Jen

The box had been delivered while I was at work.

My landlady had signed for it. It was large. I hadn’t ordered anything.

I examined the post mark, Port Az, Texas. What the ever-loving hell?

I’d been trying not to think of Port Az.

I had worked to put things with Benz behind me.

I wasn’t the stalker type, it turned out. When he cut me loose, I didn’t try to change it. Apart from going to his apartment that one time, I’d accepted that he was done with me.

I had spent my time trying to forget.

But I couldn’t forget. Every night I dreamed about going back. I dreamed about Benz.

Nothing in Abilene or Austin had any real interest for me.

Somehow, even becoming a Ranger, the goal that had fueled my ambitions before, was in the background of my life.

I spent my days finishing out the research I’d been hired to do. I had the history of the Texas Rangers in Port Az fully documented and cataloged.

It wasn’t police work, but Paul Laraby said it was important. He said that if I kept doing desk work, soon I’d get to do traffic duty.

And if I did traffic duty for a few years, they’d promote me to warrants. And then maybe they’d consider me for the Rangers.

Eight or more years of issuing traffic tickets. It felt like a life sentence.

I thought about Port Az and the people who lived there.

I thought about Benz, no matter how hard I tried to shut it out. The cabin came back to me. The tour of Port Az on the back of his bike rolled through my mind anytime I looked at the water.

Who was sending me something from Port Az now?

I cut the packing tape holding the box shut.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was an ancient-looking safety deposit box.

Holy shit.

There was a note taped to the top with a phone number I didn’t recognize. There was also a key.

I opened the box.

The contents looked a lot like some of the things I’d found in the history section of the Port Az library.

Except I’d never seen any of this before. This was from someone’s private collection.

There was a faded letter. I skimmed over it and saw it was signed, Tommy Bass. My heart stopped.

Jesus. That was the man my Great Granddad had put away in Port Az. Benz’s Dad.

I read the letter.

Eli,

I got Ranger D on the take. I can hole up here for a spell.

Steer clear of Texas until I get word to you.

Tommy

Ranger D. He was talking about my Great Grandfather.

I rifled through the box of papers.

There was a deposit ticket for a lot of cash. The ticket had a familiar name.

Randolph Davidson. Ranger D. My Great Grandfather. He was a hero. He’d killed the notorious outlaw Tommy Bass.

It didn’t take me long to decipher what I was looking at. The contents of this long-missing, stolen safety deposit box revealed the trail of a bribe. It tore down with numbers and facts the storied history of my hero Great Grandfather.

It was so clear that I felt the history of my family, my history, shift again.

Legendary Ranger Randolph Davidson, who had a prominent place in the timeline I was sent to preserve, was as dirty as Tommy Bass.

He took a bride from Bass and then killed him. The killing made him a hero, and it ensured that no one would know he’d gotten rich off the man he was sent to put away.

It was disgusting. I didn’t know what to feel. For the first time in my life, I was glad that my Daddy wasn’t around. This would have crushed him. It almost did me.

Almost.

I called the number on the card.

A deep voice answered on the other end.

“Yeah.”

“Who is this?” I asked, but I had a memory of that voice. I had an idea.

“Ah, this is little Miss Guffy, isn’t it? You got my package.”

“Bear?”

“Yeah. Good bit of detective work.”

“Why?”

“As I’m sure you’ve seen that box is rock solid proof that your Great Grand Daddy was as crooked as Benz’s eh?”

“I looked at it.”

“Then you’ll see Bass paid Davidson a nice bit of money. And that was the down payment, I think, on that nice house your family grew up in. Dirty as hell, eh?”

“Are you trying to blackmail me?”

“No, but that’s exactly what Kenny Bass was going to try to do to your Daddy. Everybody thought he wanted the money. What he really wanted was to prove something about Tommy Bass and the Legendary Ranger Davidson. That was fucked up, eh? But he didn’t get the chance. Your Daddy did his job, Miss Guffy. And one more thing, Kenny Bass wasn’t a Saint. He was as shit. Your Daddy did the world a favor. As you can see.”

“Why send this to me? Why now?”

“It’s a peace offering. Do with this what you will. We’ve kept it buried.”

“Why didn’t you share it? Why did you protect The Rangers?”

“Kindness of my heart,” Bear said.

“Ah, really sweet of you. I still don’t know why you sent it to me.”

“Benz is in love with you. He knows what’s in there too now, by the way. He ain’t been the same since you left. I know a little about what he’s feeling. If you’re going to be an old lady, you need to trust me. You need to trust the club. I sat on that box for a long time. I made sure the world believed the Ranger Davidson myth. Hell, and if your Daddy killed his Daddy over that box? That’s a little mess too, isn’t it? Muddy waters all around. Either way, you have it now and can keep it safe. Consider it a peace offering.”

I didn’t know about peace. I didn’t feel peace at all. Beyond that, Bear was acting like repairing things with Benz was up to me. That wasn’t true.

