CHAPTER NINETEEN
Thia
Mr. Carson had wobbled away on his own accord and I ran into the orange grove before he could remember he had a gun of his own. I was disgusted with what I’d done, and even more disgusted with the fact that I didn’t regret it.
When my lungs burned and I couldn’t run any more I dropped down to my knees. “I’m so sorry, Dad. I’m so sorry I couldn’t save all this for you. For us. But most of all I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you,” I said into the trees. The leaves around me rustled with the wind, every so often I heard the THUD of a falling orange.
I briefly contemplated burning it all to the ground, going as far as picking a leaf off a nearby tree to test how dry it was and how fast it would burn when the ground beneath me rattled, little bits of foliage and loose chunks of dirt jumped around my knees.
I’d lived in Florida my entire life, and we’d never had an earthquake before.
Was an earthquake even possible?
A rumbling sound started in the distance and I stood up in a panic, preparing myself for the earth to shift. The rumble grew louder and louder and my heart beat faster and faster, every muscle in my body tensed as the seconds ticked by, slowly filling the silence.
It was a sound you felt before you heard. A rumble that grew louder and vibrated in your bones.
An earthquake on two wheels.
A motorcycle. And from the sound of it, maybe more than one.
Bear.
He’d come for me.
Don’t be stupid, Thia. Millions of people ride motorcycles besides him, it’s not him.
But it could be the MC.
And then…BOOM.
An explosion so loud my hair blew into the wind like a bomb had gone off.
A burst of bright orange light flew into the night followed by the contrast of billowing grey smoke against the cloudless black sky.
I was running toward the explosion before I could talk myself out of it, reaching the road in less than a minute.
The mangled wreckage of metal was strewn about both sides of the road. I wasn’t sure if it was one bike or two until I saw two bodies strewn across the road, lying at lifeless unnatural angles. I ran to the first body and my heart started to race out of control. The man’s arms covered in so much blood I couldn’t make out any of his features or tattoos.
In a panic I knelt down and used all my strength to try and turn the man over but he didn’t budge. Then I pictured the face of the man I didn’t want it to be and I needed to know if it was him. I tried again, using all the strength I didn’t know I had. I wasn’t successful at turning him completely over, but had managed to get him on his side. The second I saw the rounded face and short brown hair I breathed a sigh of relief.
When I came upon the wreckage I was positive it was a crash, an accident. I was sure that there were two dead bodies lying in the road who’d died on impact.
I was wrong.
I ran to the next man who was lying face up, with his head turned to the side, his eyes and mouth were wide open.
A bullet hole in his cheek.
I gasped. Standing up, I backed up into the grove from where I came, like for some reason I had to keep my eyes on the wreckage and the bodies or they would pop back up and come after me.
That’s when I realized that my panic that one of the bodies would be Bear was for no reason. Both the dead men were wearing Beach Bastard cuts.
They’d come for me.
Bear hadn’t.
I knew he wouldn’t, but I still couldn’t help but feel disappointed and afraid all at the same time.
There could be more of them on their way.
Slowly I backed up until the trees had almost swallowed me entirely. Crickets chirped all around me. Frogs croaked and the bug zapper on the front porch could be heard zapping all the way from the porch, which was a good half mile away. Further and further I stepped until I backed right up into something big and hard that definitely wasn’t a tree. Chills shot up my spine as a hand came around my waist and another covered my mouth, muffling my scream.
“Ti, stop, it’s me,” Bear growled in my ear as I struggled against him.
I stilled.
He had come for me.
Bear loosened his grip and I spun around in his arms. The moon was big and bright, acting like a spotlight right above our heads. He was shirtless and covered in dirt. His normally blond hair and beard were streaked with dark mud. His jeans were torn at the knee. “How busy is this road?” he asked suddenly.
“Not busy. There is one other farm, but it’s back up the other way. We stop on a dead end.”
“Anyone scheduled to come up this way? Mailman, deliveries of any kind. I need you to think.”
“No, nothing. Mail goes to the box in town and the grove has been out of business for a while.”
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
There were no hoses anywhere, no running water since the water company turned off the supply when we couldn’t pay the bill.
THUD. Bear spun around. “What the fuck was that?” he asked.
“Oranges. They sound like that when they fall from the trees,” I said. With his back turned to me I saw the source of the dripping.
It was coming from Bear.
Blood.
Streams of bright blood that appeared black under the light of the moon dripped from the back of his shoulder, merging onto his belt, then falling onto the soft ground. “You’re hurt,” I said, pointing out the obvious.
Bear turned back around, his eyes darkened and glowed like blue flames. “I don’t give a fuck about my shoulder, Ti. What I give a fuck about right now is you taking off when I told you it wasn’t safe.” Bear looked down at me like I’d crossed him in a way I didn’t understand. “Maybe you didn’t believe me when I said the MC would be coming for you.” He nodded to the bodies in the road. “You believe me now?” he asked, his nostrils flaring.
I took a step back and he took a step forward, not allowing me the distance I wanted to put between us. “Why did you come?”
“What the fuck did I just say? I came because you didn’t listen. I came because it’s not safe and if I hadn’t come you’d either be dead right now or wishing you were dead once they got through with you,” Bear said. And for the very first time, I was afraid of him. Not because I thought he would hurt me, but because I’d never seen him so angry.
“I don’t understand you,” I said.
“You don’t have to understand me,” he growled, and as if he was proving his point he crashed his lips over mine.
I wanted to push him away. I wanted to tell him no. But after thinking he could have been one of those dead men in the road, my body wouldn’t let me. My brain wanted to scream at him, punch him, but when his tongue ran along the seam of my mouth seeking entrance my traitorous lips opened for him, groaning when his tongue found mine, pressing myself up against his dirty body. He cupped his hands around my face and kissed me like he was screaming at me, punishing me for disobeying him, for being in his life, for not being in his life.
I took his punishment and gave it back to him, telling him all the things with our kiss that I didn’t understand myself. The coolness of his rings pressed against the skin of my back underneath the hem of my shirt.
Bear pulled back, breathing heavily, staring through me like he could see right into my soul. “You just have to fucking listen to me, but as much as I want to have a conversation with you right now where you tell me what a shit person I am and I tell you that you’re the most anger inducing girl I’d ever laid eyes on. And much as I want to keep my mouth on you, we have another couple of problems I’m gonna need you to help me take care of first before they become bigger problems.” Bear wrapped a muddied hand around my neck and closed the distance between us.
“What?” I asked, trembling under the weight of his stare, somehow forgetting about the dead men lying only feet away from us.
“You know how to sew?”
“That’s an odd question.”
“Not that odd seeing as I’m bleeding out,” Bear said, releasing me and grabbing onto his shoulder. “It’s clean through, just needs some putting back together.”
“Shit. Here,” I said, ripping off my shirt I stood up on my toes to press it to the back of his shoulder blade.
“Fuck,” Bear groaned. I let up on the pressure, thinking I’d hurt him. “Maybe you should let me bleed out. Might be worth it,” he said, licking his lips. I followed his gaze to my naked breasts. My nipples hardened under his stare.
“Fuck, Ti, you may not have pulled the fucking trigger, but I got a feeling you’re going to kill me yet.” His hands settled on my ass, while I tried to stop the bleeding, his fingers kneading into my flesh as I concentrated my efforts on his wound.
“What’s the other thing we have to do?” I asked, feeling the blush burning my cheeks and neck, grateful for the cover of night to hide my embarrassment over being so obviously turned on.
“Cleanup.”