Page 18

Puck

They’d taken the cuts. Whoever had jumped Pork Chop and Ditch, ripped the leather from their backs. It was more than a simple insult, more than a slap in the face. It was a declaration of war.

Or one really stupid ass fucking mistake.

I didn’t believe that. Archer and Preacher were gone, somebody thought we were weak, and took a swing.

“God-damn it, we’ve got to find these fuckers.” Band Aid’s shrill shout echoed through the kitchen.

I fired off a text to my mom, too, to make sure Eli was good and let her know I might be late picking him up. I knew he was safe, but until I knew what the fuck was going on that silenced the nerves.

The heavy door creaked as Cam rolled out of it. They had descriptions and a general area of the attack, they’d go looking for trouble. Literally. Merc stood in the corner, phone to his ear, talking quietly.

The industrial kitchen had turned into a med tent. The man splayed out on the large steel table in the middle, bitching like the cantankerous bastard he was, was instantly recognizable.

Pork Chop, a mouthy, stout fucker with big ass sideburns and a pissed off disposition wasn’t the sort of guy that other people fucked with. Not even that close to the county limits. Seeing that he was the one Band Aid was hovering over and patching up was the biggest surprise.

“The fuck happened?” I asked him again. Because information came in fits and spurts when adrenaline ran high.

He glanced up at me, spitting blood as he spoke.

“I already fucking said that shit. Some asshole ran us off the road, right before we hit the county line. Came out of nowhere, blacked out new Challenger. Kid had to ditch it, took a hard roll without a brain bucket. Buncha assholes jumped out. Started swinging. I swung back, kid could barely get up and they went at him.”

I straightened, I’d seen that fucking car, and whistled sharply across the chaos. Merc turned, dropping his phone into his pocket and making his way to me, dodging Dekes who flew through the door, eyes wide.

“Anyone get the bikes?” Dekes, older and wiser piped up.

Younger patch, named Charlie, stood up. “Gonna need a trailer to get Chop’s, but I got his saddle bags.” Good guy, barely old enough to drink, down for whatever we asked whenever. Knew when to shut the fuck up and when to act. “Called the ambulance for Ditch, he was all fucked up.”

The irony of Ditch, being run off the road and fucked up, didn’t sit well with me.

Pork Chop spit and sputtered from the table, fighting to sit up, Band Aid shoving him back down to sew up the open gash on his forehead.

“Ditch needs a fucking CT. Kid got clocked so hard he can’t remember the day of the fucking week.” Band Aid blustered, his voice growing louder.

“I told them he wrecked out, nothing else. Got enough cactus rash they’ll buy it.” Charlie started to panic, his eyes wide like he’d done something wrong.

“Nah, you made the right call.” I smacked a hand on his shoulder. “Glad you were right behind them.”

“No shit.” He swayed, the adrenaline wearing off, so I moved him to a stool in the corner and sat him down.

“Someone get the kid a shot.”

AP ducked out toward the bar.

“Anything yet?” Pork Chop grabbed at Merc’s cut, nearly sliding off the table.

“Jesus, brother, they just left. Get sewn up, we got this.”

AP came back with a bottle of whiskey. “Kenna took Cam’s ole lady home. Clubhouse is clear. Someone tell the probie to get the truck and trailer, grab a couple of guys, and go pick up the bikes.”

Dekes gave a curt nod, gesturing he was rolling out.

“Nobody rides alone. Everyone stay strapped.” AP pointed at both of us.

“And you stay here.” Merc’s face was serious, stoic.

His father’s eyes narrowed, deep lines forming at the corners. “I am, but not because I take orders from my fucking kid. Someone has to run the show.”

“We need to ride out to the Bends. Saw a car just like that pulling out when we made the run south.”

Pork Chop’s large sideburns were covered in blood that had gushed from his left eye. But that didn’t stop him from spouting off descriptions, his busted lip splitting further. “They were white guys, but they weren’t peckerwoods,” he said. “They weren’t on shit, except an ego trip. Too much money.”

“Sound Russian?” Merc tilted his chin. The Soletskys were Ukrainian, but Pork Chop wouldn’t notice the difference.

“Nah, they weren’t that white. They pulled out from that little bar. One of them had prison tattoos on his left forearm and a scar across his left cheek. Another was more brown, maybe Native. Never seen him before, but the mean son of a bitch was stomping the kid once he was down.”

Merc’s relief was evident, but he shrugged.

