Leave a Trail (54 page)

A photo of Lilli. He had no idea who’d taken it. He hoped it was Adrienne. Because if it was a man, any man, then he’d have to kill that fucker with his bare hands. Not because she was physically exposed in any way—no such picture would have gotten through to him—but because the camera had caught her in such a nakedly unguarded moment he felt like he was seeing right down into her heart, and he was the only man on Earth entitled to that view. She was sitting in their yard, folded up in one of the ancient metal lawn chairs she’d painted vivid hues a few years back. Wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, her most common attire, her bare feet on the chair and her arms around her legs. One hand was wrapped around her other wrist; that hand held a beer. Her gorgeous, chestnut hair was loose rather than caught back in its customary ponytail, and a light breeze had caught her soft waves. Sunlight glinted and made reddish-gold threads through the dark mass. The photo had her in profile. She was staring at her knees, her head tipped down slightly.

Obviously, Lilli had not taken the photo herself. Isaac didn’t know who had, or why they’d given it to her, or why she’d sent it to him. It was a sad fucking photo, and Lilli was nearly always positive with him since he’d been inside. Suspiciously so, considering how well acquainted he was with her impatience, pragmatism, and dark wit. Yet he treasured this photo above all others. This was his woman. He was seeing her, how she really was, while he was away. He could see her miss him. As truly glad as he was that she and their children were living a life and not merely hibernating until he was back with them, a part of him needed this, too. He needed to see her miss him. Not because he was afraid that she didn’t. He knew for a certainty that she did. But he looked at this photo and almost felt like he could touch her, like their shared yearning stretched through time and space and coiled together.

Lifting his right arm, he stared at the ink there, done a couple of weeks before he’d gone in. A quote in Italian, circling the names of his wife and children.
L’amor che muove il sole e l’altre stelle
. The love that moves the sun and the other stars. The same words made up a tattoo Lilli had gotten long before he’d met her as a memorial to her father. But to Isaac, those words, and the love they described, meant his love for Lilli, her love for him, and the life they’d made together in it.

He set his book aside and got out his notebook and a pen, deciding to write Lilli instead. She wrote him every day. He wrote almost as often, to the extent that it was possible. She always wrote on light purple paper, scented like the scent of her soap. She’d never worn perfume in all the years they’d been together, and her natural scent was his favorite smell on the planet. When he’d convinced her that letters were better than the shitty pseudo-email system he could pay for access to, she’d begun sending him letters on this purple paper that smelled of lavender. He guessed she’d figured the next best thing to figuring out how to send him her own smell was to send him the scent of her soap. She’d guessed right. The smell of lavender would now probably get him hard until his dying day.

His letters went out to her on plain prison commissary paper, but he didn’t think she minded. They had a joke going about their Austenian correspondence; he wasn’t sure when it had started. When they were in the mood to be funny, they’d taken to writing in Victorian diction. He wasn’t in that mood tonight.

Hey, baby.

I hope Christmas was good. Did B. like his electric Harley? And did G.’s new bow come in on time? I’ve been thinking all day about sitting with you on Christmas Eve, putting toys together and giving Santa the credit. Sharing a beer. Fucking on the rug in front of the tree.

He stopped and wadded up the paper. That wouldn’t get through. And even if it would, he didn’t need some BOP fuck getting off thinking about him and Lilli. On a new sheet, he rewrote the lines up to the last sentence.

Today was just a day here. They try to pretend it’s special, but the only special thing about it is a day off. I miss you. I miss you so fucking much it’s killing me. I’m dying off a little bit every day.

“COUNT!”

Damn. Isaac hadn’t realized that it had gotten so late. He’d have to finish the letter tomorrow. Or start a new one in a different mood—that would probably be for the best.

Len swung in just as Isaac stood.

“You good, boss?”

“I’m okay, brother. You?”

His friend shrugged. “Merry fucking Christmas, you know?”

“Yeah.”

X

The 1,070
^th
Day

“Daddy!” After nearly three years, Gia knew to wait, but she stood there, bouncing, waiting for Isaac to be let all the way into the Visitors Center. Bo stood at her side. He still didn’t talk much. He could—Lilli said he did, and that his vocabulary, if not his diction, was developmentally on target, but only when he was comfortable where he was. She’d finally relented and put him in speech and behavioral therapy and was getting him tested, because he would not speak at school. Or anywhere he was uncomfortable.

