CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Thia
Using the palm of my hand I wiped off one of the plastic chairs surrounding the fire pit and took a seat. With my ankles crossed over the bricks I leaned back, tipping the chair onto two legs. I closed my eyes, soaking in the sun’s last heat as it disappeared behind the tall trees across the bay.
It was that very spot where Bear first claimed me as his own. I didn’t know that’s what he was doing when he kissed and licked his way around my every wound and injury in his attempt to heal me with his beautiful mouth, but I knew it now.
I shivered at the memory, pressing my thighs together as another part of me also remembered that night.
“Hey, Beautiful,” Bear said, making my stomach flip and my nipples harden with just those two words.
I opened my eyes to find Bear staring down at me. His sapphire blue pools hypnotizing me as he looked me over from head to toe. Maybe me and my woman parts weren’t the only one taking a trip down memory lane.
“Looking fancy over there, Mr. McAdams,” I said, with a low whistle. Bear was wearing something I hadn’t seen him wear before. His new cut, which was actually his old cut, because as he had said “took me for fucking ever to wear the leather in.” The patches over his right breast read PRESIDENT, THE LAWLESS, LOGAN’S BEACH, FLORIDA and their bright white color and lack of stains screamed of their newness, stiff with thick black embroidery.
“You ready, baby?” he asked, wagging his eyebrows.
“Yeah, but first, this came for you.” I handed him the white envelope with no return address.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. It’s addressed to you. The Mail America guy dropped it off a few minutes ago. There was one for King too. I gave it to Ray. I didn’t open it. I don’t know what kind of old lady biker code you guys have against postal fraud. Besides, it could be anthrax.”
Bear looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Thanks for saving the anthrax for me, baby,” he said, planting a brief kiss on my lips. He sat at on the edge of the fire pit and tore open the envelope.
“I do what I can,” I said, brushing an invisible nothing off of my shoulder.
Bear unfolded what looked like a two-page letter of some sort and as he read his eyes shifted from narrow to wide. His lips moving silently as he read. He stood up, walked a few feet and then reached behind him. When his hand found a chair, he fell back into it, never taking his eyes from the letter.
“What?” I said, watching Bear’s reaction and wondering what impending doom was here to sweep away all of our newfound happiness.
“It’s a letter,” Bear said.
“Don’t make me junk punch you Captain Obvious. Who is it from?”
“It’s from…” Bear held up the pages. I stood up and snatched it. Resting his elbows on his thighs he dropped his head into his hands. “It’s from Grace.”
I scoffed, thinking that he was just joking until I began to read.
My Dearest Abel,
It’s time I told you a story, one I should have told you a long, long time ago.
As far as the world is concerned, they think Edmund and I couldn’t have children of our own because that is what we had lead everyone to believe, but that is only a partial truth. When people asked if we had children, we always said no. It was too painful to talk about then, and frankly, it’s still too painful to write this now, but I owe you the truth and the truth you shall have.
As you know, my mother was old-fashioned and had arranged my marriage to my Edmund with his mother on the very day I came screaming into the world. I didn’t care for him. I didn’t want to be married. Ever.
I wanted adventure.
So a long time ago, in another life, I got my adventure.
I became a hang-around at an MC and got sucked into club life. I was the equivalent to the Wolf Warriors what a BBB is to the Bastards.
Shocking I know, but if you can believe it, I was quite a looker back in my day.
Rebellious as hell too, although I don’t think that ever really went away. Age just has a funny way of tucking the rebellion in under loose and wrinkly skin.
I had a child, very early in life with Joker, VP of the Warriors.
A daughter.
We named her Sadie.
Joker was married at the time, and although he was never hateful, he never acknowledged Sadie as his own. I left the club life shortly before she was born, so I could raise her. I married Edmond after all, because I thought it was what was best for Sadie, and thankfully he agreed because although the beginning was rocky, we fell as madly in love as two people could possibly be.
But my girl, my Sadie, was a rebel from the word go, just like her mama.
By the time she turned fifteen, she was deep into drugs. The hard stuff. She’d run away at least once a month until the money ran out from whatever she’d stolen from us and sold.
One such time, she never came back. I tracked her down and it was no surprise where I found her. She’d taken in with the Bastards, who’d kept her comfortable and knee deep in her drug and party lifestyle. I stormed over there many times, but never got further than the gate. I called the cops, but it never yielded anything because, as you know, the cops in Logan’s Beach wear badges during the day and cuts at night. I even called Joker and begged him to help me, but the epic on-again-off-again war of Bastards vs. Warriors, was on again, and there wasn’t anything he could do.
