ISAAC
I’m so lonely, Isaac. The pain of it is physical. It’s like all my muscles and organs and veins are full of rocks. Sharp, gouging rocks. I don’t know how to keep going.
and
Gia and I added pages to her calendar book today. She was stoic and brave, but God, her eyes.
and
I’m not enough. I can’t be enough for Bo and Gia both. He needs too much, and she lets me put her aside for him. I let her let me, because it’s too much, and I’m not enough.
and
Today was the day we first thought you’d come home. This is the worst day so far. By far. This day seemed so far away once. Now it’s here, but you’re still gone, and the days ahead without you just seem infinite.
and
I can’t do it.
and
I can’t do it.
and
I can’t do it.
And so much more. Page after page after page of pain, desolation, inadequacy, disappointment.
Isaac had come out of the shower to find Lilli and Kodi still gone and, feeling disoriented in his own bedroom—in his own house, his own town, his own life—he had started reacquainting himself. This room had seemed like a good place to start, the one he shared only with Lilli. There were changes, but not too many. New curtains—the ‘new’ cats, when they had been kittens, had torn the old ones up. A couple of knickknacks from the kids. A television on top of his dresser. He’d been looking for a remote when he’d come across the drawer full of the scented purple paper he loved so much. That drawer was chock full of the paper, all of it covered in Lilli’s handwriting. He’d seen his name on a top page and had pulled it out.
And then he’d fallen into a heaving, vicious vortex of guilt and sorrow.
She was there now, watching him, her face pale and stricken.
“Isaac, no. Don’t.”
His heart felt like it had been sliced open and spread wide. “Lilli. God, baby. My God.”
She walked over and tried to take the page from his hands. He let her. She gathered all the pages he’d taken out and read, and she put them neatly back in the drawer, then slid the drawer into its slot in her nightstand.
“I’m so sorry, Lilli. I don’t—I…” He let the sentence die. No words were worthy of the regret he felt.
She sat next to him on the side of the bed and took his hand. “It doesn’t matter. You’re home. That matters.”
Turning his hand and linking fingers with her, he pulled her onto his lap. She laid her head on his shoulder. “Your strength has always amazed me. You are a warrior, Sport.”
She smiled sadly and scoffed, a quiet, gentle sound without bite. “Not anymore.”
With a tug on her ponytail, he brought her head back up and looked into her eyes. “You are. I think you still know it’s true, even if you forgot. My life turned your life to shit, but you made it into something. You stuck it out and raised our kids and ran business and kept everything going.”
“Isaac, I’d say you had a harder sentence than I did.” She brushed her fingertips over the scar across the bridge of his nose, made by a guard’s baton, and then over another scar, in the corner of his forehead, earned in the stalls. “Wouldn’t you?”
“My choices, though. I made the choices you had to live. My life turning yours to shit.”
Something altered in her eyes then. They went hard, and she pushed off his lap and crossed the room.
Standing in front of her dresser, she muttered, “Don’t be an asshole, Isaac.”
Still reeling with guilt, he couldn’t comprehend the change in her, but he couldn’t tolerate the thought of her anger with him so soon. Every moment of their connection was precious. He stood and followed, standing directly behind her, his hands reaching for her hips.
“Lilli. I don’t understand.”
“It’s not your life and my life. It’s our life. Just one life. I’m not some fucking passenger in your life.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Yeah, it is. When I chose you, I chose all your choices, too. And vice fucking versa.”
He took her arm and turned her to face him. “You can’t tell me you haven’t been angry.”
Again, that stony chill in her lovely eyes. When she spoke, her voice had the sharp edge it got just before she erupted, and Isaac was surprised at his reaction to that sound—excitement. Pleasure. Arousal. He hadn’t seen fire like this in her in a long, long time, and it made his heart pick up and his cock stretch out.
