CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Badger came out of the bathroom to find Adrienne out of bed. She’d been sleeping when he got up, and he’d hoped to be able to jump in for a quick shower before she woke. He didn’t like her moving around too much on her own, especially in the morning. She was stiff and a little shaky when she first got out of bed. She’d only been home for a few days.
Home.
Badger had brought her home. To their home. As he pulled on a clean pair of jeans, he looked around the bedroom that was theirs—the bed he shared with Adrienne, in the room he shared with Adrienne, in the house he shared with Adrienne.
Len had handled most of the arrangements for them while Badger spent the bulk of his time at the hospital. They were renting a little bungalow a couple of blocks off Main Street. Nothing special, just a little two-bedroom house. It had been vacant a long time and was pretty seedy, actually. But Len had had the club girls clean it up and then sent the Prospects in to buy and build a houseful of the kind of furniture that came in flat boxes with instructions translated into terrible English.
It was all very cheap, but he didn’t care. He lived with Adrienne. Really lived with her.
She had nothing, though. Her father had brought all of her things and then abandoned her, and then, only days later, she’d lost it all. Everything she owned. Even her car. Only her photos, stored online, survived.
The entire time she was in the hospital, she’d never once asked about her things. Even after she’d begun to talk again, she never asked. He hadn’t offered the information, because he hadn’t been sure how to bring it up.
The day she was discharged, as he was helping her into Lilli’s SUV, which he’d borrowed for the trip, not wanting her to ride home in his shitty old pickup, she stopped and asked where they were going. He’d told her then that he’d rented them a house. She’d been glad.
On the ride back to Signal Bend, though, she’d begun to think about her things. Glancing at her now and then as he drove, he’d seen it happen. As they were on the road that would lead them into town, to their new home, she’d finally asked what she’d lost, and he’d had to tell her that she’d lost everything she owned. Except for those digital photos, her loss was total.
Her homecoming had, thus, been subdued. So caught up in her physical condition, Badger had not really spent much time contemplating all the ways that her life had been demolished since March, when she’d come to town for a visit and decided to stay. But when he helped her into their tiny house with its Walmart furnishings, the closets, drawers, and cupboards nearly empty, and she’d looked silently around and then sat silently down on the flimsy futon that served as their couch, he’d seen her life through her eyes. And he’d worried, briefly, that she’d gone quiet again.
He’d hated her silence in the hospital. He thought he understood it, at least a little, but it had made him feel distant from her, unable to help her. He’d felt useless. He’d been useless. So when she sat in their living room, staring quietly at nothing, he’d felt a little jolt of fear.
But then she’d turned to him, as he sat next to her, and said, “Clean slate, I guess. New start.”
He’d pulled her close, mindful of her tender, still-healing body. A new start for both of them, really. Their life would begin now, together.
Dressed, he went out to the kitchen and found her sitting at their little table with a cup of tea. She was wearing a pair of knit shorts and a halter top, clothes that were easy to manage around her braced arm. Her right arm and leg were wrapped in the white mesh sleeve things they’d given her at the hospital. Her hair was loose and wild, over her shoulders and down her back. She had not lost that in the fire.
She smiled up at him as he came into the room. “Hey.”
“Hey. You get out of bed okay?” He kissed her cheek and went to pour himself a glass of orange juice.
“Obviously. Not too stiff this morning, actually.”
“Good. You want some breakfast?”
“I had a banana.”
“That’s not breakfast, babe.”
“It worked for me. Not hungry.” She wasn’t a big eater in general, but since the fire, getting her to eat was turning him into a nag. She didn’t seem to be interested. Ever. He didn’t completely believe that she’d had a banana, but he resisted the urge to check the garbage under the sink for the peel.
“Have an early lunch, then, right? Who’s coming today—Cory, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, Cory is today’s babysitter.”
Lilli, Cory, and Tasha were doing the circuit, helping Shannon and Adrienne both. It was mostly Lilli and Cory, really, doing the heavy lifting. Tasha was busy at the clinic during the days, and some nights, too.
“Not babysitter. Company.”
“I know. It’s fine—it’s good, even. Being alone sucks. But I’d rather have your company.”
“I’m sorry, Adrienne. I’d stay if I could. I’ll be back as soon as I can. And I’ll call and check in, let you know what’s up with me. Okay?”
She nodded and sipped at her tea. Since it didn’t look like she was going to be a player for any real kind of breakfast, Badger poured himself a bowl of cereal. Standing at the counter, his back to her, he asked, with as little affect in his voice as possible, “You give any more thought to what we talked about last night?”