I didn’t even know my daughter was pregnant until I saw a glimpse of her at the Stop-N-Go one day with a rounded belly. I tried to talk to her, but she pretended like she didn’t know me. Around the same time, Edmund and I found out that because of my daughter’s difficult birth, that I would never be able to have any more children. Not only did I lose my daughter, but I lost my grandchild, as well as the possibility of creating life again.
Months later a picture showed up in the mail with no return address. A baby picture. It was you. I don’t know if Sadie had sent it or if Joker had somehow gotten a hold of it and sent it to me. Either way that picture was the very first time I’d ever laid eyes on you and I loved you right then.
I never stopped trying to get to my Sadie. Joker had called me to tell me that rumor had it that Sadie had gone missing. I practically drove my car through the gates of the Bastard compound and demanded to see you, but the only thing I accomplished was being led out by gunpoint. Chop said that if I ever came back he’d not only kill me, but you too. I didn’t even know that he was the father until he told me at gunpoint. And when I accused him of killing Sadie, he didn’t even have the courtesy to deny it.
I slipped into a depression, nothing Edmund did could pull me out of it. He cleared the house of all evidence of Sadie’s existence, thinking that it was the memory of her that was making me that way even thought it was much, much more than that. However, he did let me keep your picture as long as I promised to tuck it away somewhere, so I did. Eventually with no hope in sight I became bedridden with grief, my only solace was a glance at your beautiful face once a day when Edmund would leave for work.
Until Brantley.
When he came into my life, he started to fill the gap in my heart. Thankfully, Edmond was able to get to know him for a short time as well, before he passed. Brantley was my little blessing, wrapped in anger and emerald eyes. Then Samuel came along, and I started to feel almost whole again.
Or so at least I thought.
Because on one hot summer day, you showed up on your bike. The spitting image of your father with your blond hair and sapphire blue eyes. I nearly fell off the porch.
There you were. My grandbaby. All grown up and right in front of me.
I wanted to tell you then. I tried so many times after that day too. But my overwhelming fear that Chop would cut you off from me… I couldn’t lose you.
Not again.
Not ever.
However, he did find out eventually, because he showed up at the house with a half dozen other Bastards and stormed through my roses. The first thing he asked me was if you knew who I was, and when I told him that you didn’t, he was relieved.
I would have shot him right there if I’d had a gun within my reach for what he did to my girl. He told me to stay away from you and that it was my last warning. I asked him why he was so hell bent on not allowing you to have a family.
“Because he has a family, the Bastards are his family. He doesn’t need his daddy, his granny, or some weed-dealing thug kids. He’s got his brothers.” He turned to leave.
“You might as well stay, so you won’t have to make another trip to shoot me because I won’t stop seeing him. I won’t. If you are going to kill me for it then just kill me now because I will not give him up.”
Instead of killing me, he laughed in my face and then we made an agreement.
One I’m not proud of, but one where I wouldn’t tell you who I really was to you, and he wouldn’t ban you from coming around.
Oh, and he wouldn’t kill us, either.
It was selfish, I know that, but I finally had you in my life and the risk of losing you again was too great. So I kept you in the only way I knew how and I am so so, so sorry Abel. My baby. My boy. Just know that I love you with all my heart and that I did everything I could to be a good grandma to you and protect you from the evil of your father.
You are so different from him. You are a good man. You made my heart and life so full and I would go through all the hard times all over again, as long as it all ended the same way.
With family.
My eternal endless love, forever and always,
Grandma Grace
“Holy shit,” I said, covering my mouth. My eyes threatening to spill the tears that had been forming during the entire time I’d been reading Grace’s letter.
When I’d taken it from Bear, I thought he was pissed or upset, but when he lifted his head all I saw was pure unadulterated joy. “I have a grandma,” he said, sniffling and wiping the corners of his eyes.
“And it’s Grace,” I said, feeling his happiness.
“And it’s Grace,” Bear repeated, pulling me onto his lap.
“You have a grandpa too! Some guy named…” I looked back down at the letter.
“Joker.” Bear laughed. “You know I met him before. A long time ago. There was something off about him. No one wanted to talk to a little prospect, but he took the time. He was nice too, and trust me, nobody is nice to prospects. Said some shit to me that stuck over the years.”
“Maybe he was there checking up on you,” I pointed out.
