Twenty-One
“I checked in on her before I went to the barn,” Uncle Wynn said on his end of the phone conversation, and Michael could hear the shuffling and grain-crunching of the animals in the background. “Sleeping like the dead.”
“Good,” Michael said. He was at Dartmoor, sitting on his parked bike in front of the clubhouse, watching the stars wink out one by one and shooting smoke plumes from his nostrils heavenward. The cigarette was a nub between his fingers, but he wasn’t ready to let it go yet. “She needs the rest.”
“That’s what I figured.” Sounds of latches clicking, stall doors creaking. Cletus brayed, a deafening shriek, tinny through the phone line. Then: “She’s real young, Michael. Younger than I thought she’d be.”
“She’s twenty-six,” Michael said, closing his eyes and taking that last necessary drag before the cigarette was gone and he was forced to release it.
“She’s just a girl.”
A girl who’d seen and been forced to do more than anyone should have had to endure in a lifetime.
“I’m not the worst thing that ever happened to her,” Michael said.
Wynn made a neutral sound. “You wanna tell me who’s chasing her?”
“I never said anyone was.”
A snort. “Well, either way, she’s welcome as long as she needs to be.”
“Thanks, Uncle Wynn.”
“Be careful, whatever it is you’re doing.”
He hung up and the cold morning air rushed across his ear as he pulled the phone away. He wanted another smoke. He wanted a full bottle of Jack. He wanted to be in the barn with his uncle, pouring oats to the cow and tromping through straw and sawdust, knowing that his girl waited sleeping for him in the house, safe and warm, and well away from this place.
But those things weren’t attainable in this moment, so he swung his leg over his bike and headed inside.
The Jessups were still waiting, dozing on the sofa, leaning against opposite arms. Walsh still sat vigil, like he hadn’t even moved since last night, the only change a steaming coffee mug in one hand.
The three prospects were bustling around, mopping, sweeping, taking out the trash. Carter had made the coffee, because he was at the bar pouring another mug.
Walsh glanced over but said nothing, his face unreadable.
When Carter brought the coffee to him, Michael asked, “Ghost?”
Carter winced. “He went home last night when you didn’t…”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll let him know you’re here.”
Michael let his gaze slide over to the sofa, where the Jessups snored. Completely at ease. They had no doubts that the MC president would keep them alive and whole, given who they were working for.
Wouldn’t it be fun, he thought, to slit their throats now.
“You,” a voice barked behind him.
He turned and found Ghost striding into the common room, expression murderous.
“Or I don’t need to let him know,” Carter said, taking up his post behind the bar again.
Michael stood rooted and let his president pass him, turn around, gesture for him to follow. It gave him a small satisfaction to rebel that much, to be difficult when he never had been before.
Ghost didn’t bother with closing the doors when they reached the chapel. His voice was low, vibrating with anger. A voice he usually reserved for his son. “What the hell are you thinking?”
Straight-faced, unmoved and blessedly calm on the inside, Michael said, “I’m thinking we’re gonna have to go to Plan B, ‘cause Holly’s not coming, and there’s no more Plan A.”
“Jesus Christ, Michael…”
“I know this makes it difficult,” he said, “but I won’t give her to them.”
Ghost gave him a long, measuring look, and then sighed. “You picked a damn inconvenient time to get in touch with your emotions.” He glanced around the room, eyes becoming distant. “Get comfortable, then. I’m calling everyone in. Everyone. We’re gonna put it to a vote.”
Ava rapped once on the central office door before she let herself inside and pulled it shut behind her, sealing off the whirlwind of cold air she’d created. It stood open almost all year, propped by a brick, for ease of coming and going, and to keep the cramped interior from making Maggie claustrophobic, but that wasn’t always an option in the winter.
“Wind’s picking up,” she said with a shiver, working her fingers together, wishing she’d worn gloves.
“I know.” Maggie’s mouth twitched to the side, expression unsettled. “Supposed to be more snow coming in tonight.”
“Tonight? I thought later in the week.” Ava moved to take one of the chairs across from her mom’s desk.
“Tonight’s what I heard on the radio.” Maggie pushed her wheeled chair back from the desk and rested her hands on its arms. “Did Mercy make you come with him?”
