check on you, you know.”
Mickie knew exactly who “he” was. “Was anything he told me the truth?” Her voice was soft and hitched once, but she controlled it. She got right to the point, needing to know.
“I don’t know what Cruz told you, but I’m guessing as much as possible was.”
Mickie turned to look at the pretty woman sitting next to her. “I’m having a hard time with all of this. I mean, I like him. I do. But this has all been so…unreal. I’m just so confused.”
Mack put her hand on Mickie’s leg, showing her silent support. “I’m sorry all this happened to you. I’m not trying to be a pain in your ass. But I know Cruz, and if you could see him now… Okay, will you let me tell you what I know about him? Then you can decide if what you’ve learned over the last few weeks is a lie or not.”
Mickie nodded and waited for Mack to begin.
“Cruz is FBI. He was undercover in the Hermanos Rojos MC. His ex-wife is a drugged-out prostitute, who he didn’t know was a drugged-out prostitute until he caught her servicing three men in their bedroom. He feels like it was his fault he didn’t realize it or recognize the signs in her. He volunteered for this assignment so he could try to get some of the drugs in San Antonio off the street. He was supposed to find out information from your sister, but instead he met you. He wanted to call the whole thing off. He told Dax, my boyfriend, that he wanted out, but didn’t know how.”
Mack took a breath and then continued. “He loves you, Mickie. I’m not sure he’s told you, or if he even realizes it, but he does. I’ve never seen a man so broken in my life. I’ve only seen him once since that day, and he looked like shit. That was today. He knew you were burying your sister and wanted me to come and make sure you were all right. I don’t know what happened last week. Dax won’t tell me, and it’s not in the papers, but whatever it was…it broke him. He’s put in paperwork to be transferred out of Texas. He won’t talk about it. Not to me, not to Dax, not to any of his friends. We’ve bugged him, begged him, annoyed him, and flat-out ordered him to tell us what’s going on in his head, and he refuses.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Mickie said, confused. Cruz had been honest with her. Almost everything he’d told her had apparently been true. The security job thing was a bit of a stretch, but technically Mickie supposed being in the FBI was security.
“I don’t know either. I guess I’m just letting you know how much this has torn him up. If you care, at all, maybe you’ll try to do something about it.” Mack changed the subject abruptly. “I’m sorry about your sister.”
“Me too. I should’ve done more.”
Mack laughed, a humorous sound that had Mickie turning to look at her in shock.
“I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing because that’s the exact same thing Cruz told Dax when he talked to him last. I picked up the other line in the house and listened in on their conversation.”
At Mickie’s incredulous look, she said, “I know, terrible, but I was worried about Cruz. He’s my friend. I’d do anything for him. Did you know Cruz was the one who found me when I was kidnapped?”
Mickie’s head spun with the change of subjects, but she shook it anyway.
“Yeah, he wouldn’t tell you about that…typical. I’d died. Taken my last breath. Dead. As a doornail. Dax saw me take my last breath on video and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. They didn’t know where I was. While Dax was watching me die, Cruz searched the house the bad guy was in, and found a coffin in the basement. The bastard had pretended to bury me alive, but really had me in the basement of his house so he could hook up cameras and watch me die a slow, horrible death. Cruz didn’t
“Now, I’m not saying he wouldn’t make a great advocate for people who have been assaulted, raped, or any victim of any other kind of crime, but it’s not where his heart is. He’s good at what he does, Mickie. And for him to think he was responsible for whatever happened to your sister, or you, is just wrong. That’s why I was laughing. You think you’re responsible, and he thinks he is.”
“I miss him.”
“He misses you too.”
“I don’t know what to say to him.”
“Well then, I think you’re perfectly matched because I don’t think he has the first clue what to say to you either. But one of you is going to have to make the first move, and I don’t think it’s going to be him. Look, next week is the annual law enforcement versus firefighter softball tournament. I’d love it if you came with me.”
“I don’t know.”
“Cruz is going to be playing, along with my boyfriend and the rest of their group. Won’t you please come and keep me company while the boys and girls duke it out on the field? I love all the guys, and it’s hysterical seeing the firefighters do their best to trip and otherwise cheat their way to a win. And while I will always support Daxton, I’ll tell you right now those boys in blue aren’t afraid to do some cheating of their own. But no pressure. Promise. But it might be a good place to start if you’re serious about missing him.”
Mickie bit her lip, she knew it was going to take some time to work through not only what had happened with her sister, but also to herself and what had happened with Cruz. But the bottom line was that she did miss him. She’d found herself checking her phone several times a day, just in case there was a text waiting for her. It was stupid, but she’d gotten so used to talking to him that way every day, it’d become a habit.
Realizing Mack was waiting for her answer, she quickly nodded. “Okay. I’ll come.”
“Great! I’ll pick you up if you want. Daxton is going early—he says to warm up, but it’s really to talk smack to all the firefighters. The whole thing is really actually hilarious. It’s gonna be really fun.”
“I’d like it if you picked me up. Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at all.” Mack stood and her tone turned serious once again. “He has a personal phone—his real phone, not the one you were communicating with him on. He had to turn in the one he was using as Smoke to the FBI. They had a tracker on it so they could keep tabs on where he was.”
Mickie looked up at that. “So all the texts I sent…”
“I hope you didn’t send him any naughty pictures, ‘cos if you did, the FBI has them now.” Mack smiled.
“No, I didn’t, but…”
Mack handed her a piece of paper. “Here’s my phone number and Cruz’s real number. Reach out. If nothing else, maybe you can convince him to stick around here. Cruz is important to me and my boyfriend. We don’t want to lose him.”
Mickie took the paper without a word and looked down at it.
