Chapter 34

The music coming from Wayne's garage wafted out to the driveway. Wayne carried his helmet into the house and dropped it on the floor, heading straight to the garage. He'd left the party when the women came over to let loose with Glen, Thad, and Chuck.

The only person he wanted to be around was Clara. A lot of fucking good that had done.

She'd handed him a 'get out of jail free card' and shut the door. He stepped into the garage, grabbed a beer, and turned around to leave as Buffy, an old girlfriend of Chuck's, headed toward him. He wasn't in the mood for any company tonight.

"Hey, bro," shouted Thad. "Sit. Relax. Have a cold one."

He held up his bottle and walked out of the garage. They could party without him. All he wanted to do was drink enough he could sleep for more than four hours and forget the confession Clara handed him when Gracie was lost. Her words stayed branded in his head.

He'd wanted to believe the things she'd said to him were spoken out of desperation and fear. But the more time that went by and Clara refusing to answer his calls, he'd taken a harder look at what had transpired during Gracie's kidnapping.

He sat on the couch in the living room, took a deep pull from the bottle, and let his head fall back on the couch. Anyone in their right mind would want to kill the person who harmed a loved one. He'd been on the other end many times, witnessing the levels people would go to save someone, receiving their anger, their tears, their exchanges with God.

What he couldn't ignore was the fact that Clara admitted to coming to St. John's, buying the bar, and putting herself in his path for the sole purpose of having him kill someone. That someone who happened to have killed Thalia, Clara's mom, two young girls, and almost had his chance to take out Gracie. Not to mention the victims that went unnoticed, undocumented, unfounded. Who knew how many others had been killed.

Her declaration had him wondering if her feelings for him were forced for the purpose of using him or if the woman that had hummed in his ear, gave him a fucking reason to get through each day because all he wanted to do was be with her, whether that was for five minutes or all damn night, had loved him. He exhaled loudly, tired of not knowing. He was done waiting for her to come back to him, and when he'd breached the wall she'd erected to make sure she remained by his side, she'd clearly made her choice and walked back into the house.

"Damnit, Clara," he muttered, taking another drink.

They were both living in the past. He wanted to bring Rich home. She'd wanted to honor her mother.

He refused to believe she'd conned him. All she had to do was ask, and he'd do anything for her. It was time they both lived for the future.

The doorbell rang. Everyone that came over to his house without being invited was in his garage. He pushed off the couch. Mrs. Spradley from next door was probably coming over to ask him to turn the music down because she couldn't hear the letters called on Wheel of Fortune.

He opened the door, and any relaxing he'd gained from the beer left him. Clara stood in front of him, wringing her hands.

"Can I come in?" She looked behind her at the line of motorcycles in his driveway and returned her gaze to him. "You have no reason to want to be around me after the way I treated you, but I need to tell you something. Please, it's important."

He looked over her head at the street. She'd driven Gracie's car, alone, and parked behind the cars belonging to the women in the garage. "Where's your sister?"

"At home." Clara's forehead furrowed. "Did you really mean it when you said we could ask your club if we needed help?"

He nodded.

"Then, could someone go to the townhouse and sit with Gracie? She told me she'd be okay while I came over here to talk, but it makes me nervous. She's made such a big step today, I don’t want her to freak out when she's alone and go backward in her recovery." She ran her hands over the front of her shirt. "Or, can you give me ten minutes to go back home and you can call me?"

"What's going on?" He leaned over and set his empty beer bottle on the small table.

"Wayne, please." Her voice, high and urgent, pierced his heart. "I won't ask another thing of you after I talk to you, please."

"Okay, come in and hang on." He walked through the house and out to the garage. Instead of trying to get Thad, Chuck, and Glen's attention away from the women, he went straight to the stereo and pulled the cord. "Party is over. I need one of you to go over to Clara and Gracie's house. Gracie is alone and wants one of us to be with her while Clara talks to me here."

"I'll go. I've only had one beer." Glen grabbed his helmet and gloves off the desk.

Thad smacked Chuck on the back. "Let's head over to my house. It's closer."

"Come on, ladies." Chuck threw his arm around Buffy. "Is everyone up for a barbecue and drinks at Chuck's? He's buying."

The women gathered their bags. Wayne stood out of the way, letting them go through the house. Then, he returned to Clara in the living room.

She looked out the front window at everyone scattering in the driveway. "I'm sorry. I interrupted your party."

"Not mine." He sat on the couch. "I was in here having a beer by myself after coming back from your place."

She turned around. "Someone is going to Gracie?"

"Glen's going over there." He motioned toward the chair. "Sit. Talk."

He needed space between them. She couldn't expect he'd go from sleeping together every damn night to keeping his hands off her if she was in reach.

