8.

Caitlin

 

In the morning, Duke and I wake at the same time to Princess Jade jumping on our bed.

“Shit, Peaches. Thought Tennessee was having an earthquake.” Then he looks at me. “And we don’t get earthquakes in these parts. Not ones that register, anyhow.”

I laugh, about to admonish him for cursing in front of Jade when first, I remember Duke is a biker president. It doesn’t make sense to take up with any man intending to change him, but especially not a biker, so especially, especially, not a biker president.

Then second, Jade blindsides Duke with a pertinent little girl question. “Why you sweeping in the bed wiff my mama?”

His eyes go wide, to the point it would be comical if she weren’t standing on the bed, hands to her hips, waiting on a reply.

“Well,” he says, low and grumbly, because even in a good mood, Duke grumbles, and looks over at me for help. Maybe it’s bitchy for me not to offer a hand, but he instigated this adventure, so I feel the need to see how he handles himself in the face of a curious four-year-old, because four-year-olds tend to be curious by nature. I bite my bottom lip, waiting expectantly.

When I offer no help, Duke continues. “Your mom’s my wo—” He stops himself, and sucks in a breath. It looks like he’s thinking. Then goes with, “my girlfriend.” Giving Jade an answer she can understand.

My daughter nods, though she waits like she wants him to give her more. So he gives her more. “See, there are two kinds ’a girlfriends, Peaches. The first is a girlfriend a man likes to spend time with, but not one who’ll stay around for a long time. She doesn’t share a bed. She sleeps in her own bed. Then there’s a girlfriend a man likes to spend time with, so much that he knows she’s gonna be around, be his girlfriend for a good, long time. Maybe forever. She’s the kind to share a bed, because letting her go, even for a night, is an unbearable thought.”

I—I almost can’t breathe. Swallow. Think. We’ve known each other for months, close to a year. That whole time he acted like he couldn’t stand me. Now in the span of a week, I’m the kind of girlfriend who will be around for a good, long time? And this, after he told me just last night that he didn’t know how to feel about the blowjob I’d given him, which in essence, meant me.

“Well, she’s a good mama. So I bet she’s a good gurlfwiend.” Jade answers him.

I still don’t know that I’ve breathed.

And Duke must notice. “Breathe, Doc,” he whispers with a little laugh.

That’s when I take in a breath I’m aware of taking.

Duke pulls my girl down onto his blanket-covered lap. “We had a tradition growing up. Whenever we spent the night out ’a town, we’d get delicious, but not good for you fast food breakfast the next morning. The only day my mom would let me and my brother have it.” He turns to me. “What do you think, Doc?”

“The only time?” I ask suspiciously.

“Promise. The only time. But—” He sneaks in. “Every Sunday, Mom, Rex, and I would eat doughnuts and orange juice for breakfast. Sundays were the only days all three of us could be together growing up, and even after we’d grown. Did it right up ’til Rex died. And that was after Mom passed.”

My heart falls for him and all he’s lost. So without thinking first, I ask a question on a subject we haven’t discussed yet. “You didn’t—uh—do doughnuts with your wife?”

He wraps one arm around Jade to pull her closer, kissing the top of her forehead. The other, he wraps around my middle. “No. Dawna took her treatments Sunday mornings. She didn’t want me at the hospital while they happened. Only to pick her up after. So I went for doughnuts. Just me, my brother and my mom. That was our tradition.”

How could I say no? Sharing his family tradition with me and my daughter.

We lay in the bed like a real family. And again, logic tells me it’s too soon to think that way. Letting him close to Jade is probably a severely stupid parenting move. But the way he moved one arm around her and one arm around me, to hold the both of us like we’re something precious to him, I realize that we are. At least for now. This morning means something to him.

“So, what do you say we get up and go find some delicious, not good for you breakfast?” Duke asks as he sits up.

“Yeah.” Jade giggle-screeches.

“The greasier the better,” he says as he tickles my girl causing her to giggle-screech even louder.

Great.

As none of us brought a change of clothing, there’s really no need for any of us to shower seeing as we’d be putting days-old clothes on our bodies. But I do rake a comb that I pull from my purse through Princess Jade’s curls and pull it back in a quick French braid, secured with a rubber band from a different pocket of my purse. Then rake the comb through my hair, leaving the curls to bounce around my shoulders.

Duke gives his hair a simple finger comb, and he’s ready to go.