She hit his chest with the heel of her hand, mostly for effect, he thought, but with some pop. “Yes, I’ve been angry!” She hit him again, harder. “I’ve been so packed with rage for so long that my soul feels stretched out of shape. I’m sagging with rage.” And again. “But not at you. For this, never at you. It would have been easier to be angry at you. That’s focus.” Again. “It would have been easier to be angry at myself. Something”—another hit—“I could take it out on. But there’s been nothing. Nothing.” Both hands, now, hard enough to make him grunt, but if she’d been trying to hurt him, she could have. “NOTHING.” The next hit had force enough to push him back a step, and then her eyes changed again, and Isaac knew that one of two things would happen next, and that his move would determine which. All of this was blessedly, intimately, fantastically familiar. He made a choice.
Moving fast, he shot his arm out just as she was winding up to hit him again, and he grabbed her ponytail. It was damp from her run, and his cock swelled more. God, he loved the smell of her after a run. So real, so hot, all woman and exertion and badass power. His hand around the long, thick fall of hair, he jerked her forward and crushed her mouth under his, shoving his tongue deep.
The heels of her hands dug into his chest at first, and then slid roughly up over his shoulders until her fingers snarled in his wet hair and pulled hard, toward her. She let out a breath like a growl, and he shoved his free hand into her tiny black running shorts and between her legs.
He flashed to the first time they’d ever fucked. She’d been dressed just like this, in little running shorts and a tight, midriff-baring running top. He’d been waiting for her, on the redwood porch of the old Olsen place. He’d known only her name and the way her mouth tasted, the way her ass felt cupped in his hands. She’d come back from a run around town, causing a commotion. And they’d fucked harder than he ever had before in his life. She’d been as ferocious and insatiable as he.
Fourteen years ago. More than half their life together had now been spent apart.
They had some making up to do.
He took his hand out of her shorts, loving her visceral whine of disappointment, and instead yanked her top up, breaking their kiss to get it over her head. As he did so, she toed off her shoes. He bent then and took a breast into his mouth, suckling her, drawing energy from her writhing, arcing body, the way her hands tangled again in his hair and held him to her.
His head rocked with caroming sensations and emotions. Ever since he’d come out of the bus station, he’d been in a constant state of hyper-stimulation, the world and its people so much brighter and busier, so different and unpredictable. His world had been grey and brown for so long. For more than seven years, he’d lived a life a near-perfect routine, ruled entirely by counts and clocks, his sense of himself and the world constantly balanced on the sharpest edge. He’d been driven always by the need to both stand out and blend in at all times. To be someone who was not noticed but who was also acknowledged and respected. Keeping his memories of his real life and the emotions that went with them fresh and close without allowing them to drive him into madness. Becoming hard enough to survive the life inside without killing the things that made him the man who belonged in the life outside.
The perpetual and simultaneous denial and assertion of self.
His whole life had been driven by the need to get to the next minute. The next hour. Day. Week. Month. Year.
And now he was back in his real life. With friends and family who had spent those seven and a half years doing more than merely growing older.
And right now, right this second, his wife’s breast was in his mouth, and her hands were in his hair, and his fingers were inside her again, and he could see and taste and feel and smell and hear her, and she was beautiful and sweet and soft and earthy and moaning and real. She was real, and she was his, and he was with her.
When he bit down and sucked hard, she yelped and gasped, “I need your cock. Isaac, your cock. Your cock, your cock.” His mind stopped thinking and let instinct and need take over.
He spun her around and pushed her to the bed, yanking her shorts down and then shoving her forward. She fought him and stayed standing, then shimmied all the way out of her shorts and climbed up to kneel on the bed as he ripped open his jeans and pulled himself free.
Tugging her back to the very edge of the bed, he guided himself into her dripping wet, searing heat and, her hips clutched firmly in his hands, he yanked her backwards as he thrust toward her, setting a frenetic, punishing pace. They grunted together every time their bodies collided, and he could feel the walls of her sheath contracting and pulsing around him faster and faster. She put one of her hands between her thighs to work her own clit, but he was jealous of that, wanted to be solely responsible for all her pleasure, finally again to be the one who could get her off, and he wrapped her ponytail around his fist and snatched her up off the bed with such force that her body hitting his knocked the wind out of them both.
