Page 2 of Moonshine Lullabies

He said, “Nuckie, you gotta come quick! They’s some men at the house here and they’re threatenin’ me an’ Mamma, wantin’ to know where you’s at!”

I looked at Cy, who looked grim, and then my eyes bounced to Hex to see if he’d heard. But he was already shutting the tailgate of his truck and thrusting his chin at me to get on my bike. I gave a curt nod and went for it, at the same time Cypress went for his.

“You hang in there, Tater. Me an’ some of the boys is on our way.”

The first time I saw Cypress’ sister, Jessie-Lou Gaudet, was the day I’d pulled up in NOLA outside the clubhouse of the Voodoo Bastards.

She was a slender, almost delicate looking woman, and ethereally pretty, the way you’d picture some elf or spirit of the wood. Or she would be, if it wasn’t for her hard expression and eyes that I swear sparked like two flints clacking together to make a fire.

I wasn’t sure, the story behind the fire in those eyes that were just about the only thing she shared with her brother. Well, that and the light brown color of her long, long hair – but the strength she exuded was something a fella had to admire. She had a presence that commanded a room for as petite as she was, and I remembered that. My eyes drawn to her slender and lithe frame unbidden.

It'd be a fuckin’ shame if anything happened to that pretty face of hers. An even bigger one, if anything added to that hidden cache of pain that lived behind those eyes of hers, turning that personality of hers into such a sharp-edged firebrand, making her who she was.

As we rode with purpose in the direction of Cypress’s place where Jessie-Lou and her son, Cy’s nephew, Tate, lived – I wondered if this had anything to do with the club, or if this was baby daddy drama, or what we were getting into.

Couldn’t say I much worried about it. Whoever it was and whatever it was, was fixin’ to be run off fast.

CHAPTERONE

Jessie-Lou…

I sat in what used to be the old sunroom porch off the back of the house that I’d spent a lot of time and effort making into my studio for my art. I wore protective eye wear and a heavy-duty mask; the kind that looked like I was in some post-apocalyptic zombie movie as a part of the damn government come to save the day.

My boy, Tate, liked those movies; would watch them with my dumb older brother, John-Paul, come every Halloween. They loved that zombie television series, too. Watched it over and over again even as it neared like its tenth season or its eleventy-billionth final episode.

I couldn’t completely say my Tate didn’t get it from his momma. Not as I sat here taking Dremel to bone on an old steer’s skull, making something beautiful from death.

I looked up, taking a break from creating the intricately carved loops and whorls out from the center hole I’d cut in the forehead of the heavy skull. The hole for a chunk of labradorite I’d picked up at the rock shop in the city. I listened over the softly playing music back here and the loud thunder of explosions and gunfire in the living room where my kid played his uncle’s console game.

The rapid fire and explosions had ceased and the knocking at the front door had come again, just as Tate appeared in the doorway to the windowed room back here.

“Someone’s at the front door,” he said and I got up, setting my Dremel down and peeling my mask and goggles off my face, bone dust sifting off my flannel and apron to the floor.

“Get behind me,” I told him, and he frowned.

“I’m not a little kid anymore!” he tried to argue, and I cut that shit off with a stern look. He quailed and nodded, and I felt slightly guilty. He was such a good kid. I honestly didn’t deserve him. Still, ain’t nobody around these parts knocks on our front door. Not if they knew us, anyhow. Only time anybody knocked at the front door was if they were sellin’ religion or something else – or worse – they was the cops lookin’ for J.P. for some damn thing he’d gotten up to.

I went past Tate and through the open kitchen and dining area. The four-person round oak table on my left; the kitchen, neat and tidy and open to my right, a window over the sink looking into the workspace I’d created beyond, framed in hanging plants.

“This living room is a mess,” I declared as I went past the coffee table covered in wrappers and crumbs with several open pop cans on its surface.

“Sorry,” Tate said, trailing behind me. I gave him a sharp look, and he stayed back.

Like I said, no one ever came to the front door of this house. Not without us knowing they were coming and even then, all our guests and visitors just naturally gravitated to the back door, into the kitchen through my workspace on the one side and my little coffee and reading nook on the other.

J.P. had given me the heads-up that he was having some troubles with the poachers last year, and that trouble had spilled into his club’s life and to be cautious. Someone knocking on the front door was out of the ordinary, and so out of an overabundance of caution, I waved Tate back into the hall where he could do what we’d planned should something go south an’ head on up into the attic to hide an’ call for help.

I went to the door and cracked it, fully expecting law enforcement. I was more ‘n a little taken aback and immediately had my back up when I saw men clad in worn riding leathers on the other side of the door.

“What d’ you want?” I demanded, not recognizing any of them to be Voodoo Bastards.

“Lookin’ for your brother,” the man on the other side of the door grunted.

“Ain’t here,” I said quickly, and equally swiftly, I tried to shut the front door, but it caught on his big boot that he’d thrust forward into the crack.

“Get your foot out my front door,” I demanded coldly. “I told you, he ain’t here.”

I was vaguely aware of Tate doing the right thing, moving down the hallway, back toward the bedrooms. He had to pull down the ladder and get on up into the attic, so I needed to buy him some time. I resisted the men at the door an’ tried to keep them talking.

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