“There’s a fucking laundry list of people who’d make that kind of power play.” Preacher and Archer were both gone. They were behemoths, larger than life figures. One respected, the other feared, but losing both left a power vacuum in Dry Valley.

Whoever thought we were weak was wrong.

“Gonna ride hot through the Bends,” Merc told his dad. “Put them on alert, maybe shake something out of one of those tin boxes.”

“Do it. But watch your back.”

The Bends were a series of old, busted up roads that snaked around the giant drainage ditch that housed the Dry Valley River. Each one was dotted with rusted out mobile homes and rickety old houses. The only good thing about it was that if it rained, the dry bed flooded and kept the town safe.

But not in the Bends. Nothing was safe there.

From meth to crack and everything in between, it was where dreams and people came to fade away and die.

I rode through with Merc. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t look for Eli’s mom.

Hell, I half expected Jessica to run out into the street, flag us down, and beg to see her son.

She didn’t. She was probably passed out wasted.

We didn’t see the car, but when we rounded the bend near Wanda’s, several of her boys stood out in the yard. One with a shot gun laying in his arms. He didn’t fire. Wouldn’t.

But they definitely got the message.

I would have said nothing good came from a place like this. But Kenna had. The stink, the filth, hadn’t sullied her in any way.

Here I was, wanting to dirty her all the way up.

A few hours before sunrise we headed back into town. I peeled off from Merc as he headed back to the clubhouse and headed for home. I was bone tired and craving silence and peace.

Not that it helped. Between dreaming of Kenna, splayed out and wide open on Jester’s lap, or her mouth on me, to the dirty way it felt to ride through the Bends, I tossed and turned all night.

When I finally slept, it was well into the late morning.

The sound of kids playing outside and the whir of a distant weed eater lulled me to sleep.

I’d bought the house, just outside of downtown, because it was a sort of suburban safe haven. The sort of place to raise a little boy. One who deserved a life far away from places like the Bends.

It didn’t hurt that it was only a block or two away from AP’s place. Nice neighborhood, good schools, somewhere safe for Eli because what his mother had come from was anything but. Where she was now, probably worse.

It was past noon when I got out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans and nothing else, and headed toward the coffeepot. I was halfway through the house when I heard a car door shut in my driveway.

Kenna was already skittering back to her little pickup when I opened the front door. My flannel shirt folded neatly over the rail. She looked good enough to eat. Short shorts, oversized off the shoulder t-shirt, and her hair spilling out of a messy bun on top of her head.

“It’s a little early for you.” I opened the glass door, draping one arm over it as I stepped out onto the warm concrete.

She startled with a little jump, then turned. She ducked her head when she saw me, blushing when she spent too long looking before she said anything. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I just wanted to drop that off.”

Her cheeks were pink, her expression apologetic. She looked so wholesome compared to the last time I’d seen her. I wanted to lick her from her toes all the way to that defined cupid’s bow at the top of her lip and yank her head back by that bun.

Instead, I glanced at the sky and gestured inside. “Got time for coffee?”

She thought about it for about a half second and then shrugged. “You sure you can handle my drama?”

I laughed. The annoyed anger in her voice was cute and made my cock twitch a little. “I’d chance it.”

When she didn’t brush me off and instead came inside, I rubbed my lips together to hide my smile of triumph.

“You look good,” I told her, as I grabbed my shirt and held the door for her.

“I’m a hot mess. But thanks.”

A fucking sexy one. I couldn’t help but watch the way her tight little ass bounced beneath the hem of the t-shirt as she walked to my kitchen.

I made coffee as she sat at the small table, tucking her legs underneath herself in a way that only someone that small could. Half the time, I wondered if the chairs would hold my big ass. Now I contemplated if they were sturdy enough for me to sit on one, with her on my lap, moving vigorously.

I put cream and sugar in hers, passed it down, then took mine black.

“You remembered?”

“You and my mom are the only other people ever to drink coffee in my house,” I pointed out, leaned against the counter, too antsy with her in my space after last night. “You could have kept the shirt.”

“Well, this morning I caught Nadine looking into my truck as she left for work. I’m sure she saw it, which will become an issue.

Even bigger after last night and what Jester said to her.

I don’t want to upset David. She makes everything…

something and then I react and make it more.

It just becomes—” Kenna flinched, picked up her coffee and took a sip.

“I’m sorry. You don’t want to hear any of that shit. ”