Her whole body now at his mercy, he clutched a breast in one hand took her clit between the fingers of the other, and tucked his face in the crook of her shoulder, breathing her in, tasting her sweat and her scent as he thrust and pinched and rolled and rubbed. Her hands covered his and encouraged him to go harder, faster.
“More, more, more,” she chanted, and he gave her more and more.
She came with a guttural scream—God, he missed her screams—her pussy clenching, her clit throbbing, and then he shoved her back to all fours, took her hips in his hands again, and pounded into her until he was shouting “Fuck! Fuck! Lilli!” And they both collapsed forward onto the bed.
They lay there, face to face, him half on her, their legs dangling half off the bed. Lilli opened her eyes.
Isaac smiled. “Missed that, gotta say.”
She smiled back. The smile became a grin. The grin began to beam, and then she was laughing—a full-throated, raunchy sound. “I love you, Isaac Lunden. I fuckin’ love you.”
Now he was home.
~oOo~
In the afternoon, Lilli drove over to Show and Shannon’s to pick up the kids, and Isaac, not yet ready again for more people than Lilli, Gia, and Bo, stayed home and wandered around, reacquainting himself with the house he’d grown up in. Kodi had decided that he was okay, and the dog padded after him, allowing Isaac to ruffle his grizzled head. He’d been only a pup when Isaac had left, not even a year old. Now, for such a big dog—Lilli said he weighed about a buck-fifty—he was old.
They went out into the yard, and Isaac marveled at the changes there. Inside, much was the same. A few pieces of furniture had been rearranged, but for the most part, the first floor looked as he remembered. The kids’ rooms upstairs were a lot different, but, then, so were the kids. He’d left a kindergartener and a preschooler and had come home to two middle-schoolers.
Outside, though, everything was different. The barn had been refurbished and now housed four horses and a pony. Lilli’s kitchen garden had tripled in size. The flower beds that she’d been developing for years were now well established and looked to be practically self-sustaining. Except for the kitchen garden, his grandmother’s rose garden, which was twice the size he’d remembered, and some decorative beds, most of what Lilli had done was native planting, and those plants flourished. The yard he’d neglected for all the years he’d lived here alone, and that his father had neglected for years before that, was a fantastic riot of color and scent.
In addition to the storage and tool sheds, and the barn, and the garage, and his woodshop—which he wasn’t ready to think about yet—there were two new outbuildings, including a treehouse, well built into a big old oak at the side of the house. That hurt Isaac a little—a lot, really—because he’d planned to build one for them but had wanted to wait until Gia was a little older. Then he’d gone away. What had been erected—by the Horde, he was sure—was a good, strong house, but his hands had not built it.
The other building was Bo’s schoolroom, a little house, painted a cheery blue with a bright red, glass-paned door and two big windows on either side. Isaac went into it now, Kodi at his heel. It was a good room, about ten by ten, the floor clean, unvarnished planks. The interior walls were drywalled and painted with chalkboard paint, on which Bo had drawn the repetitive, intricate patterns he seemed to want to draw all the time.
One wall was all shelves, cabinets, and cubbies, filled with books and supplies. Along another wall was a cheap loveseat that looked like it might fold out. A big dog bed lay on the floor at its side. A long bulletin board hung on another wall. In the middle of the room was a round, white table and four bright red plastic chairs.
He was not shocked at all to see that Lilli had gone all out. All out was pretty much her only speed.
One thing he had not needed to worry about while he was away was the family’s finances. The B&B was doing great and had started to make a real profit as the tide for Signal Bend had really turned. The exurbs had finally spread out far enough from the Greater St. Louis Area that the people who wanted some room and some quiet but still needed to work in St. Louis, or at least St. Louis County, had been pushed out their way, facing a two-hour morning commute at best. Isaac wasn’t sure he liked that—he’d liked being remote and ignored—but it didn’t much matter how he felt about it. It was done. Signal Bend was prospering.