Ava curled her lip and nodded. “ ‘Mon Dieu,’ ” she said in a poor imitation of his more-colorful-when-agitated Cajun accent. “ ‘You’re crazier than I always thought if you think I’m leavin’ you here to get bricked in the head while I’m gone.’ Insistent is too a delicate a word.”
“Good for him.”
“You only say that because you want me rolled up in bubble wrap. If it was you being treated like this, you’d have something to say about it.”
Maggie grinned. “Sweetie, I always get treated like this. It’s just less dramatic when you’ve been married twenty-three years.”
Ava snorted.
Maggie became serious. “You ought to’ve seen your dad’s face when Mercy called about the brick.”
Ava did her best impersonation of it, and Maggie laughed.
“Close…” She sobered again. “But seriously, it was a sight to behold. He gets angry all the time; seeing him scared always makes me queasy. I’m guessing Mercy has his very own version of that look.”
Ava sighed and leaned back in the chair, nodding. “He was furious. He was…Mom, I think if Michael hadn’t come to get Holly, he might have thrown her down the stairs. Literally thrown her.”
Maggie didn’t try to contradict her fear. Instead, her head tilted, face becoming thoughtful. “I don’t guess you remember it. Once, when you were eight” – during that time when the Carpathians wannabe MC had terrorized their city and their club – “we’d been cooped up in the house all week and I decided we had to get out. Kids shouldn’t be forced indoors all the time. Your dad didn’t even want you going to school. Jesus. But we had to go somewhere, so Mercy went with us to get ice cream. There was a woman waiting in line in front of us, and you dropped the book you were holding. It was heavy – how typical.” She rolled her eyes. “And it made this awful sound. The woman jumped, and when she spun around to look at you, she made this startled sound. Not a scream, but almost, and her hand went inside her jacket, and she made this face, like she was pissed off that you’d scared her. If she’d been a big guy in a leather jacket, she would have looked like she was reaching for a gun. But she was just some soccer mom.”
“I think I remember,” Ava said, the memory coming to her in blurry stops and starts. It wasn’t the woman, but Mercy’s reaction to her that she recalled.
“He was on her.” Maggie snapped her fingers for emphasis. “He pushed her back against the counter and put himself between you and her. He got a hand around her throat, before he realized she was screaming for real then, and that she was harmless.”
Her smile was almost sad. “Baby, he’d kill a priest in the middle of Mass if he thought he was a danger to you. We’ve always known it: Mercy has no rules but the rules of Ava. Morality was never part of the equation.”
Ava frowned. “Yeah, I know.”
“What’s up with that Holly girl anyway?” It was said with a dark frown.
“I don’t know, exactly. She’s really nervous, and she hides it with a smile. She acts like an abused dog, minus the reactionary biting.” Ava chewed at her lip, thinking how she wanted to describe it. “She’s always had a thing for Michael, according to the guys. He makes her feel safe, from what I can tell, and who am I to judge on that front?” She shrugged; she couldn’t very well blame anyone for finding one of these terrifying Lean Dogs a safe haven.
Maggie’s lips pressed together, but she didn’t say anything.
“What?”
“I’m not used to you taking up for people.”
Her hand ghosted to her belly out of instinct. It was the baby, she kept telling herself, that was making her sympathetic and sentimental. That, or almost losing Mercy on a bright Louisiana highway, on the day she’d faced her living, breathing demons.
“I feel sorry for her,” she said. “She’s not just one of these groupies we get around here.”
Maggie tipped her head in agreement. “True. She wouldn’t be with Michael if she was one of those.”
“We’ll call you,” Walsh said, folding his arms and planting his feet squarely apart. He wasn’t much of a barrier, on the physical front, but he’d seen his reflection enough times to know that his expression alone was a deterrent.
For most people. People with brains between their ears.
Abraham Jessup puffed up, incensed that he’d been escorted out of the clubhouse, the three prospects herding him and his brother like dimwitted cattle out the front door and into the parking lot.