He holds us, a hand in Jade’s and one to my back until we hit checkout, then he drops the hand from my back to hand off the key card and take his receipt. The hand goes right back as he leads us outside. Although morning, it’s already hot and humid out, making me regret the choice to leave my hair down. We walk to where he’d parked the truck yesterday. He stops to pay the attendant the additional fee while Jade and I continue on. We’re both buckled in when he joins us. Even before he climbs in, Duke walks to my daughter’s door, opens it, leans in to drop a quick kiss to the top of her head and then folds himself behind the wheel.

I’m occupied watching Jade and her giddy, little girl smile when in a sneak attack, he wraps his large hand around the back of my neck and draws my head to his. He kisses me deep and long. The kind of kiss to leave me breathless. The kind of kiss no man has ever given me in front of my daughter before. Not even her father.

When I stiffen because Jade is watching, Duke takes it upon himself to once again, blow my mind. “Good for her to see this, honey. Good for her to see how a man should treat a woman because eventually, she’ll be a woman who’ll most likely have a man.”

Then he starts the truck, shifts into gear, and pulls out of the parking lot. As if he hadn’t left my mind a gooey mess of brain matter splattered on the blacktop. I mean, from blowing it.

We end up eating the greasiest fast food breakfast. Mine, sausage, egg and cheese on a croissant. And these little cheesy hashbrown tots available for a limited time only, according to the sign in the window. Jade ordered those same cheesy tots and French toast sticks. One upped by Duke again, he orders everything both Jade and I did, plus a second sandwich and these mini cinnamon rolls.

We both drink coffee. Jade, an orange juice. I refuse to acknowledge the amount of fat and calories we consume. Not that I’m normally a calorie counter, but I could pretty much feel my arteries clogging. Though I have to admit, it tastes delicious.

Before we leave Nashville, Duke makes a Frappuccino run for me without my asking. And we head home—his hand never leaving my thigh except the one time he has to downshift because of a traffic backup. An accident already mostly under control. The looky-loos, not the accident causes the backup.

After three and a half hours—the half because of the accident—we roll back into Thornbriar.

“Gonna head to the shop, Doc. You’ll need a loaner ’til we get your Jeep sorted.”

Stupidly I turn to him. “A loaner?” I ask. “How much will that cost?”

I know it’s stupid when he pins me with a ‘really, Doc?’ which clearly states it’s stupid.

“Well it ain’t so much a loaner. I bought me a new truck. This one works, but it’s got high miles. Don’t have all the bells and whistles ’a the new ones.”

“Bells and whistles?” I ask.

“Yeah.” His eyes search out Jade in the rearview mirror. “Gonna be carting around a little one, figured I needed an upgrade. Got the text last night, dealership left it at the shop.”

“When… um… when did you order a truck?”

“After I dropped you and Peaches off at home when she got outta’ the hospital.”

For some reason, hearing him tell me he bought a new truck with bells and whistles a week ago, it gets me. Gets me to the point I find it hard to blink back the tears rimming my eyes.

When I know he’s not looking at me, I use the inside of my Tee to dab the wetness away. Though, I hear him chuckle and clear his throat, and look to see him glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. Grin visible even through his unruly mustache and goatee.

“Shut up,” I mumble.

That only makes him laugh harder. At least he lets my girl moment go without any further discussion on my said girlie-ness. Maybe I need to adopt one of those bitchy, biker old lady personas that I’ve seen on television or the movies.

A stop sign and two turns later, we pull into Ellis Auto & Towing, where he stops next to a shiny, new silver pickup.

“Didn’t know if you could drive a stick, so the new truck I got automatic. Four wheel drive, standard. You use it on the Jeep?”

He pauses for an answer.

“Ah, yes. I have,” I say, it still not really registering what he’s told me.

“Good.”

Then we both climb out of his old pickup without all the “bells and whistles”.

While I attempt to process, well, everything, it occurs to me that his shop is a bustling hub of activity. Men, most of them brothers, move cars in and out of the five bays. Five. That’s huge for a garage.

I recognize the brothers from my times at the clubhouse, but also because each one wears his cut visible from under greasy blue and pinstriped coveralls. Proud. Elise had explained some of this to me, but it’s something else to see the proof in front of my face. They work so hard to earn their cut and it means so much once they have that they wear it like a second skin.

Chin lifts and, “brother” or “Prez” greet Duke. And then it happens. I get my first, “Hey Caity.” From Sly of all people.

“Caity?” I ask.

“Yeah, Caitlin sounds too formal. So we decided last night, it’s official. Caity.”

