~Bladen~
“All right, she’s in Utah. We’re sure?” I ask Deacon for what he probably feels is the hundredth time.
“Told you, brother, hacked Tempest’s shit. They were using Twitter.”
I nod.
“Location services off, but there are ways around it. Got her shit triangulated. She’s in Utah.” Deacon is firm with me, obviously tired of going over the same shit. “PI is still on the case, but thinks she is still in Haven’s Harbor, which means heat is on Tempest,” Deacon explains again.
“You’re here with X and Hadley. Collector, Sonnie, Rowdy, and I will head West.”
“Where does that leave me, sugar?” Trapper asks in a high-pitched voice.
Not missing a beat, I look at the five-foot-eight ball of energy. “Where you wanna be?”
“Aw … you do love me.” He bats his eyelashes, mocking me.
“I can’t believe a damn Navy SEAL like you, Deacon, with training and shit couldn’t get Tempest to break,” I mutter, still in disbelief and irritated. I shouldn’t be. I know it’s not on him or Tempest to track Tamalyn. She’s a grown woman, after all. I can’t help it, though.
“She doesn’t know where she is. That was the plan. Let it go, Judge. You’re treading thin with me, brother,” Deacon warns.
I can’t help wondering what’s going on with him and Tempest Adams. She has a past, and he lives in a perpetual nightmare. They are doomed and need to stay away from each other. Then again, do I have any room to talk?
Everything I have done has been one mistake after another, and Tamalyn has paid the price.
After a quick goodbye, Collector, with Sonnie on his ride, leads, while Rowdy flanks him a little ways back and to the right. Trapper is to the left, a bit back from Rowdy, and I close the rear as we head West. Deacon stays behind like a proud peacock, fluffing his feathers and ruffling Tempest’s, with X and his woman Hadley.
Having hours of nothing but the sound of my bike and the open road, I think about how far we have come as a group. I can’t listen to the radio, but I’m so on edge about everything that I decide to let the wind be my comfort and release my mind to wherever it wants to go.
I met Dover “Collector” Ragnes when he was still a cop back in Cloverville, Tennessee. At the time, Jackson “Rowdy” Presley had just been released early from prison on “good behavior.” Only the fucker wasn’t afraid to go back so long as he got his revenge on the man who put him behind bars. He got his revenge, and with some help from Collector and a little money from me, he kept his freedom.
Along the way, others joined us. Gentry “Deacon” Hawkins met us while I was checking up on Tamalyn. The former Navy SEAL didn’t take kindly to my late-night calls and messages to Tempest.
Funny how after all these years, the two of them still dance around each other. They could be happy together if they wouldn’t let so much shit stand between them.
I sigh.
Is that my problem? Have I let too much get between Tamalyn and I?
Every time I sent a phone, I did so with the intention of calling her. And every single time, I would talk myself out of it. I wanted her to have her life free from the past … including me. I just couldn’t find a way to truly let go, though. So I checked in on her.
Collector found his happily ever after with Sonnie, or Emerson Flint, as she was known as a kid. She was Collector’s baby sister’s best friend. When we got a lead on his sister’s, Raleigh Ragnes, cold case, none of us ever imagined it would land us in front of Emerson Flint. Solving the case of his little sister’s murder may have given him closure, but having Sonnie on his bike and as his forever woman, well, I do believe she’s given him completion.
One by one, we all seem to be finding our way, or at least settling our pasts.
Owen “X” Gallow is tucked away at Haven’s Harbor with Hadley Combs. They recently found each other again after X spent years thinking she was dead. As teens, they lived a rough life on the streets together. A fucked-up situation tied them together forever. In the chaos, they found a way to love each other and find hope, strength, and all that is good together.
The miles pass on, hopefully bringing me closer to Tamalyn.
Rowdy looks over to me. The man has given himself a life sentence of loneliness. I’m not sure what happened exactly. All he has ever shared are the peony flowers he has inked on his side and ramblings that she’s a ghost. I don’t know if he believes in happy anything anymore. Really, who could blame the man after all he’s endured?
Trapper gives a random yell into the wind. Sometimes I wonder if he should seek medical attention.
Trapper showed up on Old Earl’s shop step a bloody mess. He owned a tattoo shop in Leed, Alabama. It’s where Sonnie worked until she came on the road with us. None of us really knows what happened that night, and he likes it that way. Sometimes, I swear he has split personalities or some other mental illness. Other times, I think he might just be the sanest one of us all.
Six nomads. Six drifters. Six men with hardened hearts, black pavement for souls, and very little hope for redemption.
No matter how good I have it with my brothers, my mind and heart always go back to her. What will Tamalyn look like when I see her again?
Will she still have long blonde hair? When we were kids, I would call her Goldilocks, and she would get so mad. Once, she died it purple. It was her first rebellious act when we were sixteen. While the purple didn’t do it for me, she was still gorgeous, and the fire in her eyes always got to me.
How will she take it when I tell her Caleb is gone? Will she have any resentment that I didn’t do it sooner? What about her biological father? That is something Deacon is using his connections to find out, looking for anyone in her mother’s past that could be Tamalyn’s dad. It’s a shot in the dark, but to give her closure, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do.
Even remain in the shadows like I have for so long.