Chapter 20
Wren
“This morning?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
Maniac rolled his eyes. “We’re headed back to the clubhouse, Wren.”
“But we’re coming back though, right?”
“To pack up the rest of our shit, yes. To live? No.”
I looked around the small cabin that had become my home. “But where am I going to live?”
He looked up from the bag he was packing full with his clothes. “With me.”
“With you where?”
“At the clubhouse for now, and if you want to get our own place, we can do that. I really don’t care what we do as long we’re in Weston.”
Weston. A town I had only lived in for a week, and now it was going to become my home. “I don’t want to stay in your room.”
“Why the hell not?” he demanded. He was getting mad at me. I didn’t like it. This morning, he had sprung on me we were going to Weston, and I was just expected to nod my head and smile.
“Because I tried to kill myself in the bathroom, asshole.” My words came out harsher than I had wanted.
He brushed my words off. “Then we’ll stay in one of the other rooms, or if we have to, we’ll get a hotel for a bit ‘til we can find somewhere else to live.”
I didn’t understand the urgency he had to get back to Weston. Just yesterday, we had lounged around the cabin, went to dinner in town, and spent the night making love. What had changed from the time we had fallen asleep to now?
“I left you some room in the bag. Just pack what you need for a couple of days, and we can come back for the rest.”
Something was different with him. He was distracted and wasn’t able to focus on anything. “Tell me what’s going on.”
He laid the backpack on the bed. “Nothing is going on. I just have to get back to Weston to take care of some club business.”
“The club business seemed to be taking care of itself the past couple of months. Why do you suddenly have to take care of it?”
He shook his head. “You know I can’t talk about this with you, Wren. You’re not part of the club.”
“What happened to you saying you loved me more than the club?”
“This has nothing to do with love.”
My heart dropped at his words. “Then what does it have to do with?”
“It has to do with things you don’t need to know. Why can’t you just accept that?”
“Because I guess I’m not good with being bossed around like a sheep.”
“You’re not a sheep, Wren.” He moved into the kitchen area. “Make sure you wear a jacket. We’re taking the bike because I need it tonight.”
“What’s tonight?” I asked. I looked down at the space left in the backpack. I was going to maybe be able to fit one set of clothes if I was lucky.
“Club business.”
I turned from the bed and watched him pull his gun from his waistband. “Club business that involves a gun?” I wasn’t okay with what was going on. Whatever he had to do tonight was dangerous if he needed his gun.
“You know I always have my gun on me if we go anywhere.”
“Yeah, to protect me. Something tells me I won’t be going with you for this club business.”
He shook his head. “You’re staying with Nickel and the other girls.”
“How come Nickel gets to stay back, and you have to go.”
He slammed his hand down on the counter. “Dammit, Wren. Why the hell can’t you accept anything I’m saying?”
I jumped back and held my hand to my chest. He’s never hit me, but my heart raced in my chest and my breath caught.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Yeah, shit was right. The man who I had fallen in love with and thought would never hurt me had just scared the living shit out of me.
He moved toward me, but I put my hand up. He stopped in his tracks.
I didn’t know what to do. My heart told me Maniac would never hurt me, but my head yelled at me I had thought the same thing about Rack.
“Wren, I’m sorry. I didn't—”
I shook my head. I didn’t want excuses. I didn’t want any of this. “I was just asking simple questions.”
He dropped his arms to his sides. “Wren, they may be simple questions, but the answers to them are far from simple.”
“Is this what being with you is going to be like when we get back to the club? Have the past two months been a façade? It’s all been fake, hasn’t it?” A sob worked its way up my throat, but I held it in. I wasn't going to cry. Not again.
“Nothing has been fake, Wren.”
“Then what in the hell was that?”
He looked back at the island like it was going to give him the answer he needed. “That was me being human, Wren. I can’t tell you what is going on. It’s safer if you don’t know. You kept asking me questions I can’t answer.”
“Bullshit. You can answer them, Maniac, but you and your club have to keep secrets. Secrets you say could hurt me, but who really knows what is going to hurt someone?”
