Page 4 of Property of Riptide
“He is, Letti. And if you think you can be his miracle worker, you have my support. But don’t get caught in the crossfires in the meantime. Are we clear on that?”
She snorts, telling me, “I’ll do what’s necessary to keep y’all from drugging him to make him more amenable.” With that, she twists on her feet and heads toward Elodie’s room.
“Well, now I feel like a horse’s ass,” I admit. Indiana, being a smartass, whinnies at me. Shaking my head, I remind him of what he is. “Asshole.”
“Always,” Indiana retorts as I walk through the door, shutting it behind me.
As I swing my leg up and over the saddle of my Harley, I look back at the front door, mumbling to myself, “I’m the fucking ringmaster of a circus full of clowns.” I fire up my engine, rev it for good measure and haul ass out of their driveway leaving skid marks behind, my destination is the clubhouse where I have other men waiting on me to give them the come to Jesus dressing down they deserve. They know better than to rile Icer up. He has to be handled with kid gloves and they forgot that for a brief second. Bet they don’t again after he pounded their faces and split their flesh.
Luckily, it was the communal room and kitchen that were demolished when the bomb detonated so our personal quartersare still intact. The structure is still sound, so that was meant to send a message not to completely destroy our clubhouse.
I may not be able to watch the games on the big screen with my brothers, and we may no longer have a bar to sit at and relax while tossing back a few drinks, but at least I still have a place to lay my head each night.
CHAPTER
TWO
Van
Nine Months later
My hands shake as I reread the obituary that I cut out of the newspaper. It looks old, worn, and crinkled from the many times I’ve taken it out of my wallet and scanned it. I saw the notification of his passing two weeks after I gave birth. Through my investigation, I’ve discovered he was tied to the West Texas division of the Kings of Anarchy Motorcycle Club. Growing up, he was close to Rio who is now the president and his girlfriend, Isla. I’m sure there are more parties involved in that friendship, and finding this online, instead of hearing it from him, was heartbreaking. Granted, it’s highly likely that none of them even knew of my existence, so they wouldn’t have known to contact me. Still, if nothing else, I owe it to my baby boy to learn about who he was when he wasn’t with me.
“What did you get yourself involved in, Gage?” I whisper.
At the end of our relationship, he was standoffish, pushed me away, and treated me like I was nothing more than a nuisanceto him. The fact that I was pregnant when he decided we should part ways hurt, but what broke me more was the fact that he never came back. I sent him text messages which were marked as ‘read’ so I know he was aware his boy had been born. His namesake. His mini-me. I see Gage’s face staring back at me every time I look at our son because they are a mirror image of one another.
The way he left and started treating me wasn’t like him. When we first met, he was so attentive—I got flowers handed to me every time he came home from bull riding competitions, when he was in town, we went to dinner every Friday night once I got off shift, and he would randomly show up at my job with some sort of trinket to show me how much he cared. My co-workers were jealous of me, so much so in fact that I glowed from their comparison of their relationships as opposed to mine and they’d always tell me, “he’s a keeper, Van.” So the question I never got an answer for is what the hell happened? One day we were laughing, cutting up, and cooking dinner together, and the next, he’s throwing things, yelling at me, and then it spiraled into him ignoring me altogether.
“Do I or don’t I?” I ask myself as I sit at the fork of the road. If I turn left, I’ll be going to the town where they’ll be giving him his final send off. If I turn right, it’ll take me to another state where I’ve got a new job waiting on me. My dream job as a matter of fact. I’m not supposed to start for another two weeks, so if I take a detour, they won’t miss me. The company I’ve worked at for over ten years is paying for all of my moving expenses and has even hired a company to pack and transfer my possessions. If I don’t take it, I’ll have to pay them back or they’ll take it out of my investment. That’s something the big boss pressed upon me when I accepted the promotion.
