Jamie

 

“You don’t have to be here,” Lance said. Flash, Jax, and Slate looked at me out of the corners of their eyes. I knew they knew what I just did with Lance, and I didn’t care. We were all adults. I wouldn’t leave, even if I did feel a little bit of a flush in my cheeks when Jax smirked knowingly.

 

“Sure I do,” I said, sitting with my arms folded.

 

“Why?”

 

“Because this concerns me. I need to know if I’m ever going to get out of here and whether Gigi will be safe when I do.”

 

Lance sighed heavily. The sweet, gentle man I’d met upstairs was gone. He was all business again.

 

“Do you promise to keep quiet?”

 

“Absolutely not.” I grinned.

 

“Fine, whatever. I don’t have time to screw around.” He turned his attention to his crew. “I know where Rae is.”

 

“Where?” Flash asked.

 

“She’ll be at the Greyhound bus station in two hours. Her bus leaves at six o’clock.”

 

“Where does she think she’s going?” Jax sneered.

 

“New York. She’s running.”

 

“How do you know all this?” Slate asked.

 

“I found a receipt for a bus ticket at her house this morning. She only bought it an hour or two before I got there.”

 

“Holy shit,” Jax muttered. “So what? We’re gonna corner her there?”

 

“That’s my plan. I wanna find her, ask her what the hell’s going on. Why would she run away like this? Who’s after her? And when they can’t find her, are they gonna come after Gigi?”

 

I bit my lip, holding back my own questions and protests. I wanted to claw Rae’s eyes out for putting her daughter in this situation. I could tell from the look on Lance’s face that he shared the sentiment—then, to my surprise, I saw that the others felt the same, too. They all had affection for Gigi and wanted to keep her safe. I felt more secure when I realized that. They were tough guys. For once, they were putting that toughness to good use.

 

“So what do you want us to do?”

 

“I need you to be my eyes and ears. Chances are, somebody will be with her. I need to know if they’re watching from a distance. When I go after her, I don’t want them coming after me. I need one of you at the front door, too, in case she tries to run away.”

 

“Got it.” They looked ready for action.

 

“What happens when she tells you why she’s running? That doesn’t change anything,” Flash pointed out. “She’ll still gonna run.”

 

“Fuck, as far as I’m concerned, she can go with my blessing. I just need to know why. If The Scarecrow’s after her, I wanna know what he wants. Maybe we can work something out. I don’t know. I have to start somewhere, though.”

 

“Gotcha.” The other men looked at each other, nodding. I realized they would have followed Lance to the gates of Hell if called to do so. They had that much respect for him, that much love for him. They wouldn’t have used the word “love,” I’d bet, but that’s what it was nonetheless. It was something to see.

 

“When do we roll out?”

 

“In an hour. Get something to eat, hang out, whatever. I wanna be outta here by five fifteen. It’ll only take fifteen minutes or so to get there. I wanna hang back, wait for her. I don’t want her to see us, or she’ll take off before I get a chance to talk to her.”

 

The guys nodded and walked out, leaving me alone with Lance.

 

“That good enough for you?” He wore a wry smile.

 

“Yes, that’s good enough for me.” I smirked.

 

“I was proud of you. You managed to keep your mouth shut.”

 

“I can do it when I need to, thanks. I decided it was more important to hear what you were planning to do than to speak up.”

 

“Smart girl.” He grinned, closing the door so we could be alone. He sat beside me, and I couldn’t control the urge to lean into him. He put an arm around my shoulders while I rested my head on his chest. It felt nice, like there was somebody stronger than me who could take care of me. Not that I needed to be taken care of, of course. I could handle life on my own. Still, there was no denying how right it felt to put everything down for a little while and let somebody else support me…even if it was only my head they were supporting.

 

“I’m worried about you,” I admitted.

 

“You don’t have any reason to be,” he said, stroking my hair. “I’m flattered, though.”

 

I smacked him lightly, playfully. “I mean it. This Scarecrow sounds like the real deal. It bothers me to think about you trying to make a deal with him. People like that, bad people? They don’t play by the rules. Even I know that much.”

