Slate (Rebel Wayfarers MC) (52 page)

Ruby smiled at him. “It’s
Love Don’t Die
. Do ya like it?”

Grinning, he laughed at her. “Baby, that’s your song. Holy shit! They pegged you! ‘You don’t say much...but you know I listen when you do’...and sweetness, they will never be able to take me from you. God
, that song is fucking perfect. Who is it?”

Laughing, she walked over to him and slipped her arms around his waist. “The Fray…I can’t believe you like it.”

“It’s perfect,” he said, punctuating each word with a kiss, “Just. Like. You.” She’d come home from the hospital three months ago, and things had slowly swung back towards a semblance of normal. Now, Mason had asked him to take a ride and visit some problem chapters, putting his skills to use to suss out what the issues were without an official inquiry.

“Such a goof off,” she chastised him, laughing. Pulling his face back down to hers, she kissed him soft and slow, her tongue demanding entrance into his mouth and then sliding across his, her fingers twisting in the hair at the back of his head.

“Mmmm,” he said into her mouth, “nice, I like it when you take what you want, baby.”

Resting her head against his chest, she asked him one last time, “You sure you don’t want me to come with on your run, babe?”

“Ruby, we talked this through. I’m headed to a full-dozen chapter clubhouses, then dropping into New Mexico to see Watcher. I’ll be home in three weeks max,” he reassured her. “This is not a run for you, not in your condition.”

“I don’t like that you aren’t taking anyone with you, Slate.” She picked up her head, looking into his eyes. “Things can change so fast, get sideways and messed up. We know that more than most people. I’d be happier if you’d take someone with you.”

“It’s not happening, so you might as well give up the fight.” He shook his head at her. “I go alone, or I take thirty brothers. After the shit we’ve dealt with, there’s no middle ground. Either I’m confident enough to trust the chapters, or I ride in looking for war.”

He continued, “I don’t want war. I don’t want fucking shit every time I turn around. I want you safe, and I want our baby safe.” He reached out and put his palm across her low belly. Ruby smiled up at him, and he watched the joy flow across her face. “I’ll be back before you even know I’m gone.” He leaned in and kissed her.

She scoffed. “I doubt that, but I get it. I do. Full support, I’m on board.” She laid her cheek against his chest. “It won’t be long and we’ll have a bump between us when we stand like this.” She giggled. “Who’da thunk it three months ago, yeah?”

Holding her tightly, Slate couldn’t suppress a shudder, and he softly echoed her words, “Yeah, who’da thunk it?”

***

Rolling the muscles in his neck and shoulders, Slate tried unsuccessfully to relieve the tightness he felt there. He was standing in a poor excuse for a clubhouse, trying to decide how long it would take him to clean up this shit. He was already a week overdue back in Fort Wayne, and he hadn’t even gotten out west yet.

Pulling out his phone, he called Mason. “Prez, this is bullshit, man. Weak officers, defenseless clubhouse, shit for finances...this chapter is a disaster. How the hell did Memphis go so fucking wrong? We laid out a good plan, but this,” he scoffed, “this is shit.”

“How long, Slate,” Mason asked, “and fuck…does it have to be you? Can’t I send down Tug?”

Slate frowned at the wall for a second, puzzled, and then started laughing. “She fucking called you, didn’t she? Goddammit, Prez, you listening to Ruby now?”

Mason laughed with him. “Busted. Slate...she misses you, man. There’s an appointment in three weeks that she wants you there for—if you intend on keeping your balls where they are now.”

Slate shook his head, chuckling. “Yeah, she’s excited to find out the baby’s sex. Fuck, Mason, I’m having a baby. How bizarre is that?”

“Gonna put a band on that hand?” He could hear the smile in Mason’s voice as he asked the question.

“Yeah, got a ring and everything, just need to find the right time to ask her. Fuck, I want to go home to her now, so goddammit, Mason,” he half-yelled, “send Tug. I’ll get shit started, but he can put all the pieces together when he gets here. I’ll be out of here in the morning, so make the fucking call, man.”

“About damn time,” Mason agreed. “You still going to visit the Southern Soldiers?”

