Only friends and family were allowed to call Maureen Delaney ‘Mo.’ Leah had made serious inroads with the club out in that waiting room. He chuckled—and then grunted in pain again. No longer able to put it off, he pressed the red button and sighed as morphine pushed into his bloodstream.
“Mo and Delaney said I could stay with them until I figure things out. I hope that’s not weird for you.”
It was definitely weird for him. “Stay with me. I have an okay place. Tell whoever has my keys to take you there.”
“What? No, Gunner. I can’t do that.”
“Why not? You know me better than you know Mo and D.” Already the drug was doing that buzzy thing in his head, lifting him above reality. He closed his eyes. “It’s not a bad place, I promise. There’s a pool.”
“You want me to stay with you? Really?”
“Stay with me.” Buzzing filled his belly and chest and pushed the pain off to the side. Sat it on the bench. Threw it out of the game. Sent it to the showers. Gunner chuckled. “Stay with me, Leah Grace Campbell. Stay with me, stay with me. Stay.”
“I’ll stay.”
Through the dense fog of narcotic peace filling his head, Gunner felt her warm, sweet body right there, so close he could almost taste her. Bubblegum sparkle fairy.
“I think I’m falling in love with you, Maxwell Gunner Wesson.”
He fell asleep with the feel of her lips soothing his sore cheek.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“You sure that’s all you need, darlin’?”
At Rad’s question, Leah took a long look around the bedroom she’d had all her life. Standing before her mother’s old dresser, holding her locked file box of diaries in her arms, she turned in a tight circle and studied the things she’d always had: The white wrought-iron bed. The patchwork quilt her grandma had made for a Christmas gift when Leah was six. The bulletin board she’d made by gluing cork squares together and covering them with pink calico fabric. The mementos from high school pinned all over that board. The framed print of Jesus holding a lamb which had hung on her wall from before she could remember. The French Provincial desk and chair set, with the bookcase hutch over it. The books crammed into that hutch. The numbered collection of birthday figurines arrayed across the back of the dresser—pretty little dancing angels with gold-tipped wings, getting progressively older, each one with her skirts swirling around a gilt number: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
They stopped at 9, the last of Leah’s birthdays her mother had been home to celebrate.
For many reasons, Leah didn’t want to take any of it away with her. She had a few boxes and bags of clothes, and her toiletries, and that was enough.
She turned back to Rad. He didn’t scare her anymore, now that she’d gotten to know him a little. With his heavy brow, the deep creases between his dark eyebrows, and his crinkled dark eyes, he looked angry all the time to her, and he had a gruff growl of a voice that had, for the first couple of days, made her uneasy every time he’d spoken. But he was sweet, actually—or he’d been sweet to her. And he was totally adorable with his wife and son.
With a manufactured smile, she told him, “Yeah. I have what I need. Thank you.”
Gunner had been in the hospital nearly a week, recovering steadily. His internal injuries were healing, including his kidney. He probably had week left before they’d discharge him, and a few weeks of recovery at home, but he was going to be okay.
In the time since he’d been hurt, she’d discovered that the Brazen Bulls were more like a family than a club. They’d started taking care of her like one of their own from the moment they’d seen that she cared about Gunner—their ‘brother,’ as they called each other.
She’d tried once before, on the Monday immediately following their Saturday drama, to come home—not to stay, but to check on her dad and pick up a few things. She’d been blocked at the doorway by Mrs. Relman, one of the members of the HBC congregation. While she’d held the door against her narrow hips, Mrs. Relman had informed Leah that her father was ‘indisposed,’ and that she wasn’t welcome.
It had taken her about five minutes of self-righteous diatribe to deny Leah entrance to her own home, but in those five minutes, Leah had learned that Sunday services hadn’t happened the day before and that the ‘whole town knows what you are now, Leah Campbell.’ Mrs. Relman had even called her ‘Jezebel,’ like she was a floozy in some old TV western.
She’d intended to stop and see Ashley, too, that day, but, too shaken by the confrontation at her front door, she’d hurried back to the safety of the hospital instead and had cried on Gunner’s chest.
Now, a few days later, she was back, with a posse of five big Bulls in their kuttes—which was what, she’d learned, they called their leather vests. Mrs. Ogilvy, the congregant in charge on this day, had been no match at all for Rad and Eight Ball pushing through the door. But she’d fluttered after them, calling out for the assistance of the Lord like Charles Manson had just stormed into the house.
Her father wasn’t home; he was at the church, apparently. Mrs. Ogilvy was there on her own. Without being told, Leah understood that the Biddy Brigade—the name her father had affectionately dubbed the widows and cat ladies who banded together to cart casseroles around to their neighbors in need—had mobilized in defense of their pastor. The Biddy Brigade also constituted the waggiest tongues in town. They mined a lot of great scoop, snooping around the homes of people going through a bad time. What was going on with Leah must have been the mother lode of gossip.
As Rad picked up the last box, Simon leaned in the doorway. “The church lady must’ve called law, Sarge. We got two cruisers comin’ up the street.”
