Gonzo (Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club Book 7) (9 page)

“I’m suppose to tell on you if I don’t want to be in trouble, too.
Please
just stay over there.”

Her little feet padded softly across the floor, and the mattress springs barely protested when she joined her brother. I heard Declan sigh, but I’m sure Connie didn’t. I wasn’t sure she’d heard her walk across the floor, either.

“I’ll take care of it,” I whispered.

I walked in and looked under Chloe’s blanket, then looked under her bed as I said, “Where could Chloe be?”

I left the room to check the bathroom, and when I came back she’d flown to her bed and was pulling the covers up. “There you are! I didn’t see you before. When I put you in your bed, I mean for you to stay there unless you need to use the bathroom, or unless something’s wrong. Okay my little Chloe-bug?”

“I’m not a bug!” she said with a giggle.

“Yeah, you’re my little Chloe-bug, all cocooned up in her princess sheets.” I dropped to my knees, propped my elbows on the side of her bed, and brought my face closer to hers. “Seriously, Chloe, you have to stay in your bed. I think you should apologize to Declan for not caring that you were going to get him in trouble along with yourself. He could’ve told on you and kept himself out of trouble, but he kept quiet, knowing he’d get in trouble even though he begged you not to come over there. I’m not going to make you apologize because it needs to come from your heart. Think about it and decide. You don’t have to do it right now.”

I kissed her forehead and went to Declan’s bed. I’ve never been prouder of him than I’d been when he didn’t snitch on his sister, but let her come to him because she needed him. I wasn’t sure I could tell him that without it coming across wrong though, so I told him, “I’m proud of you, Declan. I love the way you look out for your sister.” I dropped to my knees and propped my elbows on the side as I’d done for Chloe. I didn’t want the naughty child to get more attention than the good child. “Do you miss being able to sleep with Chloe?”

“Yeah, but Aunt Constance says we’re too old.”

“She’s right. I love that you’re so close to each other, but you need your time alone at night. Aren’t you afraid you’ll get girl cooties?”

“I don’t have cooties!” Chloe yelled from her side of the room, and I grinned at Declan.

“She doesn’t,” he said, his face serious. “I’m pretty sure some of her friends do, but I checked Chloe’s hair
real
good and there wasn’t
anything
crawling around.”

I suppressed a laugh as I said, “Well, I’m glad to hear that, but you can’t see girl cooties. They pretty much only transfer to boys when they’re asleep though, and now that you’re four, she probably has them. You might have boy cooties, too, and you don’t want to pass them to her when she’s asleep, do you?”

He shook his head, his little face so solemn I felt guilty for lying, but I kissed his forehead as I’d kissed his sister’s, and left the room. I sat on the top step with Connie again and she glared at me but didn’t say anything. I’d heard her listening right outside the door, so I knew she’d heard it all.

“Do you think we really have cooties we can give each other in our sleep?” Chloe asked.

“Why didn’t Aunt Constance tell us?”

“Maybe it’s a secret we aren’t supposed to know?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll stay over here. I don’t want your boy cooties.”

“I’m glad we can’t pass them to each other when we’re awake.”

“Me too.”

G
onzo

Connie and I waited another five minutes before we went down. I heard them drift off to sleep by the cadence of their breath, but I waited for her to decide enough time had passed.

She took me to the den and had fire in her eyes as she accused, “You
lied
to them!”

“My wife boiled lavender in water, strained it into a squirt bottle, and labeled it Monster Spray. She put it beside the bug spray in a cabinet they couldn’t get into, but let them watch her get it out so they’d think it was as dangerous as the bug spray. She spritzed their room with it, their closets, under their beds. She put a lot on their curtains and around the door frame. She told them it was poison to monsters and would keep all of them out of their room, and they believed her.”

She crossed her arms and her glare grew harder, and I asked, “Do you tell them Santa Claus is real?”

She narrowed her eyes and I chuckled. “In a year or two we’ll laugh with them over it, but by then they won’t want to sleep together, hopefully. I’d
love
for Chloe to think boys can give her cooties until she’s about forty, but I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to make her believe it that long.”

“Chloe, not Declan?”

I shrugged. “I was a teenage boy once. When your dick’s hard you don’t care about cooties when you’re a teen. STDs, AIDS, and teen pregnancy are all real and they
still
fuck without a condom.”

“You’re crude.”

“You gonna soap my mouth?”

“Would you like that?”

“I’d like to see you try.”

I suppressed a smile when she realized she didn’t have a comeback. She saw me holding it back, and she rolled her eyes and smiled. “
Goodness
but you’re impossible.”

“We’re having a picnic at the clubhouse Saturday — one week from today. We’ll have members of law enforcement with their families, and club members will have their wives and kids there. Nothing illegal, nothing terribly raucous. We roast a pig, and the women bring side dishes and desserts. Later in the day we have paintball wars in the little wooded area in the compound, but before that we give the little kids super soakers and turn them loose in the woods against each other. Chloe and Declan will love it, and I think you might have a good time, too. There’s some cussing, but it’s casual cussing.”

