***
“Well, I’d love for you to take the job, Sawyer. It’s completely up to you, but I think you would really fit in well with our team,” Zack said as we walked out later that night.
I smiled.
“Thank you, Zack. I look forward to spending more time here and helping any way I can,” I said honestly.
He smiled.
“Why didn’t you say anything to Trance about training dogs?” He asked as he walked with his hands in his pockets. “I’m sure he could use the help.”
I grimaced. I had explained to the vet that I had trained dogs, but not that I was in prison while I did. I loved that part of my life, but I’d still been incarcerated while I’d done it, and it wasn’t something that I was comfortable talking about. At least not yet.
“Because it would’ve gone into why I know how to help train dogs,” I answered. “And then he would’ve looked at me differently.”
Zack snorted.
“He knew who you were without you telling him. He’s a cop and a member of The Dixie Wardens MC. I hate to break it to you, honey, but everyone knows who you are. You haven’t changed much in the last eight years. As soon as you said you were related to Dallas, I knew exactly who you were. But I’m old. Others that have a sharper brain will figure it out instantly. I think it’s time to give yourself a little break. Maybe they won’t have a problem with it like you think they will,” Zack said, coming to a stop beside his Ford truck.
I’d admired it as soon as I pulled into the parking lot.
It made sense that the most expensive vehicle there belonged to the one that got paid the most.
I looked over at my bike that was leaning against the side of the building we’d just come to a stop next to and sighed.
“What time would you like me to be here?” I asked softly, avoiding the subject of me telling people who I was and what I’d done, completely.
“Eight sharp, Ms. Berry. I have a couple foals to go check on in the morning, and I think I’d like you along to help me,” he answered immediately.
I gave him a thumb’s up and started walking to my bike.
I’d had a car a long time ago, but when I’d had to get a lawyer… the car had to be sold to pay for lawyer fees.
Now I had to save up some money again to pay for a new one.
At one time, I had money saved, but my entire life savings had been sunk into our lawyer.
I was literally starting from scratch.
“Be careful, Ms. Berry,” Zack called as I started pedaling out of the parking lot.
At least the exercise would be good for me.
I wasn’t ‘fat.’
Far from it, but I also wasn’t ‘in shape’ either.
Well… roundish was a shape…just not the shape I wanted.
I’d nearly pedaled all the way to the county line when I saw the first biker pass me.
Then a second. And a third.
Until I’d been passed by at least ten of them.
I blinked as they kept pace with me as I rode down an impressively steep hill.
I’d had to walk up it this morning, pushing the bike. It was too steep for my out-of-shape legs.
One biker, though, caught my eye above all the others.
He was older than the rest.
He had on blue jeans that were so faded that I was sure they’d be as soft as silk.
He wore a red t-shirt under the same black biker vest that the man at the vet today, Trance, had been wearing.
His helmet only covered the very top of his head, and I wondered what the point of wearing it was when it only covered half of it. Was the bottom half unimportant?
Then I thought about the fact that I wasn’t wearing one at all, and I was going just as fast as they were, and snickered to myself, turning my attention back to the road in front of me.
I felt the vibrations from the motors in my teeth as they slowed even further, letting me pass, before they all turned into a parking lot.
The building was pretty new.
The outside of it was incredible.
The exterior of the building was made of a shiny tin, made rustic looking with wood framing the entire thing. Huge glass windows. Large wooden door.
It was then that the sign caught my attention. Halligans and Handcuffs.
Nice.
I’d heard about the place from Dallas.
He’d written about the impact that this place had had on the city of Benton.
How it’d turned into a local hangout for not just cops and firemen, but the entire community.
I turned my head back around and kept on pedaling.
Then I started to hold my breath.
Because I was coming up on the spot where it happened.
The exact spot where my whole life had changed.
The spot where I’d taken the lives of four people.
I willed myself not to stop, to keep going, but my feet and hands wouldn’t listen.
My hands pulled the brake, and my feet stopped pedaling.
I came to a stop on the road where there was still, to this very day, flowers and four crosses.
And I started to cry.
I couldn’t help it.
My God, I’d taken four lives!
Me!
I was a horrible, no good, very bad person and not a single day went by that I didn’t wish it was me that’d died that day instead of them.
If I could go back to that moment in time, I would’ve prayed for God to take me instead.
I would’ve done anything to change places with them.
Pleaded.
Gotten down on my knees and begged.
Not because I didn’t want to spend my life in prison, paying for my crimes.
But because those four people didn’t deserve to die.
Mr. and Mrs. Neesen had been educators.
They’d been making a difference in children’s lives.
Their daughter and her boyfriend had futures so bright ahead of them that even my previous dream of a nursing career didn’t compare.
I hadn’t realized that I’d dropped to my knees until I heard a motorcycle again.
I didn’t look up.
Hoping that, if I didn’t move, nobody would notice me.
I should’ve known it was a stupid wish.
Especially when I looked up to see the bike stopping not even five feet from me.
It was the older biker.
The one I couldn’t stop looking at earlier.
And, Sweet Baby Jesus, was he ever hot.
He certainly didn’t look ‘old.’
He looked…sexy. Distinguished. Mature. And very, very male.
The only reason I could really tell that he was ‘older’, as I was calling it, was because of his hair.
It was salt and pepper.
A silver fox, I thought to myself.
Even his beard.
“You okay?” The man rumbled.
Oh God, his voice was sexy.
Deep.
Alluring.
“Yeah,” I sniffled, wiping my eyes with the backs of my hands. “I’m fine.”
He nodded. “Did you fall?”
I looked down at my bike, realizing that he thought I’d crashed or something with the way I was crying and on my knees, my bike at an awkward angle from where it’d fallen.
“No. I didn’t fall,” I said, looking down at my hands. “I’m okay.”
That ‘I’m okay’ was more for my benefit than his.
I needed to get up.
To get away from here before I went into one of those moods again.
The type that sucked me in and wouldn’t let me go until morning.
I could feel the panic rising. Could feel the tears pouring down my cheeks.
But I couldn’t stop them.
I didn’t know how.
And then I said something stupid.
“I killed them,” I whispered brokenly.