“Of course we fuckin’ do,” Rad growled.
“Oh my gosh! Not again!” Images of the scene on the front lawn—Gunner being held down on the ground, her father slapping her, all their neighbors watching, Gunner coming back so badly hurt—flashed through Leah’s head, and a wave of nausea rolled through her.
Her father hadn’t come home, but the law was here. Leah wondered if, before she’d called the sheriff, Mrs. Ogilvy had called her dad to let him know she was here. If so, he’d elected not to come back. Or maybe it had been he who’d called the sheriff. Whatever the case, she still hadn’t seen her father since he’d told her to pack a bag. She was worried, and she was hurt. And she did not want a repeat of Saturday.
Rad turned to her. “Don’t fret, darlin’. Let’s just go on down and be cool. You got more right to be here than that old bitch downstairs, right? So we’ll play it cool.”
Did she, though? Her dad wanted Mrs. Ogilvy here.
They went down. Rad went through the front door, with Simon and Leah right behind him. Sheriff Lucas was there, with two different deputies from those who’d been part of the mess on Saturday. The three other Bulls stood on the lawn with their backs to the house, like they were guarding it.
Rad set the box he’d brought down with him on the porch floor, then took the file box from Leah’s hand and put it on top. He smiled at her. “Okay. Showtime. You stay put for now. Don’t come off the porch unless I say, got it?”
She nodded, and Rad went calmly down the porch steps to meet Sheriff Lucas in the middle of the flagstone walk.
Mrs. Ogilvy was there; she’d been talking to the sheriff. As Rad approached, with Eight Ball, Simon, Becker, and Griffin making a row behind him, the sheriff nudged Mrs. Ogilvy away and rested his hand over the butt of his holstered gun.
The deputies, standing behind the sheriff, had their hands on their holsters, too. The Bulls were all unarmed. Again, the scene was drawing a crowd—a smaller one this time; it was the middle of a weekday rather than a Saturday afternoon.
Leah stepped to the porch railing and watched intently.
“Somethin’ we can help you with, Sheriff?” Rad asked, his voice calmly conversational.
“Got a call about somebody breakin’ into Reverend Campbell’s house and threatenin’ a little old lady. Now I see a g
ang carryin’ the Reverend’s things out of his house, pretty as you please, and I think there’s somethin’ to this complaint.”
“Not a gang. Just friends of the Reverend’s daughter, helpin’ her move. We’re just about done here, and we’ll be out of everybody’s way.”
The sheriff took a step closer. Rad took one, too, and the men were nearly nose to nose. They were about the same height. Sheriff Lucas was broader, but there was something about his barrel-shaped heft compared to Rad’s contoured breadth that said Rad was the stronger of the two—and their postures said they both knew it.
Rad spoke first, and Leah had to concentrate to hear his words. “You better sleep in that fuckin’ uniform, Sheriff. No tellin’ what could happen to you if you take it off.”
“You making a threat against an officer of the law?”
Rad’s head moved slowly back and forth. “Makin’ an observation is all. The world’s a dangerous place. I know. I got a brother laid up in the hospital. Got beat near to death, out of nowhere. So I’m just sayin’—best watch your back and keep that star on your chest, or who knows what could happen.”
Sheriff Lucas lifted his gun about halfway from its holster. At that sign, the deputies drew completely and held their weapons before them in both hands. Leah tensed, her fingers squeezing the porch rail. Behind Rad, all the Bulls shifted stances, becoming even more ready for trouble.
Rad was the only one who didn’t move at all. Leah barely heard him say, “Lot of bystanders, don’t you think? Little old lady just ten feet over. Little farther than that, you got moms. Little kids. Couple old guys. Reverend’s daughter up on the porch. Us, we’re all unarmed, but we ain’t outnumbered, and we won’t go down without a fight. So you think about that.”
Another few seconds of tension taut as a guitar string, and then the sheriff settled his gun back in his holster. “Get the fuck off Reverend Campbell’s property. Get the fuck out of Grant. Take his whore of a daughter with you.”
Without turning his head, Rad held out his hand to Leah. “C’mon, darlin’. Eight’ll get the boxes. You come on here, and let’s get you home.”
Her legs shaking, Leah came down the steps and went to Rad. He took her hand; his was coarse and hard, like Gunner’s, only much more so. He led her past the sheriff toward his truck. As she moved by Mrs. Ogilvy, the old woman spat out, “As is the mother, so is her daughter.”
She’d been prepared to ignore the sheriff and his deputies, all the looks and whispers of her neighbors, anything anyone might say to her as a parting shot. But that, she could not ignore. It cut too close. Leah stopped and yanked on her hand. Rad turned and, his eyebrow cocked with watchful concern, let her go. She stomped straight to Mrs. Ogilvy, and was gladdened at the sight of the biddy shrinking back from her.
