Logan: New Crusaders MC (28 page)

In one swift movement, she pulled the gun out of the bag and fired.  He looked at her with a shocked expression, like he couldn’t comprehend what had happened.  Bright red blood soaked through his shirt, and then he fell.  He was dead before he hit the floor.  Sobbing, but feeling relieved and vindicated, Nicole leaned over and managed to grab her purse out of the dead man’s grip.  This time she found her phone for real, and quickly dialed for help.

The sound of ripping fabric drew her attention to Logan.  He’d torn a strip of material off his shirt so he could make a tourniquet for his leg.  Nicole wanted to talk to him, but she had to stay on the phone.  His movements were slowing, and she worried that he was going to lose consciousness and bleed out.

“Stay with me, Logan,” she said quickly.  “Help is coming.”

“The early labor…” he muttered, his voice weak.  “It was a trick?”

Nicole bit back a sob.  “It was.  Our baby’s fine, Logan.  But you need to live.  The baby’s going to need its father.”

His head had slumped back against the floor, and his eyes closed.

“Logan!”

No response.

She was losing him again.

Logan had been sure the early labor was a trick, but he had needed to hear Nicole say it.  She was scared but safe.  Their baby was fine.  He could rest now.  He was so tired, and he hurt everywhere.  All he had to do was close his eyes and…

He came awake slowly, his surroundings swimming into view.  Logan couldn’t figure out where he was or what had happened.  He remembered Nicole in that chair, and Clay falling down dead.  She had been crying…

And now she was sitting in a chair beside him.  Her head was resting against the wall behind her.  She was asleep, but she still had one hand resting on her stomach.

“She hasn’t left your side once,” someone said from his other side.

Logan turned to see Danny standing in the doorway, and the last of his grogginess wore off.  He was in the hospital.

“Chief Quincey told me the hospital filed a report of the incident.  Gunshot wound.  They had to.  But the chief says he’s terrible with paperwork.  Always losing it.”

Logan nodded, understanding.

“Am I… okay?” he asked.

“You’ll live to fight another day,” Danny told him.  “The slug was lodged in your leg, which is the only thing that kept you alive.  You were in surgery for hours.  It was touch and go for a while, but once they got the bullet out and stopped the bleeding, they told us the worst was over.  You’re expected to make a full recovery, but you might walk with a slight limp.  Doc will be in soon.”

“Thanks, Danny.”

Logan rested his head back against his pillow, feeling relieved and grateful.  Then the events of the last couple days came back to him, and he remembered all that he had lost.  Danny sighed sadly, perhaps reading Logan’s expression.

“Castillo belongs to the Iconoclasts and the New Crusaders again.  The ‘Clasts lost a couple men, and we all had injuries.  The Kings are back in their hole, licking their wounds.  We might suffer some retaliation in the future.”

“They’d be stupid to try it,” Logan said.

“They
are
stupid,” Danny replied.  “But that’s not something we have to worry about right now.”  He glanced at Nicole to check that she was still sleeping.  “Ducky is taking care of Cork’s… body.  Cleaning him up.  We’ve already set up a funeral for him this weekend.  You’ll be able to leave the hospital by then.”

“Okay,” Logan said.

Nicole began to stir, and Danny stepped out of the room.  “I’m glad you’re okay, Logan,” he said, before shutting the door behind him.

The click of the door brought Nicole fully out of sleep, and she jumped to her feet when she saw Logan was awake.  He reached out and took her hand.

“Hey,” he said, smiling.

“Oh my God, Logan,” she said, half laughing and half crying.  “You scared me to death.”

“Sorry.  Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.  The doctors wanted to take me to do an ultrasound, but I didn’t want to until you were able to come with me.”

Logan lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss onto her knuckles.

“You saved my life,” he said.

“I couldn’t lose you again,” she told him, resting her free hand against his cheek.

“I’m glad Clay’s out of the picture, but how did he find you?”

“He followed my dad from the diner.”

“Father Truesdale was supposed to be there,” Logan said.  “What happened to him?”

“Clay surprised him, I guess.  They found him locked in the same closet as that Tommy guy from the Devil Kings.  They’re both okay.  Tommy skipped town, didn’t want to risk being labeled a rat.”

“Good riddance.”

“Ruiz is dead?” Nicole asked.

“How much did they tell you?”

“Not much.  I guess they weren’t sure how much you wanted me to know.”

“Ruiz is dead,” Logan confirmed.  His throat felt dry.  “So is Cork.”

“No,” Nicole whispered.  “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.”

She carefully lifted herself up into the bed with him and curled against his side.  Logan wrapped his arm around her and kissed her forehead.

“He was a good man,” Nicole whispered.  “I’ll miss him.”

“Life’s not going to be the same without him,” Logan said, thinking back to what he had promised Cork.  It felt like a lifetime ago, but he had already nearly broken his promise to live.  He was going to have to be a lot more careful from now on.

“Rip came to see you yesterday,” Nicole said after a moment.  “He looked pretty relieved when he found out you were going to recover.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.  I’m… I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you I called him.  I was afraid you’d try to stop me.”