That meant that the B&B was prospering. And Valhalla Vin. And Tasha’s clinic. And the reestablished Signal Bend Construction. The club was still the town’s de facto police force, contracted by the business owners to maintain order. As a member of the Horde, Isaac had been pulling in his share of its profits, though it was a lesser share than he would have had as President, lesser even than he would pull in now, as an active, working member of the club. But between Lilli’s income and his, his family was secure. Legitimate business had made them more secure, in more ways, than outlaw work ever had.
So far, the town had managed to maintain the balance between prosperity and selling out. There was no Starbucks, no McDonald’s, no Walmart. There was the IGA and Marie’s. And there were a couple of new, independently-owned restaurants and shops. A bookstore, too. He hadn’t seen any of this yet, but Lilli had kept him apprised as the changes had been happening. Reading and hearing about them and making the differences happen in his mental image of his home were two different things, though, and he felt some trepidation about going into town.
Speaking of trepidation, there was only one building he hadn’t checked out, only one place in his home. Not entirely understanding why the thought of opening his woodshop made the acid in his stomach roil, he turned in the middle of Bo’s schoolroom, intent on climbing that hurdle.
Bo was standing in the doorway.
“Oh. Hey, little man. I didn’t hear you guys get back.” He looked around and realized that Kodi wasn’t in the room with him, either. He’d really gotten lost in his thoughts.
“I like your school. Is it okay that I’m in here?”
Bo nodded.
“Did you have fun at Uncle Show’s?” There were so many children in the family now who didn’t know him. Loki. Millie and Joey—his godchildren. Badger and Adrienne’s three little ones: Henry, Megan, and Caroline.
His own son.
Bo nodded again in answer to his question. Isaac tried something and asked a question that couldn’t be answered with a simple gesture. “What did you do?”
Bo shrugged. Well, okay. That gesture covered just about everything, he supposed.
“Hey. Have you ever been in my woodshop?” He knew the answer. No one had since the last time he’d been in it himself. For Lilli, the shop had become a sacred place, left to wait for him, unchanged.
Bo shook his head.
“Would you like to?”
An emphatic nod, complete with wide eyes. Isaac felt something there. Not a connection, not yet, but something.
“Okay. Let’s do it, then.” They left the room and crossed the yard, Isaac pulling his keys from his pocket as they went. Even putting keys in his pocket, and his wallet, on its chain, had been an event worthy of a missed heartbeat or two. Hooking Mjölnir around his neck and wrapping his cuffs around his wrists this morning had put a lump in his throat. Sliding his wedding ring on his finger had been damn near a religious experience.
The lock was stiff, but he worked the key patiently, and the hasp released. The door squeaked open, and Isaac reached in to hit the lights.
The aroma of wood shavings and stain and polyurethane that had pervaded this space for years was still there, muted by the smell of still, stale air and accrued dust, but strong enough to ease an ache in his heart.
“Will you help me get the windows open, so we can air the room out?” He knew to ask complete questions that had clear answers. Lilli had written a lot about Bo in her letters.
Bo nodded, and they opened up the room.
There was a lot of dust, but it didn’t matter. Isaac could feel his heart slowing, his frantic head settling. Here was something that had not changed. Here was nothing but familiarity, of the best sort, a space that had always given him joy and comfort. A retreat. He went to his work table and put his hand on his lathe. Then he stroked it. Why the fuck had he been anxious about coming in here?
Because he’d been afraid it, too, would have become different, even locked away as it had been.
Bo moved around the room, his eyes wide. He touched everything. Every dusty gewgaw and knickknack Isaac had stored for the next art fair, all the stores of wood, the cans of stain, the tools, the supplies, the projects. Isaac thought he might have literally touched every single thing. And he stood at the table and just watched, waiting to see if Bo would seek him out in any way.
When he got to the racks of gouges, Isaac had to stop him. “Hey, Bo. Don’t touch those. They’re sharp.” Bo turned and finally looked at him, and Isaac had an idea. His boy loved patterns. A gouge could make a pattern in wood.