“Yeah, Watcher is expecting me. Estavez is bringing Carmela up; I can’t wait to see how she’s grown up. Then I’ll be in the wind, headed home.” He smiled. “I’ll call Ruby when I hang up with you. Make the call, Prez. Thanks, man.”

Warmth suffused Mason’s voice as he said, “Anytime, brother.”

It was noon the next day before he felt comfortable leaving the chapter. Now that they knew Mason was sending someone down to sort their shit, they were running around and trying to cover, so he took control to ensure nothing important went for a walk.

Without thinking, when he pulled onto the highway, he turned east instead of west, winding around the south end of Memphis, taking a familiar exit. He drove a mile down a country road, pulling into the entrance of a well-kept cemetery. He tilted the bike over onto the kickstand and stood, turning to look out at the pastoral scene. “It’s quiet here,” he said to himself.

Walking into the cemetery, he started scanning the gravestones. It only took a few minutes to find what he was looking for, and he reached out, tracing the letters with his fingertips. Mouthing the words silently, he read,
Edith Khole, never alone
. He placed his palm over the blackbird etched in the stone, captured as it was bursting into flight.

“I’m sorry I didn’t do more, Edith,” he said quietly. “I’m a better person now; I wish you could see how you changed me.” He stood still for another minute before returning to his bike, turning his face west.

***

He hadn’t planned on stopping in Longview, but hated knowing he was within a few miles of Blackie and Peaches without at least trying to see them. Pulling into a truck stop, he sat on his bike and pulled out his phone. Listening to the ringing, he was surprised when instead of going to voicemail, the phone was answered by a child.

“Is Blackie there?” he asked gruffly.

There was silence, and then the voice yelled, “Daddy, telephone!” In a softer tone, he heard, “I’ll take him the phone, hang on.”

Slate asked, “Is this Randi?”

There was another silence, and then a cautious, “Yeess.”

“Awesome, tell Blackie it’s Slate…Andy,” he said, holding the phone away from his ear in anticipation.

“Uncle Andy! You haven’t been here in a long time. I’m a lot older now. Are you coming to see us?”

“Maybe, Randi, lemme talk to Dad, okay?” he put her off.

“Slate, my man, where the fuck are you? Randi isn’t making sense,” Blackie half-yelled into the phone.

“I’m sitting at the truck stop on I-20, man. Y’all got enough supper for another mouth, and a bunk for me?” Slate asked, and pulled the phone away from his ear again.

“Fucking right we have food and room for you, brother. You know it. You get your ass down here; we’ll be waiting,” Blackie yelled, and then disconnected the call.

Sitting around the fire pit in their backyard late into the night, he and Blackie were quiet, watching the flames dance across the logs. Several members of Blackie’s club had been over earlier, but they’d left a while ago. It was good to see them again; Slate knew his life was full of friends and brothers all across the country and he felt gratified.

Peaches was inside settling the kids into bed, and he started talking to Blackie about what had gone down with Ruby. Blackie’d already heard the story secondhand, so he tried to fill in the details. As he spoke about how she’d been taken from the garage as he laid unconscious on the ground, he heard Blackie’s growl clearly through the night air, and nodded. “Rabid, man…fucker skimmed from the club and then pulled a runner, leaving his Brothers to clean up his mess,” he said, “blaming me, because I’d called him on his shit.

“Then, he finds a crack, a vulnerability, and decides he’s not done fucking with the club and me. He’d heard stories about Winger rescuing Ruby, tracked down the one fucker who had her before, and presented him with an opportunity he couldn’t turn down. Fucking Demon…hard to believe so much evil existed inside one man’s skin.” He leaned forward, his hands twisting and fisting. “I can’t tell you what it did to me when I saw that motherfucker’s face on the video. Blackie, I still can’t sleep for seeing the pictures in my head.”

He looked up, and saw Lottie had come out and was sitting on the arm of Blackie’s chair, leaning into him and listening. “There were five of them—five, against one tiny woman. They didn’t beat her, didn’t fuck with her like that, but Rabid, that crazy motherfucker, he had hooked up a car battery to a bed frame. Blackie, they stripped her, strapped her to the frame, and turned it on.” He rubbed his hands across his face hard, scrubbing at the memories.

