The grief came in waves. He could forget for a while that Smoke was dead...and then suddenly when he least expected it, another heavy wave would hit and nearly bring him to his knees. Today was going to be especially hard. It was Smoke’s funeral. He was having a full military funeral. The army had come out of the woodwork, talking about his honors, awards, and medals when he served. He’d been a hero and none of them had even known. Smoke rarely spoke, but when he did, it was never to toot his own horn. He was loyal to a fault and any brother in the club knew they could trust him with their lives. Wolf told Ash dozens of times that what happened at the bar was not his fault. They’d all been set up...but it was just so fucking hard for him to get past the fact that Smoke had died out there, alone.

Sledge was having a hard time with it as well. The injury to his leg was healing well, but the one to his soul ran deep. Ash knew him better than anyone and he was worried about his friend. Sledge was always the life of the party, but suddenly it took a crowbar to even get him to speak. It would be even worse when Ash told him that he was back with Mack. Sledge was going to go ballistic...until he heard what happened to Mackenzie and why she’d done what she did. And then, he was going to go ballistic in another direction. Sledge loved Mack. When they were young, Ash suspected that his friend was even in love with her. Sledge knew how Ash and Mack were in love and he would never even think about trying to come between them...but Ash knew that even to this day, if anyone threatened her, they’d have hell to pay. Ash was going to have to share the plan he was developing in his head with Sledge, and hope his friend didn’t decide to go off half-cocked and alone before they could put it into action.

“Hey.” Mack found Ash sitting on one of the picnic tables outside, smoking a joint. He wasn’t much of a smoker, or a drinker. He didn’t like to be out of control of his actions. But he’d woken up that morning before Mack was awake, taken a shower, put on a dark suit, and then decided he couldn’t go and watch them put Smoke in the ground. He knew he had to, however...so the weed was vapor courage, or at least he hoped it would work that way.

“Hey.” Mack was wearing a simple black dress and low black heels. Her hair was straightened and fell down to the middle of her back. She had on very little makeup and just a small string of black pearls around her neck. “You look beautiful.”

She reached out and put her hand on the side of his freshly shaved face. “Thanks. So do you. How are you doing?”

He shrugged and held up the joint. “So-so,” he said with a half smile. Mack smiled back and held her hand out for what was almost a roach at that point. Surprised, Ash handed it to her. He’d never seen her smoke in all the years he’d known her. She took a long drag and as she held the smoke in her lungs, she stubbed the rest out. “You need some courage too?”

Smiling again and letting the rest of the smoke out she said, “Maybe for telling Steve...I mean, Sledge...about us.”

Ash nodded. He reached out and pulled her in close, kissing her softly on the lips. “I guess we should go see if Charlie wants to ride with us.” Mack nodded, kissed him again, and then hand in hand they walked towards Bruf’s trailer. They were almost there when Sledge hobbled out of his, still on his crutches.

“Motherfucker,” he growled. “Are you kidding me?” Ash’s muscles automatically tensed. He turned and looked at Sledge.

“You don’t know the whole story.”

“Steve...” Mack began.

“Sledge!” he barked at her.

“Hey,” Ash said. “This fucking day sucks already. I promise you tonight I’ll explain everything, and you’ll understand. But for now, I’d appreciate it if you’d treat Mack with the respect she deserves.”

“The respect she deserves?”

“Yes, Sledge...for me. Please.” Sledge looked like he had so much more to say...but thankfully, he decided against it. Instead of agreeing or disagreeing, however, he turned his back to them and made his way down the three steps from his porch that led to the grass below. When he reached the bottom Ash said, “You want to ride with us?”

“Nope.” He didn’t even look back at them; he just kept walking, headed for the clubhouse. Ash watched him for a second, feeling hurt that Sledge wouldn’t trust him enough to just take his word that things were going to be okay with him and Mack. But he had to remind himself that all of Sledge’s angst was coming from how much he cared about Ash...and a little from how much he cared for Mack too. Ash closed his hand on hers tighter and they went to get Charlie. There was going to be a chapel ceremony that Smoke’s aunt, the lady who raised him, was putting on. Then there would be graveside services and finally a wake back at the club. The girls had been in the kitchen since dawn, cooking up a feast. In other words, though, along with the emotional agony...it was going to be a long fucking day.

The church ceremony was beautiful...but so stinking sad. Mack thought she’d never seen anything as heart-wrenching as a room full of rough, tough bikers, trying not to cry. Smoke’s aunt was quite elderly, but still spry enough to get around on her own. She held her head up high throughout the ceremony. It was only when she went forward for the viewing and laid eyes on her nephew in his coffin that she broke down. The poor woman laid her head against the coffin and told him how much she loved him, and how proud she was of the man that he’d become. She didn’t seem upset at all that he’d been a part of a motorcycle club, and Mack had witnessed her earlier, embracing Wolf like he was her own son, clearly not blaming the club for what happened to her nephew. There were a few more of Smoke’s family members there too, cousins mostly. His parents were both dead...killed in a freak boating accident when he was only eight years old. Mack had no idea if he had siblings, but so far, she’d not seen hide or hair of them if he did.

After the church service was over, Ash went to take his place in line once again. He was a pallbearer, which he told Mack was the very least he could do. She wished he didn’t blame himself. She wasn’t there, but from what Charlie told her that everyone around the club was saying, no one blamed Ash for what happened that day except himself.

Six men lifted the coffin from the altar and carried it out of the church and to the car that would take Smoke to his final resting place. Wolf, Bruf, Manson, Ash, and Sledge Mack recognized, but there was one other man...a dark, scary-looking one who had Nomad stitched on his kutte. Ash told her Smoke’s best friend and old army buddy, Payday, would be carrying the coffin with him. Mack decided the dark man must be him.

Once the casket was loaded into the car, Ash, Mack, and Charlie went to where they’d left her car and pulled out into the funeral procession, following them all to the graveyard. The graveside services were even tougher on the guys than the church had been. The army was there, playing Taps and doing a 21-gun salute. Afterwards they folded the flag that draped Smoke’s coffin and tried to present it to his aunt. It was then that anyone with a dry eye lost it at last.

“No,” she said, through a torrent of her own tears. “Thank you. I loved my nephew very much. He was a good man, as you all know. But despite my best efforts, he never really found a family until he found his club. He spoke so fondly of you all,” she told Wolf, who had tears staining his cheeks and running down off his beard. “He loved you, and if you’ll accept it, I’d like for you to have this flag, and display it in the club in memory of him.”

The soldier holding the flag turned toward Wolf and stood at attention. Wolf squeezed his old lady Blair’s hand and then stepped forward. In a heart-wrenching little ceremony, the colors that Smoke had fought for were presented to the president of a motorcycle club. It was an odd and touching sight. It was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience and it warmed Mack’s heart. She clutched onto Ash’s arm tighter and felt his body shake as he finally stopped fighting back the tears. She glanced over at Sledge and the big guy was standing ramrod straight, staring at the coffin with a stream of tears running down his face. There was no denying that these people were a family and that they loved each other very much.