It took a few minutes. I didn’t realize right away where I was sitting. Casper was enough of a distraction. But once he turned away from me, it hit me. Flashes of sitting in this same spot while Tony screamed in my face came flooding back, and immediately, I was afraid I was going to throw up. My head pounded, and my stomach cramped as I tried to get my frozen limbs to lift me off the couch.
By the time I was standing, Vera and Casper were standing with me, speaking in low voices.
“You’re okay, baby girl. You’re okay,” Vera reassured me, rubbing my lower back where I had the least bruising.
“I can’t throw up!” I told them desperately, pulling my lips back as far as I could as if to remind them of my broken jaw.
“You’re not going to throw up,” Casper told me calmly. “You do need to calm the fuck down though.”
I raised my head to call him every name I could think of for being so insensitive, but when I saw the look he was giving me, I paused. His eyes were filled with concern as he searched my face.
“I’ve heard the way Dragon calms you down,” he answered the question in my eyes with a shrug of his shoulders.
“You listen to authority. If I tried to comfort you, it would have made things worse…be glad I didn’t threaten to spank your ass,” he told me with a lopsided smile.
I made a small chuckling noise in my throat and shook my head. I did feel a bit better now, but I wasn’t sitting back down on that couch. We were going to have to move it or something. Maybe if we rearranged the furniture it wouldn’t bother me as much.
The doctors had talked to me about post-traumatic stress disorder. They’d warned me that I might have some of the symptoms, but I’d brushed them off. I’d been in pretty bad situations with Tony before, and I hadn’t had flashbacks or anger problems. They thought the fact that he had violated my sanctuary might change things though, and I guessed they were right. If that little memory on the couch hadn’t been a flashback, I was the Queen of Sheba.
I decided I was going to lie down for a while, and I asked Vera to make sure the window in our room was closed before I stepped inside. I didn’t think I could deal with any more reminders. When I climbed into bed, I was instantly comforted by the scent of Dragon on my sheets, and I inhaled until my ribs protested. It was exactly what I needed.
“I didn’t wash your sheets,” Vera told me from the doorway. “When we were younger, Slider was inside for about six months. I didn’t change the sheets until I couldn’t smell him anymore.” She laughed. “Probably couldn’t smell him anymore ’cause they were so rank from never getting washed!”
I smiled back at her in thanks before she left the room, closing the door behind her. I wasn’t tired. I just wanted to lie in our cocoon and pretend that Dragon was in the living room with Trix, playing Legos and letting me take a nap. I missed my family. After everything that had happened with Tony, I needed Dragon’s arms around me. I needed the reassurance that the life we’d built over the last couple of months wasn’t just a dream.
I tried to stay strong, to tell myself that he’d be home soon, and that I didn’t have long to wait. But, within ten minutes of Vera closing the door, tears were running down my face and soaking into Dragon’s pillow.
I fell asleep at some point and woke up to Casper calling my name from the doorway of my room. When I opened my eyes, he told me that the attorney was in the kitchen and walked away. He seemed a little abrupt, but I was in a hurry to talk to Dragon’s attorney, so I did a quick check of my clothes and hair and headed toward the voices in the front of the house.
The attorney, I thought his name was Duncan, was sitting at the kitchen table, chatting with Vera when I walked in, eager for news. I sat across from him and tried to read his face, but it showed little emotion. I didn’t know if he had good news or not.
“Mrs. Richards, I hope it’s okay that I stopped by—” He started speaking, but I cut him off.
“Brenna,” I gritted through my teeth.
We’d had this conversation before, and the douche continued to use my married name whenever I saw him.
“Brenna.” He nodded his head once. “I have a couple of things to speak to you about. First, let’s get the questions you left on my voice mail out of the way. I can’t get you in to see Dragon this week.”
“Why?” I interrupted him again. Pop and Slider seemed to think he could move mountains. It seemed like a very little thing to get me into the jail.
“Well,” he paused. “I’m just going to tell you. I talked to Daniel White today, and he doesn’t want to see you.”
I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me, and the absolute lack of compassion on his face made it ten times worse.
“Why?” I asked again.
“Mr. White didn’t give me his reasons, but he was adamant that if you showed up, even during regular visiting hours, he wouldn’t see you,” he told me impatiently. “Now, regarding the custody suit, that’s been dropped due to the death of the plaintiff.”
“What?” I cried.
He was going too fast; the information he was giving me was making my head spin. I felt Casper come up behind me and lay his hand on my shoulder as I looked at the attorney in bewilderment. He acted like we were wasting his precious time, like he had better things to do than sit and try to explain things to me.
“Mr. Tony Richards was found dead in a hotel room on the California border this morning. Of course, nothing is legal yet, but without a plaintiff, it’s all a matter of paperwork at this point,” he told me offhandedly, gathering the paperwork on the table into his briefcase. “I’ll still work on getting those birth certificates changed though, but I don’t foresee any problems with that.”
I looked over to Vera for verification, and her face was like stone. I opened my mouth to say something, I didn’t know what, and she shook her head at me once. Not while the lawyer was there. That little shake of her head reminded me of Pop’s visit the morning before. He’d said he was going hunting. Holy God.
