Page 11 of Eternally Ginger

6

Ginger

Aunt Hadley’s House

Elizabeth City, North Carolina

The trip to Elizabeth City, North Carolina, wasn’t as bad as I figured it would be on the back of Ghoul’s bike. We stopped for the night at the RBMC Pittsburgh Chapter halfway through, and I got some much-needed rest before getting back on the road. The majority of the guys stayed awake and drank with their out of state brothers. Wily and Sac stayed close to us on their rides while Tin Man, Spider, and the prospects drove behind us in an van that might have been stolen. In the time I had been around the clubhouse, I had never seen any of them drive it because they all usually rode their motorcycles, so I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt.

“Aunt Hadley can come off…” Ghoul paused, gathering his thoughts, “rude. She’s fucking rude, but she means well. Try to look past anything rude she says or does.” He didn’t usually make excuses for anyone; therefore, this spoke volumes. His aunt would be the first of his family members I would be introduced to. Under different circumstances, I would have been thrilled to come and meet her. Seeing as we were here to search for my mom, who may or may not be held against her will, put a damper on things.

“Sounds like Grams.” I shrugged, pulling the strap of my duffel bag over my shoulder, and his hand caught it before it settled.

“I’ll carry your stuff for you.”

“Thank you.” I was more than capable of carrying my own things, but it was nice to have someone who wanted to do tiny things like carrying my bags for me. It was a refreshing change of pace when comparing my past boyfriends to Ghoul. Realistically, there wasn’t any reason to compare him to anyone because he wasn’t like anyone I had ever met.

“Actually, the two of them are a lot alike. I never thought about it before.” He led the way to the door as the rest of us trailed behind.

After two knocks on the door, a short woman with hair at least a foot tall appeared, and her eyes lit up as soon as she saw Ghoul. “Christopher!” she squealed, and he bent to kiss her cheek.

“Thank you for letting all of us stay here, Aunt Hadley.”

“Nonsense. Your family is mine.” She grinned, waving her hand over her shoulder, and welcomed us inside her home.

“Dinner will be at five, and breakfast is at eight,” Aunt Hadley announced to the group, not at all phased her tiny house was filled with bikers. “You can fend for your own lunch tomorrow; I’m going to the bingo hall.”

I laughed, and she glared at me from her peripherals.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you. It’s just you remind me so much of my Grams. It’s nice.”

“Oh, she must be a wonderful woman then.” She continued giving us the tour of her house and listing her rules. If I had known all it took to get my mind off things at all was being around an anal-retentive woman, I would have stayed a few nights with Grams. That was only partly true; I needed to be here to find Mom.

I had a promising idea of where she may be. My uncle Kenneth had a cabin off the grid, just outside of town. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that this was the last place the FBI had reports of Mom using her credit card. I didn’t tell anyone about the cabin, just in case Mom was in some kind of trouble. Besides, the FEDs weren’t forthcoming with all of the information. I couldn’t figure it out, but there was something off about Agent McFaye. Ghoul agreed, but he didn’t trust anyone in any kind of law enforcement, so I didn’t know if he agreed with my suspicions or just did not like her simply because of her career choice.

There was something more, though. I got the feeling she wasn’t telling me the whole truth during our brief meeting before we headed south. If I had to guess, she gave us bits and pieces of a story because it felt like the main plotline had been left out. If Mom was kidnapped, what did they expect me to do? Shit didn’t add up. Maybe they knew about the cabin and had already searched it? I didn’t know, but something was missing from the equation for sure. It was as if they’d dropped a puzzle box in front of us after clipping random pieces into misshapen fragments and then expected us to assemble it. There was enough there to figure out a significant part but not enough to see the full picture.

“She’s the best,” I answered her honestly.

* * *

“Fucking Rowdy and his precious Steelers,” Sledge grumbled, breaking the silence. Literally, no one had mentioned Rowdy and his argument over football since we’d arrived at Aunt Hadley’s. Living in Cleveland, Sledge naturally rooted for the Browns.

“Language,” Aunt Hadley yelled into the dining room from the kitchen, and his broad shoulders slumped in response.

“Sorry, ma’am.”

“What about him, anyway?” Ghoul turned his head toward Sledge.

“The fu—”

Aunt Hadley cleared her throat as she entered the room and set a heaping bowl of mashed potatoes in the center of the table.

“Is f-er okay?”

She grunted in disapproval. “Say sucker. It sounds better. Such a good-looking young man shouldn’t curse as much as you do. It’s not becoming.”

My lips clamped so tightly together, it was painful. I wouldn’t dare laugh at her, but cursing was probably the least offensive thing any of these guys did. If she was that upset by a simple four-letter word, it was hard to say how she would react if she knew wherever the Royal Bastards rode, they left plenty of dead bodies in their dust.

---