Page 8 of Wild Valentine
“Were you in the military?” I ask cautiously. I’m not sure how much he’ll want to talk, but the man only nods and taps his left hearing aid.
“Have the hearing loss to prove it.”
There’s a sudden noise from behind the bar, half yawn half snarl.
The man laughs at my startled expression as a giant dog lifts itself of the floor and stretches. “Don’t mind Heracles. He’s just woken up, haven’t you boy.”
He scratches the dog behind the ears and it rearranges itself, settling back down by the man’s feet.
We fall into an easy conversation. I ask the boy about the club and he talks eagerly, telling me it’s like one big family, how it gave him a new focus and purpose when he got released from the military. He was a prospect for eighteen months, doing menial tasks and proving himself until he was voted in.
I downloaded some articles and did my research on the plane, reading up about MC clubs and the hierarchy within them and the activities they get up to--usually running guns or drugs. But this one seems different.
It’s feels less threatening than I thought it would, and they run a restaurant and brewery. It’s hardly dangerous stuff.
We talk for about twenty minutes before Davis, as I found out he’s called, has to get things ready for opening. I thank him for his time and head out the back to my rental car.
The smell of hops hangs in the air in the courtyard from the brewery that’s out back. There’s also a mechanic’s shop and in the far corner an art studio. It must be where Scott picked up Marcus’s pieces, and I head there now.
The art gallery is tucked into a corner of the compound. There are shelves of watercolors and local crafts as well as cute vintage drawings and memorabilia. One entire shelf is woodwork with larger pieces sitting on the floor.
There are all sorts of animals, an owl in flight and a bear on its haunches, but it’s the carved warriors that make me gasp in surprise.
They’re exquisite and lifelike, their face etched in hard lines, grim looks, and one in agony. I can see why Scott got excited, especially considering the story behind the artist: a militaryveteran carving effigies of his experiences at war. Showing the grim side of the American war machine.
My spine tingles but not just with the excitement of the story.
Marcus carved these. The gruff looking biker who towered over me with a thick beard and muscular arms. He looks like he’d crush a piece of wood rather than sculpt delicate art out of it.
I long to know what’s going on behind the exterior of the hard mountain man. And it’s not just for professional reasons that I’m curious. The man made mefeelthings. Deep, dark, delicious things that stirred my stomach and tugged at my core. Thing I haven’t felt for a man before.
“Can I help you?”
I look up and blink in surprise. The woman in front of me is like something straight out of the pages of a 1950s magazine. Her polka-dot dress flares at the waist, and her hair’s half pinned back in rolls. She bounces a toddler on her hip who’s got the same dark curls as her mamma.
“What can you tell me about the artist?”
“Marcus Wild.” The toddler whines, and she sets her down on the floor. The little girl crawls over to a play area in the corner.
“He’s a local guy. His family own the sawmill, and he’s one of the MC. He lives by himself in a cabin in the woods.”
I swallow, trying to keep my voice steady, but it goes up an octave. “By himself? He’s not married?”
She shakes her head and smiles, her eyes dancing as if she can read my thoughts. “No. No girlfriend either.”
My cheeks redden, and I set the piece down quickly. I’m an open book when it comes to the mountain man I just met.
“Thank you.”
I retreat out of the shop. I’ll come back another time for more information once I can control my blushing cheeks.
Besides, I was up at 4am to catch my flight, and I’d love a hot shower and a nap.
The woman gives me a knowing smile as she watches me go.
“Come see us again,” she calls after me.
Ten minutes later, my hybrid Kia rental turns onto the road that the GPS has given me for the Airbnb. Andreas warned me it was remote, but this is positively in the middle of nowhere. I haven’t passed another dwelling for the last five minutes, and the driveway snakes around further into the woods.
