Chapter 14
EMMETT
“So . . .” Nova turned to face me from her seat on the chaise beside mine. The expression on her face made my stomach drop.
Damn. I’d known this was coming. I’d been waiting for it. “So.”
It had been almost two months since we’d first met at The Betsy. Two months since we’d been having sex and sharing meals and spending time together. Two months, and dread of the end clung to the air like the autumn mist in the forest.
Nova had brought out a blanket tonight to ward off the chill. She had it pulled around her shoulders and her legs tucked beneath her. She’d stolen one of my hair ties to pile her tresses in a messy knot on her head. Her cheeks were rosy. The tip of her nose was a matching shade of pink.
Beautiful. Unforgettable.
I’d told her we could sit inside but she’d insisted on the deck. She seemed to love it out here as much as I did.
Hell, it was going to be lonely sitting out here without her.
“I have to go back to Missoula tomorrow.”
Damn. Damn. Just because I’d known it was coming didn’t make it easier to hear. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her not to go, but the words would be wasted.
The past two weeks had been some of the best in my life, and I’d be a fool not to admit it was because of her. Ever since that night at The Betsy when she’d found me after the barbeque, we’d spent as much time together as possible.
Part of me knew it was because we’d been barreling toward the finish line. No amount of pumping the brakes would stop its fast approach.
And now we were here. The end.
“Okay.” There wasn’t anything else to say. Just . . . okay.
“I need to get my life back together there before Monday. Do laundry. All of that.”
I nodded. God, I wanted to beg her to stay through tomorrow and the weekend. Tonight couldn’t be our last night together. I wasn’t ready to let her go yet.
“But I was thinking . . . maybe I could come back next weekend.”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “Come back. Except . . .”
“What?”
“My friends are throwing me a birthday party. Here.”
“Oh.” Her body sagged.
“Just think about it.”
“Okay,” she whispered, sadness in her gaze. She didn’t want this to end either.
Not yet.
One more weekend wouldn’t make it any harder. It wouldn’t make it any easier, but it wouldn’t make it any harder, and I wasn’t ready to say goodbye for good.
“Will you miss me this week?” she asked.
“Yes.” Again, no hesitation.
“Good.” A smile tugged at her mouth as she stood, shuffling to my chair and bringing the blanket along with her.
I shifted, making space for her to sit between my legs and lean against my chest.
The smell of her perfume enveloped me, sensual and deep and complicated, like the woman herself. I drew it in, holding it for a long breath, then wrapped my arms around her and held tight.
“Tell me something,” she said.
“What?”
“Anything. I just want to hear your voice.”
I kissed the top of her hair, then relaxed and stared off into the trees. The sun was setting earlier and earlier these days, but we sat out here regardless, staring into the trees as they were swallowed up by the night.
“We’ve got a Nova coming into the garage in a couple of weeks. Made me think of you.”
She hummed. “What’s your favorite part about working at the garage?”
“The people. Working with my brothers.”
“From the club?”
“A couple of them, yeah. Everyone at the garage used to be part of the club, but after we disbanded, we hired others.” Most of the brothers had scattered to the wind after we shut down the Tin Kings.
First Presley had come along to act at the receptionist. Then Isaiah had been the first mechanic who hadn’t been a member.
“Why did you disband?”
I blew out a deep breath, propping a knee up. The answer to her question was long and complicated. It was full of secrets that only a few people in Clifton Forge even knew.
Secrets I wouldn’t—couldn’t—tell her.
Maybe if we were going someplace, maybe if she was a lifelong companion and not leaving tomorrow, we’d get to a point where I’d share those secrets. But that wasn’t our thing.
“I’m prying. Sorry,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s okay. I haven’t talked much about it.”
Maybe I should. Maybe I could air it out here, with her, without spilling the details I’d take with me to the grave.
“In a nutshell . . . the brothers decided to go their different ways. Some of the older guys retired, a couple settling here in town.”
Big Louie still lived in town. He’d bought the bowling alley after leaving the Kings and we’d see him at The Betsy every now and then. Every time I saw him he wanted to talk about Dad—it wasn’t always easy to bump into Big Louie.
“Others moved south for the weather.” They’d wanted easier winters and the ability to ride their bikes year-round. “Some brothers moved to chase a woman. When they left, we didn’t replace them with younger prospects.”