“I think that’s exactly what he was doing.” Bear held me tight and for a moment we just sat there, content in each other’s arms.
“Are you ready now?” Bear asked after a while. He lifted me up off the chair and set me down on my feet.
“Depends? Where we going?” I asked, standing up and taking his hand. Bear dragged me over to the driveway.
“I’m taking you for a ride,” Bear said, gesturing to his bike. Before I could think of what he was asking, he was already shoving a big round helmet with a plexi-glass face guard onto my head.
“I bet you are,” I said, my words muffled through the helmet. “But where are we going?”
“For fuck’s sake, Ti, always with the questions,” Bear said, and although his words were angry, I could tell he was trying to hide a smile. “Can’t you just do what you’re fucking told for once?”
“I could, but where would the fun be in that?” I asked, sticking out my tongue and inadvertently licking the inside of the helmet. I couldn’t see through the face guard because the helmet was too far down on my head. Bear must have seen his error because he pulled it back up until I could see his beautiful face looking down at me and laughing as he adjusted the chinstrap. He tapped the top of the helmet when he was done and it echoed in my ears.
“Where’s your helmet?” I asked through the enormous fishbowl surrounding my head.
“Right here.” Bear lifted out a small black helmet that looked more like a plastic jock strap and set it on his head. His hair poked out the side when he secured the strap.
“How come you get to wear that small one and I look like I’m preparing for a moon launch?” I asked.
Bear chuckled. “You’re precious cargo, baby. Gotta protect what’s mine,” he said smoothly, lowering his voice in the way that made me swoon like an idiot and want to offer him up anything I had in order to hear it again.
Damn him.
“Have you cleaned this thing? I don’t want to catch some oral venereal disease from any of its former wearers.”
“Baby, trust me, no one has ever worn that before,” he said through a laugh. “I had Wolf pick it up this morning just for you.” He winked because he knew exactly what he was doing to me, and I melted like the girl I was at the thought of him sending out his new VP just to get me a helmet for our ride.
Bear straddled the big shiny bike and patted the small space on the seat behind him. “I’ve never ridden on the back of a bike before,” I admitted, unsure of how exactly to get on, or where to put my hands.
“Climb on behind me,” he ordered, firing up the bike. I’ve heard Bear’s bike before and I knew it was loud but standing next to it was an entirely different experience. The ground rumbled under my feet. My entire body hummed to life as Bear revved the engine in a way that had me pressing my thighs together. “Ti, Bike, now,” Bear said, growing impatient.
I climbed on as best I could, but with Bear’s big body already on the bike it was hard to maneuver my short legs over the wide seat, but I managed to do it without kicking him in the head or falling off the other side.
Winning.
“What do I hold on to?” I shouted. Bear leaned the bike to the side and kicked up the stand, he reached back and grabbed one of my arms, bringing it around his waist.
“Hold on to me, Beautiful.” His words dripping with innuendo, made me want to get back off the bike and jump back in bed. Even over the noise of the engine, there was no mistaking the wicked intensions in his voice and I couldn’t help but think what a long ride this was going to be.
I wrapped my other arm around him and settled my hands low on the bare skin of his hard stomach, right above his belt. His abs flexed under my touch and I felt him suck in a sharp breath.
It was my turn to chuckle.
Maybe it would be a long ride for Bear, too.
He started off slowly, easing us down the driveway at a snail’s pace and keeping his movements slow. That’s when I noticed Pancakes keeping pace beside us until Bear twisted the throttle and we rocketed forward, leaving poor Pancakes to watch us leave from where he’d stopped at the end of the driveway.
Riding on the bike was nothing like I’d expected.
The wind. The speed. The adrenaline.
It was too much and not enough all at the same time. “Wooooooohoooooo!” I shouted, unable to help the excitement bubbling up inside of me.
It ended as quickly as it started as I quickly recognized the route Bear was taking. I’d hoped it was just a coincidence and that at any moment he was going to take the next exit. But when we passed the familiar cross on the side of the road and the WELCOME TO JESSEP sign, the dread settled in.
It was the last place I’d ever thought Bear would take me. As we sped down the dirt road that led to the even smaller dirt road where the Andrews Farm Road sign had been eaten entirely by the overgrown orange tree behind it, my stomach began to twist. I clutched onto Bear’s stomach tighter, digging my nails into his abs so he could feel how his choice of outing was affecting me. It was on this road where Bear had been shot and where he’d crashed his bike and killed two of his former brothers.
