Page 26 of Sackett (Demented Souls #17)

“A re you originally from Tucson?” Selena looked up from her laptop where she’d been making changes to a couple of documents, making notes on another case, and logging the time she’d spent on each case.

“I’m sorry?”

Sackett looked up from the e-reader he’d pulled out of the backpack that seemed to hold everything he needed. She couldn’t imagine living out of a bag that small for even a couple of days, much less the week they would be in Colorado, but it wasn’t her.

“Did you ask me something?”

“I asked if you’re originally from Tucson.” She leaned back, lifting her arms in the air and arching her back. An ache had formed in her lower back from being bent over her laptop.

“No, I’m originally from Missouri.”

“How’d you end up in Tucson?”

“I was looking for somewhere to settle when I got out of the Army. I’d visit Ft. Huachuca once and liked the area. Tucson was a big enough city to have whatever I might need, without being big enough I would feel lost.”

“How long have you been in the area? Long enough for it to start feeling like home?”

“About a year and a half. And yes, it’s home now.”

“Do you ever go home to Missouri?”

Sackett shook his head. “There’s nothing there for me. No reason to go back.”

Selena watched him, sensing there was something he wasn’t telling her. Not that she got the feeling he was lying, just not being completely truthful.

“What about you? Are you from Tucson?” he asked.

She didn’t know if he really wanted to know or if he was asking to be polite. In the end it didn’t matter because he’d asked, and she wasn’t rude enough to refuse to answer. At least not when it was someone she was getting to know and wanted to be on at least friendly terms with.

“I am. I grew up in town, my family’s still there. We don’t get together as often as we should but that’s partly my fault. I’m always so busy.”

“Take the time. If you love them, take the time to spend with them before they’re gone.” There was something in his voice that made her wonder who he missed. She didn’t want to make him hurt more by asking, but still, she wondered.

“How long were you in the Army?” she asked, changing the subject to something she hoped wouldn’t make him seem, she wasn’t sure the right word for it.

Lost didn’t quite fit, maybe lonely. No that wasn’t quite right either.

Forlorn. That was it. Forlorn fit better than anything else she could think of.

“Six years.”

She did the math in her head. “So, you’re about twenty-five?”

“Twenty-eight. I bounced around a little after I got out of the army, trying to find somewhere that felt right.”

“And Tucson is right?”

“It is.” He turned to look at the TV, though she could tell he didn’t care what was on the screen, just using it as something to focus on. “I found something in Tucson that I didn’t have anywhere else.”

“What’s that?” Selena had lived in Tucson nearly all her life, with the exception of when she’d been here in Boulder for school. She wondered what her little pueblo of a town had that was such a draw to people who didn’t have the call of family and personal history there.

“I found a family. We are a rough, rag tag bunch, but the Souls are my brothers.”

“The Souls?” Selena frowned. What were the Souls?

“The Demented Souls. I thought you knew that Savage is part of the MC.” He turned his gaze back to her and watched her, a slight frown marring his forehead.

“Oh, yes, I knew he was part of a motorcycle club, but I’m not sure I ever heard the name of it, or if I did, it either didn’t register or he didn’t call it simply the Souls like you do.” She tilted her head to one side and watched him. “Why do you call them the Souls?”

He shrugged. “If we don’t want to say Demented Souls every time, it’s either DS or the Souls.

The Souls rolls off the tongue easier. Or at least it does to me.

Besides, that’s the term everyone used when I got here, and I got into the same habit.

It never occurred to me to use a different term for the club. ”

“I guess that makes sense,” she said with a chuckle.

“I hadn’t heard it and was so confused for a moment.

” Did she want to go by a name like Souls or Demented Souls?

She couldn’t think of a reason she would but if that was the group she considered family, she might not be as reluctant.

“And the guys who were here to help, the ones from Wyoming. They were all Souls too?”

“They were, but part of the chapter out of Gillette, and only two of them were ever part of the Tucson chapter. The others joined after the chapter in Gillette was founded.”

“When was that?”

“About a year ago.” He lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “I don’t know the exact date, or if there is one. Just that it started a little after Tuck had to go up there. A few of the Tucson group went up and they recruited from there.”

“But you’d met all of them before yesterday?” Had it only been yesterday that she’d been in that room, wondering how she would get out and how to keep her client from giving herself back to an abusive ex to save her ass?

“I’d met everyone.” There was a curve to his mouth as he spoke that made her want to move over to where he sat, maybe sit on his lap, and kiss him.

Whoa.

Where the hell had that thought come from?

She didn’t do that kind of thing. She didn’t have time for that kind of entanglement, especially not with someone linked to a client.