“Would you like to see how they work?”
Bo nodded, and Isaac went to his pegboard and pulled two pairs of goggles off the wall. “You have to wear a pair of these. Will you?”
A nod, and Isaac handed him a pair. Then he went to his wood stock and found a thee-inch diameter dowel that hadn’t dried out too much. He pulled a few different gouges from the racks and brought everything to the lathe.
After carefully explaining safety rules and describing what a lathe did, he hooked a leather apron over Bo’s neck and set him back a step. “Hands in your pockets, little man.” Bo did as he was told, and Isaac chucked the dowel and started the lathe.
Bo watched, rapt, as Isaac shaped the wood. He didn’t work with any kind of purpose except to keep his kid interested, but when he shot a glance or two Bo’s way, he realized that the spinning of the dowel, the movement of the gouge and the way the wood was shaped, rather than the shape itself, was what had his interest.
When the dowel was turned from one end to the other with undulating shapes, Isaac turned off the lathe. Bo didn’t move. Isaac released the wood and held it out to him, but Bo didn’t take it. Instead, his face obscured by the goggles, he looked up, his eyes not quite meeting Isaac’s.
“C-can. Can. I try?”
The sound of his son’s voice, something he’d lost for years, dug deeply at him. With one brief thought to what Lilli would say about letting their ten-year-old son play with a wood lathe, Isaac smiled. He was about to answer in the affirmative when he remembered that Bo responded to quid pro quo. “If you will sit and have a conversation with me for fifteen minutes after supper tonight, then yes. You can try.”
Bo eyed him suspiciously. “How long. How long…can I try?”
Isaac got it. Okay. He could work this way to get Bo back. “Do you know what a conversation is?”
Bo nodded.
“Tell me.”
“When one person…says something and…the other person says something back.”
“Back and forth like that, right?”
Bo nodded. Isaac was going to have to remember not to use yes/no questions.
“Okay. For fifteen minutes of conversation with me after supper, you can try the lathe for fifteen minutes. Deal?” He held out his hand.
Bo considered. “Deal.” And they shook on it.
~oOo~
The first Friday back in the clubhouse felt surreal to Isaac. With SBC a going business, Show at the helm, the lot and building were hopping in ways he hadn’t seen in…ever. Not even when SBC had been running before. It wasn’t a big company, just doing home builds and renovations, but they were fully staffed and had a full complement of equipment.
The Horde itself was bigger and more robust than it had been in years, with Show, Len, Badger, Nolan, Dom, Double A, Tommy, Thumper, Kellen, Saxon, Mel, Cox, and Darwin—and Isaac—now taking seats, filling the table he’d made. Zeke had had a fatal heart attack two years back. His big, red chopper had joined the row of quiet warriors that still guarded the bays. Isaac had never met Saxon, Mel, Cox, or Darwin before they’d been standing outside the bus station—or, anyway, they’d been young kids and mostly outside his notice before he’d left. They all still seemed impossibly young, but they were clearly comfortable at the table.
Tonight, his first night back in the Keep, was Isaac’s official welcome home, and the old ladies and kids were arriving for a supper after the meeting and before the real party started. Show had told him that Horde parties were again a thing of legend. With so much young blood at the table, there was more of everything, and some Fridays the place about burst at the seams. Tuck and Rose Olsen had started taking Friday nights off, closing up the bar, leaving the night to the Horde. They were pushing or past seventy, and glad for the break.
It all made Isaac’s mind boggle and his bones feel old. But for now, before the meeting, things were fairly quiet. Just women getting ready, Prospects—he’d have to learn their names—stocking the bar, and Horde draining the stock.
Len came and sat next to him at the bar. “How you holdin’ up, brother?”
“Good. It’s been a strange week.”
“Yeah. It’s been pushing on a month for me, and it’s still strange. Good, but…strange.”
“Yeah. Like the Twilight Zone version of everything.”
Len just nodded and tossed back a shot of Jack. “Show talk to you yet?”
