CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

The pool shimmered as waitresses worked the patio, carne asada sliders on one tray, pomegranate margaritas on another. In the corner, a Mexican band with a female singer in a strapless white dress and a huge rose in her hair was doing a Spanish version of Rihanna's "We Found Love," shaking her butt seductively, making the ruffles on her dress bounce up and down. She was probably trying to get someone to dance, though none of the guests were taking the bait. It was all decadent and glamorous, but the barbed wire peeking over the wall and the guardhouses on three sides only served to underscore the artificiality of it all. That's all this place was, Ruby thought as she clutched a margarita in two hands, trying not to sip it too fast, as she tended to do. A luxurious tropical prison.

 

She stared down at the platform sandals she was wearing and the polished coral-pink toenails beneath, realizing she barely recognized her own feet. She probably wouldn't recognize the rest of her either. Brenda and Araceli, the housekeeper, had delighted in dressing her up, trimming her split ends, diffusing her curls until they bounced. They'd even plucked her eyebrows. The blue-and-white patterned halter dress she wore was from Alice + Olivia, bought from the most exclusive boutique in downtown Tijuana, the kind that catered to rich American tourists and the Mexican moneyed class.

 

Brenda Weston looked drop-dead glamorous as usual in a short, pink Oscar de la Renta dress, backless, showing off her tramp-stamp-style tattoo, a modified version of the Steel Jockeys’ winged horse logo, jabbering in her bad Spanish to some blinged-out women in the corner who didn't seem to mind. Aaron Beeson was ensconced at a glass table on the other side of the pool with more tanned, swarthy guys in linen suits, as draped in gold as their wives were.

 

Turning her head, Ruby noticed a pale young guy with strawberry-blond hair and freckles sitting a bit uncomfortably by the pool, smoking a cigarette. Tattoos covered his shoulders, shirtless except for a Steel Jockeys cut-off jacket that looked bulky for some reason, until she realized that it was because most of his torso was wrapped in bandages. He looked like hell, frankly, with dark circles under his eyes and more bandages covering one side of his face, and he looked like he truly didn't want to be there. He smiled at her, and she relaxed a little as she made her way over.

 

"You must be Tony," she said.

 

"How did you know?" he asked sarcastically. "Sorry. Even the waitresses are ignoring me."

 

"Here," she said leaping up to grab a waitress as she passed. She handed him the margarita, which he brought to his lips, downing most of it in one sip. "Thanks," he said, sighing and relaxing into the chair like he'd just been given a morphine shot. "I needed that. Could have used an extra tequila shot or three, though."

 

"Is it bad?" she asked.

 

"Only when I move." He tried to smile, though Ruby suspected it wasn't really a joke.

 

"How come you came here instead of going home?"

 

"When they released me from the hospital, my mom insisted I come down here to...what did she call it? Convalesce. I didn't argue. I was just glad to not be in prison. Joe and Colt both told me I should never try to do business alone outside of our territory, and I should have listened. I never thought I'd be glad to be ripped off of fifteen grand and a kilo of smack before, but I guess without the evidence they couldn't hold me."

 

"You mean you haven't talked to any of the Jockeys since you got out of the hospital?"

 

"No. And I was under police guard the whole time I was there, so they wouldn't let anyone in to visit except my mom."

 

Ruby furrowed her brow. Something about that didn't sit right with her, though she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

 

"I thought I didn't have a reason to go back, but..." she reached into the hand-woven straw purse she'd borrowed from Brenda that she kept close at her side, just in case. She may be in a fortified compound, but that didn't mean its inmates were any more trustworthy than those they were trying to keep out.

 

"He looks like Kyle," said Tony, blinking at her. "Holy shit, is this Kyle's..."

 

"I don't know," she said quickly. "I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to find this. Regan only gave it to me by accident," she said, although, looking at the photo now, those eyes that were like Kyle's warm, bright face looking back at her, egging her on, daring her to laugh; she wasn't so sure it had been an accident. After all, Regan had tried to convince her to stay; maybe this had been her last Hail Mary pass. "The thing is, if Regan's the mom, where has she been hiding this kid? I stayed with her for three days. If he was in there, he must be the quietest, most well-behaved baby ever born – and definitely not Kyle's," she added with a laugh.

 

"Maybe she's not hiding him," suggested Tony. "I remember when Regan took a leave from bartending and went with her mom to stay at her grandma's place in Arizona for like three months. We all thought it was a little weird, but we figured she was still dealing with what happened to Kyle and needed to get away for a while. She definitely didn't have a kid when she got back, though. Maybe he's with her mom?"

 

"Maybe."

 

"Did you show Joe?" he asked, and she hoped he wouldn't notice how she instantly stiffened at the name of the young man who had haunted her thoughts like a ghost ever since she'd left him.

