17. SHROOM AND DOOM

BIGFOOT

I walked into my clubhouse with my son in my arms. He was knocked out from the pain meds the doc had given him when he set and casted my boy’s arm. Thankfully, it was a clean break that didn’t require surgery of any kind. Still, my boy had been miserable before they finally gave him meds to manage the pain.

My eyes darted around the wide expanse of our clubhouse until they landed on my woman. She scared the absolute shit out of me when she pulled her disappearing act. Then, to find out she had been in the hands of Diego Rivera made me almost leave my son in the care of my men. Diego was the brother known for heading up the human trafficking side of the Rivera Cartel business. He was a ruthless fucker who didn’t hesitate to take out his enemies. If what Sammy said was true and she humored him, that was almost a scarier proposition than not getting her home. It made me wonder why he set her free and what that meant for her future. Protecting her from the Mojave Devil’s MC was one thing. Protecting her from an obsessed Diego Rivera would be a whole different level.

I moved closer and deposited Hawk on the couch closest to me, so I could go wrap my woman in my arms and reassure myself that she was there, safe inside the walls of my clubhouse. When I got closer, it finally hit me who Sammy was sitting with. Rosalie was on one side of her and Sweatpea and Princess were on the other.

“They’ve been regaling her with stories about which brother fucks the best and how you rank.” I turned to see Baffle beside me with an amused look on his face.

“Why the fuck did you let that happen?” How in the hell had my woman made friends with the club girls? That shit never happened. Ol’ ladies never mixed with the free-range pussy on tap for any of the brothers to use. It did not give me a good feeling.

“Do you still not know the woman you claimed? There’s no letting Sammy do something, she just does.”

“Fuck’s sake!” I grumbled. “Sammy!” I called out to her. When she turned to find me, the grin that spread across her face told me I was in big trouble. I just didn’t know if I would enjoy it or end up hearing a never-ending litany of reasons why we couldn’t be together. First it was Melissa, then it would be the women who hung around the club to give it up to the brothers.

“I should have made sure Kingston put her in my suite,” I said under my breath.

Baffle laughed, slapped me on my back, and wished me luck before he moved back over to the bar.

“How is Hawk? Is he going to be okay?” Sammy said by way of greeting. I smiled down at her, thankful that my boy was the first thing on her mind.

“It was a clean break. He has a cast for the next six weeks or so. The doctor thinks it will heal up just fine as long as we can keep him from injuring himself again.” Sammy chuckled at that.

“Boys will be boys and all that?” she asked.

“Something like that.”

“To be expected, considering who his father is,” she added.

“I need to get him tucked into bed. Come upstairs with me?” I made it a question, but there was no way I could leave her down here now that I laid eyes on her. “Need you with me,” I said before she could respond.

“Okay, I’ll follow you.”

I was thankful as fuck that we wouldn’t have to have a private conversation amidst the whole fucking club and the few hangers-on who lingered about. “I’ll have a talk with the club girls about what’s appropriate and not afterward. That should have never happened.”

“No. You’re not going to do that. I asked them a question and they answered me in the most respectful way possible. They didn’t volunteer any information that wasn’t requested, and I’m not holding what they said against you. We weren’t together when you slept with them, right?”

“Fuck, Sam. I didn’t sleep with all of them.”

She winked at me. “I know. They told me. Rosalie was the only one.” She winked at me playfully. “At least of the three who would talk to me anyway. Some of the other girls wouldn’t come near me as soon as they heard my name.”

“They’re the smart ones.” Sammy laughed at my response. “Can you grab my keys out of my front, right pocket. The long, silver one opens my door.”

Sammy reached into my pants pocket and I had to try very hard not to pop a fucking boner considering I had my boy in my arms. It felt good to have her fingers on me, even if she was innocently reaching for my keys. Once she got my door opened and we walked inside, I heard Sammy gasp.

“Wow. I was not expecting this!” I turned and smiled at her. “You were expecting some shithole with posters of naked women lining the walls?”

“Well, yeah,” she admitted. I watched for a minute as she spun and took the whole place in - at least what she could see of it.

“Second door on the left, can you make sure it’s open?” I asked. I still wasn’t all the way healed from my accident and carrying Hawk was taking a toll on my fucking body. My arm shook and the one that had been broken - much like my son’s - screamed at me for the strain I put it under.

“Oh my God!” Sammy all but shouted. “You shouldn’t be carrying him like that.”

“He doesn’t weigh that much,” I argued as I got him to his bedroom and laid him down on top of the covers. I bent to pull his shoes off and ended up sucking in a hard breath as pain shot up through my ribs and straight into my chest. It felt like something inside ripped all over again, and I cursed myself for not getting Baffle or one of the other men to bring my son up to my rooms for me.

“Here, let me do that,” Sammy offered as she gently pushed me out of the way and bent to take my boy’s shoes off his feet.

“Do you think he’ll be out for a while?” Sammy asked as she lifted a fleece blanket up over my boy and tucked him in.

“They gave him some pretty strong meds.” I held my hand out to her. “Come on, let’s go to the other room to talk.”

When we made our way back to the living room, Sammy looked around in awe again. “Honestly, this is amazing. I always thought you guys only had like one room and a shared bathroom for like twelve of you.”

“That’s pretty specific,” I teased.

“It may have been a fantasy at some point.”

“To fuck twelve of my club brothers?” I couldn’t even name twelve of the bastards who would be fit to breathe the same air as her, let alone fuck her.

She giggled. “No, but there were these fantasies I had based on a television show and being a fly on the wall in the shower when you all came in to get clean.”

“You think we throw communal shower parties?” I groaned. “Fuck’s sake, no wonder you didn’t want anything to do with me. You thought I’d been here having sausage fest showers.”

