by Evelyn Glass
“They’re good guys,” Jules murmured, defending his club.
“Didn’t say they weren’t.”
“What should I do?” Jules asked as they walked into the Forsaken 99 clubhouse.
“Keep up the good fight. But make sure it’s the good fight.”
“I’ll try, Haynes.”
“I know you will, Sarge.” Haynes held out his hand and Jules took it. Haynes gave him a firm shake and that stupid lopsided grin of his. “And don’t forget to drink one for Second Platoon, Charlie Company.”
***
Jules rolled over, looked at the clock, and groaned. It was two in the morning and his bed was damp with sweat. He knew he had been dreaming; he could feel it, but he could never remember his dreams after he woke up, the memory of them dancing just beyond his ability to recall. All he had were the emotions left behind. He threw an arm over his eyes as he rolled to his back.
He staggered out of bed to the kitchen where he drank water directly from the jug he kept in the fridge. Putting the jug back, he leaned on the sink and stared out the window into the dark Texas night before he sighed and turned back to his bedroom.
Chapter Three
Jules wheeled his Fat Boy around in the middle of the road and returned to He’s Not Here. He had seen the old Chevy that Rachel drove around town sitting in the parking lot. It was only ten in the morning, but after spending three days looking at plat maps with the developer of the Grande Heights subdivision, and putting a sharp pencil to his bid, his brain was mush. He had finished his bid late last night and delivered it this morning. He could only do so much pencil pushing before he had to get out of the office—a bedroom in his house, actually—so he was treating himself to a Friday off.
When he started his landscaping business two years ago, the townspeople scoffed. The ranchers mowed their own yards, usually with a tractor, and the local kids took care of the few yards that needed tending around town. But they weren’t scoffing now. He had quickly taken over the landscaping for most of the businesses in town and he was slowly pushing the kids out. Not that he was proud of that, but business was business, and he offered a full service that the local kids couldn’t match. Besides, in the summer and on weekends, some of those kids worked for him and made more money than they had when they were just doing their neighbors’ yards.
As he dismounted, he noted that Rachel’s landscaping was looking a little shaggy. It was time for another trim of the bushes. One of these days he was going to find out what Rachel was doing that made her bushes grow so damn fast. It could be drunks pissing on them for all he knew, though Rachel was pretty good about cutting people off before they became totally shit-faced.
“We’re closed!” Rachel called as the hallway brightened with the opening of the front door.
“It’s me – Jules!”
“Oh, hey, Jules! Come on in,” she said as she stepped out of her office. “Here kinda early, aren’tcha?”
“I saw your truck outside and I thought I would stop in, say hi, and see what was up.”
“Just doing a little paperwork before I leave for El Paso.”
“El Paso? Today?” Jules asked, the confusion evident on his face. “It’s Friday.”
“I know. I’m going to let Rachel open tonight. I’m double checking my inventory before I head out.”
“You’re going on a Friday? Why? Don’t you normally go on Mondays?”
Rachel looked at Jules like he was dense. “Jules… my distributor isn’t Walmart. He’s closed on Memorial Day. Plus I’m opening Monday. Come on in, and bring your pals from the club. One free beer to all military and ex-military personnel. My way of saying thank you to all the men and women in the service.”
Jules grinned. “Thanks. That’s nice of you.”
“Hey, it’s the least I can do. The only catch is you to drink a toast to Will, my brother.”
“He’s in the Navy, right?”
“Marines.”
“Oh, that’s right. Just don’t tell anybody that Army is toasting a Marine. We’ll never hear the end of it.”
“You have a couple of Marines in Forsaken 99.”
“Yeah, but I don’t drink a toast to them,” Jules said with a sideways grin. “So you have to go today because…?”
“Because business has been good the last two weeks, and this is my week to go. If I don’t go every two weeks or so, I can’t get it all in my van.”
“Oh. I see you have it all planned out.”
“You betcha. You can stay if you want, but I have to get back to work.”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You’re no bother, but I need to finish this up before I go.”
“Want some help?”
“Sure. You want to count or write?”
“Uh… will I have to count over ten?”
“Probably. Why?”
“Then I better write.”
Rachel giggled. “Silly. Okay. Hang on a minute. I have to finish something in the office, then we’ll inventory. I might even have some crayons back there for you to write with.”
“Perfect!” Jules chuckled.
***
Less than an hour later, the inventory was complete.
“Thanks, Jules! You were a big help.”
“You’re welcome, but why do you even bother to count? It was perfect.”
“Because sometimes I forget to write something down. It pisses me off when I run out of something because I screwed up.”
“Do we have to inventory the food, too?”
“Nah. Tim handles that. We buy local, so we don’t have to manage that so tightly. I can have meat here in a few hours in a rush, for example. It’s not like having to drive the five hours to El Paso for the booze.”
