Spec (Defenders M.C, Book 6) (6 page)

Eight

Spec sat in the hospital room and watched the still form in the bed.  There was never a change and the doctors assured him there never would be.  He rubbed his eyes and looked back at the book in his hand.  It had always been her favorite.   The tattered cover had faded, but he could still see the faded picture of the tiny girl who found her tiny prince.  The girl in that bed had been tiny too.  She had always been tiny.  Too fragile for the life they had been forced to live and too precious.

He took a long drink from the water he had sitting close by and continued reading, until he came to the pages that were splattered with her blood.  He could never get past those.  He wanted to.  He tried so often, but they still ripped him apart inside.  Those droplets pulled at him until he was back in time, back in that room.  He felt so small and weak.  He had never been a burly child and that characteristic had followed him into his teen years.  He had been brilliant, but brains didn’t do much to solve some things.  Sometimes you needed muscles and that night that weak boy found strength in his rage.

Muscles had come much later.   Much too late to do the girl in the bed any good, but he wasn’t sure they would really have mattered, they hadn’t saved Candy.  Thank God Pick hadn’t been wielding a knife or she would be dead or at the very least terribly injured.  Because she had thought to save him.  Why didn’t anyone ever think he could fight his own battles?  Why did these women who loved him always want to protect him when it was his place to protect them?  He had done a shitty job of protecting Marty and she had been taken and God knows what she suffered, but that was different, his father had needed him.  His mother had killed herself with an overdose of sleeping pills. 

Spec still didn’t feel the sorrow he knew he should feel, but the woman had meant little to him.  His mother had lived in a small house three streets from the house he lived in with his parents. 

He heard the door open, but he didn’t look up.  He knew who came to stand beside him.  There was only one person who came here.

“Adam.  What in the world are you doing back here?”

It had only been two weeks, but he was drawn back.  He felt like he had to finish this.  Something held him to this girl and all the memories and he couldn’t get past any of them.  He’d left Candy at the apartment she was staying in with Ink’s cousin and he had driven over here. 

“You should let go of that book.  Torturing yourself doesn’t change anything Adam.”

He looked up into deep green eyes and tried to smile.  He couldn’t.  He had been the reason for this woman’s pain.  It had all been his fault.

“I can’t let it go Mrs. Archer.”

“Elise.  After all these years I think you can call me Elise if you still refuse to call me mom.  She loved you, you know that right?  Danny too when he was at himself.”  She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes.  “It wasn’t your fault.  It was mine.  All of this was my fault.  I was a fool and I was blinded by things I shouldn’t have been mixed up in.”

Spec jerked his head to look at her face, but her eyes were on her child.

“How could any of it have been your fault?”

“He was hurting her.  I didn’t know.  God, how did I not know?  I should have known.”

She was sobbing now and Spec gathered her in his arms and just held on as she spoke words that ripped him apart.

“Who?”

“Duncan.  Her own father was hurting her.”

“Did Danny know?”  Spec felt numb as the thought if the man that had been his best friend’s father could hurt his daughter.

She shook her head.  “I don’t think so, but I wonder now if he may have suspected something, if he suspected you.  He had become a different man in the last few days of his life.  He raged at Taylor.  He watched her like a hawk.”

Elise choked on a sob.  “How did I miss it?  Why didn’t she come to me?”

“She was afraid.  She loved you so much Elise.  She wouldn’t have wanted to hurt you.”

Spec shook his head as he tried to sift through this new information.  She had always been so afraid at night.  That night she had argued that she would be fine, that she didn’t need him to stay.  She had been angry when he wouldn’t leave, but she had been terrified.  He had pulled her close and kissed her head.  Then he had pulled the book from where he had tucked it in the back of his pants and she had smiled.

He didn’t realize he was speaking until Elise spoke.

“They had fought that day.  They had been so angry.  I didn’t understand what they were so mad about, but I had been so busy trying to get dinner cooked for Danny that I didn’t get too involved with it.  I had asked him if he wanted to call you to have dinner and he’d cursed at me.  He’d said he was tired of sharing everything.  He wanted his friends to himself and his family to himself and he didn’t want them mixed up anymore.  He left then and slammed the door.  Tay cried for an hour before I could get her to come help me.  I told her she could save you some cookies if she helped.”   Her eyes met Spec’s.  “She did have a terrible crush on you.”  Her smile was sad.  “He came back around dinner time and he seemed calmer.  I just figured it was something that had gotten to him from being away.  I didn’t question it.”