“Benz ended it between us. Not me.”

“Like I said. Do what you want with that box and the information. But if you do get it in your mind to be with Benz, you get us too. The whole club. It’s a complicated package, isn’t it, Miss Guffy?”

The line went dead. The conversation was over.

Bear was complicated as fuck and so was what he’d sent me.

I tried to process it all. I wondered what my Daddy had known about all this. I wished I could confront my Grandmother. But they were gone. All of them were gone.

I wondered if my Daddy was trying to protect his family legacy or was he just trying to catch a bank robber when he took that bullet?

I didn’t have those answers. But I had been assigned a job from the Texas Department of Public Safety. I was going to finish entering the primary documents so historians could compile the official history of the Texas Rangers in Port Azrael Texas.

I took the entire contents of the safety deposit box and entered it into the digital record.

I did exactly what I had been assigned to do in Port Azrael.

The Texas Ranger history was layered, rich, good, and bad. And maybe my family had a part of both sides of that. My Great Granddad was the bad and I hoped my Daddy was the good. I wanted to believe that.

The Dark Saints history, I knew less about that. I only really knew what had happened to Benz and me. I knew what Bear had ordered.

I knew that Benz and his brothers had all agreed it was wrong and changed it. Every single one had gone against their Prez to save me. It may have been loyalty to Benz or fear of the law. Either way, they stood together and I wound up safe.

I knew now that, when it came to The Saints, there were shades of gray. Black and white, the way I was raised, didn’t really exist.

I also knew what I wanted to try to do.

I didn’t want to be a part of any history anymore. I wanted a future. And I knew what I wanted that future to include.

If he’d have me.

* * *

“Here’s your desk. Your main job is to be sure that Detective Numb Nuts, uh, Peck, here doesn’t shoot himself in the foot.”

“Thanks, Detective Janning, uh, I mean Deputy Chief Janning.”

I had the desk across from Officer Peter Peck.

An opening had become available on the Port Azrael Police Department when Janning was promoted to deputy police chief.

I was the newest detective. I had moved back to Port Azrael, lock, stock, and newly issued police service weapon.

I was going to be doing real police work for a town that was struggling to re-invent itself. I wouldn’t be behind some state desk, waiting, hoping, and fantasizing that I’d be selected for The Rangers. I didn’t want to follow my Daddy’s path or my Great Grandfather’s. I needed to find my own.

I was through waiting and done with looking backward. My eyes were open.

I had been in town for a week and I hadn’t seen Benz yet.

I’d seen other Saints – Axle, Kade, and Zig. They would roll through town; they drank at Woody’s Lounge. All of it was without Benz.

I pulled the overnight shift.

The Deputy Chief said I’d learn the most that way. There was a lot to learn. Officer Peter Peck was my partner and thus far he’d not shot himself in the foot.

I was headed to my car after graveyard duty when I saw it.

I knew it was Benz’s bike. I’d been on the back of it enough to recognize it, parked behind the bumper of my Bug.

I walked up to it and put a hand on the seat. What did it mean?

“Careful.” I whirled around. There he was: Benz.

I took him in. He still took my breath away. The time away from him hadn’t changed that. It only intensified it.

“You’re parked illegally,” I said.

“You going to arrest me?” He took a step forward and my heart pounded. Every day since I’d left Port Azrael I had wanted to be back here. I couldn’t forget how I felt when he touched me or how he changed my world.

He had the newspaper in his hand. It had hit the news wires today:

NEW DOCUMENTS UNCOVER CHECKERED PAST OF TEXAS HERO

“You didn’t have to do this,” Benz said and waved the paper.

“I was here to find the history. Your Great Granddad and mine are a part of it.”

“Turns out they were both terrible.”

“Yeah, turns out.” I wondered if he still felt anything for me. Had Benz moved on? The idea would be hard to swallow. Bear said he hadn’t, but I didn’t know how close they were after all that had gone down.

I wanted to say something clever, but my emotions were taking over.

“I’m sorry for that shitty letter. I’m not good at letters,” Benz said and I fought the urge to ugly cry.

“It was a shitty letter. I didn’t enter that into the digital record,” I replied and he closed the last bit of distance between us.

Benz grabbed me into his arms and I gasped. He kissed me hard and I kissed him.

For six months nothing had felt right. I was torn inside out. In Benz’s arms, I was whole again.

Nothing would ever be right if I wasn’t with Benz.

“Are you allowed to date a cop?”

“Oh, you mean The Dark Saints’ code? I’m only allowed to date a cop if it’s serious.”

“Benz, with us, it’s serious as it gets.”

He kissed me again.

I had no idea what it would mean, to really be with Benz, to have him in my life, but I wanted to find out.

I may never understand what it meant to be an old lady for a biker club.

But I did understand I didn’t want to live without Benz Bass.

The history of our families might be filled with blood, crime, and violence, but Benz and I had a new path to forge.

I didn’t know what it looked like. I just knew he’d be holding my hand.