By the time we made it down the long gravel drive and parked in front of the little white house from my childhood, I felt downright nauseous.
The paint peeling off the siding seemed to have spread from just the side of the house that faced the sun, to every side. Most of the shingles were now missing. The grass below the front window now covered most of the dirty glass, completely blocking the fact that a window existed behind it. It seemed so much more rundown than the last time we’d seen it, but that wasn’t possible.
It had only been days.
“Why are we here…again?” I asked, ready to move forward and so tired of being stuck in all the crap that the house represented to me. I didn’t want to be there.
Bear got off and untied his chinstrap, setting his flimsily little helmet on the seat in front of me. He held out his hand for me to grab and I shook my head. “Nah uh,” I said, unwilling to move off of the bike and fogging up my helmet from the inside. “Tell me why we are here first.” I rung out my hands and nervously pulled on my fingers.
“Why do you think we’re here?” Bear asked.
“Honestly? I don’t know.” I looked at the broken screen of the front door and took in the uneven front porch. “I hate this place,” I said, and I meant it. There were very few things in the world I could say I honestly hated, and that poor excuse for a home, which held nothing but bad stacked on top of bad, was one of them.
“I know you do,” Bear said, grabbing my hand and dragging me off the bike. I took off my helmet and set it on the seat next to his. “When you told me about Rage suggesting that you two burn it down, you seemed to like that idea.” He shrugged. “So let’s fucking do it.”
“What?” I asked turning to him and searching his face for any signs of a joke.
There weren’t any.
“This is your idea of normal?” I asked, suddenly feeling the heaviness start to lift off my shoulders.
Bear lit a cigarette and tossed me the lighter, which I caught in my right hand. “Yeah,” he said, taking a drag and blowing the smoke out through his nose. Smoking isn’t supposed to be sexy, but holy mother of sin did Bear look hot doing it. “You know. A little lunch. A little fooling around. A little arson. It may not be normal, baby, but I’m thinking we shouldn’t use that word when it comes to us. ’Cause I’m thinking normal ain’t something the two of us are ever gonna be.” He was unusually quiet for a second, looking to the house and then back to me. “Let me ask you something, Ti.”
“Yeah?” I asked as he came to stand in front of me.
“Is that what you want? Normal?” he asked, scratching the shaved part of his head with the heel of his hand that held his cigarette.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t even know what normal is.”
He pointed to the house. “I imagine that it’s a house with a picket fence where the woman has dinner on the table every night at six thirty, and a man who is never late to eat that dinner and always places his napkin on his lap.”
I scoffed at the idea. “I hate to tell you, Bear, but your idea of normal is like the fifties. Also, it’s kind of sexist, and that entire scenario sounds really fucking boring.”
“You know what I mean. I can’t give you that. I don’t even know what that looks like,” Bear said, a crack of vulnerability breaking through the surface. “So tell me what you want. Be honest, because this might be the only time I ever ask you.”
I shrugged because the answer was an easy one. “You. I want you.”
Bear stubbed out his cigarette in the dirt and looked up to meet my gaze. “I’m no good for you, Ti.”
The words rang in between my ears and bounced around in my brain, yet no matter how many times I registered what he’d just said, I still couldn’t believe what I’d heard. “No good for me?” I asked. Heat crept up my throat as I stalked toward Bear, staring him down with everything I had in my little pink head. “Don’t you think I’m the one who gets to decide what’s good for me and what’s bad for me? And why is good or bad even a factor? Good, bad, right, wrong. How about I’m a fucking adult, and the only person who needs to be good for me, is me. You’re the man I love.” I pushed against his chest. Hard. But he stood firm, his face expressionless. “You may not make me a better person, but you make me the me I want to be.”
I turned around and Bear’s arms came around my waist, pulling me back against him. “That’s the last time I want to talk about that, okay?” I asked, in a much softer tone, now that Bear’s beard tickled my temple and neck and I was surrounded by the comfort of his strong tattooed arms.
“Yes ma’am,” he said, his deep voice rumbling against my throat as he used every bit of his southern drawl to do that thing he does when he says something and my point goes out the window.
“You know you lay on your accent thicker when you’re trying to be sexy, right?” I asked, turning in his arms, asking him a question I knew he already knew the answer to.
“Oh, baby,” he said, with a crooked smile. “I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.” His lips came down on mine in a kiss that was not meant to be anything more than a kiss, but still had me quivering and the hairs on my arms standing on end. I fit perfectly in his arms.