She sat on the edge of the chair. He crossed his arms over his chest and stretched his legs. His don't-give-a-damn position a total lie. He loved her, and it pissed him off that she was clear across the room. But, until she gave him something, anything, he couldn't do shit.

That's not how things worked in his world. She either gave herself fully to him or not at all. One or the other.

"The night you took off to go find Gracie, I said some things to you." Her legs jumped up and down like a jackhammer. "I asked you to kill—"

"And, a lot more." He couldn't stay quiet any longer. "You said getting me to kill someone was what our whole relationship was based on. You and your sister moved to St. John's, bought the bar, and played me."

She inhaled deeply and nodded. "It started out that way until I came face to face with you."

A growl of incredulity tickled his throat, and he swallowed it down. "That first time when I took you back to my house and we talked would've been a perfect time to tell me what you'd planned. I asked you about your family. You said your mom died when you were young. That's it."

"Because I spent my whole life believing she'd died too young of natural causes. I never found out she'd been kidnapped and murdered until two years ago, Wayne. After my dad had passed away, we found out the truth about how she'd died. Dad had wanted to protect us against the ugliness of what had happened. He moved us away from St. John's, taught us to depend on each other, be safe, but most of all live each day without the worry that there is evil out in the world that can take someone we loved away from us."

He ran his hand over his jaw. He couldn't disagree with her dad's motive. Any time he received a call on a missing person, he wanted to protect the community from someone dangerous. He wanted to return a loved one to their family.

"I slept with you because I wanted you." She pressed her hands to her chest. "You were nothing like I imagined."

"What did you think you were walking into when you put yourself in my life?" He bent his knees and leaned forward.

"Honestly." Her mouth tightened. "We believed Notus Motorcycle Club was made up of hardened criminals who would overlook the fact that we needed the club to find a murderer and kill him. That giving you the idea to find someone and explain what the killer did to our mom, you'd feel obligated to get rid of someone so evil and unworthy of living, we wouldn't have to feel guilty about putting the idea in your head. That if we offered you ten thousand dollars, you wouldn't turn us into the police."

"That's what the police are there for. To catch criminals," he muttered.

"We tried going to the police." She shook her head." Before we even moved back here, we went and talked to an officer who informed us our mother's murder was a cold case. Unless evidence came in or more likely the murderer confessed to the crime, there was nothing they could do." She dashed away angry tears. "Can you understand a little about how it feels to know someone took, hurt, and murdered our mother? A mother that we've forgotten what she sounded like, but couldn't forget the way it felt to have her arms around us? A mother who made the world feel safe? A mother who loved us in only the way a mother can love her children?"

He stood, no longer able to sit and watch her suffer through her explanation. While his mother still lived, he'd watched Thad lose a sister, Rich lose the young woman he'd loved, and too many families mourn the loss of their child, their spouse.

"So, you opened the bar to meet Notus, knowing we hung out there." He sat back down.

She nodded. "We hoped you hung out at Vavoom's. When we took a tour with the realtor, you and the others were there drinking. Gracie put two and two together when she Googled your club name and found articles about the club searching for missing persons. That's when we got the idea that it was possible for us to find our mother's killer. To us, it was a sign, and yes, it helped us decide to buy the bar. It seems irrational now, but we had no idea what to do, only that we wanted our mom's killer to be punished for the crime."

Two women, distraught over losing their father and finding out their mother was murdered. He inhaled deeply. Grief was a bitch. Nobody could escape, and Clara and Gracie had more than their fair share. He could see why they believed hiring Notus would be the answer to their hurt.

"What are you going to do with the bar now?"

"I know it's hard to understand what went through our heads over the last two years, but regardless of our plan to use Notus, we wanted to own a bar and eventually have other people work for us while we eventually handled running the business." She stood and approached him. "We wanted to live in St. John's because both our parents are buried here. What we...what I hadn't planned on was falling in love with you or my mom's killer still living here and killing other people and coming after Gracie. It wasn't until he took Gracie that I told you the truth because deep down, I never wanted you to think that my feelings for you weren't real. I want to believe that Gracie and I would've changed our minds about asking you to find him. But, I just don't know..."

"Have you lied to me about anything else?" he asked, his voice even deeper than usual.

She'd focused on the crime she'd committed by asking him to kill someone. All he wanted to know is if their relationship had been one-sided—his side.

"No." She placed her hands on his chest. "Wayne, everything happened at once. I was scared for Gracie and—"

"You made your own decision to push me away the night we found your sister." His body hardened under her touch. It took all his concentration not to put his hands on her and never let her go. "Now, I'm wondering why you're here. Why talk now? Are you scared I'll turn you into the police for trying to buy my services."