 

"I didn't get a chance," she said darkly.

 

"I can't imagine he knew about it," said Tony. "If he did, he would have told us." He glanced around the patio for a waitress. "Think there's any chance of a refill? Uh oh." His eyes were fixed rather conspicuously on a man who had just been escorted into the compound. He was wearing skinny Silver jeans, a vintage faded t-shirt under an expensive white linen jacket, and Ray-Ban sunglasses, and his short blondish hair was textured with just the right amount of product to stand up. "Here comes trouble."

 

Ruby had seen him out of the corner of her eye, she would have thought it was Fox – he had the exact same swagger, the exact same confidence that caused heads to swing around when he entered the room – but this man was younger, closer to her own age. He also had a body of someone who spent hours in the gym and never hesitated to show it off, much unlike Joe, she couldn’t help thinking, who seemed both naturally slim and rock-hard.

 

Brenda Weston was practically giggling like a schoolgirl when he kissed her hand. She led him over to the side of the pool.

 

"Ruby, this is George McCombs."

 

"The third," added Aaron, coming up behind him to pump his hand. George didn't correct him, so Ruby figured he wasn't joking, and young George McCombs really was the scion of some dynasty; one never knew exactly what kind was around here. When he saw Ruby, he took off his sunglasses to reveal a pair of green eyes that looked eager and not the least bit menacing, though they stayed unnaturally fixed on Ruby. She shifted awkwardly under his gaze and directed her eyes to the electric-blue pool water.

 

"He may look scary, but he's one of us," said Aaron, and it took a minute for Ruby to realize he meant the Steel Jockeys. She didn't really like the fact that Aaron kept using the word "us."

 

"Guilty as charged,” he said. Weirdly enough, this calmed her a little. She'd hated it years ago when Kyle had started to get all tatted up, but maybe because she had become so used to looking at Joe's tattoo, and it became a familiar, even comforting sight. "I was president of the Bakersfield charter for a while, but I'm more of an honorary member now," he said with a chuckle. "Like one of those old Hall of Famers they bring out at all-star baseball games."

 

"Like me, he's just another working stiff," said Aaron.

 

"In a $10 million-a-year family business," added Brenda.

 

"And unlike you, not a penny of it hiding in the Cayman Islands," said George. "We've got nothing to hide from Uncle Sam."

 

"That'll change," said Aaron. "Just wait till the Democrats take the House."

 

She found herself reacting to him the same way she used to react to Fox – another ex-Jockey gone (supposedly) legit. She warned herself to stay neutral; -everything about George McCombs seemed to be designed to seduce. He was a businessman, after all, and his business was making sales, where the more charming and flirtatious you were, the more successful you tended to be. As she knew from personal experience, that went for men as well as women. "Forestry," he said, "Up in Oregon, mostly, but we keep an office in the Bay Area where I'm based. I just bought five hundred acres of pine. Don't worry, it's all renewable resources. We're certified green."

 

"You go out and chop the trees down yourself?" Ruby asked, miming swinging an axe.

 

"Every day," he said with a smile. "It's good exercise. I wear my red flannel shirt and everything."

 

"George is a certified lumbersexual," joked Aaron.

 

"How does that work?" she asked. It didn't add up. Fox had come from money, rejected it, and then reconciled with his father long enough to get written back into his will. He wasn't exactly self-made even though he played it on TV.

 

“May I?” George asked, indicating the empty space at the end of Ruby’s lounge chair. She nodded, and he eased himself down. "Well, after my dad left when I was seven, I grew up with my mom on the wrong side of Bakersfield – which, as any native can tell you, is every side of Bakersfield." Aaron nodded. "I hooked up with the Jockeys because they were one of the few outfits in that town that offered a chance to make a name for myself. I wouldn't have known my dad from Adam, but he waltzed back into my life when I was twenty-one, offering me a chance to come work for him. I was a little skeptical to say the least, but once I saw he had a solid organization, I left the club. But I convinced my dad to hire the Jockeys to escort our shipments to Mexico. That's how Aaron and I started working together."

 

"Seems one of George's best salesgirls ran off to marry his business partner," remarked Aaron, looking at Ruby pointedly.

 

"Yeah, she'd been talking for months about the big score she was about to get. I didn't realize she meant him," joked George.

 

"Anyway, he's got an opening."

 

"An opening?" she asked. She realized Aaron, Brenda, and George were all looking at her. "What do you mean?"

 

"You were serious when you said you were looking for a job, weren't you?" asked Brenda.