Isaac hadn’t heard his son’s voice in almost a year.

He squatted down before his children, ignoring the brief but vicious clench in his back and right hip, and pulled them in close. “Hey, you two. I love you.” Taking in their scent and touch and sound, he held on until they both squirmed, and then he let them go. This one day, twice a month thing was just not fucking enough. Sometimes he wanted to tell everyone else he knew to fuck off and leave him with all of his visitation points for his wife and kids. But he couldn’t do that. He and Len had retained their voting rights, and the club had business.

As always, Lilli stood back a little and waited for him to greet their children. He hated the school year, too, when she couldn’t get to Marion fast enough to see him on Friday nights. During the summer, she’d come to see him alone on Friday, leaving the kids in the motel with whomever she’d brought along—sometimes it was Show, sometimes it was Lori, their usual babysitter. He’d have her all to himself for three hours or so, and they’d sit and hold hands and really talk. They almost always fought at least once during that time, but that was how they talked things through.

He went to her now. So fucking beautiful. Almost ten years, they’d been together. She looked the same. A line or two at the corners of her grey eyes, but otherwise, she was the Amazonian stranger he’d shared a burger with one summer night long ago. Since he’d been away, she’d been working out a lot, more than she had since Gia was born. Show said she was back to her old ways, causing a stir, running around town in tiny clothes. And she was working out at the clubhouse, too. His warrior woman.

He’d put more muscle on, too. Not much else to do but work, read, eat, work out, jack off, and sleep. But he could feel the old damage in his back aging him fast. He was beginning to wonder if he’d still be able to ride when he finally got quit of this place.

“Hey, baby.” She smiled, and he wrapped her up in his arms. Fuck. Halfway through. Almost halfway through. He could get through and have this woman, these children again. He had to. Just had to do what he’d already done. Halfway through.

He turned his face and nuzzled her neck, breathing her in. Hard since his skin had touched hers, he couldn’t stop his body from pressing to hers, and she moaned and responded in kind.

“LUNDEN!”

He pushed back fast. Dammit. No kiss. But he wouldn’t risk it. He needed these precious hours.

Breathless and flushed, she let him lead her to a chair, and they sat. He pulled Gia onto his lap—at eight, she was getting too old to sit on Daddy’s lap, really, but the guards allowed it, and Bo no longer would. And she was happy to be there. Lilli sat next to him; Bo sat at her other side, looking at his hands in his lap.

He was losing his boy.

“How’s Len doing?” Lilli’s voice saved him from the pitch-black trail that thought would have sent him down.

“Word is, he’s better. He should be back in gen pop within a week, I guess.” Len was in the prison infirmary with a nasty internal infection. The meds they got—Len to compensate for his missing spleen, Isaac for his back—were not of the quality they’d become used to on the outside. Tasha had had no luck getting them prescribed the better stuff, and it was driving her batshit, he knew. They’d sat in this room and gone quietly ‘round about her smuggling better stuff in. Neither Len nor Isaac wanted her to expose herself like that. But maybe she was right. Maybe, before Len kicked from a fucking infection, or Isaac lost his legs again, they needed it.

“Thank God. It’s killing Tash not to be able to do anything. They wouldn’t even let her see him.”

“Nah. They wouldn’t. Not in the infirmary. Maybe if they’d thought he was bad enough to send him to an outside hospital. But he’s okay.” He’d almost died, actually, but the bar for ‘bad enough’ around here was high.

“Isaac, you’ve got to let her.”

She didn’t say more, because she knew better than to say anything here, and she knew she’d said enough for him to understand.

“Yeah. I know.” He looked past her at their son. “Hey, Bo. How’s Kodi?”

Bo gave him a little wave and then shrugged. He’d never looked up.

“He’s good, Daddy.” Gia answered. She always answered when Bo would not. Lilli had told him that she was fiercely protective of her quiet little brother and was getting into fights at school with kids who teased him. “Mamma says he’s trying to fill your shoes.”

