Chasing Claire (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) (32 page)

“What’s that dead junkie got to do with our girl? Fucker’s been gone for a while now.” Prosper’s eyes narrowed.

Reno didn’t hesitate to lay it out for his uncle.

“Cocksucker beat her when she was carrying his own. He hurt Claire so bad that she lost the baby. Just about tears her apart to even talk about it. She can’t have any kids, Prosper. And no one knows that shit. Not even her sister. It messed her all up.”

Prosper’s mouth closed into a hard line and his eyes slit to daggers. He bunched up his already taut muscles and clenched his fists. With barely controlled rage, he stood and paced the floor like a captured beast. All of a sudden, the room seemed too small to cage the big man in. He growled and heaved and sputtered. Furiously, Prosper picked up the shot glass and threw it against the wall with
such force that bits of it came back and landed on the table. The bottle quickly followed.

“Motherfucking, cocksucking, sonofabitch.” Prosper stood clenching and unclenching his fists. He felt the shots of anger-driven adrenaline course through his body in long rapid streaks. It took a while before all that rage landed. When it did, Prosper punched his fists bloody into the oak wall.

“That shit’s on me. On my goddamn watch. You’re telling me that Claire’s got to live with the reminder of that good-for-nothing junkie every time she sees a kid, or a pregnant woman? Bastard will never be gone for her.” Prosper didn’t seem to know what to do with himself. Pacing like a tiger, kicking and throwing anything that got in his way.

Reno waited him out.

“Goddammit, Reno. No wonder she runs. How the hell is she ever supposed to want to stick around long enough to feel something that always brings her pain? How’s she supposed to want something that she’s never had? Except for the little I gave her, and I was gone too soon. Fuck Jack, for being a weak sonofabitch. And fuck Maggie too, for never seeing him for what he was. This is on me.”

Prosper laid his arms down hard on the table. The tiny razor sharp shards of glass embedded themselves into his skin. Points of crimson glistened and pooled.

Reno saw the sorrow in his uncle’s eyes. And the guilt.

“I got this, Prosper. I’ve got her. I’m there. I just have to keep it that way. I’ve got to admit it, me acting like a dick for all those months didn’t help matters. But like I said, we are getting past that. And that other shit, Prosper, that ain’t on you. Raine and Claire are two of the kindest, strongest, smartest women that I’ve ever known. Part of that is because of the shit they’ve been through. That shit taught them to be tough. They are beautiful inside and out. They are survivors.”

Prosper shot back, “Bullshit, Reno. They were babies,
babies
when Maggie died. No kid should ever have to be strong to survive. Not separating those kids from their weak, pathetic father was flawed, fucking thinking on their mother’s part. I never should have gone along with it. And that is something that I will regret until my dying day.”

Prosper looked hard at his nephew then.

“Knowing the kid part, and all the rest, you willing to take that on, Reno?”

“Yeah, I’m willing. More than willing. So much more than that. I love her. I can’t breathe without her. Shit, Boss, I wouldn’t want to. I don’t want to be in a world without her in it. Honest to Christ, when I was lying in that car bleeding my guts out, my only fucking regret was that I would never be able to make right all that had gone wrong between us.” Reno leaned forward. He had his hands on his knees, and he looked his uncle straight in the eye. “But now I have that chance and I am not gonna fuck that up. She loves me too, Prosper. Feeling that, knowing it to be true, I can take anything on.”

Then Reno ripped his heart from his chest, held it in his hand, and placed it out on the table in front of the man that he loved.

“Like you said, she’s your own. Question is if you want me there. I have to tell you, I’m going to marry her. With or without your blessing, Prosper. But for her sake, and for mine, sure would be nice to know you’re good with this. So when it comes down to it, do you think I’m good enough for your daughter, man?” Reno’s hand shook as he put it on the table. His whole body tensed.

Prosper leaned in too. He dropped his hand hard on his nephew’s shoulder.