Isaac and Show had talked several times. Almost daily. But not of anything that seemed particularly significant.
“You mean about taking on a crew?” Show had asked him to lead an interior construction crew. Most of the Horde were on the SBC payroll, and Isaac needed a day job for his parole. He was still getting used to not leading the club. It had been years since he had, but in a way, it felt like it had been only a few days. He might as well have been cryogenically frozen since the day he’d gone away.
“Nah. I’ll let him tell you.”
“Okay.” Curious, but not about to push the point, he lifted his glass toward the top of Len’s head and changed the subject. “You left some fuzz.” For years before prison, Len had kept his head smoothly shaved. In prison, he’d let his hair grow to a few inches’ length. Now, he had a tightly cropped pate, but not baby-smooth. A dust of grey over his head.
“Tash likes it.” He laughed. “It’s easier, too.”
“You think we can relax yet?” He’d been struggling to lose the sense of self-guarding that was an imperative inside—and had been part of his previous life in Signal Bend, too.
“I do. Look around, Isaac.” Len had finally stopped calling him ‘boss.’ “Our family is safe. Straight money is comin’ in. Our town is solid. There’s no need to cross the line, so we’re good. We can rest. It’s time to rest. Enjoy life while we can still ride our road.”
Isaac nodded and waved his empty glass at a Prospect. This one had some bird name. Budgie? Robin?
“Another for me, too, Parrot.”
Ah. Parrot. Stupid fucking name. He wondered whose idea that had been.
As he took a swig from his glass, he looked over to watch the club girls—so much young booty around. Damn. He felt like a grandpa. Yeah, he’d like to rest and enjoy his life. Ride until his back finally gave it up. Fuck Lilli as long as he could get hard. Ride horses with Gia. Work wood with Bo. Live his life.
“Talk to you, Isaac?” Show had come up on Isaac’s other side.
“Sure, boss.”
Show shook his head. “Don’t do that.” He turned to the Prospect. “Parrot—just a Bud.”
As Show sat next to Isaac, Len got up. “See you in the Keep, brothers. I’m gonna find my old lady.”
When they were essentially alone, at the bar, anyway, Show said. “Been workin’ on something, and I want your vote on it.”
“Okay.”
Show turned away from Isaac and stared at his new bottle of Bud. “In the Keep, tonight, I’m passing the gavel.”
Rage Isaac stormed into his head, making his eyes pulse. “What the fuck? Show, you son of a—”
Show held up his hand, turning again to face Isaac straight on. “Hold on and listen. I’m passing to Badge. He’s already talked to the officers he wants. It’s known that this has been a plan. The vote’ll go the right way. But you’re a fuckin’ legend around here, and if you balk, that could send the vote sideways. I don’t want that to happen. I want to take a seat next to you. That’s where I belong. If you want the gavel back, I’d take that seat next to you. The one I had. And not one vote would go against you. Badge wouldn’t want it if you did. If you want the gavel, it’s yours. Do you?”
Isaac swallowed down his Jack and waved Parrot away when he came back to refill. He thought about that. Did he want to lead again? Was he fit? He’d asked himself that question over and over during the dark years. He’d always had the full faith and trust of his club. He’d never made a unilateral decision. And yet he had led them into mayhem. Whether he had done so as a good leader or not was irrelevant to Isaac. He had been the vanguard, and they had swum in blood.
It was more than that, though. He didn’t know the town like he had. He didn’t even know the club like he had. Everything was different, and he wasn’t sure yet where he fit. He couldn’t lead from a place of disorientation.
And most of all, he was done. He was weary. He wanted his quiet life. He wanted to ride his bike and fuck his wife and raise his kids and… “No. I don’t. My time was the past. But Show, you’ve done great with the gavel. The club is stronger than ever. Why pass it now?”
Show took a long drink. Staring at the shelves of liquor behind the bar, he said, “You and I are a team, Isaac. We always have been. Far as I’m concerned, we always will be. I kept the gavel in your absence. I don’t want it in your presence. Simple as that. I’ll sit at the end of the table with you.”
