Shattered & Scarred: The Sacred Hearts MC (5 page)

“Hope you don’t mind.” I grunted.

“Naw brother, I’d like to meet her.” I nodded.

“She’s in laying down. Tired herself out.” Doc let me know.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll see if she’s up for it.” I said, Dragon and Reaver nodded.

I went down the hall and opened my door.  Ashton sat up quickly.

“Easy girl, just me.” I held up my hands where she could see them. She looked up at me, her face still sleepy, hair tousled and it was hot. I smiled and reached into my cut, plucking the two DVD’s out of the pocket there and held them out.

“You brought them!” she said in surprise and half reached out.

“Sure did, go on take ‘em.” Soft wonder filled her eyes and she plucked them gently from my fingers.

“Got a couple brothers out here that want to meet you. You up for it?” I asked. She looked up at me and nodded getting to her feet off the bed. She was in my dress shirt again and I held out my hand. She set her movies lovingly on the covers and put her hand in mine and we went out into the common room.

“Holy shit! That little thing did all of this!?” Reaver asked. Ashton shied behind me like a child would and I gave him a look.

“Sorry.” He said and looked chagrined.

“Ashton.” I said, pointing at him, “That there is Reaver and this is Dragon. Dragon is President of Sacred Heart MC.” Ashton blinked up at the two men.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both.” She said gently and Dragon laughed.

“Likewise.” Dragon dropped into a chair so he could get a better look at her.

“Would you look at them peepers?” he commented.

“Never seen eyes like that.” Reaver agreed.

“Ashton.” I said and she looked up at me.

“Yes?” she asked.

“You
doin’ all right?” I asked.

“Yes, I’m sorry.” She came around so
that they could see her but her trembling belied her words.

“
Nothin’ to be sorry about.” Dragon held up his hands.

“Listen B
abe, as long as Dragon or Reaver here are around you’re good to go, just as if Doc or Chandra were here. You get me?” I asked.

She nodded a touch too quickly.

“I gotta get to work.” I said and pulled my hand from hers. She looked a little lost for a second but then turned the full force of that golden gaze on me.

“Your lunch.” She said and I frowned.

“What?” I asked.

She scurried off into the kitchen and came back and I noticed she was in her bandaged feet… then I noticed the floor was clean. I blinked. Damn she had been busy. She returned a moment later with a brown paper bag and handed it to me.

“I made your lunch.” She said softly and I looked dumbly down at it. Three masculine chuckles. She blushed and I frowned.

“Thanks.” I said. Could she be any more fucking adorable?

“Go on man, Ashton you want to stay out here or go back to Trig’s room?” Dragon asked and I couldn’t respect the man more for giving her the choice.

“If I’m allowed I would like to return to Ethan’s room please.” She murmured and I smiled.

“You can do what you want around here. You don’t need no one’s permission.” Dragon leaned back in his chair and it creaked under his bulk. Dude was still cut at fifty.

“Thank you.” She whispered and beat a hasty retreat.

Dragon’s expression darkened, Reaver’s clouded over too.

“You got your work cut out with that one brother.”
Reaver commented.

Didn’t I know it? I looked down at the sack lunch in my hand. The guys laughed at me.

“Fuck off.” I muttered and went for the door.

The three of them howled with laughter after me. It
was
pretty funny. Who makes a bad ass biker a sack lunch?

Apparently Ashton did.

Ashton…

I sat on the bed and held the plastic cases with shaking fingers. He’d bought them. He hadn’t forgotten, or changed his mind. He’d asked me, I’d told him and then he’d gone out and bought them for me. I blinked.
I must have been staring at the two DVD’s in my fingers for an hour or more. My mind spinning and whirling. A knock came at the door, I startled and stuffed the movies beneath the pillows to hide them out of old habit. Had it been Chadwick he would have taken them away just to be spiteful. He could be like a little boy ripping the wings off a fly, and usually
I
was that fly. I cleared my throat.

“Yes?” I called softly.

Chandra poked her head into the room.

“These boys are bitchin’ they’re hungry out here. You want to get out for a minute and get something for them?” she asked.

“Do you think it would be all right?” I asked.

“Please!” she said, rolling her eyes, “You’re not a prisoner here sweetie. Get dressed if you want to come.” She slipped out the door and left it open and I swallowed. I made a decision and scrambled to the end o
f the bed and dressed quickly in jeans and a long sleeved shirt that swirled with scrollwork pattern and blushes of color in grays and pinks.

I shoved my feet into socks and my new sneakers
, which still hurt but couldn’t be avoided, and crept out into the common room. Dragon, Dray, Reaver and Doc sat around a table playing cards.

“There she is!” Dragon called.

“Cool. What do you guys want?” Chandra asked.

“I don’t know, what do we want boys?” Dragon asked and I could see the resemblance between himself and his son.
There was no mistaking their blood relation.