Quiet behind him. He didn’t turn right away, just finished making his breakfast. He put the cereal box and the milk carton away before he turned. She was staring at him, and her eyes followed him as he sat across from her at the table.
“You gonna answer me?”
“I have. I’ve answered you every time you’ve asked. I told you last night I didn’t want you to bring it up again. So the answer is no. I have not given it any more thought. I don’t intend to give it any more thought. And I hate that you won’t listen to me telling you what I want.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
“Yeah, I got that. I don’t care what you think. About this, I don’t care.”
“He doesn’t even know any of this happened.”
She stood up—and she did it okay, not too shaky. When she crossed to the sink with her mug, she limped a little, but Badger could tell that she’d been honest earlier when she’d said she wasn’t so stiff today. After she rinsed her cup out, she stood there, at the sink, her back to him. “He made me choose. I chose. I mean it, Badge. Don’t bring him up again. Ever.” She limped out of the room without looking at him.
Before he followed, he finished his breakfast, giving her a little space. He shouldn’t have pushed again. But it didn’t make sense in his head that her father was just out of her life. He knew how close she’d been to him. It sat wrong with him that her father and brothers had no idea that she’d almost died in a fire. He felt certain that if they knew, the bridge between them could be rebuilt. But she didn’t want them to know.
When he went back to their bedroom, she was standing at her little dresser, staring down into the sparse top drawer. He’d been stunned by all the clothes and shoes they’d unpacked a few weeks ago, stuffing two closets full in the B&B. Now, she had very little. And he had no idea how she’d rebuild the kind of wardrobe she’d had. Her style, despite her fondness for cowboy boots, was not exactly something that could be replicated at Walmart. Or even at the mall in Springfield.
He could tell that she sensed him coming up behind her, but she didn’t reject him when he got as close as he could and put his hands on her hips. Brushing her hair to the side, and with a lingering kiss to her bare right shoulder and its lovely freckles—he was a fan of this halter she was wearing—he murmured, “I’m sorry. I won’t say more about it.”
“I can’t deal, Badge. I need to keep that door closed. Locked. Key thrown away.” She tipped her head, extending the line of her neck for him, and he kissed from the ball of her shoulder up to her ear, letting his beard brush invisible lines over her skin. He knew how she liked that. He felt her pulse beating faster beneath his lips. When he nipped lightly on her skin, he felt her moan as much as heard it.
“I know, babe. I’m sorry I wasn’t listening. I love you. I want you happy. I want you whole.”
Almost of their own volition, his hands pushed forward, from her hips to her belly, his fingers sliding just under the waistband of her little shorts. She wasn’t wearing underwear.
More than a month since the fire. More than a month since they’d been intimate. In the hospital, he’d felt too worried and protective to get unmanageably horny. He’d barely thought of sex. But in the days that he’d had her home—in their home, in their bed, her body and his together with little between them—he was starting to have some trouble. But she was still hurt.
His erection uncomfortably huge and digging into her back, Badger canted his hips away, making a slice of space between them. But she moaned quietly and followed his movement, keeping their bodies in contact.
“Badge.” The word was barely a whisper, but it was sultry with desire.
“Babe, we can’t.” Even as he said it, he pushed one hand into her shorts, gliding over the silken skin of her belly and into her curls. Her wet curls. Usually she kept everything trimmed and neat, just a little triangle, but of course since the fire things had gotten more…natural. Until just now, since the fire, he’d seen her a few times, but this was the first time he’d touched her. He liked the curls, soft and wet on his fingers.
He brushed a fingertip over the slick bud of her clit, and she twitched hard and bent forward, pressing her ass more tightly to his body. His cock ached. As much to himself as to her, he said again, “We can’t, babe.” But his hand, moving more firmly on her, now in her, wasn’t listening. His cock, rebelling against the bonds of his jeans, wasn’t listening. Adrienne, writhing in his arms, breathless, wasn’t listening.
“We can,” she panted.
“How?”
“Like this. Just like this. From behind. Hold me up.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.” But he was opening his jeans. The way they were rocking together was already too much for his body to ignore.
She pawed with her one free hand at her shorts, but he brushed her away and took them down himself, being careful of the sleeve over her hurt leg.
He managed the condom with one hand and muttered, “Achievement unlocked.”
She looked over her shoulder; her face was flushed and gorgeous. “What?”