His eyes burning sharply, Isaac reached over and clapped his hand on his best friend’s shoulder.
~oOo~
Isaac supported the vote, and Badger was unanimously elected the fourth President of the Night Horde Motorcycle Club of Missouri. He named Double A his VP and Nolan—Havoc’s kid, who was twenty-fucking-five years old now—his SAA. Damn. The times had really changed.
The leadership change happened first off, and Badger led the rest of the meeting. Listening to the new President discuss club business, seeking input and mediating discordant opinions, Isaac tried to remember the skinny, nervous, shy kid with the zits who’d come in as a Prospect fourteen years ago. It was hard to reconcile the confident, mature man at the head of the table with that urchin of the past. He still had the same long hair and beard, but otherwise he was almost unrecognizable. He even seemed taller.
And Nolan—he was a man. A young man, but certainly no kid. Isaac saw an edge to him, a shadow. That kind of darkness was an asset to an outlaw SAA, but in these quiet times, he could afford some light. The only thing the Horde seemed to do that was even remotely dangerous was some legit protection work. There was no longer a call for a man who could use pain to make someone talk or pay.
Other than the change of leadership, most of the business—all new to Isaac, who’d been almost completely out of the loop since he’d been transferred to Pennsylvania—seemed routine, except for a charity run coming up the next month. It was a massive national run, cross-country, coming straight through Horde turf. They were picking up with it at home, opening the clubhouse and business buildings for an overnight stop, then joining the run all the way to LA, where they’d meet up with the Night Horde SoCal, where Bart was still VP.
Isaac wanted on that run. He didn’t know how to make it work with his parole, and he didn’t know if his back would let him get all the way across the country, but he was going for it anyway. He’d see if Lilli and the kids would drive along. The rally in LA was a big, family-friendly do. A vacation in sunny Southern California. A chance to see Bart. A national charity run. There had to be a way. There had to be a string to pull or a palm to grease somewhere to get him okayed for that trip.
He stopped his thinking right there. He’d ask for approval. If he didn’t get it, then he’d stay home and be content to party during the stopover. There would be charity runs when his parole was over. Until then, he was keeping his promise to his family. He would not risk violating.
Badger gaveled the meeting to a close, and the Horde went to the bar to toast the new officers. As they tossed back a third shot after a third toast, Isaac searched his heart to see if there was disappointment or resentment lurking there. Sitting at the opposite end of the table—the place for the wise old men—would be an adjustment.
But no. He was glad. He’d told Badger long ago that he would be the future of the club. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment in all the years he’d held the gavel was that he’d recognized that fact, that Badger’s heart and brain would someday take the Night Horde in the right direction.
Seeing Badger and Show talking together, Isaac went over. The new President turned with a goofy grin, and they embraced.
“I’m proud of you, brother. You’ve come far. You’ll go farther. You’re an impressive bastard.” Isaac meant it sincerely.
Badger nodded his thanks. “If that’s true, I didn’t come alone. You and Show and Len? You showed me how to be Horde. You showed me how to lead. Fuck, you showed me how to be a man. You left the trail. I just followed it.”
~oOo~
Supper was a chaotic, joyful, delicious mess, with kids running everywhere, people laughing, food and drink being shoveled faster than it could be served. For a while, Isaac sat and floated in the chaos, so much lighter than the kind of mealtime din he’d grown used to in prison.
This was his home. It was different from the home he’d known. It was happier, for one thing. Safer. More robust. But it still had room for him.
He’d spent the past week learning about the new Signal Bend and doing a turn around town, reuniting with old friends. He felt a step out of rhythm with his life, but he knew he’d catch the beat eventually. In the meantime, he was in sync with his family. He and Bo were finding their way together, and he and Gia were tight as ever. Tighter. That was enough.
And Lilli? Nothing would ever come between them. The cosmos had thrown every damn thing it could think of in their way, and they had climbed over all of it. Battered and bleeding, sure, but alive and together and strong. They were indivisible. They were one. They were forever.
