by Bijou Hunter
Mom takes Stella’s hand and guides her into the house. Enjoying my girl getting my mom’s tender touch, I follow them inside.
“The entire Sanders family is shit,” I mutter despite Pop eyeballing me. He gestures for me to follow him out to the back deck. I hate leaving Stella, but she’s in good hands. I love the smile on her face as Mom babies her.
Outside, Pop waits for me. I expect him to give me shit about something, but he busts into laughter instead.
“What?”
“It’s not funny,” he says, still laughing. “I shouldn’t laugh, but Vaughn’s girls fucked those bitches up.”
Smiling at his amusement, I watch Pop struggle to calm his chuckles.
“But it’s not funny,” he mumbles as he catches his breath. “I mean what happened to Stella isn’t funny, but, fucking shit, Jera’s lucky the fight went down in public. Sylvie’s got a psycho side that would have left those three in a shallow grave.”
“The babies of the family are always the craziest. Just look at Audrey.”
Pop shoots me a disapproving look since she’s his fave and he refuses to accept he suffers from bad taste.
“I asked Stella to quit her job, and she agreed,” I say, picking my words carefully, so I don’t mention how I begged, and she giggled and then twenty minutes of vigorous fucking ensued.
“No reason for her to work there for chump change,” he says and exhales roughly. “Especially if you’re moving to Pema.”
“Yeah, how did that idea turn into a done deal without anyone talking to me?”
“Ask your grandmother. She blurted it out to Bailey on the phone. Your aunt got the gossip chain going. Then everyone who called Gram got an earful. Heidi said she wants you to drive up to kiss her ring.”
I smile at my cousin’s wording. She’s done a good job behind the scenes in Pema, but I know she wishes Gunnar would act as president. Since he won’t, here we are.
“I think you getting out of town for a few days will do you good. The entire club is riled up.”
“What do they have to be pissed about?” I mutter.
“Eagle Eye is angry about his daughter’s face. Vaughn is outraged that Nevaeh broke a nail. I think Judd might be angry about how he doesn’t have any kids around to get into shit. Oh, and Tucker is pissed that he told people to shut up and they didn’t listen.”
“And how are you feeling, Pop?”
Narrowing his eyes at me, he growls, “Don’t start with me, Colton. I have plans.”
“Plans, eh?”
“I’m not happy about what happened. Not with Stella getting jumped and not with how that twat thought it was okay to attack your woman. Jera’s hearing shit at home. Eagle Eye won’t keep them under control because he thinks his family is safe even when it’s attacking mine.”
I smirk at Pop calling Stella his family. Aww, fuck it, I’m in an emotional mood! Hugging him, I tighten my grip. “You’re a good man.”
“Lord,” he mutters at my dramatics. “Will you get out of Ellsberg for a few days and let shit calm down? I need time to get my plan in place.”
Letting him go, I nod. “Sure, Pop. I’m a helpful fucker. But before I move, I need to use the gym to train Stella so she can defend herself from bitches. I don’t know if Pema has a decent gym.”
“As president, you can set up a gym for your club. Give them a place to pound on each other and stay tight.”
“Is this a bad time to mention that I’m not sure I want to move to Pema?”
“I’m not sure I want you to move to Pema.”
“You could retire.”
Pop leans forward to growl, “Never fucking happening.”
“You plan to die on the job, huh?” I hiss back, fighting hard to keep from laughing.
“That’s the dream.”
“Then fuck you, man. I’m moving to Pema, and I won’t visit except for Christmas,” I say and imagine Mom missing me. “Or for random dinners and snacks.”
Pop stops trying to act like a tough fucker and smiles. “Pema’s not a bad little town. I mean, it’s no Ellsberg, but it’s better than Conroe.”
“And Shasta.”
Wrapping an arm around my shoulders, he walks us back to the doors where we see Mom still babying Stella.
“The next few weeks will be tricky, so I need you to keep your head on straight.”
“Why tricky?”
“Trust me, will you?”