“You—uh—decided last night?” I ask. Though he doesn’t answer, apparently because he already had.

What I get instead is a smiling Duke—which a smiling Duke is almost as dazzling as watching a solar eclipse—move in my space, deep in my space. Fingers of one hand splayed over my face from jaw to chin, the other pressing against my back to press us together. And his chin drops, his head descends, and then his perfect lips cover mine. One of his all-consuming kisses, his tongue dances around the inside of my mouth, his teeth nip my lip. His hand at my back, drops to my backside. Because of this, I melt.

“Fuck…shoulda’ gone for it.”

Both Duke and I pull apart to see Sly watching us. Until he sees us pull apart, then shaking his head, he walks away.

“Is he going to be a problem? Should I go talk to him?”

“Nah. He’ll be fine. Won’t make a move on you. Plenty ’a brothers drool over Trish, even more over Liv, and even more than that, over Elise. Not uncommon for a brother who ain’t got a good woman to lament not going after that good woman first. But that’s all it is. Wound licking.”

“Duke,” I whisper, because I don’t know what else to say, and grip his cut, pressing my face against his chest.

“Right.” He clears his throat. “You head on home. I got Peaches, get her in the truck. Few things I gotta get done here, then I’ll join you.”

“Sure thing, Chief,” I respond. One more quick kiss, and he swats my bottom to get me moving. Which I do, moving to the driver’s side of the new silver pickup to wait as Duke jogs inside the office to presumably grab the keys and then he bleeps the lock so I can climb in.

Once Jade has been buckled securely in the backseat, he kisses me one last time when he drops the key in my hand and shuts my door. I roll down the window and wave. “Later guys.”

To which shouts of, “Later Caity,” sound behind us.

The mountains are beautiful all the time, but especially this time of year with all the greenery covering the limestone, lush and thick. And Thornbriar, tucked in the middle of it, sitting cute and quaint. I knew when we rolled into town it would be the perfect place to raise my daughter. Even though they don’t recognize the truck, the waves I get from residents—only some of them patients—because they see me sitting behind the wheel, makes me feel like after years of wandering, that I’m finally home.

With a town the size of Thornbriar, it only takes us five minutes from Duke’s shop to turn down our street, and only a minute longer before we’re parked in my driveway.

A wide-awake and full of energy Jade unbuckles her seatbelt then she leaps into my arms when I open her door. It might be just a rental, but we live in a nice rental. Two story, stonework on the bottom, tan siding along the top. Brick and stone paved driveway, and the same for the walk leading up to the stoop. Maybe after I pick up a few more patients, we’ll look into buying a house. One with a big porch where I can sit and sip iced tea while Jade plays outside. I have a patio out back where I placed a nice umbrella table and chairs, but no porch at either the front or back.

After I unlock the front door, Jade pushes in from under my arm to open it. She rushes inside, and for some reason I reach out to grab her. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. She alludes my hand and I drop it, realizing how stupid I’m being. Then I shake my head to clear it and follow more slowly behind her, shutting and locking the door the way I always do.

 

My purse dropped to the coffee table, keys tossed in the decorative sweetgrass basket I bought during our trip to Charleston before we settled in Thornbriar sitting in the center of the coffee table, I flick on lights and adjust the temperature.

It’s been a good day. A relaxing day. One that I plan to continue at least until Duke shows. Then who knows? I walk into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of ice water. After pulling a glass down from the cupboard, I stand at the refrigerator water dispenser filling the glass when a giant black bug on the patio door catches my eye.

I walk over and bend down to get a better look. I have no idea what kind of bug it is, either. It hasn’t moved, but who can look away from a giant black bug? I bring the glass up to my lips to sip my water while willing the bug to move and notice the latch on the sliding patio door flipped down. Unlocked. Here I thought Jade was upstairs playing.

The bug certainly moves when I throw open the patio door. “Jade?” I call out to her.

“Yes, Mama?” She calls back… from inside the house.

Um, no. If she’s inside, how is my door unlocked? I did not, would not, leave the backdoor unlocked.

Checking doors is one of my rituals before I leave the house. We’re two girls living on our own. Nothing is more important than my girl’s safety.

“Nothing sweetie, never mind.” I call back up to her.

For safety, I do a onceover of the entire house, checking every room upstairs and down. Not one thing of value seems to be missing. Not our televisions. Not my laptop. Not my copper pots from the kitchen. Not even the prescription meds they sent home for Jade after her discharge.

