Page 41 of Forever Zara

FIFTEEN

“My bad kids need a time out.” - Timmons

Wedding: T-minus 2 days.

For three days, the cops wouldn’t tell Zara a thing.

Archie, the MC retained attorney, was able to find out they were holding Rider for 72 hours under suspicion of assault and battery. They were looking to throw every charge at him because the so-called victim was none other than the Mayor’s male assistant.

What a crock of shit.

Everyone knew it was a crock of shit too.

It didn’t stop Hawk from being questioned.

Or Zara being questioned too.

“I told you four times already. He was with me at home all night.” She’d explained as calm as Archie told her to be when talking to Sofia Fielding. Zara had never been violent before, but oh, she wanted to put a backhanded slap to the smug woman’s face.

“You would say that.”

“Officer Fielding, you are aware of the law. I don’t have to answer questions about my husband. The boys and I have been nothing but cooperative over this shit. You know Rider has done nothing wrong. Everyone in this station knows it too.”

“He’s not your husband, Zara, we can ask you anything.”

Zara saw red. “That’s Ms. Freeze to you, and he will be in two days. He was my husband last week and last month and last year.”

The questioning went nowhere, and Hawk was waiting for her outside when she could leave. He drove her home in silence. Grateful for his isolated demeanor because she didn’t think she could hold a conversation without screaming her frustration.

Annie was fit to kill.

Axel was the voice of reason and said to let Archie do what they paid him for. It was easier said than done when Zara had spent two whole nights without Rider in their house. It didn’t matter how she wasn’t alone. Annie and Ajax stopped over. The boys dropped by all day and night. She feltalonewithout him. She felt empty and not right without Rider there.

As the days went by, as the hours ticked slowly away, she wondered if they’d get their wedding after all.

Maybe they were jinxed.

Maybe this was what she’d been afraid of by saying yes to his many proposals. Hadn’t she told him she was afraid of things changing in case they lost what they had? And here they were without each other.

They wouldn’t even let her see or talk to him.

She’d never been a person to hate the police, even with the latest silly harassment the club endured, but now? She could easily hate Sofia Fielding for trying to pin a fictitious crime on her man.

Unable to settle at home, she bundled the kids into the car, aided by her ever-faithful shadow, Pretty-Boy, and they headed to the clubhouse. It was busier than usual, and there was some unrest because of Rider’s absence.

It pissed the boys off, and she stepped into the role of letting them know it was going to be okay.

It had to be.

She had a wedding to go to soon. How would it look if there was no groom at the end of the aisle?Unacceptable. So she chose to think positively.

“That doesn’t belong there,” she told a prospect when he dropped a case of beers in the hallway. “Take it through to the storage room.”

He faltered at first. “Sure thing, ma’am.”

She went on like this, organizing the already well-organized clubhouse for the next few hours, needing something to keep her busy.

The boys stuck close to her, and she appreciated their care. She’d inhaled so much of their manly, pissed off testosterone in the last few days. It was a wonder she didn’t sprout a chest-length beard like Hawk.

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