 

"Yes, but I--" she paused. Her eyes chanced across to George's smooth skin with its day's worth of beard, just scruffy enough to seem effortless. He was dazzling, sure, but he also seemed harmless. He had a sense of humor about himself. But Fox also had – he was engineered to charm, just like George. That last margarita she had drunk too fast, as she always did. It was ironic that all of the connections she had exploited so far were, in a roundabout way, because of Kyle and the Steel Jockeys. She'd worried she'd never be free of them, and it was starting to look like she was right. But if she trusted her instincts, kept on their good side, and used her connections in only positive ways, she would ensure that things went smoothly. Right?

 

"Look, Ruby," said George. "I didn't mean to put any pressure on you. It's a lot to take in at once. Let's just enjoy the evening, okay? I'll give you my card, and you can give me a call once you've had time to think about it."

 

She breathed a sigh of relief. "Sounds like a plan," she said, giving him a grateful smile.

 

"Dude, I didn't pay for this band so we could sit on our asses," Aaron said suddenly, grabbing Brenda's drink and setting it down on a table. He guided her over to the dance floor, and some other couples followed their host's lead. Ruby thought this might be a good opportunity to make her escape upstairs, but before she could gauge the best route, George McCombs appeared behind her, hand outstretched. “Come on. It’s early.”

 

"Uh, sure," she replied gracelessly. One dance couldn't hurt, she reasoned, if only to prove to her hosts that she wasn't ungrateful for their help.

 

"So you're Kyle Clarke's sister," George said casually, his head bent low so she could hear him over the music. "I was out of the Jockeys by the time your brother died, but it made me sick when I heard. I'm sorry. He was best president we ever had, and a good friend to all of us. He didn't deserve what happened to him." Ruby nodded, biting her lip to stave off the lump in her throat she got whenever anyone expressed sympathy about Kyle. "And now you're the girl everybody wants," he said.

 

"Not everybody," she muttered.

 

"Like Joseph Ryan?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

 

"Joseph who?" She asked innocently, although the idea that George -- or anyone -- might think that she and Joe were involved caused her stomach to flutter. "We found ourselves in a situation that kind of...threw us together," she explained. "But that's all over now, and besides, he had a fiancée."

 

George nodded thoughtfully as he spun her under his arm, and she felt momentarily dizzy. She'd expected he’d throw out some slam against Joe for being a two-timing cad, but he remained diplomatic. He gave her a little dip, and she eased into him, noticing the way his broad hand expertly cupped the flesh of her lower back, preventing her from falling too far backwards. His hands were warm, she realized, manicured, and very, very different Joe's, which were cold and always seemed to be roughened by whatever weather raged outside. George was buzzed, and so was she, but she had confidence that his interest in her remained (mostly) professional. If he truly wanted her to go to work for him, then it wouldn't do to put the moves on her before she ever started her job.

 

"And what about Fox Keene?" he asked, just as the singer onstage cooed her final note into the microphone, and Ruby broke away from his embrace, perhaps a bit too quickly. "I heard you were selling bikes at his dealership."

 

"I learned some things about Fox that indicated he isn't the kind of guy I want to be around."

 

"I don't blame you. Those things you've heard? I've seen them. Fox is a master actor. I know better now than to trust him, but not until he had everyone thoroughly fooled," he said with a sigh. "Everyone."

 

*

 

The stage had been dismantled, the band dispersed, and the last of the caterers had gathered up the empty glasses, chafing dishes, and tablecloths and driven off into town in their van. The half-moon showed on the aqua-blue water of the swimming pool in which Ruby buoyed her feet, which looked pale and ghostly, unrecognizable. Far off, she thought she could hear the ocean. Strange that she was so close to the beach and hadn't even seen it yet. Inspired and suddenly restless, she got up and tried the handle of the gate that led out of the pool area. A dog's growl greeted her.

 

"Lo siento, senorita," an accented voice called from the guardhouse. "Senor Beeson said nobody leaves the compound. Esta bien?"

 

"Esta bien," she repeated dully and let her hand fall.

 

"It's no use, I tried yesterday," said Tony, hobbling from beneath the shaded palapa over the patio, leaning on the back of a chair with a glass of tequila in one hand.

 

“Your mom invited you here but won’t let you leave?”

 

"Ruby, my mom's the kind of person who takes a photo of herself putting $100 in a panhandler's cup and then posts it on Instagram to see how many likes she can get.” Ruby smirked.

 

“What do you mean?” she asked.

 

“Let’s just say she didn't introduce you to George McCombs out of charity. She did it because for whatever reason, she and Aaron want you working for George McCombs."

 

"But George--"

 

"He's a decent guy,” Tony said, easing himself down with difficulty into one of the patio chairs. “I doubt he has any bad intentions for you. But if you go to work for him, you're always going to be under someone's thumb -- if not his, then Aaron's, or my mom's. Or Fox's. They want you with him for the same reason they wanted you down here. To control you."