“You can’t brush me off.” He lifted his phone in warning. “If I don’t get what I came for, all I gotta do is make one call–”
“Yeah, yeah. And your big-bad will rain hell upon us, right? Get lost. We’ve gotta take a vote and we’re all tired of looking at you. I’ll call when we’re ready to setup a meeting with Shaman. You’ll get what you ‘came for’ after, not before.”
Jacob Jessup sneered. “What kinda fruity accent is that s’posed to be?”
“The original accent of this language, actually,” he said evenly. “Now, are you going to walk to your car? Or are my boys going to carry you there?”
“You tell Teague he better not fuck around with us,” Abraham said, but both turned and retreated to their rusted hulk of a Buick.
Walsh watched them go with a sour, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“Can I say something?” Littlejohn asked.
Walsh nodded.
“I really hate those fuckers.”
“You and me both, kid. Keep an eye out.” He put his back to the brothers. “If they set foot on the property again, I wanna know about it.”
The phone woke her. Holly forced her heavy eyelids open and pawed through the covers until her fingers curled around her cell. It was morning, mid-morning judging by the brightness of the sun falling through the window. It hit her all at once. Slam! New bed, new house, new smell, new sounds, and she was saved the momentary panic of this realization by answering the phone.
“Hello?” She fumbled it to her ear as she sat up, seeing Michael’s childhood room through the screen of her hair.
His voice reached inside her head, its usual brusqueness skating through her and leaving warm trails behind, slowing her pulse the moment it touched her. “Are you alright?”
Holly smiled. No greeting, no formalities. No, that wasn’t his style.
“I’m fine. I just woke up, actually.”
“Wynn said you were still asleep when he went to the barn.”
“Hmm.” It unnerved her to think about a stranger – even Michael’s beloved uncle – peeking in on her while she slept. It was Michael she trusted, only him. “I was more tired than I thought.”
There was a pause, one of those moments when, in person, she would have been able to read his posture and his minuscule expressions. But on the phone, it was just silence, heavy with the things she couldn’t interpret.
Sounds from downstairs: a door opening, closing; tread of feet; clicking of the dogs’ nails on the floorboards; rattle of kitchen noise.
“Your uncle is very kind,” she said, wanting to draw his voice back out.
“Yeah. He’s not much like me.”
Holly smiled. A stiff joke was still a joke, and it touched her. “Don’t say that. You’re very kind, too.”
He snorted.
“What’s going on there?”
“Your kinfolk” – he said the word with an ironic edge – “aren’t happy. ‘Course we knew that.”
She shivered, pulling the covers up tight to her chest.
“We’re about to have church,” he continued. She heard regret in his voice: “Your old man isn’t an entrepreneur, honey. He works for someone very powerful who Ghost doesn’t wanna piss off.”
“Okay.” She wet her lips, felt them quivering against her tongue. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing, really. I might be in more trouble than I thought I’d be, but it doesn’t change anything.”
She closed her eyes, overwhelmed with love and gratitude and terrible tenderness for this man who had no reason to put himself at risk for her. “Michael–”
“Look, I gotta go.” His voice was gruff and thick. “Tell Uncle Wynn you want some of his famous pancakes for breakfast. And if you go out of the house, take your gun. Everywhere, Hol. I mean that.”
She nodded though he couldn’t see it. “Okay.”
“Be safe,” he said, and the line disconnected.
A man of few words, and those few difficult at that.
“I love you,” she whispered to the droning dial tone, then pressed End and let the phone fall on the bed.
Fifteen minutes later, after she’d dressed and made herself presentable, she encountered the rich smell of breakfast halfway down the staircase. She paused, hand on the rough-cut wood of the banister, and listened to the hiss of the skillet around the corner, Wynn’s cheerful humming, the clink of plates.
She took a deep breath and descended the rest of the way, went into the kitchen. She smiled.
Wynn was wearing heavy tan Carhartt overalls, but had removed his boots. His flannel shirt was buffalo plaid; his hair was mashed to his head, the imprint of a hat band left behind on his forehead. Delilah and Cassius lay on the floor, one on either side of him, watching the bacon with rapt attention, hoping for a handout.
He glanced up at the sound of her entry and sent her a beaming smile. His face was one totally transformed by a smile: eyes crinkling to slits, deep grooves bracketing mouth and nose. A true smile. A smile with nothing hiding behind it.