 

“He’s a businessman, that’s all. When he sees we can make a deal—probably with a lot of money in it—he’ll come around. Rae probably stole something from him or something stupid like that, like we said. She was never very smart when it came to the big things. He’ll be fine when I tell him he’ll get his money back.”

 

“No, she was never very smart.” I didn’t have the highest opinion of her to begin with, but the more I heard about her, the worse it got. So what if she used to be a nice person, the way Lance described her? Drugs changed who she was. How could she be so blind? Why would she ever get mixed up with a bad person like The Scarecrow when she had a little girl to think about? I counted my blessings, grateful that I’d never been in such a desperate place that I had to make a deal with a man like that. Grateful I’d never had to speak to him, much less know he was alive before meeting Lance.

 

“You all set for your adventure, then?” I grinned up at him.

 

“Adventure. There’s a word I never used before.” He grinned back.

 

“You’ll be safe, yes?”

 

“Of course.” He pulled me up by the shoulders until we were face-to-face. “I’m always safe. I have a little girl to think about, too.”

 

I hated the idea of him being her father, of raising her in his world…but it was nice hearing him talk about her as his little girl. Knowing he cared about her. He’d be the first person after me to really care about the kid. Her mother clearly didn’t.

 

A knock sounded at the door. It was Traci. “Dinner.”

 

“Dinner already?” Lance called out.

 

“Yeah, we figured we’d eat early since you’re going out in a little while. We can’t send you out on an empty stomach.”

 

Lance smiled. “They’re always thinking,” he muttered, shaking his head.

 

***

 

“Why aren’t you eating?”

 

I looked at Gigi. “What, sweetie?”

 

“Why aren’t you eating? Do you feel sick?”

 

I looked down at my plate of untouched food. I usually liked meatloaf, too, and everybody else seemed to be enjoying it. There was nothing I wanted less than to eat it. “No, sweetie. I feel okay. I’m just not very hungry tonight.”

 

“It’s good,” she assured me, going for another mouthful. I smiled, patting her on the head. She had no idea what was happening around her, and she didn’t need to know.

 

I couldn’t believe I was so worried about Lance. He could take care of himself, after all. He’d been dealing with nasty people his entire life, and he managed to come out relatively unscathed. This situation didn’t have to be any different from any other.

 

Only it was different. I didn’t know how I knew, but I did. There was something happening. Something bad. I wished I could tell him, wished he would take me seriously if I did. I knew he wouldn’t. He’d laugh me off, tell me I was acting like an idiot. If he didn’t say it out loud, his voice and the look on his face would say it all. I didn’t think I could handle that.

 

There was nothing I could do. My hands were tied, while my stomach clenched in knots. I felt nauseated, though I hadn’t eaten anything in hours. Even the smell of the food made me sick. I had to get up, had to get away. I pushed back from the table and went to the office, trying to get a breath of air. I wanted nothing more than to leave, to get far away and never think about the club or anybody in it again. I didn’t want to be a part of what was going on.

 

“Are you okay?” I turned to find Lance standing in the doorway. I was by the open window, breathing deeply despite the chill outside.

 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I didn’t turn around. I didn’t want him to see the look on my face.

 

“What’s wrong with you? I can tell there’s something wrong. What is it?” He touched my shoulder, but I stubbornly kept my face turned away.

 

“Nothing, I’m telling you. I don’t know. I felt a little sick to my stomach for a minute there. I thought I’d get some air, to see if it passed.”

 

“Has it?”

 

No. “Yeah, a little.”

 

“Are you worried about what’s gonna happen?”

 

“Why should I worry? You’re in charge. You’ve got it all figured out, right?” I tried to make my voice light. Why did I care so darned much? Why was it bothering me so much?

 

“Yeah, I do. I wish you believed in me.”

 

I turned around. “It’s not that. Don’t think it’s that, please.” I couldn’t help the tears that sprang to my eyes when I looked at him. My chin trembled.

 

“What is it, then?”

 

“I’ve never been through anything like this before.” I left it at that. It was enough for him to know I was worried about everything happening around us—me, spending time with a motorcycle club. Wanting Gigi to be safe. Wanting to get back to everything I left behind, my life, my job. He didn’t need to know I was worried about the way I worried over him. I couldn’t tell him how I questioned my feelings. Why did I care so much? That was what bothered me the most.