Nodding, I’m willing to give Pop slack. That said, I also want to know his plans. Torn between my needs and wants, I figure I’ll focus on Stella for the time being.
But a reckoning is coming for the Sanders family, whether Pop agrees to it or not.
THE UNWANTED
I understand how Colt grew into such a confident, positive man. His mama loves him like crazy, and she’s a warm, tender woman. I struggle not to bawl every time she so much as smiles at me. Crying was a killjoy for a lot of my foster mothers. One told me to save my tears for tricking men because women weren’t interested.
Farah, though, just hugs me whenever I tear up. “You did nothing wrong,” she whispers. “Trust me that Jera’s spent her entire life picking on people because her daddy is a biker and she can scare people into keeping their mouths shut.”
I fight a smile. “What she needed was to be beat down by another biker’s princess.”
Farah shares my grin. “I bet she’s in a world of pain tonight. Embarrassed too, but I can’t imagine she’ll change. Getting her ass whipped won’t teach her empathy. It’ll only teach her fear,” she says and then shrugs. “Sometimes, with assholes, that’s all they need to learn to behave.”
Nodding at Farah’s words, I have nothing to say, but I don’t want to leave her side. I can’t imagine seeing her all the time like Colt and MJ do. In fact, I realize moving out of Ellsberg and away from these people burns worry in my gut. Colt’s family is perfect. Why should we give them up?
I don’t tell Colt my uneasiness. He’s already so tense that we spend the night at his parents’ place.
Then the next day, I’m offered a chance to feel like a member of the family. Colt asks if I wanted to babysit his niece so MJ, Quaid, Cooper, and Farah can enjoy lunch together. With Jodi in Conroe for the week and him busy interviewing a replacement, they have no one they trust to watch the little girl.
I quickly agree despite fearing I’ll mess up something. I don’t know what I could do wrong, but I have a way of screwing up even the best-laid plans. Plus, it doesn’t take a genius to realize MJ isn’t ready for me to be alone with her daughter.
“You’ve babysat before, right?” the tall brunette asks on the front porch of her parents’ house. “A human person and not an animal, right?”
“Yes. Always humans.”
MJ runs her fingers over her daughter’s blonde ponytail and lies, “I trust you.”
I wish Colt was around or, at least, Farah so I’d have help calming the obviously agitated MJ. Last night, she showed great concern for my well-being and even offered to kill Jera. Today, she looks ready to tear me to pieces.
“What do I need to know about her schedule?”
MJ steps closer, her dark eyes turning hostile. “If Thisbe died, I couldn’t survive. It would literally kill me,” she says before stepping even closer and growling, “And I’d take you with me to hell.”
“Why would she die?”
“I don’t know. People die, Stella,” she says, backing away. “Every day, they die, and no one knows why. It’s a mystery.”
Frowning, I look down at Thisbe who stomps her feet to a song by Toto playing from the yurt. The child seems healthy and happy, so I assume MJ’s fear is related to me.
“I started helping raise Kori when she was younger than Thisbe,” I explain, careful to say the child’s weird name correctly. Colt repeatedly sounded it out for me last night. “Imagine if thimble and Frisbee had a baby,” he said when I had trouble getting it.
“Okay then.” MJ smiles casually now.
“I’ll show you the yurt and explain things.”
I follow her and Thisbe into the strange house that’s way cooler inside than I’d assumed based on the tent-like exterior.
“It’s best to stay in here because my parents’ house has a lot of no-go zones. Pop keeps an arsenal stashed all over the place. If you don’t know where the guns are, you might have a problem. Just don’t go upstairs if you do go next door.”
“We’ll stay here.”
“What if it gets hotter?” MJ demands
“I’ll fan her.”
“What if you pass out from the heat?”
Glancing around the yurt, I frown. “It’s shaded and not that hot in here.”
“What if the temperature spikes to over a hundred and ten?” she cries.
“I’ll go next door and stay downstairs.”
MJ nods at how I passed her test. “Now, you should know, Thisbe is a great kid. She’s very calm and helpful. She loves everyone and isn’t a spoiled brat at all.”