Reaver
was younger than Ethan, early to mid-twenties, with short brown hair that was shorter on the sides but longer on top giving the illusion of a Mohawk without actually being one. It hung low in the front, reminding me of a horse’s forelock, resting on his forehead between his eyes which were warm despite their light blue. Bluer than Ethan’s which were more silver. He had a dark blue teardrop tattooed at the outside corner of one eye and it was at odds with his easy smile.

The men traded notions of fast food restaurants and I grimaced and before I knew I had opened my mouth I suggested,

“I could cook for you.” I was met by four sets of eyes, two dark two light… one of those pairs smoldering with barely suppressed anger. I shuddered at Dray’s expression and licked suddenly dry lips.

“Yeah. Okay. Pony up fellas.” Dragon said and wallets came out and bits of green were put onto the edge of the table.

“Use it all, stock the kitchen.” Dragon grunted and pushed the money towards me. I was frozen to the spot. Speechless. Chandra’s heels clicked across the floor and she picked up the money and thrust it into my hands.

“Come on B
abe, don’t want these boys to starve to death.” She winked at me and I followed her silently out to her car.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. I looked at her.

“They just gave me money.” I said a little stunned.

“Yeah so?” she asked. I rubbed my fingers across the bill’s surface. How do you tell someone when it’s been
more than three years since you last held any sort of money in your hands?

“I…” I closed my mouth.  I didn’t know what to say.

“Wow your husband was a real piece of work.” She complained, pulling out onto the three lane highway.

I counted the money and thought about what to do. The kitchen with Chadwick was always just… stocked. I hadn’t had to do it myself.
Chandra took us to a grocery store and I chewed my lip.

“Know what you want to do?” she asked.

“I don’t know what they like.” I murmured and she snorted.

“They like anything. Those boys will eat just about
whatever you put in front of ‘em as long as it has some kind of meat in it.” I nodded and decided what I was going to do. I knew what the kitchen had and didn’t. We started in the produce section. Chandra chattered on about each of the men and how she’d met Doc.

“Dragon founded the club about thirty years ago or more, before Dray was even thought of. He hooked up with Dray’s mom a little under ten years into it. They had Dray when
Dragon was in his early thirties, late for him but not so much for Tilly. Dray was a good kid, not always like what you see now…” She sighed and chattered on.

I listened politely and moved up and down aisles feeling oddly exposed. Soon the feeling grew into the pricking sensation of being watched. Finally in the dairy section Chandra broke off
mid-sentence and turned.

“What are you looking at?” she demanded of a man, who was indeed staring.

“Nothing!” he exclaimed uncomfortably.

“Then take your ass over there!” she told him, pointing off in a di
rection that was away from us. “Creep.” She muttered.

We finished shopping quickly after that. At the check stand the woman checking us out was staring at me too.

“What?” Chandra asked.

“Nothing!” The clerk said hurriedly, “It’s just, she looks like the missing woman on TV.” She said and I felt the blood drain from my face.

“Missing?” I asked, breathy.

“Yeah two nights ago off the highway after a disagreement with her husband. Are you her?” she asked.

“No!” I said hurriedly but could taste the lie.

“Does she look like she’s missing?” Chandra snapped. The clerk looked at me, her eyes locking on my bruises.

“Didn’t see a thing.” She said resolutely, pursing her lips, and she and Chandra traded knowing looks. My hands shook like crazy as I counted out the money for our things, I was almost surprised I could even do it. Chandra grabbed our bags. I took the change and we both hurried from the store. I never in a million years dreamed he would go to the news…

“Don’t worry about it B
aby.” Chandra said, interrupting my thoughts as she backed out of the parking stall. I knew he would look for me. That he would find me… I closed my eyes.

“He hasn’t found you yet. The boys will know how to get ahead of this.” She said, pulling the thoughts right out of my head.

We drove back to the club house, Chandra immediately got onto her phone as we pulled out onto the main thoroughfare. It sounded like she was talking to Doc. I sank into my seat and tried to sort through my feelings. I had far too many of them to deal with. One of them stood out desperately clear from the rest though…

I had no desire to return to Cha
dwick Granger. None whatsoever. I was as sure as the day was long that doing so would be the death of me and I didn’t want that life, the fear, anymore.

Three somewhat anxious males and one angry one met us at the clubhouse door. I stepped out of the car and automatically began picking bags out of the back seat to bring in. Doc stopped me.

“You all right sweetheart?” he asked. I nodded miserably.

“You want us to call Trig for you?”
Reaver asked and I looked up alarmed and shook my head.

“No. There’s nothing to be done for now, let him work. I’ve disrupted his life too much as it is.” I turned to unload more groceries and heard
Reaver mutter…

“If anyone’s life needed a shakeup it’s that fucker
’s.” I looked at him sharply and stopped my mouth before it could open. He was smiling and there were at least two grunts of agreement. I put confusion somewhere on the list of things I was feeling.