 

He seemed to accept my pathetic excuse, though. “I know. It’s tough when you first find out there’s a world you didn’t know about. I felt that way when I first joined the club.” He sat on his desk, facing the window. I turned, leaning against the wall.

 

“When did you join?”

 

“I was still a teenager, still in high school. Miserable, of course. I needed something else in my life. I was on my own, working nights, trying to get through school so I could graduate.”

 

“No more foster care?”

 

“Nah, I ran. They never found me. I don’t think they looked too hard—lots of kids drop outta the system without being found again.” He shrugged, and I wondered about all those kids. How many of them ended up like he did? How many ended up like Rae, or the junkies Lance told me about in the drug den? When looked at that way, Lance hadn’t turned out so badly.

 

“When I first started showing up here, looking for someplace to belong, it was so exciting. They were a family. I needed a family. And they are my family—I would do anything for them, they would do anything for me. I would probably be dead if it weren’t for them.”

 

“Don’t say that.”

 

“It’s true. I couldn’t keep going to school and working at the same time. I bounced from one friend’s house to another, sleeping on their parents’ couches. I didn’t have a home of my own, or any security. I could’ve ended up on the streets. I didn’t because the club took me in. Look at me now. President of the club with enough money to retire on, and I’m only thirty years old.”

 

He gave me a small smile. “But it was hard, at first,” he continued. “I didn’t know how bad life could get. I thought I knew—with a foster family like mine, a mother like mine, I thought I knew the worst. No. It gets worse than that, even. I don’t wanna talk about it. But let’s just say I don’t think there’s anything that could shock me anymore.”

 

I reached out to him. His words should have repulsed me. Instead, they made me want to comfort him. I wanted to hold him and make him forget all the bad things he’d ever seen. I wanted to make life good for him. I wanted to be the good thing he always seemed to miss out on.

 

He took my hands, pulling me to him. Our faces were very close. “I always wanted a woman like you in my life,” he admitted. “I wanted somebody who didn’t know the things I know, who had something going on for themselves. You’re the closest thing I ever came to having that. Thank you for today.”

 

“You don’t have to thank me,” I said, blushing.

 

“I do. You don’t know what you did for me.”

 

“I was there. I know what I did.” I grinned, and he chuckled.

 

“Not what I mean.”

 

“I know,” I whispered, running my hands up his arms until I linked them behind his neck. I had to be near him. He was like a magnet, attracting me. I pulled him closer, just close enough for our lips to brush against each other.

 

“I don’t know if this is such a good idea right now,” he whispered, pulling away. I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

He grinned. “I need to be able to think. I can’t think when I’m with you. You have this effect on me.”

 

I settled for a peck on the cheek, then leaned against him with my head on his chest. I felt the steady thud of his heart and closed my eyes. Let him be safe, I thought.

 

“The night my parents died, I had a premonition that something would happen to them.”

 

“What?” He pulled back, looking down at me.

 

I nodded. “I knew something bad was going to happen. I felt it in my bones. I tried to warn them, but they laughed me off.” I shivered, remembering how they’d smiled and told me I was silly. I had watched them walk out the door.

 

“What are you trying to say?”

 

“I have a bad feeling. That’s all. That’s what’s really bothering me.”

 

He smiled, brushing my hair back from my face. “You’re just upset. It’s stress. That’s all.” I closed my eyes as he kissed my forehead. That didn’t feel like all it was, not by a long shot.

 

“Hey, Lance!” I recognized Flash’s voice.

 

Lance checked the time. “Shit. We have to go.”

 

I wanted to hold him back, wanted to beg him to stay. But he needed to go. If he didn’t, he’d never know what happened with Rae, why she left Gigi with him. What it meant.

 

“I’ll be okay. I’ll call you when I’m leaving to come back here. Okay?” He kissed me once, then walked out of the office.

 

I couldn’t bear to watch him go. I stayed away from the window, not wanting to watch as he rode away. I had the funny feeling I’d never see him again.