What they had was a love for the ages, and every price he’d paid in his life was worth the chance to spend the rest of his days in her company. In their love. He had everything, and now he had the chance to set his burden down and make a life that could be as strong as the love it held.
She was sitting across the room after supper, talking with Cory and Shannon. Badger had already taken Adrienne, pregnant with their fourth, home. Tasha and Len were tucked into a dark corner, getting raunchy. Nolan had his arm over the shoulders of a busty little blonde. Show had his little granddaughters, Megan and Caroline, in his big arms, his head swiveling back and forth as the girls told him some story that required a lot of emphatic gesturing.
Isaac waited until he could catch Lilli’s eye; then he crooked his finger. Smiling, she got up and walked over, and he didn’t think he imagined the extra little sway in her hips.
“You beckoned?”
Sitting on a barstool, he pulled her between his legs and kissed her, deep and slow.
“I fuckin’ love you, Sport.”
“Mmm. I love you. You good with how the Keep went?”
“I am. It’s right. Things are right. Finally.” She smiled, and he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her again. “Let’s go home, baby.”
“Okay. You want me to see if the kids can go home with Show and Shannon? They have just about the whole zoo tonight. Two more won’t matter.”
“No. I want them, too. My family. I want to be home.”
“Okay. I’ll round them up.” She kissed his scarred cheek and went off.
Isaac watched her.
His woman. His love.
His life.
THE END
~oOo~
Afterword
Hi, everyone. I just wanted to take a minute and thank you for reading, whether you read one book in the series or all of them. I hope you’ve enjoyed your stay in my little town.
I am deeply devoted to Signal Bend and the Horde. These people feel as close and real to me as my family, and I feel true grief to leave them behind. But it’s time to let this story end…before anybody else gets hurt. My muse is bloodthirsty, and I think she’s fed enough on this town.
I know that the stories I’ve written about Signal Bend—or story in the singular, as I think of it—have sometimes been painful and challenging, and I really do appreciate that you’ve stuck with me through the heartache. I hope the conclusion of the story was sufficiently satisfying to be worth the angst along the way. Or, maybe, if you’re like me, the angst was its own sick reward.
There’s a good chance you’ll might see a little more of the Signal Bend crew, at least in the background. For one thing, I have a few short stories I’ve written and posted, or intend to write and post, to the FCP blog, little moments that caught my muse’s interest but didn’t have a place in the main narrative (usually because I wasn’t in the right POV at the time).
I’m also considering a series set in the Night Horde’s new LA charter, where Bart and Riley reside. I’ve already populated that charter with plenty of hot men, so there’s a good chance. Before I start that project, though, I’m trying to exact a promise from my muse that, if I go back to the Night Horde in any way, she will leave Signal Bend alone with its hard-won HEA.
First I think I’m going to take a little break from MC writing. It’s all the fiction I’ve ever written, so far, and I want to try something a little different. I’m working on a romance story that might become a series, too. Still a bit dark, because my muse demands it, but maybe with a little less opportunity for such quantities of bloody violence.
I do like writing series, getting to really know a group of people. I love the friendships and family relationships as much as the romances. Maybe more. So, if you’re interested, I’ll keep you posted. And in the meantime, thank you again, so much, for joining me in Signal Bend.
Peace.
Susan
Oh, P.S.: I do a Pinterest board while I’m writing, with visuals and other details for my stories. I keep it secret as I write, because it’s spoilery as hell, but now that the series is concluded, I’m making it public. If you’re interested in my own personal visuals for the characters and world of Signal Bend, you can find the board at: http://www.pinterest.com/laughingwarrior/signal-bend-series/
And as always, you can keep posted on my writing projects, and on all the rest of the Freaks’ work, at our blog: http://tfcpress.wordpress.com/ and on Facebook: www.facebook.com/freakcirclepress
I’m on Twitter, too. I’m not an avid tweeter, but I do tweet updates and stuff like that: @sfanetti