 

She gulped and looked over at the guardhouse, where she could see a row of TV monitors, one of which, she knew, was tuned to the pool area and was probably listening into every single thing they were saying. A despaired feeling spread over her, like black oil spilled. "But what do I do? I've got no one else left."

 

"What about Joe?"

 

"He's with Lydia," she snapped. "You should have seen her walk into the Bird like she owned the place. She was born to be with Joe. They're going to be like Mr. and Mrs. Biker America,” she spat with contempt. “And I --" Her throat was starting to feel lumpy, and she stopped speaking helplessly.

 

"Ruby, I know it looks bad. But I also remember back a few years ago when Kyle had just been voted president. We were all joking around in the bar one night after a few drinks, and Kyle pulled up a picture of you on his phone. He showed it to Joe and kind of slurred something like, ‘Dude, I've already written my best man speech for your wedding.’ Well, we all just kind of laughed, of course. But there was something in Kyle's eyes that showed he meant it. He talked about you a lot, but he always made it clear you were off-limits. We respected that. But with Joe, it was different. He always said that if anything happened to him, he knew Joe would be around to look after you. Sometimes I think that was the only thing that helped him sleep at night.”

 

"He tried to introduce us," she said, recalling a conversation she'd had with her brother over a year ago when she'd been dating Farley Main, convinced he was her ticket to move up in the world. His name's Joseph Ryan. I really you'd get along. She'd laughed in his face at the idea that any of his outlaw thugs might be worth a second look from her. If only she’d listened to him then, she thought, mentally cursing herself. She could have avoided all of this grief. She might have been able to stop this train wreck and use her good instincts to steer the Jockeys in the right direction. But now it was too late, and she'd been blind. "I shot him down, of course."

 

She remembered something Regan had told her when she'd first arrived in Madelia. Joe had two ways of looking at a woman: one when he wanted something from her and one when he wanted her. She'd seen him like that in the moments when the cocky outlaw, the scrappy opportunist, and the hard-luck kid, all melted away, and he became the gentleman, the one with nothing but earnest curiosity and honest desire.

 

"But what about Lydia?" she demanded.

 

"I don't pretend to know the whole story there. But if for some reason Joe did agree to marry her, it wasn't because he loves her. It was because he didn't have a choice."

 

"You really think so?" The idea that Joe didn't love Lydia, that he didn't even want to marry her, had never occurred to her. But now the idea tantalized, like sunlight shining through the hinges on a locked door. That Joe hadn't been going through the motions with Ruby, that the wide-eyed, irresistible way he looked at her wasn't an act, or a tool in his long-practiced arsenal of seduction. That glowing cloud of warmth she'd felt rising up inside her as she'd stood washing glasses at the bar, remembering what it had been like to wake up next to him that morning. Her body tingled; she tried to tamp it down, reminding herself that there was a long road ahead, regardless of which direction she took.

 

"Joe has integrity. Don't ask me where he got it; it's a rare commodity among outlaws. It's why he went after me the night I got stabbed, even though it got him thrown in jail. But it's why Kyle trusted him, why he loved him like a brother. Because he knew that whatever he does, he does for the right reasons."

 

"So what if I do go back?" she said softly. "And for whatever reason, Joe still has to marry her. Do I get to be his piece on the side? Let’s face it, there's no way this could end well. It's too much of a mess. I avoid messes, Tony. I have to. I've had too many in my life already."

 

"Life's a mess," he said, stretching his arms behind him on the chaise. "Look at me. A week ago, I fucked up about as badly as a guy can fuck up. And here I am, sitting by a pool in Mexico drinking Patron. In a month, maybe I'll be in prison for real. Or dead. Life isn't fair, Ruby. You of all people should know that. So take what you really want before someone takes it from you."

 

"That is really twisted," she said, staring at her feet.

 

"Look, I'm not saying to go out and rob a drug dealer. I'm just saying, whether you're good girl or a bad boy, things will sometimes go wrong. So you might as well quit trying to be good and start trying to be happy."

 

The desert heat must have addled her brain if she was even thinking of taking Tony's advice seriously. But she’d been spending her entire life trying to be the good girl, to rise above the sorrow of her past, as if that would make herself, and her family, whole again.

 

But her family would never be whole. She knew that now. And yet in Madelia with Joe, awakening to watch the sunlight on his scarred body and angelic face, of the ecstasy that had claimed her when her body enclosed his, she’d heard a whisper of what she wanted her future to be down to the marrow of her bones. Of the only safe place she could put her heart, of the only life that would ever make her happy.

 

She raised her head, heart starting to thrum. "How the hell do I get out of here?"

 

Tony put down his drink and smiled. "See, this is why I’m a bad boy."