He hung his head. “Dammit, Wren. I don’t know what to do right now.”
He was trying to be with me, but he also needed to stay true to his club. You’re the one who told him he couldn’t give up his club.
I had told him that, but I had never expected his club to come between us. “I don’t like what is happening right now.”
“I promised to you I would always keep you safe, no matter what. That all of the bullshit that touched you before would never get close to you again. Tonight, I’m doing everything I possibly can to make that happen.”
“You’re going after the Hell Captains tonight,” I whispered. Why didn’t I realize that before? While Maniac and I had been playing house in the cabin, the Hell Captains had been looking for me. How insane was it I had been able to forget about them for the most part?
“Yes, Wren. Just please don’t ask any other questions, because I’m not going to answer them. I don't want to argue with you over something that is going to be over by the time you wake up in the morning.”
I clutched my hand to my chest. “But what if something happens to you?” What if the Hell Captains got a jump on Maniac and he didn’t come back to me?
“Nothing is going to happen to me.”
I shook my head. “You can’t go, Maniac. I can’t let you. The Hell Captains took so much from me, I’m not going to give them the chance to take you away from me too.” The tears were coming. The thought of losing Maniac was too much to bear. Arguing with him, I could handle, but knowing he might not come back to me was too much.
He closed the short distance between us and wrapped me up in his arms. “Only you could go from wanting to leave me to crying about losing me in two seconds.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you,” I hiccuped. “Well, I would if you tried to hit me, but I know you won’t do that. I was being really naggy with my questions.” I had been a dog trying to get a bone. I wasn’t going to give up until I got the answers I wanted. Now I had an inkling of what those answers might be, I wanted to take everything back. Not knowing what Maniac was walking into tonight would have been better than knowing that when he left me tonight, he might not be coming back.
He rubbed his hand up and down my back. “There went your record for not crying. You’ll have to try again tomorrow.”
I should have kneed him in the nuts for making fun of me, but it was sadly true. “Maybe I should count by hours. That would give me a bigger number, and I would feel better.”
“You could try that, darlin’. If that doesn’t work, you can always try minutes, if not seconds.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m supposed to be mad at you.” I buried my face in his neck, and inhaled his familiar scent. Was it possible to think of a person as being home?
I didn’t want to go back to Weston, but I knew as long as Maniac was with me, I would be okay. Home was wherever he was. “Are you sure I can’t come with you tonight?”
His body shook like he was laughing. I leaned back and looked into his eyes. “You can’t come tonight. Karmen has a huge girls’ night planned for you, Nikki, Cora, and Jezebel.”
“What about Alice?” I asked. I missed the crazy girl.
“You’ll have to ask Nikki. Nickel was the one who told me who would be there.”
“Are they there because they want to be there, or because you guys are making them be there so they don’t get in the way of whatever you’re doing tonight?” I was going to have to work my angle a little differently if I was going to find out exactly what Maniac was up to tonight.
“A little bit of both.”
“So you’re making them be there, but they want to be there.”
Maniac nodded. “Yes. That’s it exactly.”
“So, now you tell me what you are doing tonight, and then I’ll pack.”
He opened his mouth like he was going to answer then shut it. “Nice try, darlin’, but that isn't going to work on me. Pack, drink a couple cups of coffee, and then we leave.”
I sighed and looked at the bag on the bed. “You promise we’ll be back in two days to get the rest of my things?” I hadn’t brought a lot of stuff with me, but I knew not everything was going to fit in that bag.
“Two days max,” he promised.
I resigned myself to the fact I wasn’t going to be able to get any more info out of Maniac and that we were headed back to Weston for good. “Can we at least take the long way back to Weston?” It wasn’t much, but the thought of being on the back of Maniac’s bike a little bit longer than normal sounded like heaven.
A smile spread across his lips. “Now that is something I can say yes to.”
More time on the back of Maniac’s bike was something to be happy about. The rest of the things I was worried about would work themselves out on their own. I had to believe what Maniac had said was true.
He was going to keep me safe, no matter what.
I just prayed he made it back to me tonight.
Life without Maniac was not something I wanted to think about.
*