I sense there’s a second part to this announcement and MJ proves as much by stepping closer.
“But she is in her terrible-two phase. That means, occasionally, she does turn into a possessed insane person. If that happens, just make sure she freaks out in a safe spot, so she isn’t injured while thrashing. Don’t worry if her eyes roll back in her head or she seems as if she’s having a seizure. That’s just part of her performance. Once she gets it out of her system, she’s fine.”
“A seizure?” I ask, looking at the smiling Thisbe.
“Yeah, but her freak-outs almost never happen. I think she stores up her crazy and only lets it blow when she hits a breaking point. She had her last freak-out a few weeks ago at Pizza Hut. I really don’t think it’s been enough time for her to be overflowing with crazy yet. If somehow she does wig out, though, no worries.”
“Okay.”
MJ squats down next to Thisbe who pets a cat named Meow-Meow. “I’m going to go see Daddy.”
“I come.”
“I need you to take care of Stella here.”
“No.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“No.”
“You can show her your toys.”
“No.”
MJ glances at the door. “I wonder if I should just make a run for it.”
“No,” Thisbe says again.
Feeling on the spot to help MJ with her indecision, I mutter, “I don’t know the right answer. Kori never cried when her mom left.”
“Does she not like her mom?”
“No, she just didn’t cry a lot.”
“Neither does Thisbe. I should just run.”
“She might think something’s wrong, though.”
“Something is wrong,” MJ says in a pained voice. “I’m leaving my baby with a new person, and she could die.”
“Die!” Thisbe cries, pumping her fist.
“No dying, baby,” MJ whispers, nearly in tears. “Never die.”
Thisbe nods. “No.”
“No.”
Sensing they’re falling into a loop, I look for something to use as a distraction. “Do you have an ouchie?” I ask since she’s wearing at least ten Band-Aids.
MJ gasps quietly. “Brilliant.” She points to the scrapes on my knees. “Thisbe, Stella has ouchies too.”
“Ooh,” Thisbe gasps. “I get bag.”
“She loves fixing people. Good luck with that.”
MJ inches toward the front door while Thisbe retrieves a tiny purse turned doctor’s bag. I sit on the floor so the little girl can check my wounds. She’s very concerned about my health and not at all focused on her mother leaving, but MJ remains at the door.
“I always wanted a family like yours,” I tell MJ who stares with terrified eyes. “Now I have one, and I won’t let anything happen to any of you.”
Swallowing her fear, MJ nods and forces herself to leave. Thisbe seems momentarily alarmed about her mother’s absence, but then remembers I’m at death’s door and only her Band-Aids can save me.
“You have a lot of ouchies,” I say, pointing at her legs.
“I fall down.”
“Me too.”
Thisbe finds ouchies on my elbows and legs. I tell her my head hurts, and she sticks a Band-Aid on the spot over my right brow. Once I’m sufficiently fixed up, she decides she needs to show me the back deck.
We sit in the afternoon shade and watch butterflies dance nearby. Eventually, Thisbe rests her head on my thigh and tells me a very long story that I cannot understand. I do pick up words like “Mama” and “Daddy,” and she yells “Colt 45” at one part, but the overall point of her tale is lost in her toddler babble. I don’t mind. This kind of quiet makes me smile, reminding me of when I was a kid living with Rae.
The Conway family took us in as their Christian duty—and the state’s stipend didn’t hurt—but they didn’t want us around. Our adolescent seductiveness was too tempting for the menfolk. When they attended church functions, the Conways left us behind. They didn’t trust us not to “run wild” in the house, so they ordered us to remain in their three-season porch.
My most distinct memory was spending a warm Sunday locked back there with wafer cookies and water. Two benches lined the small room. I sat on one and Rae relaxed on the other. The breeze kept us cool, and the birds sang loudly. On such a picturesque day, I was thrilled to know the Conways wouldn’t return for hours. Rae and I could relax alone in a quiet place with no one to hassle us.