“Put those down.” Dragon ordered and I immediately complied.

“C’mon boys, let’s get these in the house so Ashton can fix us some grub. I’m starving.” I blinked. Just like that they moved around me and I followed Chandra into the club house. I went into the kitchen and washed my hands, my mind whirling and clicking and pulling in a thousand directions.

No one seemed phased by this new development.
I thought of all that could befall them from hiding me from him and grimaced. Chadwick was devious, he would figure out some way of spinning things to make him look like a saint, me out to be a victim and these good people out to be vile kidnappers… if he wanted to. That was the thing about my husband, he was unpredictable. Went with whatever whim or fancy overtook him at the time.

Still, he had one iron clad rule that he never deviated from, and I had broken that rule. Obedience always, in all things. I wore the chain of his obedience around my neck even now and my defiance, my not returning to him when I had been expected to… I closed my eyes. I didn’t even want
to think of the consequences. If I were fortunate he would just lock me in a room. That had been the last time I had disobeyed him, and the last time I had ever been allowed to leave the house unaccompanied.

Once upon a time I had been given a small allowance, I had been allowed to go out and have my hair and nails done, of course to his specifications, still I had been allowed the illusion
of an afternoon of freedom… My hair stylist, she and I had gotten along quite well and I’d gone off of the regimented schedule to have lunch with her.

Maynard, my husband’s head of security had told Chadwick of my transgression. I’d been dragged by my hair to our bedroom. He’d taken a switch to me until I’d passed out and when I woke it was to realize I’d been locked in. All of the books, music, writing implements, all of it had been removed. He would come to me in the evenings and
would have me spend all night on my knees, forcing me to recite over and over my marriage vows of ‘love, honor and obey’. Food was withheld for the first week. I got water from the bathroom tap. I’d remained in the gilded prison of my room for I think a month, all though at some point he’d stopped locking the door. He’d just never told me I could go and I was terrified of crossing him again. Only when he’d told me I could did I leave the room, but I was never to leave the house outside of his presence ever again.

I returned to the here and now after a long time of staring out the window over the kitchen sink.
I dried my hands and set about putting things away, leaving out what I would need to fix a good dinner for the men. I washed my hands again after handling the packages of food and set to work preparing baked herb chicken and broccoli. I prepared a salad to go with it and lightly dressed it with oil and balsamic and plated everything, bringing it out to the table and serving everyone carefully.

“
Woah hey!” Dragon cheered.

“Thanks D
oll.” Doc said.

“Awesome, you’re the best!”
Reaver said around a mouthful of chicken. Dray just glowered at me and I nodded, secretly pleased by the majorities’ appreciation.

I returned to the kitchen and Chandra who sat at the counter with one of the bar stools. She had her reading glasses perched on her nose and was reading some kind of romance novel. I set a plate beside her and joined her with one of my own.

“Brought these for you.” She said, setting two of the volumes down by my plate. I smiled and said thank you.

“You scared?” she asked, looking at me over her glasses. I nodded and folded my hands in my lap.

“Honey let me ask you something,” she pulled her glasses off her face and closed her book, sliding both aside. “Do you honestly think Trigger is going to let anything happen to you?”

“Why do you call him that?” I asked, to buy myself some time to sort through what I thought of and how I felt about Ethan.

“He was a sniper in the Marines.” She answered and took a bite of her food.

“Oh.” I said and ate some of mine. 

“Now answer my question.” She said.

“I don’t know honestly.” I murmured and it was the truth. I didn’t know anything about the man really, I knew that he was kind and that he went out of his way to care for me but I didn’t know why.

“I’ve known Trigger for a few years now and I’ve never seen him look at anybody the way he looks at you. He’s gone all fierce male protector on your ass and that’s a good thing, Sweetheart. Trig’s a good man. He’ll look after you. You ain’t got nothing to worry about.” She ate the rest of her meal in silence and so did I, mulling over what she’d said.

As I was washing plates and cleaning up I caught myself wondering why I couldn’t have met Ethan ten years ago instead of meeting Chadwick. I sighed. There really was no use thinking along such lines. I was tired again and my whole body ached from my husband’s beating
and all the cleaning I’d done. It was time for me to go to bed.

I slipped past the men at their poker game and into
the back and Ethan’s room, changing once more into his shirt. I hung everything up and sat on the bed. I pulled my two movies out and put on Les Miserables and laid down to watch. I don’t remember at which part I fell asleep. I think it was when Fantine was dying, and Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean was at her side. Either way I never heard him come in.

I woke to a silent and dark room and strong arms lifting me gently against a solid chest. I settled in against Ethan and sighed in contentment. The tempest of emotion raging in my heart and head momentarily quieted.