She giggled again, and it pleased me to notice that she kept her laughter contained so as not to disturb my boy. “Stop trying to make me laugh. Tell me about Hawk. Is he really going to be okay, and where is Melissa?”

I shook my head. “We’ll get to that in a minute. You scared the fuck out of me today.”

“Honestly?” she questioned. “I scared the hell out of myself too. What if he hadn’t let me go?” She curled up next to me and let her head droop down to rest on my shoulder on my uninjured side. “He could have taken me. I don’t know why he didn’t, but that’s all I keep thinking about. My life as I know it could be over.”

“Maybe, for tonight, we should just thank our lucky fucking stars that he let you out of that vehicle and leave it at that. I’m not sure I can handle a conversation about one of the biggest human traffickers in our area having had you so close when there was nothing I could have done to save you.”

I stood from the couch, where we had tucked in only a moment ago. “Come on, I need something different right now.”

“Something like?” Sammy asked.

“Something like you in my arms with very few clothes between us.”

“What’s going on here?”

“What do you think is going on? I already told you exactly what I want. You’re mine, Sammy. My ol’ lady, if you’ll have me. My only woman, and I want to be your only man. It’s as simple as that. I won’t share you and I’d never ask you to share me. It’s just the two of us in this.”

“And your son, his mom, your club, my family…”

I shook my head. “Nope. They all matter to us, but they don’t have a say in what’s happening between us. That is a you and me zone.”

A smile spread on her face. “I kind of like that. A you and me zone.”

“Good because I meant it. Haven’t been with another woman since before my accident and don’t plan to again now that I have you.”

“How can you be so sure? It hasn’t been that long since we met.”

“Three weeks and five days,” I told her.

Her eyes widened, as did her smile. “You’re counting how long we’ve known one another?”

“I may have been keeping track of how long it took to get you to agree that you’re mine.” I leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “I want you because you’re different. You can handle your shit. You don’t panic. You take action. You’re fucking loyal as hell, even when you have no reason to be other than your curiosity or conscience or whatever got the best of you. It kept you by my side in the hospital.”

“Maybe that was loyalty, or perhaps it was because of the fantasies I was having about you. Maybe, I didn’t want to give them up so soon.”

“Whatever kept you there, I’m thankful as fuck for it.”

We walked into my bedroom and stood there for a minute before I took matters into my own hands. I pulled my cut off and laid it gently on the back of my desk chair. Then I reached over and pulled her shirt free from her body. She didn’t try to stop me and that only encouraged me to keep going. By the time I had her down to her bra and panties and me in my boxer briefs, I moved us closer to the bed.

“I feel like you’re forgetting a few key pieces of clothing there, big guy.”

“We still have some things to talk about first before I take those last pieces off.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“I hope it’s not.”

“Well, you better spill it then because I’m not really good with the whole anticipation thing.”

I opened my mouth to tell her when someone started to frantically beat on the door. I jumped up and ran over to the door to keep whoever it was from waking Hawk. “What the fuck is so urgent?”

“We need you in the lower level now.” Baffle wasn’t usually one to lose his cool, but his tone suggested there was a big fucking emergency. Lower level was their code word for the cave system.

“What the hell is going on that you need me down there?”

“The shit we found before is spreading.” Dime said. “What you did before should have kept it from spreading, but…”

“Give me a minute to get some clothes on and figure something out. I’ll be right down.”

I shut the door in their faces and went back to the bedroom where I immediately caught Sammy’s eyes. She looked like a fucking angel there in my bed. I hated the fact that I was the president for the first time in my life. “I’m about to trust you with something important. No one outside of this room is to know that you were made aware.”

“You have my word.”

With anyone else it wouldn’t have been enough, but I trusted Sammy. “We have a problem in our grow house?”

She snickered. “Your pot not producing to standard?”

“Not pot, baby. We grow shrooms in the cave system below ground.”

“You grow what now?”

I pushed my hand through the longer hair on top of my head and sighed as my eyes met hers again. “Shrooms.”

“The kind that get people all fucked up and seeing shit that isn’t there?” She asked.

“Yeah, baby.”

I waited for her judgement, but it never came. Instead she sat there on her knees in my bed in nothing but a purple bra and panty set that had my mouth watering. “What’s the problem?”

“Something funky is happening to them and we need to try to salvage what we can. I have to go and…” Hawk came to mind. “Shit, I need to call my mom to come get Hawk.”

“Or you can go take care of business and I can stay here for when he wakes up. Does he need meds again or food or…” She cut herself off and I knew in that moment that I wasn’t just claiming her. I would make it official and marry her too. The woman put me, my kid, and my club above everything else, despite the day she had.

“Loyal to a fucking fault,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing. He’s good for meds. I’ll be back before he needs more. His discharge papers and everything are in the bag over there on my desk. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Of course.” She climbed out of the bed and grabbed my t-shirt up off the floor. When she dragged it over her head and let it settle, it hung down almost to her knees. “Go, take care of business and maybe call Uncle Josh to help you.”

“Josh?” I asked.

She grinned. “He’s a horticulture expert. He has a fancy degree he never tells anyone about, but he also grows a lot of shit. He’s the one who takes care of the food we grow as a co-op endeavor at the campground. We’re all supposed to pitch in, but most of it falls on Josh since he has the green thumb in the family and not many of the campers stick around long enough to reap the benefits, so they don’t bother with putting in the effort.”

“Good to know. I’ll give him a call. Thanks, baby. My phone is on me, in case Hawk has any trouble.” I knew for a fact that Josh was out of town with Melissa. It was the reason I had to be the one to get to the hospital to be there for our son. He needed at least one of his parents there with him.

“We’ll be just fine.”

I leaned in and kissed the hell out of her before I turned and left to go try to salvage whatever was left of our fucking crop.