I remember how she read me an entire book by Nora Roberts. The title is long gone from my memories, but it was the first book in a trilogy. Rae read a lot of Roberts back then. She’d just discovered Michael Crichton when we were separated. By the time we moved in together years later, she was reading nonfiction.
I never found out what happened in the trilogy, but maybe the Ellsberg library has the audiobooks. Colt claims the local system is super easy according to his mom, and she’s never wrong.
I think it’s Colt who’s never wrong. He told me that I belonged to his family. I just couldn’t see it. I was someone who never fit anywhere, let alone in a family with such a tight bond.
As Thisbe dozes against me, and Meow-Meow pokes her head out the back door, I imagine a life where I feel this relaxed with my own children. I can have this life. This kind of comfort is no longer out of reach. Thanks to Colt, everything is possible now.
THE HEIR
If my move to Pema becomes a reality, I’ll need to hire someone to take over the club’s booze and pot business. No doubt a lot of the younger club guys would fucking love to run this shit. I have the pick of the Reapers’ litter. Which is why they’ll be pissed about my decision.
Vaughn and Raven Rogers have eight kids. Cavalry is the second youngest boy, and maybe the most chill. Well, Denver is capable of napping at even the loudest family functions. So, if their baby boy is the calmest, then Cavalry wins second place.
Sitting across from me in the kitchen of the Lot House, he wears a “Meat is Murder” T-shirt from The Smiths and a pair of jeans that must be a size too large and only stay on his hips with the help of a ratty hemp belt. Flip flops round out his ensemble. Oh, and he sports the patented shoulder-length blond hair like the rest of the Rogers.
“Are you stoned?” I ask when he stares unaffected while I discuss business.
“No, are you?” he asks and smiles lazily. “Pot’s better than booze for the mood, man.”
“True, but you can’t use the product.”
“Can I buy it at market value?”
“Well, fucking duh.”
Barely moving, Cavalry shows me his version of angry by slightly frowning. “No, duh. How will I know the answer if I don’t ask? Shit’s never so obvious.”
“Isn’t it?” I ask, feeling certain he’s stoned.
“Maybe, but why worry?”
“Maybe I’m the one who’s stoned because I have no idea what the fuck we’re talking about anymore.”
“You
want to know if I plan to smoke all the merchandise.”
“Yeah, so you won’t, right?”
Tugging at the frayed edge of his jeans, he shakes his head. “No, I get how business works. I flipped burgers at a diner without eating all the food. I think I can handle myself here.”
“Flipping burgers and dealing with potheads and drunks isn’t the same thing.”
“Isn’t it, though? Customers are customers. People bitch. Employees slack off and steal sometimes. Capitalism works the same no matter the product.”
“I’m not sure that’s true.”
“That’s because you’ve never flipped burgers or worked in retail. It’s all the same, man.”
“Stop calling me man.”
“Fine, dude. Whatever.”
I laugh at his behavior, having accepted he really isn’t fucking stoned. This is just Cavalry in the afternoon.
“Question,” he says, leaning back in the chair and tugging at his loose jeans again. “Once I’m running this place—”
“I didn’t say you had the job.”
“Yeah, but we both know you’re looking to leave and who the hell are you going to hire that your family trusts? Come one, ma... I mean, dude. So, like I was saying about after I take over here, can I tag Denver and Sylvie to be my lackeys? Mom wants me to watch out for them, so it’d be cool if I could hire them.”
“That sounds like a Rogers’ problem.”
“I’m telling my mom you said that.”
Smiling, I admire his tattletale move. It’s a common play in my family too.
“After your sisters came to Stella’s aid, they’re on my nice list.”
“Are you planning to kill those bitches?” Cavalry asks in the relaxed way Rogers often talk about murder.
“I don’t kill women.”
“Too bad. I hear they’re easier to kill because of their weaker upper bodies.”
Laughing, I flick a pen at him. “Now I know you’re fucking with me.”
“Sure, but that’s gotta be true, right? I mean even Sylvie’s badass moves are all lower body. The chick can barely bench-press one of our pigs.”