Chapter Thirty One
Brenna
Dragon never changed his mind about letting me visit.
I had to learn about how he was doing from the brothers who visited him every Thursday and Sunday. I gathered their news like a hoarder, thinking about it over and over again, as I lay in bed at night with Trix cuddled into my side. The attorney was still a complete asshole, but he seemed to be doing his job. Dragon got three months, and by the time they’d decided, he’d already finished a month.
Trix and I continued with our regular routine even though most of the club’s kids returned to school at the end of the summer. I decided to homeschool Trix for preschool that year. We’d had too many changes and upheavals as it was. I didn’t want to add to the things she would have to tell her therapist as an adult.
Thankfully, the weather cooperated, so we were able to spend most of our time outside, which left us both with golden tans. I’d actually never had a tan before. I’d either burned or stayed pale, but I guessed Dragon was on to something when he’d slathered us with sunblock this summer.
I missed Dragon the worst at night after Trix had gone to sleep and the house was quiet. I missed his hands on me, and the scruff of his beard rubbing against the back of my neck as I fell asleep. I missed falling into bed, exhausted, after he’d worn me out with a sweaty round of sex. I missed falling asleep with the window open and his hot body keeping me warm. I missed it all.
My belly grew, and Trix helped me rub lotion on it every night, laughing as we drew faces with the white lotion. I wanted her to feel like she was a part of things, so I included her in anything I could when it came to her little brother or sister. We both felt the hole in our lives, but just like every other time we’d been alone, we just grew closer. We played games, watched movies, and shopped for baby things. It was a relaxing way to spend my time while I healed and grew round.
Dragon’s ex, Kendra, never showed up at the club again. The boys had feelers out all over the West Co
ast, but nobody had heard from her. We weren’t sure if Tony had dumped her somewhere or if she’d just skipped town, but her whereabouts were the last on my list of worries. I had enough on my plate.
Pop never came home.
I’d gotten the full story from Vera after the lawyer left, the day he’d told me Tony was dead. Apparently, Tony was found in a luxury hotel suite, his throat slit by the steak knife that had come with his room service dinner. The security cameras in the hotel hadn’t caught a glimpse of anyone near Tony’s hotel room the night he was killed. There was no forced entry, and there were no prints to be found because it was such a high-traffic area. The murder case was still an open investigation, but the police had no leads. It was as if he’d slit his own throat.
Only a few of us knew the truth, and we weren’t talking.
Nobody had seen Pop since the day he’d dropped Trix off with Vera after they’d visited me at the hospital. I was worried. It wasn’t like Pop to just take off with no word. Slider didn’t seem to have the same concerns though. I finally asked him about it, a few days after I’d had the wires taken off my jaw.
“Brenna, your pop left that life behind him when he came here. That kinda shit…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It leaves marks on a man, even if he feels it’s justified. He’ll be back when he gets here,” he told me as he started to walk away.
“Yeah, but where is he?” I asked in frustration.
“Your man has a hard day. What’s he want when he gets home, Brenna?” he asked me with his eyebrows raised in question.
“Oh,” I answered him faintly.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “He’s got a woman near Salem. I’ve met her a couple times…got some weird-ass fuckin’ hippie name and long-ass dreadlocks. Nice broad though…he’ll be here when he gets here.”
“His room…why’s it yellow?” I asked, the picture becoming clearer.
“Yup. That was her doing. Said it would help his aura. Whatever the fuck that means,” he told me and then walked out, leaving me standing in the middle of the clubhouse.
For the first two months without Dragon, I was weepy and lonely. I missed him, and I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t see me. Did he not miss me as much as I missed him? Did he decide I was just too much trouble? Did he regret filing the papers for Trix? My mind spun ’round and ’round, each scenario worse than the last. I was a mess. I used the baby as my excuse every time Trix saw me crying for no reason.
“I’m okay, Trix. Sometimes, when mommies are making babies, it just makes them cry a lot,” I told her.
Dragon sent a message home with Casper after a visit one Sunday after he’d been gone almost two months. He loved me and missed me. He loved the babies. He’d be home soon.
I cried for two days.
Once I recovered from Dragon’s message, my attitude changed. With each day my belly grew, so did my anger until I was afraid I’d explode. How dare he tell me I couldn’t visit him! What an asshole! I’d just had the shit beat out of me, my Pop freaking assassinated my ex-husband, and my jaw was wired shut during the first queasy month of pregnancy, and he couldn’t even see me? I was livid. My indignation got me through the last month of Dragon’s incarceration. It was ironic, really. The anger I was finally feeling made the days pass quickly.
When it was almost time for him to come home, I cleaned the house from top to bottom. I didn’t know if it was because I wanted him to come home to a clean house or because I had way too much nervous energy. The entire place freaking sparkled when I was through with it. I also went with Vera and bought all new bras and underwear—frilly, lacy, silky pieces of nothing, which I knew he’d love. I’d only fit into them for another month before I had to start shopping in the maternity section. I even went to a salon and got my hair dyed back to its original bright red hue.
My anger hadn’t abated. I could still feel the fire in my gut every time I thought of Dragon, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t counting the days until he got back. I was almost giddy when the day finally arrived.