"God, no." Her hands fell away from him. "I couldn’t live with knowing I made you kill someone. The idea is so much different than reality. I can't live with the fact you'll have to live with a crime for your whole life and would eventually hate me for what I've done. The second the words came out of my mouth, I knew the love I had for you couldn't be returned. Maybe not today or next year, but someday, you'd have the moral responsibility to face killing another person, and I couldn't be around you, reminding you of what you'd done. Even though—and this is me being honest with you—I'm not unhappy that Roy Jenson is dead."

"Still doesn't explain why you're here," he said.

"You weren't the one who killed Jenson," she blurted. "I know it doesn't make what I've done any better or right, but it's the truth. If there's any chance that I don't have to lose you, that you can forgive me...if you can accept what kind of person I am and understand why I did what I did, I want to be loved by you. I want to love you."

He reached out and cupped her cheek. His hand trembled. "Who did the police tell you killed Roy Jenson?"

She pressed her head into his hand. "Notus. It was Gracie who told me after you left the house earlier that it wasn't you who shot Jenson."

The control he'd contained slipped out in a harsh exhale. "I am Notus. I might not have put the bullet in the man you wanted dead, but I have killed in the past. I will probably kill in the future. I search for missing persons and our searches can take us to dark places where nobody would willingly go."

"Wayne, I—"

"Maybe the question isn't so much about if you can handle the guilt you placed on yourself and your worry that I can't handle what I chose to do, but if you can love a man who doesn't feel guilty for taking the life of a criminal," he said softly. "That man who killed your mother and kidnapped Gracie killed Thad's sister two years after your mother's murder. He tormented her for days, raped her repeatedly, and carved the name 'Barbara' on her chest before dumping her in the grass."

Clara recoiled. He held her in front of him. If she was going to make a conscious effort to fight for him, she had to understand what kind of man he would be with her.

"The seven-year-old girl and the teenager who were recently murdered also had the name Barbara carved into their chest." Wayne hooked her neck and wrapped his arm around her when her knees weakened. "Had I not met you, I would've still done exactly what needed to be done. It was the information you'd given me that saved your sister's life and stopped any more fucking killings in St. John's."

"I...didn't know," she whispered. "Roy Jenson was fixated on my mom."

He brought her head to his chest and held her. "He can't hurt anyone anymore because you finally gave me the information we needed to find him. So, worrying about me taking a life is bullshit. Some people don't deserve a life."

She raised her head and raised her hands, cupping his face. "I owe you so much, Wayne. Please, tell me you forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive for either of us." He bent his knees, lowering his mouth to hers. The fierce need to protect her came out. He picked her up, needing every inch of her pressed against his body. Her tongue met his, welcoming him home and he kissed her deeper, taking her to the couch and laying her down without stopping.

Half on top of her, he pulled back. "I love you, sweetheart."

"I love you, too. I've been so scared thinking that I lost you." Her hands continued to touch him, stroking, holding, grabbing. "You weren't what I was expecting. You were better than anything I could imagine. Do you know the moment I realized I wasn't merely falling in love with you but loved you?"

"When I found your sister?" He propped his head up and looked into her eyes and palmed her ass, bringing her closer, so they both fit on the couch.

"No, before that," she whispered. "It was on one of the nights when you were sitting in the bar watching over me, making sure I remained safe after the police found the clothes in the alley. In the chaos of working with the customers, keeping tabs on the orders, I looked over at you sitting in the booth, sipping a pop, and you were probably bored out of your mind, but you were there for me. I knew that night that I would do anything to have that dedicated man be in my life forever."

His chest expanded. "You shut the door on me today."

"You said you were done," she whispered.

He stroked her hair back from her forehead and ran his thumb over the scar underneath her hair. "I was done being patient and letting you have your space. Eventually, you would've had to come out of the house again, and I'd be there, wanting you."

She closed her eyes, sighed, and looked back up at him. "Will you come home with me, spend the day, stay the night, and let me see you off to work?"

He kissed her lightly. "That can be arranged."

"Will you come to dinner at Vavoom's tomorrow after work?" She held onto his vest.

"Will you wear the apron with the hearts on the ass?"

She nodded.

He kissed her hard. "Then, I'll be there."

Wayne raised up. Clara tugged him back down on top of her. "After you come to the bar and after you have dinner, will you stay and have a drink until...say closing time and then come home with me?"

"Are you going to plan my life, sweetheart?" He tilted his head, taking in the insecurities hovering on the edge of her gaze.

"Yes," she whispered. "If you'll let me."

He leaned down and nipped her earlobe. "Let me get my bag packed. The sooner we get you home, the sooner I can get between your legs, and you'll realize I'm back in my life."

He pushed off the couch and walked away, leaving her lying on her back with a smile on her face. Exactly how he wanted to leave her each and every time, knowing he would always return.