“You’re my own too, son. You have been a part of me ever since the day you came out red and screaming. I was there that day, and I’ve been there ever since. I stepped up when your pop died, not
because I had to, but because I wanted to. Hell, yeah, I think you’re good enough. But, I’m telling you right now, that whoring shit is done. I got a good idea what brought you to that, but now that’s over. And not just for now, you marry my girl, you keep that for her, forever. I know what goes on in the club, and I don’t give two flying fucks what the other brothers do. I had this same talk with D. Yeah, I did. I told Diego the same thing about marrying Raine that I am going to tell you about marrying Claire. I don’t give two shits where you get hungry, son, but you eat at home.”

Reno nodded. “Would never do that to her.”

Prosper took a good long look at his nephew, then nodded.

“Claire’s good with this? You sure she wants to marry your sorry ass?” Prosper reached for the box again, opened it and took another look.

“Yep.” Reno’s clenched fists started to open and relax. “She does. Can hardly believe it myself.”

Then he joked, “Tying her to the chair ’til she said yes probably had something to do with it. A little trick in persuasion that I learned from my uncle.”

Prosper snorted and then gave out a low chuckle. “You didn’t learn that from me. I ever try that with Pinky, she would untie herself and use the rope to hang me.”

He let out another slow chuckle, reached into the box on the table and offered Reno one of his Sunday cigars. The two men sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes.

Reno watched as the tension slowly began to leave Prosper’s face.

“I didn’t know that they made that shit in the shape of a heart. Nice fucking ring.” Prosper reached for the ring box again.

“Yeah, as soon as she said yes, I drove to every damn jeweler in the county. I finally settled on this one.” Reno leaned in and looked at it too. “Hope she likes it.”

“Are you kidding? Claire is going to goddamn love it,” Prosper reassured him.

Reno smirked at his uncle.

“She wants this big-deal wedding. Cake, white dress, champagne, and all the rest of it.”

“Yeah?” Prosper grinned.

“Yeah.” Reno grinned back.

“Jesus, the women are going to be all over that,” Prosper said. “They’ve got a baby girl running around to spoil the shit out of, and now there’s going to be a big fucking wedding to plan. Dolly and Pinky are going to think they died and went to heaven.”

Then he added thoughtfully, “I guess we fucking deserve some happiness around here.”

Prosper and Reno sat together for a while then, each in his own happy thoughts.

Then Reno watched as Prosper got up and moved to the wall safe. After a few spins and clicks, the heavy door swung open.

Prosper reached in and found what he was looking for. Then he took a cloth from the wet bar and made an effort to clean the booze, the glass, and the blood off the table. When it was cleaned well enough, he threw down a blue-backed document.

He nodded to Reno. “That is yours.”

Reno was confused. “What are you talking about?’

“Read it.” Prosper leaned back in the chair with his muscled arms crossed in front of him. He watched on as his nephew tried to make sense of the document.

“This is a land deed,” Reno said, still perplexed. “This ain’t mine. I don’t own any land.”

“Yours now, son,” Prosper said.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Reno asked again.

“It’s a couple of acres. Extends off the property line of this house here. There’s nothing on it. It needs clearing. But it’s on road
front, has sewer lines and all that shit. If you are up for putting the work into it and having a mean sonofoabitch like your uncle here for a neighbor, it’s yours.”

“Mine?” Reno carefully skimmed through the pages of the document.

“Yep. Consider it a wedding present. For you and Claire.”

Reno fell speechless. He looked at his uncle. Then he looked down at the land deed in his hand. Then back to his uncle.

“Shit. I don’t know how to thank you,” Reno said gruffly.

“Don’t need to thank me. You’re my goddamn nephew and I fucking love you.” Prosper put his hand hard on Reno’s shoulder. “But if you mess this up with Claire, I’m going to put a bullet right through your heart.”