“Nothing,” he chuckled. “Just had a little geek leak.” To stave off further inquiry, he bent forward, pushing her over, too, and slid a hand over her firm, satiny ass and between her legs, where she was even wetter than before. “You sure about this?”
“Jesus, Badge. Yes. Please!”
He slid into her, and oh fuck, she felt good. She cried out as he surged, sinking deeply, so deeply into her, her body constricting tightly around him, holding him, encompassing him completely.
Her weak leg buckled a little as he rocked backwards, and he clutched her more tightly, one hand still between her legs, the other arm across her midsection. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Don’t stop.”
“I don’t think I could, babe. God, you feel good.” He shifted his hold, bringing his hand from her waist, pushing it up under her top to cup a breast. Her nipple was a hard little pebble on his fingers. He took it between his thumb and forefinger and pinched lightly, savoring the way it grew even harder in his grasp. When he did so, she moaned and dropped her head backwards to his shoulder. And her leg buckled again.
Rather than ask if she was okay—she was writhing on him so much, her hips constantly active, that he knew she was, and he was beyond words, anyway—he simply lifted her off the floor. Holding her tightly to his chest, one hand clutching her breast, the other firm but still on her clit, the movements of their joined bodies sliding her against his palm, he locked his legs and thrust into her as hard and fast as he could.
They were both grunting in time with his thrusts, in time with each other, a feral harmony. She slid a little in his grip and he shifted his hold, his fingers inadvertently tightening substantially on her breast. She flinched and gasped loudly.
“Oh, sorry. I’m sorry.”
“No,” she gasped. “That was—that was—wow.” So he did it again, pinching hard, but more controlled this time. Her body went taut, and he felt her flood over his cock. “Oh, wow. Oh, fuck. Badge—Badge! Oh, GOD.”
He thought that was the first time he’d ever heard Adrienne say ‘fuck,’ but he didn’t have the attention to spare to marvel long at that. It was hot, though. He let himself go, moving frantically while she pulsed and twitched in his arms, around his cock, until the knot of need inside him released. He came so hard he thought for a second he might lose consciousness, the tension in his body stopping blood and breath.
When he came back to himself, she was pliant in his arms, taking deep, calm breaths. He turned his head and, with his cheek, brushed her hair, damp with perspiration, back from her temple so that he could kiss her there. “Okay?”
She nodded. “Better than okay. Perfect. I love you. You’re all I need.”
~oOo~
He was late to the Keep, which meant a fine and a deadly glare from Isaac. But he couldn’t say it wasn’t totally worth it. He hadn’t showered after his encounter with Adrienne; he could smell her—them—on him. He thought today was going to be a good day.
But when he slid into his seat at the table, all of his brothers eyeing him, he understood that the meeting was a heavy one. They all seemed to be heavy these days, but this one looked to be significant even so.
Isaac glared at him for an uncomfortably long time, even after he’d apologized. But finally he spoke. “You see the news, Badger?”
“What, boss?” That question seemed to come out of some point beyond left field. “No. Guess not.”
“Didn’t think so. Dom—you mind repeating yourself?”
Dom sat forward. “There’s big trouble in LA, looks like. Got some national attention.”
Badger tried to catch up, fill in the blanks. “Wait—LA. You mean the Scorps? Bart?”
“Yeah. Hoosier is trying to secede—the whole LA charter, and he’s trying to bring the other West Coast charters him.”
“You heard this on the news?”
“No, asshole. I got it from Bart. What’s on the news is a bomb at the Scorps’ bike shop. Took out most of the block—their clubhouse and shop, both.”
“Shit. Bart’s okay?”
Isaac answered. “Yeah. No casualties. They got a tip, cleared the place—even got most of the bikes out. That tip confirmed it, though—Sam ordered it. The Scorps are having themselves a civil war.”
“Tip from who?” If it came from inside the Scorpions mother charter, then Badger figured a civil war was just the beginning of the chaos.
“Bart didn’t say.”
Show crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe Rick? They’re close.”
Tommy asked, “Does it matter who?”
“Sure it does. If Sam’s intel guy is feeding out Sam’s intel, then it matters a lot. It could help us. Or it could kill us. Because all our shit with the Perros is chained up with the Scorpions. They break, what does that mean? Does that give us a way out? Or does that bring us even more fucking grief?” Show sat up. “Because I have had my fill of it. I have fuckin’ gorged on grief and pain, and I am done.”
“What are you saying, brother?” Len’s voice was sharp, and Badger knew Len had heard the same thing he had. In fact the whole table had tensed.