Spec couldn’t stand it.  His best friend had thought him capable of such horrors.  He had never spoken of this to her or to anyone.  The police had questioned him and he had given them details, but he had never really told the story.

“She curled into me and listened until the door creaked open.  I’d felt her tense in my arms.  I had expected it to be you and I was ready to laugh when you tried to shoo me away, but I would convince you to let me finish the story as I had a thousand times, but it wasn’t you.  It was Danny and he was furious.  I had never seen him that angry.  I hadn’t even known he was home.  I felt betrayed by that and I guess I let my temper get the better of me.  He cursed at me and told me to leave, but he seemed angrier with Taylor.  He’d screamed at her, called her a whore and I hit him.  I couldn’t believe he had said that to her.  She idolized him.  He shattered something inside me with his hate-filled words and I couldn’t stand it.  I should have reasoned with him or tried to calm him, but it was too much.”

“Too much like your own house?”

Spec nodded and let his mind drift back in time.  The Archer house had always been a haven for him.  His mother had been an alcoholic who had cared more about appearing to be a good mother than actually being one.  His father had been a researcher and had never been home.  His father had been exceptionally proud of him though and that had been a bright spot in his life.  That pride had brought on his mother’s wrath and since she was the one who was around most, Spec lived a life of hell in a gilded cage.  The Archers had been middle class and lived a normal life that Spec craved.  Elise Archer had become the mother he had dreamed of having and Taylor was his sister, until that horrible night.

“How do you know what he was doing?”

“She kept a diary.  I found it under her mattress when I was able to clean the room out.”

Spec knew that had taken her years.  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”   Spec was going to throw up.  How could he have missed that?

“I couldn’t face it, but I can’t let you go on like this.  It’s been ten years Adam.   You have to let this go.”

“Can you let it go?  I killed my best friend that night and caused this.  I killed your son and now you know I’m going to kill Duncan for this.  How can you even look at me?”  He was shaking with rage and tears streamed down his face.

“It’s different for me.  She’s my child.  Danny was my child too even if I grieve for him, I don’t agree with his actions.  They were born to me, from me, but I think of you as mine too.  I took you as mine when you were a little boy without a mother who loved him and that is a choice I have never regretted and this isn’t good for you.”  She wiped his tears with her soft hands.  “You deserve to be happy.”

“How can you say that?  How can you love me even when I have destroyed your life?”

“Oh Adam, you haven’t destroyed anything.  You were a bright spot in her life and I know it isn’t the way we would have liked, but you saved her from her tormenter.  You kept your promise to Danny and you protected her as best you could as a boy of seventeen.  This was all my fault.  I was too blind to see what was right in front of me.”

“Can I read her diary Elise?”

She shook her head.  “You don’t want to know what is in there Adam.  You really don’t.  You need to move on and build a life.”

“I can’t Elise.  How can I do that?  There is proof that I can’t be trusted.  I wanted to protect her.  I wanted to so bad.”

Elise sighed.

Spec looked at her then.  He saw the grief that he had overlooked countless times.  This wasn’t the grief of losing children, but the grief of secrets.  He had seen that look so many times in his life and in his home, but he’d never thought he would see that look of the weight of deception on this woman.

“What else is there Elise?”

The look she gave him told him he had been right.  She was hiding something that she felt would destroy him.

Tears flooded her eyes and she shook her head.  “Please listen to me.  Please.  Just let it all go.”

“You know I can’t do that, especially not now.”

She pulled a little pink book from her purse and handed it to him.  Then she handed him another.  This one was brown leather and much newer.

“This one tells the rest of the story.  I just pray you will understand.  I kept things from you to save you from this pain and honestly I couldn’t stand losing you too, but it was so wrong of me.  I should have told you so you could move on, but Adam, I love you and you are the only child I have left in this world.  I couldn’t bear it.”