“What’s the difference in cursing versus
casual cussing
?”

“They might hear, ‘The damn fire’s burning too hot, pull some of the wood away,’ but they won’t hear, ‘Fuck but I’d like to dip my cock in that cunt’.”

Her face went bright red again and I said, “Please consider it. You’ve met Harmony, and I promise you she, Gen, and Angelica will make you feel welcome. The other ol’ladies will, too, but those three are special to me and they really want to meet you and my kids.”

“Ol’ladies?”

“I know it sounds misogynistic to civilians, but it’s important in our world. It’s a title, and it deserves respect. I hope you’ll understand we have our own rules and terms, and you won’t belittle something others hold dear.”

She didn’t say anything and I asked, “What did you think of Brain and Harmony?”

“They seemed a lot more normal than you.”

I laughed. “Okay, but what about their relationship?”

“They’re obviously close. They seemed to know what each other was thinking, and it looked to me like you have some sort of connection to both of them, not just Brain.” She shrugged. “Brain came to you once when you seemed to be in distress, but Harmony went to you after you called Chloe… by the wrong name.”

“You can say Clara’s name. It’s okay. And yes, I’m close to both of them. My point is that Harmony wears a vest that says “Property of Brain” on the back. Outsiders see it and assume it means Brain owns her, and while that’s true, it also means she owns Brain. That patch keeps her safe around bikers because they know if they lay a hand on her they won’t have to deal with Brain alone, but also the entire RTMC. We don’t call law enforcement when there’s a problem, we handle it ourselves.”

“But you said law enforcement will be at your party.”

“Yeah, officers, detectives, and maybe even some of the brass. We’ve worked hard to earn their respect. They don’t approve of our vigilante activities, and are clear they’ll arrest us if they catch us, but they also don’t necessarily see us as the bad guys. We’ve helped curb the drugs and violence in the territory we claimed when we came to town, and the brass appreciates it even though they can’t officially condone it.”

“I’d never wear a patch that said I was the property of someone else.”

“Here’s a clue, you don’t have to turn someone down for something they haven’t asked you to do.” I sounded angrier than I intended, and I took a step back as I said it because I could see I scared her. Or, maybe alarmed is a better word. She wasn’t afraid of me, just wary at a tone of voice she hadn’t heard from me since the night we met.

She looked at me a few seconds and said, “I apologize. I don’t understand your world but I’ll try not to speak ill of it.”

“Thank you. If you come, you and the kids will be safer inside our compound during a party than anywhere else on the planet.”

“Will there be drinking?”

“Yes, mostly beer, but no one gets drunk until the kids are gone. I’ll have the three of you out of there long before the adult brand of partying starts.”

I could see her debating with herself, and I gave her time. Finally, she nodded and told me, “Only because I know how protective you are of them. I know you won’t put them in danger. They might be exposed to words and actions I’d rather they not see yet, but I’m certain you’ll help me deal with it so they don’t get in trouble at preschool for repeating things they shouldn’t.”

“And so you don’t have to soap their mouths?”

“Yeah, that too.”

I hugged her without asking permission first, and I caught her off guard but she relaxed in my arms within a dozen of her quite rapid heartbeats. “Thank you for trusting me, even when you aren’t sure.”

“You sure like to hug a lot.”

I hadn’t hugged anyone except my brothers and a few of their ol’ladies since my old life had been violently taken from me. At first, I figured it was best she didn’t know, but then I changed my mind and told her as I let her go.

Her eyes grew wide as she considered my words, and finally asked, “Then why me?”

“Because you’re important to me.”

“Surely you’ve hugged women while you’ve copulated with them?”

I thought of all of my favorite positions and realized my arms are
never
around the woman I’m fucking. “No. Never. Not since… Never.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

“You’re important to me. You’re acting as the mother of my children and you’re doing a damned good job, but it’s becoming more than that. I respect you, and I think I’m beginning to understand you. You’ve experienced loss, too, and you’ve picked yourself up and done what needed doing, and you managed it spectacularly.” I wanted to tell her I’d kill for her if I had to, in order to keep her safe, but figured that might be too much.

She gave me a half smile as she said, “Every time I think I’m beginning to understand you, I realize I have no idea what makes you tick. The only thing I’m sure of is that you’re a guardian and not a predator. Guardians have to slaughter to protect sometimes, but they don’t do it without reason. I’m also sure you love your kids and would do anything to protect them and keep them safe.”

“I think I needed to hear that, Connie. Sometimes it seems as if you still see me as a lowlife scum of the earth. I usually don’t care what people think, but I need you to see who I am. If we’re going to work as a team to raise the twins, we have to be able to work together, and it’ll help if we like each other.”

“I’ve done this alone for so long, I’m not sure how well I’ll manage the team thing.”

“We’ll figure it out. For now, I should leave before I wear out my welcome. Thank you for inviting me into your home, and I hope we can work out a time for me to see the three of you at least one evening this week.” Because if I hadn’t been unconscious most of last week, I’d have missed them terribly.