Show looked around, picking up on the vibe. “Easy, brothers. I’m just saying that we need to discount nothing. I want to keep us and ours protected. There’s been enough fuckin’ bloodshed in our house. We need to know how a rift in the Scorpions affects us. Because it will affect us. We are in bed with them. They are not some piddly-shit little club like we are. They have sixty-three charters across the globe. If they break, every MC with a foot over the line will feel it in some way. And LA? They are ground zero for Scorpions’ main business. No way Sam lets them go—and I don’t see how Santaveria lets them, either. That’s bloody business, what they’re trying. And Santaveria has got to be so far up Sam’s ass over this he could see daylight. Unrest in the Scorps is a problem for the Perros. And that means we all feel it. Question is—is it an opportunity, or is it a crisis?”
Double A cleared his throat. He was still new to the table, sitting in Havoc’s seat. He was smaller, younger, lesser in every way than Havoc. He didn’t fill that seat very well. Not yet, anyway. “Can I ask a question?”
Isaac nodded. “Shoot, brother.”
“I know I’m an idiot, but I still don’t understand. What is LA trying to do?”
“What they were trying to do is set up a secession—take the LA charter as a whole and leave the club. Start on their own. They’ve taken some hard losses with the cartel, and they have not had Sam’s ear the way Hoosier thinks they should. Dom, jump in if I miss somethin’, but Hoosier made his intention known at a leadership meeting in Vegas and did it all right out in front. So, looks like Sam tried to bomb him back in line. Remains to be seen if he succeeded.”
Dom shook his head. “No. Bart says they’re still out.”
“But all the assets—the shop, everything—that’s all Scorpions property, right?” Badger struggled to get his head around all this.
“Yeah. They just flattened their own property, though.” Isaac stared at the carved braid in the table. Badger could see his brain working. “It’s another damn piece that doesn’t fit. Why blow up a block of LA real estate? How does that fix Sam’s problem? How does that get Santaveria off his back?”
Badger tried out an answer. “Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s as simple as Sam going off half-cocked. I mean, fuck. Look what happened in our own clubhouse, when he was all fired up about the movie. Those assholes were out of control. No respect for anything, and no concern for consequences. Rolled right over us and then rode to Hollywood to set up something not much different from what he tried to tear us apart over.”
Isaac stared at Badger, obviously working what he’d said into the equation. “That gives me no ease, little brother. None at all. Sam going Scarface on everybody does not make our situation better.”
“Let’s think about that a minute, though.” Show put his elbows on the table and leaned in. “Sam’s been top dog a long fuckin’ time. Thirty years at least. He’s been arm in arm with Santaveria almost half of that. Could it be as simple as overkill? The Perros deal with their problems with nuclear warheads, no matter how small. Could this be Sam taking a page from Santaveria’s book, trying to shut down trouble decisively?”
Tommy jumped in again. “Why do we care why Sam did it? It’s a Scorpions thing, right—an internal issue or like that?”
Isaac sort of snarled at Tommy, but Badger answered. “Shows weakness.” Isaac and Show both gave Badger their full attention. The rest of the table followed suit, but Badger kept his answer directed to Tommy. “If Sam blew up one of his major assets to prove a point, and that point didn’t get proved, then that’s a huge crack. Scorps LA are whole”—he glanced over at Isaac for confirmation and got it—“and are still looking to break away. Then all Sam accomplished was to destroy something that might have given some or all of the LA crew a reason to stay. He took their home away. Now they need a new one anyway.”
Suddenly, Badger realized he understood it completely. No longer working it out as he spoke, now he saw it all. It was like Adrienne’s life. Her father, and then the fire, had torn away all her moorings to what had been, and all she was left with was what could be. “Clean slate. New start. Sam just lost his civil war before it even started.” He looked around the table. “This helps us. It doesn’t hurt us.”
“He ran the ball into the wrong end zone.” That was Tommy, getting it—in his own way.
Isaac gave him a lopsided grin. “Good man, Badge. That makes damn fine sense.”
“We gotta know how the cartel figures.” Len had spent most of the meeting listening. Badger knew he’d been absorbing the information, looking at it strategically. Doing his job. “What I see is Santaveria isn’t gonna give much of a shit who’s running his product, as long as his product gets run. But he’s not gonna allow a vacuum. He has competitors, too. He can’t take his routes offline, or he’ll lose more than just the take. So, if the LA crew breaks away…he’s gonna need somebody to pick up his product at the border.”