Spec took the books and held them against his chest.  His life would change with the knowledge they held and he knew it beyond a doubt and if he let himself doubt it even for an instant the look on Elise’s face told him he was a fool.  He looked at the woman who had stepped in and become the mother he had needed in his youth while his own mother had turned to the bottle and scorned him.  This woman was everything he had ever dreamed of having in a mother, nothing would change the time and care she had given him or the love that no one could fake so effortlessly. 

Standing he pulled her to her feet and kissed her head.

“I love you Elise Archer.  There is nothing you could ever tell me that will change that fact.  Nothing.”

Her sobs were muffled against his chest as he held her.  He felt his words to the core of his soul.  The fear he had felt when she had handed him the two books lessened.  Her words wouldn’t change anything now.  The care in which she had reared her children had created him and it couldn’t go back and undo the way he was now.

“I will have to find him now Elise, now that I understand it all, I will have to make it right.  I’m not that same boy anymore and I will never let him take this shit out on me again.  He has been doing it for years and I always felt I deserved it, now he has to pay for it all.”

She nodded against his chest.  “He left after your last visit.  I told him I was going to tell you.  He knows you will be looking for him.  I told him I would never let him lay a hand on one of my children again.  He will never hurt anyone I love again.  I’m so sorry Adam.”

Spec kissed her head again.  He walked to the hospital bed and kissed the girl who lay still as death, but refused to let life go.

“I will finish the story next time Taylor.”

Next time he would be able to tell her he had slain her ghosts and next time he would be free of them too.  All these years and he finally understood.  He didn’t feel like he was drowning in confusion.  He understood.  He gripped the books in his hand.  There was more to the story and he knew it wasn’t going to be pretty or easy to read, but it would complete the story and maybe it would free him a little. 

He climbed on his bike and stored the books in his saddle bags before he headed to the house his father lived in.  He would read the books and start his search and when it was all done, he would claim the woman he knew could put him back together again.

Nine

Candy sat on the sofa bed in the tiny apartment she shared with Mina, Ink’s cousin.  Candy had worried that the woman would feel put out by this situation, but she seemed to genuinely like the company. 

Mina looked like Ink.  She had the same dark hair and blue eyes.  She also had the same quietness to her.  She worked as a dental assistant in a tiny dental practice not far from the technical college Candy was attending.  She had a sweet nature that Candy wanted to hate, but it was so genuine that she found herself truly loving the girl within a few days.  She insisted on helping Mina even if the woman denied the need for it. 

“Oh, I’m sorry Candy.  I just wanted to sneak in here and grab a snack.”

“It’s your place Mina.  You don’t have to apologize.”

“I don’t want to interrupt your studying.  I know how hard it can be to get back on track.”

“I’m not really studying, just sort of reading over things.  I can’t believe I am back in school.”

Mina smiled and popped a grape in her mouth.  “Ink says you’re really smart.  He seems excited for you to be doing this.”

Candy smiled.  “Ink is a sweetheart and I don’t know where I would be without him.”

Mina tilted her head and instantly reminded Candy of Spec.  Her heart stuttered.  It had been almost a month since Spec had disappeared.  He had called her to let her know that he was alright and that he would come home to her real soon, but she still wondered.  The brothers had stepped up to bring her down to school on Monday and pick her up on Thursday.  It almost scared her when Shadow took a turn. 

“How do you get on with Angel?  She seems... protective.”  Mina asked snapping Candy out of her thoughts.

“Oh she is, but she knows I’m no threat.  I was with someone until recently.”

Mina nodded.  “Same someone who gave you that sad face?”

“No.  Different one did this, but I think it will all work out.”

She turned and plopped her bottle of water on the counter.  “What do you say we have a little fun this weekend?”

“I have to work all weekend.”  Candy said, but she raised a brow at her new friend.

Mina shrugged.  “I’ve been thinking of driving up and checking out the nightlife up in your neck of the woods.  We could go out after you get off on Saturday.  I don’t mind crashing at your place.”  She winked at Candy.

Candy felt her lips curl in a smile.  “That sounds really great Mina.”

“Great!  I will drive up on Friday after work and we can start the fun.”