Jules waited quietly while Rachel dialed a number and rattled off her order.
When she returned the handset to the cradle, Jules stood up. “Well, it looks like you are ready to leave. I’ll be going so you can get on your way.”
“Jules, wait a minute. If you have a second, I would like to talk to you. Have a seat.”
He returned to his seat and crossed his legs as he waited for her to continue.
“You doing okay?”
“Fine,” he replied, unsure of where the conversation was going. “I don’t think the developer out at Grande is going to be able to find anyone to undercut my bid. Since I’m local, that gives me the advantage. Why?”
“I don’t mean LG Landscaping. I mean you personally. You seemed a little down Saturday.”
Jules paused for a moment, wondering how much she knew. “No… nothing unusual. Just tired, I guess.”
“Well, funny that you should say that. I was going to talk to you about working too hard. Why do you feel like you have to go out on every intercept? Nobody else does that. Why should you?”
“I just want to do my part, that’s all.”
“All fine, well, and good, but there’s doing your part and doing more than your fair share. If you keep pushing, you are going to burn out. Then who will do my landscaping?”
Jules smiled. “I’m fine. Really.”
Rachel watched him smile. It looked a little forced to her. “You know, if something is bothering you, you can always talk to your bartender. And if not your bartender, you can certainly talk to your friend.”
“It’s nothing, Rachel. Ghosts from the past, that’s all.”
“Ghosts?”
“Yeah. Regrets. Lost friends. That sort of thing. Nothing to worry about.”
“You’re sure that’s all it is? Saturday, when you were in here, all you did was stare into your beer. I thought I was going to have to put on some Hank Williams. You were dragging the whole place down,” Rachel said, but her smile softened the bite of her words.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to be a party-pooper.”
“Not to worry. You can’t be the life of the party every night. But think about it, okay? I have a pretty good idea what you guys do on these intercepts a
nd it has to be tough. When it gets to be too much, take a step back, okay? You don’t have to carry the load by yourself.”
“Yes, mother,” he said with a grin.
“If you’re calling me old, I’m going to come around this desk and kick your ass.”
His grin widened as he held up his hands in surrender. “I wouldn’t dream of calling you old. It would be too embarrassing to have to explain to the rest of the club how Rachel Wallace kicked my ass.” Jules rose to his feet.
She smiled as she came to her own feet and walked him out. “Okay. So long as you are not. But seriously, Jules, think about what I said, okay?”
“I will, Rachel. Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine.”
“Okay. Just don’t let the past get you down. That’s done with, right?”
“Yeah, I guess. Have a safe trip, okay?”
“Planning on it. If I have an accident with all that booze in the back, I would never be able to convince the cops I wasn’t drinking and driving.”
***
By four o’clock, Rachel was approaching El Paso. The long drive had given her plenty of time to think. She wondered how Will would do when he hung up the uniform. His third tour was up and he was mustering out. She wondered if he would have trouble adjusting to life outside the military. She knew a lot of guys did, and that is why they sometimes tended to gravitate to the motorcycle clubs. It was something she admired about Forsaken 99. They took the guys in and helped ease them into civilian life by giving them that feeling of belonging.
As she approached the north side of town, she exited Interstate 10 and a few minutes later, her van creeped to a stop in the Glazer’s parking lot. As expected, her order was ready and waiting. It took less than thirty minutes for her to be loaded, Rachel ticking off her order as it went into the van. Satisfied she had everything she ordered, she signed her bill and crawled back behind the wheel. Her van groaned under the weight of over a ton of adult beverages as she turned south on I-10. She made a couple more stops while she was in town, picking up a few items she needed for her business, did some shopping for herself, and had a nice dinner. Vallecito is a nice little town, but it wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of shopping and dining.
Just before nine, Rachel pulled into the Hampton Inn in Van Horn, Texas. She had thought about pushing on to home, but she was tired and driving down 118 in the dark didn’t appeal to her much.
After she settled into her room, Rachel pulled her laptop out of its case and checked her email. She felt her heart leap when she saw one from her brother. Quickly scanning the email she grew hot with excitement. Will would be home in less than a month! She hadn’t seen him in almost a year and she was looking forward to having her big brother back.
Excited as she was, she once again wondered how it would be for him when he returned to civilian life and worked a nine-to-five job. She hoped he would be able to cope better than Jules seemed to. As much as she admired what Forsaken 99 did, she wasn’t sure she wanted Will mixed up with them. More than one member of the club had lost their life on the intercepts. It would be just like him to want to join in and help protect the community, though. That’s why he joined the Marines in the first place – to serve.