“But not necessarily California.”
Isaac cocked his head. “What’re you thinkin’, Dom?”
“Just that the border is longer than just Cali, and Santaveria’s reach is long. What if he brings it up through the Southwest instead—Texas or New Mexico. If you think about it, maybe he controls it better if he sends it up the middle. He’s never farther than, like, a thousand miles or so. If he’s thought of that, maybe he’s not so inclined to help Sam out.”
“And does that help or hurt us?”
No one had an answer.
“We need to know, brothers. We need our eyes wide open. Dom—you’re on that intel, too. But for now, we got more to talk about. Because we got shit flyin’ at us from all sides these days. Show—news on the fire.”
“Investigation is done. They’re sayin’ inconclusive for arson. Sniffed around us for insurance fraud, but they came up empty—since we didn’t fuckin’ blow up our own place. Now I guess Lilli and Shannon are gonna have to wrangle with the insurance, get a payout.”
“We’re rebuilding, right?”
Isaac laughed. “Fuck, Badge. Lilli would’ve had us out there when the damn place was still smoldering if we’d’ve had the jack to get started. Yeah, we’re rebuilding. And the town is in. Strange to say it, with all we lost, but that fire had an upside. I still think somebody set it—that full cancellation is hanging me up—and I want to know who. But I’m glad that one good thing happened. Having everybody working together on that fire reminded people what we do for our town, I guess. Seems like things are back to normal in that respect.”
“Long as we keep our shit out of town, anyway.”
Isaac nodded at Show’s observation. Badger also thought Show was right. They shouldn’t get too comfortable in the town’s regard. They had people outside the club who’d lost kin to club violence, and they had people calling themselves townsfolk now who’d only lived in Signal Bend a couple of years. People who didn’t know the way of things. The days of the Horde being the undisputed leaders of the town were coming to an end, at least in the way they had been.
“Next up: Seaver. Dom, tell the table what you and Lilli have on this code idea.”
“Yeah, boss. We got distracted by the fire, so we’re still working on it. But it for sure is a code. Lilli thinks he’s talking to a Fed, but we don’t have much detail yet. Maybe this is why it looked like the Feds dropped their convo with Seaver—because they moved to a code and bounced their transmissions. That could be trouble. But one thing we haven’t picked up yet is any clear mention of the club—Lilli says that doesn’t mean anything, though. They could have a code inside the code…or something like that. She knows better what that means. Anyway, we’re on it.”
As he tried to sort and stack all the information reeling through his head, something occurred to Badger. “Wait, boss. Anybody think it’s strange that there was a bomb that destroyed the Scorps LA clubhouse not long after we had an explosion at the B&B? That’s a big-ass coincidence, right?”
Isaac gave him a keenly interested look. “It is indeed. Keep talkin’.”
He hadn’t thought this out any more than he had the cartel stuff—less—but he talked it out. “I’m just hearing about the bomb in LA, so I’m just playing out an idea. But like we said before, coincidences aren’t so easy to swallow. So is there a way the fires are related?”
Show ran his hand over his chin and beard. “What’s the link? We know Sam’s behind LA. What’s his interest here?”
“Only two things link Signal Bend to LA: Bart and the cartel.” Isaac’s brows drew together.
“Well, we know Bart didn’t blow the B&B.”
Isaac nodded. “Obviously. But why would the cartel? We’re behavin’, by all appearances. They got no beef with us. There’s been no opening yet to stand against them.”
“You think they know the bug is dummied?”
The whole table stared silently at Badger’s question. They’d discovered months back—not long after Havoc had been killed—that the Perros had bugged the duffels in which the Horde took their payment. Since then, they’d held decoy meetings before their weekly meetings so the cartel wouldn’t know the bugs had been discovered. The Horde had not yet found a way to use that deception to fight back against the Perros and maybe exact revenge for what Julio Santaveria and his men had perpetrated on the Horde.
Sighing heavily, as though the thought behind Badger’s question took more energy than he could muster, Isaac looked over the table. “If Santaveria knows that the bug is recording bullshit, then we’re sitting on a different kind of bomb, and we’ll have no fucking idea when it’ll blow.”
Still working it through, Badger tried another idea. “What if it’s not the Perros? What if it’s just Sam?”