“You were right to think that, but…”

“But?”

“But… I’m glad you called him.  He was on our side after all.”

Nicole smiled with relief.  “Yeah, he said he was only coming here to say goodbye.  He’s leaving Castillo for good.  I told him I’d pass on his thanks.”

“I’m sorry he’s leaving.  He was your friend, wasn’t he?”

Nicole ran her hand over the memorial tattoo on his arm.  “You of all people should know that friends stay with us long after they’re gone.”

Logan couldn’t respond.  Tears were threatening to overtake him.

“Get some rest, baby,” Nicole murmured.  “I’ll be here, keeping the demons away.”

Logan was too tired to resist.  He closed his eyes and slept.

The funeral was a much bigger affair than Logan thought it would be.  New Crusaders from three different charters showed up, as did Wiseman and most of the Iconoclasts.  They had a wake at the diner, which was back under Chuck’s control.  The turnout had been so big that the gathering had spilled out into the parking lot.  Nicole had stayed with him the whole time, wearing a black maternity dress.  Logan was wearing his new kutte.  A part of him hated that he had lost the old one, but no one seemed to blame him for the Devil Kings destroying it.  Most of the local club members had seen him destroy Alex Ruiz’s as reparation.  Those who hadn’t seen it had definitely heard the story.

At least Logan wasn’t the only one sporting a new kutte.

Danny was wearing his as well, but the prospect patch was no more.  He was a New Crusader now, and not a single one of the other club members had protested patching him in.

Father Truesdale conducted the funeral service.  He had some very nice things to say about Cork, and was kind enough to not use his full name – Corky.  Logan knew that was how Cork would have wanted it.

There was some time set aside for eulogies.  Logan went last, which was a mistake.  By the time Yancey, Cork’s ex-wife, and Chuck had stepped down, he was choking back tears.  But he still stood up and pulled the speech he’d written out of his pocket.  He stood at the podium and looked out over a sea of solemn faces, with kuttes from two different MCs and three different cities.

“Normally I’d catch shit for saying this,” Logan began, swallowing back the lump in his throat, “but I hope, given the circumstances, that no one will fault me for saying I had two fathers.  My biological father, Joel Kirkwood, was a great man.  He was a New Crusader to the day he died, and I will never forget the life lessons he taught me.

“My second father was Cork.  He was Joel Kirkwood’s best friend, and he never let me out of his sight after my old man died.  I got into a lot of trouble when I was younger, but Cork never yelled at me.  He never… he never told me that he was disappointed in me, or that I was wasting my life.  It got to be that… that I
wanted
to make Cork proud.”  Logan paused to take a few deep breaths.  “He died for our cause.  So that we could have our home back.  I won’t officially say I know what happened to the man who killed him, but I will say that he
hypothetically
got what was coming to him.”

There were some grunts and nods of agreement from the audience.  Logan rubbed his arm, which was sore and itchy from the new tattoo.  He’d gotten it done that morning.  It had been insanely difficult to sit in silence as Cork’s name was inked onto him, but he’d done it because Nicole was right – friends never leave for good.  He found Nicole’s face in the front row.  She was crying, but there was also a smile on her face and love in her eyes.  He took strength from her.

“Whenever I felt lost, Cork was the one who found me,” Logan continued.  “Now that I’m going to be a father… I know I’m going to be the kind of dad Cork was.  Strong and patient, with the remarkable ability to forgive.  Not a trait lots of motorcycle club members possess.”  He got a couple laughs for that.  He had to finish before he broke down right then and there.  “I’ll miss you, Cork.  Club won’t be the same without you.”

He folded up the speech, realizing as he did so that he hadn’t read a word of it.  It didn’t matter, though.  He’d said his piece. 

Logan returned to his seat, and Nicole placed her hand over his.  Together they watched as the coffin was lowered into the ground.  The last thing Logan saw was Cork’s kutte disappearing beneath the earth.

Father Truesdale said a prayer, and then it was done.  The crowd slowly dispersed.  People came up to Logan to offer words of comfort.  The presidents of the other charters reminded him that they were there if Logan needed them.  They congratulated him on being a father.

Somehow the New Crusaders ended up back at the clubhouse.  It was just the immediate club members – no other charters – and some of their friends and old ladies.  Chuck was there, too.  He had long since closed down the diner for the night.

At first not much of anything happened, but then Yancey spoke up.

“I remember… years ago he said to me… ‘Yance, if I don’t go out in the heat of battle, you tell everyone I did.  I don’t want people thinking I died a pussy death.’”

Everyone chuckled, raising glasses and bottles of beer.  Soon the stories and anecdotes began to flow, and the mood suddenly picked up.  Before Logan knew it, he was smiling, with Nicole on his lap and a beer in his hand.  People couldn’t stop sharing their own Cork stories.

Nicole laughed along with everyone else, the sound soothing his nerves.

“I wish I’d had more time to get to know Cork,” she said when there was a lull.  “He was a great friend, for the time I did know him.  When Logan asked him to look after me, he did it without hesitation.  He never expected anything in return.  He had my back and my father’s back because he
wanted
to.  That man had a heart the size of Texas.”