With that said, I don’t know if I should call the police. They’d probably think I’m just some silly woman who thinks she locked the door. What if this one time I really hadn’t?

I bring my hands to rest against my hips and bite my bottom lip while standing in the threshold between the living room and kitchen, unsure if I should feel scared or stupid. The time for water has passed. I need a beer and move back to the refrigerator to grab one.

The home phone rings as I pull a cold brew from the bottom shelf. So I close the door to answer. That’s when I see it. The missing thing.

How had I missed it before? Jade’s preschool picture, the one I keep in a magnetic photo frame on the upper freezer door so I can look at it whenever I walk to the fridge. It’s not in the magnetic frame.

The phone quits ringing by the time Jade runs it over to me, her face clearly says she’s confused as to why I didn’t answer.

Someone broke into my house. Someone. Broke into my house. My house. Where I sleep. Where my daughter sleeps. And they took her picture. Literally took her picture from my house.

“Oh god.” My hand shoots to my mouth. I stumble back a few steps. My whole body begins to tremble as what Duke said to me yesterday comes back in a rush. Being with him might make Jade and I persons of interest. And Houdini escaped capture. The same Houdini who targeted women attached to the club. I mean, it couldn’t be him, could it? Duke has hardly spent any time with us. Unless he’s watching Duke. This is crazy, absolutely bonkers. Why would Houdini want a picture of my daughter?

Duke would know.

I need to call him.

Calmly, so as not to worry my girl, I walk into the living room, over to the coffee table to fish my cell from my purse then immediately hit Duke’s contact. “Doc?” He answers without a hello. “Just need to get a few more things done before I can make—”

“Someone broke into my house.” I cut him off.

“What the fuck?” he barks.

“The… the latch on my patio door was unlocked, and Jade’s school picture is missing from the refrigerator.”

“Get Peaches. Get out to the truck. Now.”

“No one’s here, Chief.”

“Lock the doors.” He talks over me. Not listening. “I’m on my way. Calling Tommy. Doc?” He prompts, when I say nothing, then, “Caitlin.”

I jolt. “Yes. I’m here.”

“Know you’re there. Where you should be is in the truck. Now.” He reiterates.

“Okay,” I whisper. “Jade, sweetheart. Come here.”

Since it’s only been the two of us for so long, even though she’s young, she reads me and doesn’t argue, knowing I mean business.

Grabbing up my purse and the keys, I swing my girl into my arms and move outside into the, thankfully, bright sunshine to the cab of the truck. Where I lock the doors and wait. Houdini took a picture of my daughter. My daughter. I’ll die before I let him hurt her. My Hippocratic Oath be damned, he’ll die by my hands if he tries.

It takes everything in me not to vomit, swallowing back the bile rising in my throat about once a minute. After six swallows, Tommy’s cruiser rolls up to the curb in front of our home and only seconds after that, the rumble from pipes cuts the air. Although Duke shows up in his old pickup, not his bike. The pipe rumbles come from all the brother’s rallying.

I jump out of the truck, a trembling Jade still in my arms, and rush to him. The closer we get, the more I can’t control the fear or my rapidly beating heart. A stupid sob rips through me as we collide, and his strong arms wrap around us. And maybe that’s why the sob comes, because in Duke’s arms, my daughter and I are safe. Nothing can touch us, not with his strong hands holding us to him, stroking up and down my back. So big, he engulfs the two of us. A mountain of muscled power.

“Shh…” he coos, so soft. “I got you. I got you both.”

I hiccup then laugh at my own stupidity. And face-plant against his shoulder.

“Doc.” Although his tone remains soft, he’s put more power behind it to get my attention. I don’t respond verbally, but look up so he knows I’m listening. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. You and Peaches pack a few bags, ’cuz you’re coming to stay with me in my house.”

“We can’t stay here?” I ask, lamely. Clearly the fear making me not think straight.

“My house is on the compound. It’ll be safer for you. At least ’til we get that patio door replaced. The easiest doors to break into. Jesse’s driving my old truck back, so I can ride with my girls. Your escort starts today. If I ain’t with you, Jesse’s carting you around. He’s a good man. A good recruit. You can trust him.”

I open my mouth to agree, but Duke mistakes my intentions. “Please don’t argue. I need you and Peaches safe.”

He needs us safe? Needs, not wants.

“I wasn’t going to argue. Actually, I was about to say, ‘okay.’ I need us to be safe as well.”