She pushed the dark thoughts aside. Will would be fine. He had always been as tough as old shoe leather. But it still wouldn’t hurt to introduce him to Jules, to give Will someone to talk to if he needed a little help easing back into the real world. Deciding she had a plan, Rachel rose from the desk and walked into the bath where she started the shower and stripped off her clothes. She needed to wash the day, and the road, off before she turned in.
As she shampooed her hair, she thought of Jules again. She didn’t know what it was about that guy. When he smiled, really smiled, his entire face lit up. But he did it so infrequently, it was almost sad. If something was bothering him, she didn’t know why he didn’t talk to one of the Forsaken 99 guys. Maybe they could help. Hell, if he would just tell her what was wrong, maybe she could help.
Rachel snorted. She would like to help him alright. Jules was a good looking guy, sun-kissed and well built. And when he actually smiled... he could melt a woman’s heart. As she soaped her body she thought about helping him… helping him bang the shit out of her. Maybe that is all he needed… to get laid. She could definitely help him with that. She has had the low level hots for him for several months now… since even before her breakup with Josh. He looked like they were about the same age, mid-to-late twenties, and he also looked like he knew how to please a woman.
As she rinsed, her hand found her secret place. As she lightly stroked, she felt a spreading warmth and a heaviness in her loins. It had been a couple of months since she had anything between her legs that didn’t run on batteries, and she imagined what Jules could do there. A shudder passed through her. She thought about stopping, but the image of Jules walking into the bathroom, his cock already hard as he stepped into the shower and took her into his embrace while the water poured over them was too powerful of a fantasy to ignore.
She lay down in the bottom of the tub, the water from the shower pelting her like rain. Suddenly the tub was the floor of a forest and the water from the shower was summer rain as Jules’s lips caressed her body in fleeting kisses, his cock probing her. Rachel’s head tipped back, her lips finding his as her finger probed and touched, Jules’s cock hitting her just right.
Her left hand grabbed her breast, pulling and twisting as his tongue flicked over the nipple, the sensation of his touch causing her orgasm to bear down on her. She moaned softly as his cock and lips destroyed her, her finger stroking and darting until with a shuddering groan her orgasm took her. She tried to continue stroking, driving her orgasm on as he cried out in orgasmic ecstasy, but the pleasure was too intense and she stopped her touching with a gasp.
She lay panting in the bottom of the tub a moment before she blew out a cleansing breath, shuddered again in the after-wash of her orgasm, and then struggled to her feet. She placed a steadying hand on the wall of the shower a moment until she felt confident on her feet.
Maybe she was the one that needed to get laid.
Chapter Four
After leaving Rachel’s place, Jules took a ride through the countryside to try to clear his head. Today was the fifth anniversary of the slaughter. He thought he was hiding his turmoil pretty well, but Rachel seemed able to see right through him. Yes, the intercepts got him down. They always did. While he did little of the actual killing anymore, he gave the command to have it done, and that made it his responsibility. He didn’t like the killing, but it was club policy long before he arrived, and he couldn’t argue against it. The Andres Cartel knew if they sent drugs and illegals through Forsaken 99 territory, and they got caught, their lives were forfeit. That had to make their recruiting drives a bitch.
Their vigilantism, and that was what it was, was important but ugly work – work that had to be done to keep the citizens of Vallecito safe. But that didn’t mean he had to enjoy it.
So the vigilantism wasn’t the problem… not all of the problem anyway. The real problem was that he always felt the loss of Second Platoon most keenly this time of year, when the ghosts, as he called them, spoke most loudly. Intellectually he knew it wasn’t his fault that Second Platoon was wiped out, and likewise he knew that no one blamed him for surviving – no one but himself, but that didn’t make the ghosts any less real.
Jules backed his Harley into his space at the clubhouse. He was a little early for the meeting, but he always felt most comfortable here, around people who knew how he felt and he didn’t have to pretend.
The Forsaken 99 clubhouse was a 1950s ranch style house the club had bought on the cheap and fixed up. Set on a five acre lot with a barn, the clubhouse was far enough away from everything that they didn’t have to worry about disturbing the neighbors. It was where they came to let off steam and where they met to conduct club business.
As Jules dismounted, Todd, the club President, sauntered up
and took Jules into a hug, slapping him hard on the back. “How you holding up today, Jules?”
“I’ve had better days.”
“Yeah, I can image. But hey… it’s Friday, payday, and time to party. You going to stick around and join in on the fun?”
Jules smiled. “Don’t I always?”
Todd smiled and steered Jules toward the clubhouse. “Yeah, you do. But tonight has to be tough. Try to forget about it, if you can, and enjoy yourself, okay? And if you can’t do that, drink enough to drown the fucking memories. You can crash here. I’m sure somebody will be around in the morning to help get you the hair of the dog.”