“That sounds like more fun than I have had in ages!”  Candy felt a swell of excitement bubble up in her belly at the thought of having a friend to hang out with.  Maybe things were turning out better than she thought.

Mina went back to her room and Candy continued to read over the material she was supposed to learn for the week.

Her phone beeped and she picked it up.  The text was simple, but it made her heart skip a beat.

I need to see you.

That was all it said, but it was the first time Spec had reached out to her in almost a month.  She had been so worried, but had refused to bombard him with messages.  Ink had told her to let it ride and that was what she had done.  It had worried her even more when Preach asked her where Spec was, but she knew Spec.  He was smart and he knew how to take care of himself.  She wouldn’t be the type of woman who had to know every move her man made.  If this is what Spec needed from her then this is what he would have.

When?

She chewed her lip and waited for him to answer her.

Now.  Come down.  I’m here.

She wanted to jump for joy, but she didn’t. 

I’ll be right there.

She ran to tell Mina that she was going out and grabbed a jacket on her way out the door.  Luckily she was still dressed and looked half way decent.   She stepped out the front door of the apartment building and saw him sitting across the street.  He looked worn even from a distance and worry slammed into Candy’s chest.  His head lifted as she approached and she saw the fading bruises on his face.

“Hi.”

“Get on.  I need you and I don’t feel like taking you here.”

Candy felt her eyes burn.  Was that all he wanted from her?  She climbed onto the back of his bike and wrapped her arms around him letting the vibration of the big machine soothe her frayed nerves.  She didn’t have to talk while they rode.  She just got to enjoy the feel of Spec in her arms.  She felt him begin to relax as the miles past and she felt herself shiver as the night air cut through her clothes.  She hadn’t thought to dress warmly enough, not knowing he planned to take her anywhere. 

He slowed and pulled into the parking lot of what looked to be an old school.

“You never dress warm enough.”  He growled as he removed his leather jacket and wrapped it around her.

“I didn’t know we would be going anywhere.”

His eyes searched her face before he turned and they were once again flying down the road.  It seemed to take forever before he pulled off the road and onto an old dirt road.  She had no idea where they were and she worried for just an instant that maybe she had become a problem for the club and Spec was going to get rid of her.  The thought was absurd however and she let it go as soon as it crossed her mind, but the place looked spooky and she admitted that she was afraid.

Spec pulled onto a white graveled drive and parked in front of an old white washed church.  A shiver skittered up Candy’s spine.  She had always been afraid of things like ghosts and scary movies and this was just too much.  Spec climbed off his bike and offered her his hand, but she shook her head.  He raised a brow in question.

“What are we doing here Spec?  This place is creepy.”

He seemed surprised.  “You’re afraid?  Why?”

“It’s dark and creepy!  This is a church for goodness sake!”

He shook his head and for the first time he smiled.  “You’re a chicken.  I need to talk to you and I need to do it here.”  He looked around and tried to fight the grin on his face.  “There aren’t any ghosts.”  He winked and tapped his big Harley.  “They are all trapped right here.”

“You’re making fun of me aren’t you?”

“Only a little.”  He studied her for a minute before he spoke again.  His voice sounded unsure and it almost broke Candy’s heart.  “Did it take me too long?  Did I miss my chance with you?”

Candy’s heart felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.  She shook her head.  “I’m still waiting for you.”

Her words seemed to make him wince.  “All you do is wait isn’t it Candy?  I’m such an asshole for asking it of you, but I couldn’t be what you deserve until I buried a few things.”

“What did you need to bury?  You can talk to me.”

“My best friend’s father.”  His words were spoken on a breath and she almost missed it.

Candy didn’t understand, but she wasn’t sure she really wanted to either.

“I need to talk to you about a few things and then I want to hold you tonight and tomorrow I want to take you to meet three people that mean everything to me.  Will you agree to listen to me?  You can decide the rest after.”

“I will agree to listen.”  She took his hand and met his eyes so he could see she was serious.  “I will still be here when you finish.”

He nodded and led her to a bench.  The headstone read Daniel Archer and he had died ten years ago to the day.

Candy knew that whatever Spec had to say involved the man at her feet and she wasn’t certain she wanted to know, but if it helped wash away the look of sadness on Spec’s face, she would listen.