That thought reminded me she needed to be prepared to hear from someone else if I was out of communication and needed to get a message to her. “Oh, I need to tell you that if we have plans and I’m not going to be able to make them, you may hear from one of my brothers instead of me. We need a code word to use, so you’ll know the message is from me, so if someone calls with information, they’ll use the phrase ‘two-year-old tantrum’. If someone calls claiming to be my friend, or with the MC, and they don’t say that, call me right away. If you can’t reach me, call the bar and tell them you’re Gonzo’s Connie and you need to speak to either me, Duke, or Brain. If Duke or Brain are handy they’ll hand the phone to them, otherwise they’ll transfer you to the control room. Tell whoever they transfer you to what was said on the phone call.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“No need to be scared, it’s just a precaution — like a fire drill. Plans you make in case there’s a problem, though you don’t really expect it to happen.”

“Why would someone else call me?”

“There are a million reasons I might be somewhere without my phone.”

“Then how would you tell someone else to call me?”

“We have comms to talk to each other.” She didn’t understand, so I said, “Like encrypted radios, sort of.”

“You’d only be without your phone if you didn’t want someone to have proof you were doing something criminal.”

“I told you we cleaned up the territory we claimed. We didn’t do that by nicely asking the drug dealers to market their goods on another corner. We still actively patrol our territory, and we still make drug dealers feel a great deal of pain if we catch them on our turf. If LEO gets involved because a bystander reports it, I don’t want them to be able to place me at the scene of the crime because my phone was there.” I’d told her there were a million reasons, and now I was only giving her one possible reason. It wasn’t a lie, just wasn’t all of the truth. “If I expect to be finished with something in time to meet up with you and the kids, but we run into problems and I’m delayed, either I or a brother will call you. They will use our phrase so you’ll know it’s one of us. Eventually, I hope you’ll get to know everyone who’s likely to be in the control room so we won’t need a phrase, but for now it’s just a safety valve.”

“LEO?”

“Law enforcement officials. Police, sheriff’s department, DEA, ATF, FBI — it covers them all.”

“Just the fact you need an all-inclusive term is…” She took a breath and let it out. “Okay.
Two year old tantrum
. Got it.”

As we walked toward the front door she asked, “You didn’t have to work this weekend?”

“Duke met Gen when we were looking for property in Chattanooga. Or, I should say, became acquainted with her again, because they knew each other as teens though they’d never dated. Anyway, he knew he wanted her, but the first couple of months we were here were going to be rough while we established our territory.
Now
, belonging to us means safety, but during those first months it put loved ones at risk. Those already married left their families in Atlanta until we had things under control here.” I shook my head before I got too far off track. “Anyway, Duke knew he was going to go after Gen, so he patrolled an ungodly amount of hours and worked himself to the bone. We had a skeleton crew in the beginning, so we all had to patrol a lot. His working so much more gave us a break. However, he’d let us know up front he was doing it so he could have an extended time away from patrolling once he went after Gen.”

I expected her to understand but it was clear she hadn’t, so I tried again. “I haven’t had a family or a girlfriend. I’ve been the one they can call when they’re shorthanded at any of our locations, because I’m almost always available.” I shrugged. “I can take all the time off I want.”

“I find I’m not happy with the idea of you squaring off against drug dealers.”

This woman was never going to lose her mind and start shooting people because of some elaborate fantasy world she’d concocted in her head. She approached so much of life scientifically and logically — sometimes it was annoying, but most of the time it was endearing. I kissed her forehead before I considered it, but she smiled at me instead of glaring, so it seemed I’d done okay.

“I worry about you, too. I can take care of myself, Connie. You don’t have to worry about me.”

She didn’t frown when I shortened her name this time, but asked, “Do you wear a bullet proof vest when you patrol?”

“Club business. Some things I can’t talk about.”

“Because if it got out you do then they’d aim for your head?”

I laughed and said, “You’re too smart for your own good. Give me a goodnight hug and lock the door behind me.”

She held onto me during our hug, and I caressed her upper back and waited for her to break away. When she did, I smelled regret but I wasn’t sure how to bring it up, so I didn’t. I waited on the front porch until I heard the deadbolt, and then grinned as I heard her arming her alarm system. I’d seen the signs of it, but whoever had installed it had done an excellent job of hiding not only the keypads, but also the window and door sensors.

I know where to look for them, though. I was also pretty sure I’d figured out where her saferoom is, and wondered if it’d come with the house or if she’d had it put in.

I leaned down to pull my weapon from my ankle holster when I was in the car, and settled it under my right leg. I detest ankle holsters but I wasn’t taking my family to the woods without a way to defend us, and it was my best bet of a location I was pretty sure I could keep the kids from touching.

My family.
Connie had admitted I’m family to her now, and the truth is I see her as family now, too.

I also knew I had a huge secret she was going to have to know eventually, and it might be better to tell her sooner rather than later.