Reno scrubbed his hand over his face and grinned. “Don’t start loading that six shooter anytime soon, because you’re going to be disappointed. There won’t be no need to shoot me, Boss. There won’t be any need at all.”

“I know that, son.” Prosper grinned back. “Now let’s go tell your mother and your aunt the good goddamn news. You know those two hens have been sitting with their eyes glued to that door ever since we walked in. Drives my woman crazy, absolutely insane, that she can’t hear through these walls.”

Dolly and Pinky, who had given up on the coffee and a little somethin’ somethin’ an hour ago, were now just filling their cups with a little somethin’ somethin’. The two worried women looked up as the heavy doors to the office slammed wide open.

The first thing they saw when those heavy doors opened was Prosper holding heavily on to Reno, as the two of them powered out together through the wide archway. Prosper had Reno’s neck in
a stranglehold tight against him and his big forearm ran wet with streaks of blood. Long, thin shards of embedded glass caught the light and glistened against his heavily tattooed forearm. Dolly and Pinky looked past the two men, and what they saw through the open office door made their blood run cold. The wall was splattered and stained, chairs lay broken on the floor, and smashed glass littered the smooth blue carpet.

The two women reached under the counter for each other’s hand at the same exact time. This could not be good.

Unexpectedly, Prosper’s face broke out in a big grin. He pulled Reno in tight to him one last time, then he placed a big resounding man kiss on his nephew’s head.

“Women, looks like you got a damn wedding to plan.” Prosper looked very pleased with himself.

Dolly looked at her son and her son looked right back at her. Then Reno smiled a smile that his mother had not seen on his face since the Christmas he got his first dirt bike.

“Yeah, mom. I’m going to marry Claire. You good with that?” Reno moved to put his arms around his mother.

“Yeah, baby boy. I’m good with that,” she answered. Dolly hugged her son close. A satisfied sigh of relief broke through from her anxious heart. Then they both turned to Prosper who had gathered his woman into his arms and kissed her hard. Pinky blushed and seemed to be fully enjoying every bit of her husband’s attentions. But then she pushed away from him, took a good long look at his arm, and handed him a shot from the good bottle.

Prosper, Reno, and Dolly watched Pinky walk down the hallway toward the bathroom to retrieve the first aid kit. When they heard her long-suffering sigh, they grinned at each other.

And for that one moment, all was right in their world.

CHAPTER 53

T
oday had been a good day. An early morning rain had washed away the sticky humidity of the last few hours and had left in its place a light clean breeze. The heavy veil of mist had moved on at midmorning and the sun in all its glory had finally broken through. Its warm rays came streaming down in thin beams, and turned each remaining droplet into small prisms of light.

Reno and Prosper had taken a step back from clearing the land that would be our home, and I had taken a step back from finding the perfect wedding dress which, according to Raine, I had already found several times over. When I refused to shout out “Yes to the dress” at the most recent perfect-fitting, just-right-priced wedding gown, my sister accused me of enjoying the whole shopping experience so much that I refused to choose one.

She was not wrong.

But today was the day to put all personal endeavors aside and give back.

The Hells Saints had just completed a weekend of their annual charity event and everyone was feeling the satisfaction that came from a good deed done. I had counted seventeen patches in the past two days. All charters and allied clubs had come together with their friends and families for a charitable run. The event had ended in a weekend of horseshoe, pool, and dart tournaments, raffles, live music, and a grand finale clambake. Even Glory had put aside her
aversion for being anywhere that Jules might be and had come out to help. And even though it hadn’t been expected of us, Glory, Raine, and I showed up the next day to help Dolly, Pinky, and the boys clean up.

“Well, that’s about it,” I said to Pinky.

“Thank heavens, that’s over until next year,” she sighed. “I don’t want to see another plate of potato salad for the rest of my life. Or at least for the next twelve months.”

I smiled at her. I finished putting the tin foil, plastic wrap, silverware, and various pots and pans back into the cabinets.