Page 3 of Ghost

Ghost

“No, don’t go!” The scream had my eyes snapping open. I laid there and caught my breath before I sat up on the side of the bed and wiped my hands down my face. Damn dream. The squeal of tires. The grinding sound of metal. It was as if I’d been there when the crash had happened. When in all actuality it was how I’d pictured the accident that had taken Stormy and BJ after I saw the condition of the truck and read the accident report from the police. Two innocent lives lost when the guy with the blood alcohol level double the legal limit decided to get on the freeway headed in the wrong direction. He walked away with a few bruises from his seatbelt and the airbag as it disengaged.

The dream this time had been different, though. Where before it ended with me viewingtheirbodies and saying goodbye, it changed to the three of us standing on the beach, facing the sun. Stormy and BJ started to walk away hand-in-hand as if headed toward the sun. A good bit away, they stopped and turned their heads, looked at me and smiled. BJ gave a small wave,andStormy blew a kiss. When they turned back, they continued to walk away until the rays from the sun absorbed them.

“Shit, why now?” I stood and walked into the bathroom. After I relieved myself and splashed cold water on my face, I went back into the bedroom, then into the closet and pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Never once did I allow my eyes to drift to the shelf above my head that held the two intricately carved boxes. My daily reminder of everything I lost. Instead, I donned my running shoes and walked out of the room. Off the small table by the door, I grabbed my cell and keys, then stepped out into the dark.

Once the door was locked, I shoved both in the pocket of my sweatshirt, pulled the hood up and over my head, and took off at a run. Nothing like breathing crisp air into your lungs to clear your head.

Dawn was still a couple hours away, but I made my way down the sidewalk and through the neighborhoods by the glow of the streetlights. Only a couple houses I passed had lights on inside. Other than that, it was just me, my thoughts, and plenty of pavement to pound my feet on.

Wasn’t sure how long I ran, but I continued to push my body. It was familiar, the burn in my chest, the ache of my muscles. I’dranlike this every day for the first six months after I arrived. It centered me. Between my activities with the club and the easy acceptancefromthe men, I slowly began to heal. To find my way back.

So, why now? Deep in the surface of my mind, I knew what had brought the change in the dream. The trip I made with Devil and Jag to return Jas back to the Ops.

That day had been just another long ass day on the road until we finally pulled into San Jose. Found the motel where we would be staying overnight and snagged our rooms. It was my first long haul as a patched member with Black Hawk,andI couldn’t even complain about making the trip inside a cage instead of on my bike. Because I owed the club a lot for taking in the broken man I was when I arrived with Flirt those months back.

We hadn’t been at the motel long when we heard the rumble of pipes in the distance. Two came into view while an SUV had followed behind them. When Jas had started jumping up anddown,I figured it had to be her people. They pulled in and the two men on the bikes dismounted,andwhen the one got both his feet on the ground, he had just enough time to catch Jas as she jumped into his arms. Jas finished with one and moved to the next man and did the same as two women stepped out of the SUV.

That was the moment everything around me centered on the short-haired blonde. I heard everyone’s voices andthe thingsthey had said, but I hadn’t given a shit about any of it. My only interest had been on the woman.

“Luna?” Iasked,and the woman turned her head away from Jas and looked at me.

“Oh. My. God. Braxton Samuel Carver!” sheyelledand more talking from the others followed. There’d been questions from the other woman about me. I knew my own brothers were curious, but I hadn’t taken my eyes off Luna for fear she’ddisappear.

The other woman called her Moon instead of Luna and was going on about shit. She’d even stepped in front of Luna as if to protect her from me. As if that was ever a worry.

I’d narrowed my eyes at the woman as she ranted about getting her knives and whenherfocus moved to one of the men after he said something to her, I grabbed Luna’s arm and headed toward my motel room.

I closed the motel’s door behind us, and it had been the first feeling I had that maybe life hadn’t forgotten about me.

Now, as I headed down the sidewalk to my place, it was hard for me to believe that it had been almost a month since I saw Luna. Touched her. Ran my hands over her body. The phone calls weren’t enough,andthe distance between us was too far. I needed to work on a plan to change that. I needed Luna like the air I was taking into my lungs. Second chances were rare, and no way was I going to let mine pass me by.

By the time I was backinsidemy place, my body was no longer strained and exhausted, it was exhilarated. With my mind clear, I stripped the sweaty clothes from my body and stepped into the shower.

Thirty minutes later, I was unlocking the back door to the pawn shop. Been too long since I lookedforwardto doing a job, instead of just something to keep my mind occupied so I could forget.

Life was forliving,wasn’tit? And somewhere between my last days in the military and now, I seemed to have forgotten that.

Chapter Two

Luna

I thought I’d put one of the worst days of my life behind me for the most part. But I’d been wrong, and I knew it the moment he said my name. Braxton Carver. He’d been a friend, a neighbor, and the first and only man to stomp on my heart.The funnypart, he hadn’t even known he’d done it. When I looked up at the six foot five man in front of me that day, Icatalogedevery visible change in him from the last time I’d seen him. He sported a shaved head, instead of the close-cut military style that had at least shown some of his black hair. But the biggest change in him had been his gray eyes. Where they once shined with warmth, humor, and kindness, they wereharder,and the hurt in their depths almost had made me stagger back.

Today wasn’t the first time I wondered if I would have made the trip with the others to San Jose to pick up Jas if I’d known Brax was going to be one of the men from Black Hawk at the meet. Then again, I hadn’t known he’d become a part of them in the first place.

When I recognized him, the voices around turned to muffled sounds. I knew Harmony was talking and that she probably wanted to know who and where I knew Brax from, but I wasn’t able to bring myself to answer her. Hell, I hadn’t even protested when Brax grabbed my arm and led me away from the others.

Probably because I knew Harmony would figure it out. The Lady Riders knew my story. Thanks to one drunken girls’ night and a bottle of Tequila. Lesson learned, and I hadn’ttouchedTequila since.

My initial shock of running into him that day had ended with the click of a motel room door and the sound of a lock being thrown.

“What the hell are you doing, Brax?” I asked with as much attitude as I could muster.

“What am I doing? What the hell are you doing with the Ops, Luna? Is that where you’ve been this whole time? Christ, even Stormy hadn’tknownwhere you went. Fuck, we werefriends,and you couldn’t be bothered to keep in touch?” Brax demanded, ran his hand over his head, then across the back of his neck. He acted like I owed himanexplanation on how I lived my life.

Then, I hadn’t had to find my attitude. It was there.

---