“I’m really sorry about your sister, Mickie. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost either of my brothers. They drive me crazy sometimes, but they’re still my family. I’ll text you soon to figure out the details about the game.” Mack put her hand on Mickie’s shoulder, then turned and walked out of the cemetery.
Mickie continued to sit beside her sister until the cemetery workers had tamped down the last of the dirt and put up the temporary marker. The one Mickie had ordered wouldn’t be ready for another few weeks.
Finally, as the sun got low enough in the sky that Mickie couldn’t clearly read the words on any of the gravestones around her anymore, she got up and left.
She never saw the man watching, and guarding, her from the other side of the cemetery. Never saw him put his fingers to his mouth and sadly blow her a kiss as she drove out of the fenced-in cemetery grounds toward home.
Chapter Twenty
Mickie sat nervously in the stands at the charity softball game between Mack and an officer she’d been introduced to, Hayden Yates. She worked for the sheriff’s office and had told Mickie that she’d recently hurt her shoulder in an altercation with a drunk driver, so she wasn’t playing that day.
She’d also been introduced to all of Cruz’s friends. Mickie recognized their names from one of the many conversations she and Cruz had late one night. Daxton was the first to come up to her and Mack when they’d arrived. He’d given Mack the kind of kiss Mickie had only seen in the movies…full of passion, as if they hadn’t seen each other in years, instead of merely hours.
Dax was a Texas Ranger, and Mickie recalled Mack’s story of how she’d been buried alive and ultimately saved by Cruz and his other friends. Quint introduced himself next. He was a lieutenant for the San Antonio Police Department. He’d taken her shoulders in his hands and gazed into her eyes for a long time before finally speaking.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Mickie Kaiser. Whatever you do, don’t give up on him.”
“I’m not sure—”
“He’s spoken of nothing else but you since that night. How brave you were. How sorry he was that you had to see what you did. How he hoped he’d be able to patch things up with you. I get that what you went through was horrible. I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to forget everything about that night…for wanting to forget him…but if you care anything about him, please give him another chance. You’ll never find another man more willing to move heaven and earth to keep you safe.”
Mickie was surprised at the sentiment. She wasn’t used to such deep speeches from men she’d just met. All she could do was nod, and hang on to him when he gave her another long hug.
They were interrupted by another man, who Mack introduced as TJ. Apparently he was a highway patrolman and the joker of the group. The introductions came in quick succession after that, luckily with no more deep speeches. She met Calder, a medical examiner, and Conor, a game warden, and of course, Hayden.
Cruz was also there, but didn’t talk to her for long.
“Hello, Mickie. You look good.”
“Thanks. You too.”
He’d given her a quick hug and a brief kiss on the cheek, before joining his friends back on the field.
Mickie’s head was spinning, but she couldn’t deny the bubbly feeling deep inside at seeing him again.
“So, you gonna put that man out of his misery or what?” Hayden asked, not unkindly.
Mickie looked over at the small woman next to her. Hayden was built and obviously strong. She had the most beautiful auburn hair and her skin was pale, with freckles spattered across her nose. She looked fragile, but she spoke with the confidence that comes with many years of being in law enforcement.
“Look at him,” Hayden said, gesturing toward the field with her head. “He can’t keep his eyes off of you.”
Mickie didn’t need Hayden to point it out. She hadn’t been able to keep her eyes off of him either. “A lot happened.”
“I know. But you have to decide if what happened was too much to come back from.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve seen it time and time again. Couples who go through extreme situations, as you and Cruz did, sometimes can’t work through it to stay together. I’m not saying you guys can’t get past this, but it takes a lot of effort. I wouldn’t be a good friend to Cruz if I didn’t make sure you were willing to put in that work.”
Mickie looked away from the woman and back to the field. Her eyes blurred with tears as she thought about everything that had happened. Hayden was right. If she wanted to make whatever it was she and Cruz had successful, they’d both have to wrestle their own demons. She had no doubt that Cruz had them, just as she did.
Her voice came out just above a whisper. “I don’t want everything that happened that night to have been too much.”
“Good. Then you have my support.”
“Mine too,” Mack chimed in. She put her hand on Mickie’s leg. “Welcome to the family.”
Mickie glanced over at Mack. “What family?”
“This family,” Mack replied instantly, throwing an arm out, encompassing the field. “This big, crazy law enforcement family. They’re outrageous, they work too hard, they’ll make you insane, but you’ve not only got me and Hayden as sisters, you’ve got all of them as brothers.”
“But I just met them today,” Mickie protested.
“I’m not talking about just Dax, Calder, and the others,” Mack told her, laughing. “All of them. See all those firefighters out there?” At Mickie’s nod, Mack continued. “They might treat this game as if it’s the last battle of Waterloo, but everyone’s actually on the same team. Moose, Sledge, Crash, Squirrel, Chief, Taco, and Driftwood are from Station 7, and if asked, they’ll drop everything and come to your aid. To any of the guys’ aid. Sometimes it can be annoying to have to share Daxton with them, but honestly? It’s wonderful. I love seeing how well they all get along.
“But I have one word of advice…when you want an uninterrupted night, and Cruz isn’t on call…turn off the phone. The guys have the uncanny ability to know when we’re about to have sexy times. They’ve interrupted us more than once.”
Mickie laughed, as she supposed Mack meant her to. It was nice to lighten the mood a bit. The rest of the afternoon went by quickly and Mickie only had the chance to briefly speak with Cruz once more before she left.
She’d been waiting for Mack to say goodbye to Dax—the guys were going out with the group of firefighters Mack had pointed out earlier—when Cruz came up beside her.
“How are you doing?”
“I’m good.”
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