“You want to quote Ezekiel, you old bitch?” Mrs. Ogilvy flinched at the word, and Leah smiled. “How about chapter thirty-six, verse three: ‘They have made you desolate, and swallowed you up on every side, that ye might be a possession unto the residue of the heathen, and you are taken up in the lips of talkers, and are an infamy of the people.’ That’s me. But how about you? How about Proverbs seventeen? ‘A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips; and a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue.’ Or Proverbs sixteen: ‘An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is a burning fire.’ You want more? I can duel the fucking Bible with you all day, you nasty hag.”
A strong, tattooed arm came around her shoulders. “Okay, little bobcat,” Rad chuckled. “You’re gonna blow up a situation I had handled. Do they give all girls a lesson on that in school or somethin’? Let’s get on the road.”
As Rad dragged her off, she called back her own parting shot. “Keep your filthy tongue in your shriveled-up mouth!”
Still chuckling, Rad stuffed her in the passenger side of his truck and closed her in with a solid slam of the door.
~oOo~
Gunner’s apartment was a small one-bedroom in a weary complex that looked like it had been built in the Fifties or Sixties. There was a definite black-and-white television vibe to the façades of the two-story buildings. Each apartment opened onto a concrete walkway. There was some green space around the buildings, and a perfunctory playground area, and an oblong pool with a concrete border on which a few vinyl-strap lounge chairs loitered. The whole place was aggressively modest. But the landscaping was tidy, and the water in the pool sparkled.
His apartment fit the bland surroundings. He didn’t have much furniture, and most of it looked like it had probably been handed down from his family. In the living room, a long upholstered sofa with a classic Seventies pheasant pattern faced a humungous television. A video game system and a stack of games filled the shelf under the television. She didn’t know much about video games, except for playing Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga in Trager’s Mini-Mart and Sandwich Shoppe, and it had taken her a couple of days to figure out that Gunner’s console was a PlayStation. On the other side of the front door was the dining room, featuring an old Formica dining table and two mismatched chairs.
His kitchen was supplied with three pots; one cast iron skillet; a set of four each of plates, bowls, and cups; a set of six glass tumblers; a set of four each of knives, spoons, and forks; three wooden spoons; a spatula; and a plastic knife block with four steak knives and four assorted kitchen knives. The cookware, dishes, flatware, and knives were all obviously of the same brand and all color-coordinated in a bright red. It looked exactly like he’d gone to Wal-Mart after he’d moved into this apartment and bought something of everything he thought he’d need.
Now knowing his sister, and him, better than she ever had before, Leah imagined Deb giving him a list of things he’d need for a kitchen, and Gunner finding a coordinated display and grabbing one of everything on the list.
His bedroom had a nice bed—a queen-size, Leah thought—with one nightstand beside it, and a matching tall chest of drawers. Two flat pillows were stacked against the center of the headboard. The bed wasn’t made, and Leah saw that his sheets were threadbare. They seemed clean, though.
He had nothing—at all—decorative on the walls, and his only window coverings were the vertical blinds that hung from windows throughout the complex. And not a single book anywhere. Not even a magazine or a newspaper. Not even in the bathroom.
Compared to the big house she’d grown up in, with its wraparound porches and second-floor balconies, its big trees and lush yard, its sunny rooms and cozy spaces, Gunner’s apartment wasn’t much. But Leah loved it.
She spent as much time at the hospital as she could, but the nurses enforced visiting hours so Gunner would rest. She came back here in the evenings and slept in his bed, smelling him all around her.
She was also going to her part-time job at the mayor’s office. Burt had of course heard about the trouble with her and her father, but he’d insisted that she had nothing to worry about in his office, at least. So she worked, and she visited Gunner, and she came back to this apartment at night and fussed around, tidying up and stocking his fridge and cabinets with food. And with kitchen supplies that she could actually cook with.
Leah felt like a real adult for the first time ever.
On the day that the Bulls helped her get some things from her father’s house, she was in his closet, hanging her clothes on the new plastic hangers she’d bought. Rad and Griffin were the only of the Bulls who’d come to the apartment with her; the others had gone straight to the clubhouse.
A big black safe sat at the back of the walk-in closet, as tall as she was, with a lock like a bank vault. It was probably the most expensive thing in the whole apartment, and the first time she’d seen it, she’d wondered what was in there that needed so much security. Then she’d decided she didn’t want to know.
Trying not to make too much of a dent in Gunner’s life, Leah hung her clothes in the smallest possible space of the closet. She didn’t know yet if he really meant her to stay—like, to really stay. He said he did, but she thought it best to
wait until he was home and they were truly living together before they decided whether it was what they wanted.
The phone rang while she was in the closet. Gunner’s phone hung on the wall in the kitchen, sort of in the middle of the U-shaped open space that was every room of the apartment but the bedroom and bathroom. An answering machine sat on a little table under the phone.
Rad and Griffin were still there, taking a break before they headed out, but they didn’t answer the phone. Everybody let it ring—the call was for Gunner, after all. The machine picked up as Leah hung her last pair of jeans over the bar of a plastic hanger.
Twist (The Brazen Bulls MC Book 2) Page 16