I have a week until Gage’s friends from the rodeo give him his final ride—whatever that means, so I can still make it to the event and then hit the road without anyone being the wiser. I glance at my rearview mirror and watch my sleeping boy. Maybe they’ll have the answers I need to move on and give me some closure since I’ve been stagnant, unsure of what I’ll tell our boy when he asks questions about his dad.
I shuffle the articles around and read the announcement. In it, they say he died a hero and that’s a story I need to hear firsthand so that I have a clearer picture about why he sacrificed his life instead of fighting to stay alive and come back to his family. I harbor some dark feelings when it comes to that topic but without knowing all the details, I don’t think they’ll be going away. I don’t want to live my life with anger in my heart.
“Okay, Gagey, let’s do this,” I say to my sleeping son. “Let’s go get ourselves some answers about why your daddy was a fool.”
Driving through town, trying to find a motel for us to bunker down in, I’m in la-la land. It’s as if I’ve walked onto the set of the Andy Griffith show. I laugh at the comparison because it was my grandfather’s favorite show while I was growing up. Between it and the western shows he was obsessed with, my childhood was full of wholesome, family oriented television. I think it warped my thinking because when I imagined myself settling down with a family of my own, I expected to have a beautiful marriage with the whole white-picket fence life.
“Stupid Andy Griffith,” I mumble as I park my car in the lot of a lodge-like complex that has log cabins instead of a row of rooms. It’s the only one in the vicinity with a vacancy sign flashing aboveit in neon lights. As I take in the striking view, I know I’m going to be dipping into my savings so I can afford to stay the week at such a breathtaking place. We’re just outside the border of El Paso so I was expecting sand and dust bunnies, not country lodging with mountainesque hills as the backdrop.
I shut off the engine, pluck my keys from the ignition, grab my backpack that doubles as my purse and diaper bag, then step out of the car. Across the street is a strip of stores, all with the same reminiscent feeling as the one I’m standing in front of. What did they do, all get together and decide they wanted to have an identical look? It is appealing to the eye and makes one want to settle here instead of using the town as a gateway to pass through. It’s a great marketing tool, because even though I have somewhere to be in a couple of weeks, I wouldn’t mind lingering around here and making this town my new beginning.
Sighing, I unlatch Gage’s car seat and put the handle over my forearm. He’s getting a little too heavy for me to carry him around like this, but it is convenient when he’s fast asleep since I don’t have to take the risk of waking him up as I transfer him in and out of it. Blowing out a breath, I take one step and then another until I’m across the parking lot and entering the reception area. When I notice there’s nobody behind the desk, a girlish giggle escapes me because sitting on the ledge of the counter sits an old fashioned bell. I ding it and hear a feminine voice call out, “Be right out!”
“Thank you,” I holler back, placing the base of the car seat on the ground, my back, shoulder, and neck needing a reprieve from my chunky monkey’s burgeoning weight.
I’m not kept waiting long as an older woman dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt comes jogging into the room. “Sorry about that. I had to get some towels gathered so they could bedelivered to one of our cabin’s occupants. I don’t know how two people can go through as many as they do, but it is what it is. How can I help you?” Her southern rambling has me biting my lip to keep the smile at bay.
“I need to get a room for a week,” I tell her.
“How many will be in the room?” she asks, not seeing Gage Jr. since he’s not within viewing sight.
“Just me and my boy,” I say, glancing down which has her leaning over to see what I’m looking at.
“Oh, my,” she gasps. “What a cutie. He hasn’t missed any meals, has he?” I don’t take her words as offensive because she said it with a smile. Plus, in my opinion, him having those rolls shows that I’m a good mom. I’ve read where once he starts toddling, he’ll lose some of them, but for now, he definitely has the whole miniature Jabba the Hut thing going on, which I find absolutely adorable.
“No, he hasn’t,” I answer. “And he doesn’t allow me to forget. If I’m even a minute behind in his feeding schedule, he reminds me. Loudly.”