I refused to go with Grease when he went to pick up Dragon. I was still pissed enough that he was going to have to come to me. The asshole.
I was pissed at him, but I still helped set up the food for his welcome-home party. It was sort of a tradition to have a welcoming party for the brothers as they got out of jail. A little weird, sure, but it was their thing, so I didn’t judge it.
Vera and I spent all day shopping for food and beer, dragging Casper and Curly with us to load anything heavy into Slider’s huge pickup. The sheer amount of food we needed made our shopping trip take forever. By the time we headed back to the clubhouse, I thought the boys were going to fall asleep from exhaustion on the back of their bikes.
The wonderful thing about having an extended family meant I was never lacking babysitters, so Trix was off to stay the night with one of the old ladies. I knew it was selfish of me to send her away on Dragon’s first night home, but I honestly didn’t care. We needed one night that was just for us. I didn’t even tell her that he was coming home yet, and I couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when we went to pick her up the next day.
By the time Grease left at about four o’clock, my stomach was in knots. My hands were shaky, and I frantically checked the food and the plates and the toilet paper in the bathrooms. I couldn’t stop moving. I was a nervous wreck.
My belly wasn’t huge. I was only about four months along, but it was already making itself known through my clothes. He knew I was pregnant, but I wondered if he would be surprised when he saw me. I felt like I had changed completely in the three months he’d been gone.
When the time finally came and I heard the bikes roar into the forecourt, a sense of complete calm settled into my bones. When he walked through the door, I started toward him, noting the leanness of his face as he searched for me in the crowd. When his eyes finally found me, they lit up, and a huge smile spread across his face. I didn’t smile back. I just kept walking toward him, my hips swaying. I knew I looked good. Vera and I had bought a welcome-home outfit that I’d known he would love, and my larger boobs gave me killer cleavage. By the time I reached him, his smile had turned into a frown, and he was looking at me in confusion.
“Baby, what’s goin’ on?” he asked me, completely unaware of the looks everyone was giving us.
“Welcome home, Dragon,” I told him, my face completely blank. “I washed all your bedding in your club room and made sure everything was clean before you got back. I hope you enjoy it.” I nodded once and then turned as if to walk out.
“The fuck are you talkin’ about, Brenna?” he asked me and grabbed my arm. The look on his face had changed from confused to pissed.
“You didn’t want to see me for three months?” I asked him. “Well, now, I don’t want to see you!” And then, I tried to walk away again.
“Stop right where you are!” he called after me, but I kept moving.
I knew he’d follow me. I knew we’d make up. But I was going to make him freaking work for it. My attitude was solid until he came up behind me at the edge of the forecourt and wrapped his hands around my waist, spreading his fingers over the small mound of my belly.
“Baby…” he whispered, moving my hair away from my neck with his chin. “You know I wanted to see you. I thought about you every goddamn second. Wonderin’ if you were all right, wonderin’ if our babies were doin’ okay.”
He started kissing my neck, and tears began to roll down my face, but my back stayed straight.
“Then, why didn’t you let me come see you?” I asked him in a wobbly voice.
“Because, baby, I don’t want you seeing me in there. Wearin’ a fuckin’ jumpsuit, fuckin’ tennis shoes with no laces. I’m your man. I don’t want you ever seein’ me as anything else,” he told me as he walked around me and tilted my face up to his. “You can be pissed all you want, Brenna. But don’t ever tell me again that I won’t be sleepin’ in our bed. Got me?” he asked, and the dominance in hi
s voice made me feel like I was coming home.
“I got you,” I whimpered back.
His hands on my body and his face close to mine after so long made me feel like I was going to spontaneously combust. I hoped that he would always affect me that way.
“That’s right, baby. You got me,” he whispered back as he took my mouth in a hard kiss. “God, baby. I was goin’ crazy without you,” he told me when we finally stopped kissing, and he started dragging me through the tall grass toward our house.
“Dragon!” I laughed up at him. “We can’t leave! You have a welcome-home party going on!”
“Baby, any of those boys inside won’t expect us back for a couple hours. Neither will their women,” he answered me, never veering from his course.
I reached forward to run my nails down the back of his arm, and it stopped him in his tracks about ten yards from the house.
“Brenna, you keep doing shit like that, and we ain’t gonna make it in the house,” he groaned.
Before I knew what he was doing, he’d reached down and lifted me up, so my legs wrapped around his waist, and the little skirt I was wearing was pushed to the top of my thighs.
“Fuck, Brenna. You can’t be wearing a skirt like that with no underwear,” he ground out as he squeezed my ass in his hands.
“Just being prepared.” I kissed him lightly on the lips. “Now, take me in the house.”
We stumbled our way to the house, and he had to put me down to fumble with the front door lock. My hands were all over him—unbuttoning his jeans, sliding under his shirt to trace his abs, scratching lightly down his back. By the time we made it into the bedroom, I was on fire for him.
“Damn,” he mumbled once he’d stripped me naked and laid me on the bed. “Look at you, Little Mama. All fuckin’ ripe and swollen.”
A Ride or Die Kind of Love Page 58