Surrounded.
Safe.
Loved.
“What do things look like from here?” I asked after he’d pulled back. I looked out into the grove, the trees were tangled with one another. The rotting oranges no longer smelled as the earth absorbed them. “With us.”
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Bear asked, knocking on the top of my head.
“I just… I mean.” I took a deep breath. “The entire time I’ve been with you, you weren’t the Prez of an MC. You were just Bear. I don’t know a lot about club life, what’s involved or where I fit into all of that. So I just wanted to know, you know…what happens to us?” My confidence from only a few moments earlier faded quickly leaving me squirming in his grip, but he held me even tighter.
“Ti, nothing happens to us.”
“Oh,” I said, my heart sinking, my grip around his neck loosening.
“No.” Bear rolled his eyes. “I meant that nothing changes. It’s still me and you, baby.”
I didn’t say anything. I knew I would learn what being an old lady was all about, but I didn’t want to disappoint Bear in the process. “I just don’t know a lot about the lifestyle. Or about my place in it.”
Bear smiled and ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “That one’s easy. Your place is right here by my side. All the other shit you’ll learn. I’ll tell you something. A lot of guys in the Bastards kept their biker life and their family life separate, almost like they were two different people. Wives at home, whores in the club. I know how it feels to be a biker, and not a man. I know how it feels when you find the person who makes you realize you can be both. I don’t want to be two people.” He sighed. “For a while there, I didn’t have you or a club, and now I’ve got both of you, and I’m not keeping nothing separate and I’m not hiding you away. You’re it for me, baby. We’re family. Me, you, King, Ray, their crazy-ass kids, and now my brothers.”
“It’s all that simple, huh?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
“I’m not gonna lie to you. There will be times I won’t be able to tell you shit. Certain secrets are kept only between brothers. But if I can’t tell you shit, then I’ll just tell you I can’t,” Bear said. “I’ll be as honest as I can and I expect the same from you.”
“Okay,” I agreed. Simple enough.
“I promise I won’t shut you out. Not now. Not ever. Not gonna lose you again.” He tipped my chin up so he could look me in the eyes when he said, “You’re mine.”
“And you’re mine,” I said. Bear closed his eyes like I’d just hit him with something hard and when he opened them again, they were the color of the clear sky overhead.
“I think what I was just trying to tell you is that it’s okay now, you know. You’ve protected me. You’ve already fulfilled a promise that you never meant to keep. I don’t want to hold you back. You’ve got your club. You’ve got your brothers. I’m safe. It’s okay. No matter what you want to do,” I said, needing him to know that his obligation to me was over. If he wanted to let me go it would hurt. It would be something I’d never recover from.
But I’d live.
Because if I’d learned anything in the last year it was that I was a survivor.
I AM a survivor.
“Hold me back?” he asked, pressing his thumb and forefinger against his eyebrows like he had head pains. “You’re not holding me back. What do I need to do to make you get it? I’ve already asked you to marry me for Christ’s sake. Don’t you see it?”
“See what?”
“I can’t believe you don’t fucking get it,” he said, the fire returning to his eyes. “You’re not holding me back because you’re the one moving me forward.”
My heart leapt at hearing the words I needed to hear. I was now completely ready to start this new life. With Bear. “I was afraid you were bringing me here because you were taking me home for good,” I admitted.
“Home?” he asked, pounding on his chest with his fist. “This,” he said. “This is your home.” He lifted my hands by my wrists and pressed my open palms to his chest. “This is your home.”
I felt a tear spill out of the corner of my eye and roll down my cheek before I could stop it.
“I’m your home baby, just like you’re mine, and if you want brutal honesty like you say you do, then I’ll tell you right now that even if you wanted to leave, I wouldn’t let you. You’re mine now, so unfortunately for you, it’s not an option,” Bear growled.
I sniffled, because I’m a stupid girl and my beautiful man was telling me beautiful things and I couldn’t help myself. “I don’t want the option,” I admitted.
“You said you’d marry me and since you have made me a man of my word and all, we need to get you a ring,” Bear said, running his fingers around the empty space of my ring finger on my left hand.
“No,” I argued.
“No?” Bear asked, looking worried. “Why the hell not?”
I tugged on the chain around my neck. “Because,” I said, pulling his skull ring from my shirt, dangling it in front of him. “I already have one.”
Bear smiled and reached out, grabbing the ring and using it to tug me closer. “I’m so glad I found you,” he whispered.
“I’m so glad you found me too.”