“Good morning,” he greeted, and the dogs spared her a fast look before returning to bacon-watch.
“Morning. Do you want help? I like to cook.”
“Michael says you oughta be a chef,” he said, still smiling, and gestured toward the rectangular table with his fork. Two glasses of juice were already set out. “But right now, all you need to do is sit.”
“Are you sure?”
“You bet. Sit down, darlin’, and I’ll have it ready in a jiff.”
She complied, settling in one of the distressed green and white kitchen chairs, taking the chance to survey the room more completely.
It was a large kitchen, with French doors at the far end, letting in lots of light. The appliances were outdated, probably as old as she was. The lower cabinets were painted a soft, mossy green. Row after row of open shelves took the place of upper cabinets, stacked with dishes, bowls, glasses, pots and cast iron pans. The sink was an old porcelain farmhouse number, with a gingham curtain hiding what was underneath. It looked more like the kitchen of a hunting cabin than anyone’s home, but it suited the man working in it, as he heaped plates with bacon, hash browns, and the largest pancakes Holly had ever seen.
“These are famous, you know,” he said, setting a steaming plate before her and reaching back on the butcher block counter for the syrup. “I sold a dog to a cookbook author once, and she asked me for the recipe, said she’d put it in her next book.” He sat down across from her with his own plate and saluted her with his juice glass. “Famous.”
His smile was infectious. “I can’t wait to try them.”
“I still don’t see why I had to be here,” Troy grumbled as he shuffled around the table to get to his seat.
Ghost stood behind his presidential chair, hands resting on its back, frowning as he watched the oldest, crankiest member of the club wince and groan and finally sit down with a dramatic sigh. “You still ride, don’t you?”
Troy shot him a petulant look. He’d reached that age when maturity slid backward. It would be no noble decline for him, no. He’d be a ninety-year-old toddler before he met his maker. “Barely.”
“Then you still vote. When it counts,” Ghost amended. “And believe me this counts.” His eyes came to Michael, again, another of those unreadable glances that Michael knew held unspoken blame.
Fuck it. He didn’t care.
God, look at him. He’d become an outlaw among his outlaw brethren, an insolent brat with his own agenda.
He shot a glance down the table to Mercy, who was crammed into his usual space at the foot thanks to the addition of an extra chair – Candyman was still in town with his four prospects, and had decided to sit in, wanting to take news back to Texas when he went.
It had been such a short time ago that Michael had held Mercy in contempt for jeopardizing the fabric of the club for the sake of a woman. And here he was doing the same thing. He wanted to argue that his case was different, because Holly’s past was so devastating, and because she had no family support system the way Ava always had. But his sentiment was the same, and that was what counted, didn’t it? The disregard for the rules on account of his own needs.
Rules. This anarchistic society of rebels was based, at its core, on a codex of rules and inflexible laws.
The irony.
“Prospects are on watchdog duty,” Walsh said as he entered the chapel and took his chair.
Ghost nodded.
Hound and Rottie had their heads together, talking in muffled whispers.
Michael ignored the way Aidan and Tango kept looking at him.
For the first time, he was the subject of the entire table, and he didn’t like it, but it was too late to do anything about it.
RJ, his face still dark and blotchy with bruising, one eye socket still swollen, was the last to enter, and he shut the doors with a click of the latch. He kept his head down as he took his seat; he didn’t make eye contact with Michael.
The scrape of Ghost’s chair signaled the beginning of church, and everyone fell silent at once. The hiss and click of lighters; deep breaths as cigarettes were puffed.
Ghost said, “In case nobody noticed, Michael’s got a girlfriend these days.”
Dark chuckles.
“And she – Holly” – hearing her name come out of someone else’s mouth, someone who didn’t care about her, tightened Michael’s nerves, cramped his stomach – “happens to be Abraham Jessup’s daughter.”
Collective awed inhales. Huffs of surprise.
“Who the hell’s Abraham Jessup?” Troy asked, and Tango leaned over to whisper the answer.
“Now, I don’t know any of the backstory,” Ghost continued. “But I get the impression Holly wasn’t…allowed to leave home.”