Len sat forward and put a hand on Badger’s arm, as if to restrain him. “No. We’re overthinking this, getting ourselves wrapped around the spokes. No reason for Santaveria or Sam to blow the B&B. Sam is fighting a war in LA. Not here. And Santaveria wouldn’t’ve cleared the place out first. We’re trying to see a conspiracy, and we’re snatching at straw. Who has any reason at all to want to blow the B&B? To what end?”
“You got an answer to that yourself, Len?”
“Maybe I do, boss. We had trouble in our own yard. People stirring up against us. Don Mariano. Jimmy Sullivan. Mac Evans. Others. Maybe they were just trying to hurt us.”
“One of our own? Killed Beth?” Though the idea had been raised before, it had been quickly set aside. With it under serious consideration, Show’s face showed shock and outrage in equal measure.
“Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe they thought with the place empty, she wouldn’t be there.”
Isaac shook his head. “Somebody would’ve needed to turn the oven on, though. I don’t see anybody in town putting Beth’s life at risk. It’s not somebody that close. But you’re right. We’re stretching pretty far to find a reason for Sam or the Perros to do it.”
It came to Badger as Isaac finished that sentence. “Somebody who maybe thought the town would see it as more club violence—and remind them of the fire before. Who thought it would turn the town against us all the way. Somebody with an interest in making us weak. Somebody who just saw the town standing with us after all, when he thought we’d already lost them. It is Seaver. It’s got to be Seaver.” Echoing in the back of his head, Badger heard the Sheriff asking Where’s the fire?
Again, the table went still and silent, tension crackling, at Badger’s words. Then Isaac turned to Dom. “Brother, you and Lilli have got to get some clarity on that code. And dig deeper into Seaver. We need to know what that uniformed fuck is up to, and we need some kind of fuckin’ leverage we can use. Badge makes a strong case.”
Dom nodded, looking pale and stressed. The burden that Isaac had laid on his narrow shoulders was heavy—the Scorpions, the Perros, the Sheriff, all of it high priority. The Horde’s enemies were many and formidable these days.
Isaac scanned the table. “In the meantime, we are still on our best behavior. Do not let your guard down, brothers.” He sighed. “Let’s wrap this up with some good news. It’s in short enough supply. Badge—your old lady. She’s home. Doin’ good?”
His old lady. Was Adrienne his old lady? He liked the sound of it. But they’d never talked about the future, except to say they wanted to be together ‘forever.’ He couldn’t ask her for more yet. She was too new in her post-father, post-fire, clean-slate life.
But he saw no need to correct Isaac. Before he answered, though, he glanced at Show, who was regarding him with interest but without malice. Show was on their side. In the time that Adrienne, Shannon, and the babies were all home, in fact, the six of them had become a pretty tight group. Show and Badger, in full protector/caretaker mode, were a team now.
“Yeah. She’s home, we’re set up. She’s doing pretty good. Better every day.” He thought about this morning, holding her up, feeling her come, and he smiled.
Isaac gave him a sideways look that made him think his smile had been more revealing than he’d intended. “Excellent. And Show. How’s your brood?”
Badger shifted his gaze to Show and found the big man staring steadily at him. That smile had indeed been too revealing. But then Show cleared his throat and answered Isaac’s question. “Rose and Iris are back with their mom. Shannon and the twins are doing good. Kids are finally starting to plump up.” He looked around the table. “You can come over and see ‘em now. And we got their christening in a couple weeks.”
“Shannon’s good?”
“Yeah, she is. It’s an adjustment, no doubt about it, but we’re good. Real good.”
“Nice to take a minute and remember why we do this shit. And I think it’s time we put guards with our women. Lilli, Shannon, Cory, Tasha, Adrienne. All the kids. When we’re not with our own, then they have a buddy.”
Show said, “We can’t spread that thin, Isaac. Only have two Prospects.”
Isaac glowered, but he nodded. “Badge—any problem with Adrienne hanging out with Shannon and the twins?”
“I doubt it. They’re together most of the time now, anyway.”
“Good. Double A, you’re on Show’s house. We’ll put Thumper with Tasha. Cory can stick with Lilli—I’ll talk to them both—and we’ll put Kellen on them. Nolan can shoot, too. He’s a good shot.”
“He’s still a kid, Isaac.”
“He wants to prospect when he turns eighteen. That’s only six-seven months from now. He can learn a thing in the meanwhile. He’ll have Kellen and Lilli both up front.”
Show nodded, persuaded.
“Okay. Next weed run is in five days. Badge, Tommy, Len, and me. Otherwise, back to our day jobs, back to town business. Everybody stay sharp.” Isaac gaveled the meeting to a close.