“The docs figure she was in the current for more than forty-five minutes, and maybe as long as two hours—two fucking hours of low-voltage, constant electrocution. When we got her off the bed, she was like a broken doll, nothing moved the way it was supposed to. She flopped around, like her body was empty of everything…empty of her.” He scrubbed at his face again, running a hand through his hair.

“She was so fucking cold, man; she felt dead, Blackie. I thought for sure she was gone when I touched her. I couldn’t fucking think, couldn’t speak or move. She wasn’t breathing and her heart was beating wrong; she was gone. I swear, she was dead, and I was frozen, like my strings had been cut. Goose, man, he kept working on her and talking to me. We got to the hospital, and they’d brought her back; she was present...with us again.

“She’s got memory problems. They said she might never get back the memories she’s lost, which I think is a fucking Godsend, because she doesn’t remember that day at all. Her short-term memory gives her fits sometimes though, like the one day she told me the same joke three times. That’s getting better, thank fuck. There’s also this phantom pain in her hands and feet, where it starts hurting and burning, but there’s nothing wrong.

“I hate that she went through this, Blackie. I keep thinking I wasn’t any use, because she was
right beside me
. She was right fucking
there
, and they took her from my side. How can I keep her safe if shit can come after her anywhere?

“Now, God...now, she’s pregnant. We’re going to have a baby, a kid. I’m so fucking scared all the time, brother. How the hell do I help her through this, man? Fuck want...how can I be what she
needs
, when I don’t even know how to be in a relationship? I’ve never felt like this about anyone. My whole life, I was clear with the women I was with that it would never be anything other than temporary. Fuck me, man—kids are not temporary.”

At his statement, Lottie snorted and laughed, agreeing, “Nope, they are with you all their lives.”

“Exactly, so how the fuck do I do this?” he asked her.

Laughing, she reached up and ran a hand down the side of Blackie’s face, asking, “Do you love her, Andy?”

He jerked at her use of his name; he heard it so seldom anymore. “Yeah, I fucking love her. I can’t breathe if she’s not sharing my air, can’t sleep if she’s not wound up in the sheets with me, can’t relax without my hands on her. I’ve never...fuck me, I’ve never loved anyone before.” He took a long look at her sitting with her man, and said, “I think I came close once, but Ruby...she is it for me.”

“Then simply love her, Andy. Tell her; be honest about your fears, but you also gotta be honest about your love. She’ll need to hear that, especially with everything that’s happened to her in these few short years. She’s going to be afraid she’s not enough, because she’s younger, because of the abuse, and because you have such a history...a reputation. Love her, Andy. Simply love her,” Lottie told him, and then Blackie pulled her into his lap, biting and kissing her neck with resulting giggles and laughter.

He looked at Slate, saying fiercely, “When you hold your heart in your arms—your woman, your children—you can’t do it wrong.” He stood holding Lottie, and then walked into the house.

***

“Baby, I miss you so fucking much,” Slate said softly, hearing her sigh. “I wish I’d brought you with me. It’s been too long since I held you.” On impulse, he told her, “Come to me. Finish this with me. You could be here in hours, baby.”

Waiting on her response, the smile faded from his face as the silence on the line went on for long seconds, then he grinned wide when he heard a squeal as she shouted, “Of course, yes, yes, babe! Yes!”

“Gimme a second, baby; lemme get Dig on the phone,” he said, quickly adding Digger to the call.

After explaining what they needed, they hung up, waiting on confirmation that Ruby was booked on a flight to Las Cruces, where Slate would meet her.

Leaning on his bike at the curb in front of the airport, Slate crossed and uncrossed his ankles for what seemed like the hundredth time, waiting impatiently on Ruby. He was early, but wanted to be there in case her flight got in sooner than expected. Looking through the tinted glass doors, he saw a small form moving quickly through the scattered groups of people and knew it was her. He recognized the way she moved, the shape of her body, the angle of her neck. This was his Ruby and she was headed right for him, like an arrow shot from a bow.