“He is?” Isaac cocked a sardonic eyebrow at Lilli, his brain going to an amusingly twisted place. She laughed. “No, you weirdo,” she muttered under her breath, “I’ve got my Rabbit for that.”

He winked, but his cock was going to sprain something. He was having trouble keeping that under control today.

More loudly, she said, “She means he sleeps every night on the rug in the front hall. He has since you left.”

“Not on that expensive damn bed you bought him?”

“Not since you left. He sleeps at the front door, between us and the world. Taking care of your people.”

That made his eyes burn and itch. Needing to change the subject, he gave Gia a little squeeze. “So Christmas is coming up. What did you guys ask Santa for?”

He and his family passed the hours of their visit like that, Gia speaking for herself and her brother, Isaac and Lilli speaking in half sentences and code. When it was time for them to go, he took a risk for a kiss worth the one they’d lost, and he pushed his tongue between her lips. Her tongue was there, ready to dance. Before he broke away, she pulled his braid, and he thought he’d just die.

Halfway. He could do the rest. He could. He had to.

X

The 1,642
^nd
Day

Show, Badge, Isaac, and Len sat in the Visitor Center. They only had about forty-five minutes. The place was packed today, and visits were being doled out in increments. Without immediate family as visitors this week, Isaac and Len had been relegated to the bottom of the pile.

They weren’t allowed to meet in a group like this. They never were. Show was on Isaac’s visitation list, not Len’s. Badge was on Len’s, not Isaac’s. And Isaac and Len didn’t always get visitation at the same time. They’d pulled some strings and greased some palms to make this work. They did the same thing whenever they had serious business and needed Isaac and Len’s input. Still, they had to be discreet.

When Tasha and Lilli were here together, the guards looked the other way, also for some consideration. But this was men talking business, and the guards were taking a bigger risk, too. So palms had to get very greasy.

Today’s serious business: reestablishing Signal Bend Construction. Legitimate business, not criminal conduct, but the BOP wouldn’t see it that way.

Show was describing the plan. “We got the logistics worked out—a lot of the clubhouse now is vacant space, easily converted. We just need to build out a little, and we can keep the important parts of the clubhouse—the Hall, the Keep, the dorm, weight room, office, kitchen—intact. We don’t need the Room the way we did—that can go over to the business. We’re thinking twenty grand to overhaul the building.”

“And equipment?” Isaac did not see how the plan could work. Signal Bend Construction had barely made its nut in its heyday, and they would need to start almost from scratch to get it up again.

“Got a partner wants in, will front for that.”

“Who’s that?” Len looked as skeptical as Isaac felt.

Badge answered. “June Mariano. Hav’s mom.”

“I know who she is.” Isaac leaned back. “You’re honestly talking about taking money from a widow for this? That’s bullshit.”

“She’s got a sharper head on her than Don would’ve let anybody know. He left her a pile, I guess, and she wants to do right by Hav and his family. It’s an investment, Isaac.” Isaac could see in Show’s eyes that his vote would count no more than any other member’s. That had not always been the case. At first, Show and Isaac had led as the team they’d always been, just with Show taking point. But Show and Badger were the team now, and Show had found the fit of the President’s patch.

Isaac shook his head, and Show’s face darkened.

“This vote is already locked in, Isaac. I want you in on this, both of you. But we don’t need it. There are three more seats filled at the table now. And the Horde at home are in. We all worked this together. I want you part of this plan. But mainly I just want to know how you feel about us keeping the name. SBC was your old man’s company.”

Feeling angry and hurt, Isaac snarled, “I don’t give a rat’s ass about the name. You’ve got my proxy. Do with it what you want.” And he got up and left, ignoring Show calling out his name.

He was halfway back to the cell, still fuming and paying attention to little else than his raging, furious thoughts. He passed a dark inset, where double doors led to a large equipment closet. Normally, of habit, his eyes made a quick check there. But he was lost in a sea of change, suddenly, after so long away, understanding how very much about his home would always now be lost to him. How many changes would have happened and become old news by the time he got back. All the things he was missing, and the ways his people and his home would be unfamiliar because of it.