Jet had moved to Vegas, following a girl. He had his own garage there now, and every couple of years, he’d call Dash out of the blue to bullshit. He’d texted me after Draven had died, asking if there was anything he could do.
Gunner had been my age. We’d prospected together. Like some of the older men, he’d gotten sick of the Montana winters and not being able to ride for months at a time, so he’d moved to Washington and bought a houseboat with the money he’d made from the club.
That was an explanation, but only a sliver of the whole story.
Most of those members would have stayed in Clifton Forge had the club not made the decision to pull out of all illegal activities—activities that meant the cash flow was going to recede.
There’d been members who hadn’t wanted to give up the life, the money, the power. Most of them had left to join other clubs. Some had even joined the Warriors. It had been a slap in the face after those fuckers had killed Dad.
Those assholes had been hauled in with the FBI raid on the Warriors. I couldn’t find it in me to feel bad that they’d been arrested. They’d made their choice when they’d put on the Arrowhead Warrior patch.
They’d made their choice when the Tin Kings had called for a vote. It just hadn’t gone in their favor.
The decision had been the right one. The writing had been on the wall. If we had continued, there would have been prison sentences and early deaths.
Most members Dad’s age had retired by means of the cemetery. When you put on the cut, you knew you were likely signing up for a shorter-than-average life expectancy. That hadn’t mattered in the beginning. But after a while, after Dad’s death . . .
“We all voted it was time to change,” I said.
“Change from what?”
“Change from the men we’d been.” Not the kind of men who’d have a woman like Nova in their arms.
“Oh,” she muttered.
Yeah. Oh.
We’d fought easily and often. We’d used intimidation to get whatever the fuck we’d wanted. We’d lied, cheated and stolen. We’d killed when necessary. It had all been in the name of the brotherhood. And for most of my life, I’d bought that line.
Now, looking back, I saw it had really been for money.
The garage hauled in a damn good income stream now, but back then, we hadn’t been known for our custom remodels and builds.
The reason Draven had pushed so hard to expand the garage was to replace the money flowing in from the club.
No way Draven would have been able to pay me then what Dash was paying me now.
Except to get to this point, it had taken time and a lot of fucking work. Now that dream was realized.
Draven’s dream.
Dad would have loved it too. As much as he had loved being a Tin King.
Since I was a kid, that was the life I’d known. The life I’d wanted. I’d never cared about the money. Living Dad’s legacy had been more important.
Would Dad have voted to disband? I often wondered what side he would have taken. Though if not for his death, we probably wouldn’t have called for a vote in the first place.
“There’s more to the story,” I said, not sure why I was even talking about this. Maybe because I needed to say it. Or I needed her to know what kind of man I was. To see a glimpse of the demons in my past. Maybe they’d scare her away and next weekend wouldn’t happen.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she said.
I held her tighter. “The reason we put it to vote in the first place was because one of our rivals came after family. Shit got fucked up.”
Nova listened, unmoving, waiting for me to continue.
“The president of the club, Draven, had two sons. Nick, who was never part of the club, and Dash. Dash runs the garage where I work. When I was VP of the club, he was president. We’ve been friends our whole lives.
Grew up in the club together. We knew what we were getting into.
When you signed up to be a member, you knew the risks. Families too.”
“Risks like . . . death?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Oh.”
“Nick wasn’t in the club. He never joined. He left Clifton Forge and didn’t look back. Got married and was living in Prescott. No connection other than his DNA. A rival club went after Nick’s wife. She had nothing to do with the club. She was innocent.”
“Is she . . . okay?”
“The Warriors tried to kidnap her. She got lucky. Local police stopped it. But it never should have happened in the first place.” The Warriors who’d tried to kidnap her had allegedly been acting against Tucker Talbot’s orders.
At the time, the only reason we’d believed it hadn’t been his idea was that he’d handed over those two members to the Tin Kings.
Their bodies were buried in the mountains, in a remote location where no one would ever find their bones.
But maybe Tucker had just been trying to get rid of two rogue members and he’d ordered the kidnapping himself. I wouldn’t put it past the man to stab his own fucking brothers in the back.
“Then after that, the same rivals murdered my father. That was the catalyst. It was time to just . . . be done.”