Michael nodded in response to the look directed his way.
“Jessup found out she’s in Knoxville, and he wants her back. He wants us to hand her over to him.”
A beat, as they absorbed the idea, tasted its vileness.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Mercy said brightly. “How ‘bout we gut those retards like deer, and then nobody has to worry about any of this ever again.”
“You need a hand with that, brother?” Candyman asked. “I brought my good knife, just in case.”
Mercy smiled at him. “I’ll do one, you do the other?”
“Hey,” Ghost said, drawing them back in. “Pay attention, shitheads. There’s a problem with that idea.”
Mercy’s black brows went up.
“Shaman.”
The big Cajun shrugged and made an unimpressed face. “We keep talking about him, but who the hell is he? What does he want? We’re gonna let Collier’s prison rumors and the word of a couple jackoffs have some kinda sway over us? Tell Shaman to ‘bring it’ and see what happens.”
“Awful cocky for someone having a coronary over a brick,” Ghost shot back, quieting him.
Mercy frowned. “You were upset about that brick, too.”
“Yeah, I was. So maybe we oughta find out if Shaman’s capable of throwing semi trucks through windows before we piss him off too bad, hmm?”
He turned to Ratchet. “What did you dig up?”
The overhead lamp glinted off the secretary’s shaved head as he consulted his zippered folder. His “Trapper Keeper” Dublin called it with a smile. He shrugged. “Not a lot, actually. From what I got from the chatrooms–”
“There’s chatrooms?” Aidan asked, incredulous.
“Oh, yeah.” Ratchet glanced down the table at him with comical sincerity. “There’s this one, Outlaw Town–”
“Jesus,” Walsh said.
Tango laughed. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
“That’s just the one for outlaws talking to outlaws. You should see some of the other ones. There’s this group called the Feminicks – it’s for women who want to talk about hooking up with bad boys. Bikers, gangsters, inmates–”
“Can we please get on with this?” Ghost said.
“Right.” Ratchet shuffled through his printouts. “Nobody seems to know anything about Shaman. There’s lots of fear, lots of rumors, lots of speculation, but from what I’ve seen, people are so afraid of him, they don’t want to talk too much or too long.”
“Nobody gets a reputation like that based on internet rumors,” Rottie said. “If people are scared of him – so scared they don’t want to gossip about him – there’s a reason for it.”
Ghost nodded in agreement. “Right. So that’s what we’re voting on. As it stands now, we’ve got two options. Go into the meeting with the guy, and try to make some kinda peace. Or…” He looked at Michael. “We give the girl back to her father.”
Michal bristled. “I won’t–”
“You won’t,” Ghost said in a quiet voice. “But I might.”
Utter silence. Cigarettes smoldered forgotten between fingers. The bulb in the lamp droned.
Briscoe said, “I didn’t know we used women for currency,” and Michael was grateful for the anger in his voice.
“You’re not serious,” RJ said, irregularly swollen brows trying to pull low.
“I’m serious,” Ghost said, “about protecting this club. And if we get culled by some kingpin, more than one girl will end up dead.” His expression darkened when he was met by more shock and doubt. “Let’s not forget, boys, that this isn’t Eagle Scouts. I don’t want to hurt a woman, no, but unless she’s my wife or daughter, I’ve got no interest in protecting anyone if it puts the club in jeopardy.”
He sat back, arms folding. “But I’ll leave that up to all of you. If you want to take the chance, then take it.”
It was quiet a long moment.
Finally, Aidan said, “Dad, this Shaman guy’s gonna be a problem down the road eventually. Let’s just deal with it now. Get it over with.”
“I second that,” RJ said.
Briscoe: “Third.”
Mercy glanced at Michael, holding contact while he said it: “It’s just a meeting. That doesn’t put anybody in the crosshairs. I’m on board.”
One by one, all them voted in favor of Holly.
Michael felt the sudden release of tension, all his muscles going slack in the wake of an adrenaline high. He was so weak he wanted to put his head down on the table, and called on every reserve of composure to stay upright, spine stiff.
Ghost heaved a deep sigh. “Alright.” He looked at Ratchet. “Make contact.”