Chapter 32
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Jack
Holiday parties at the Viking Den are great. Only family members and close friends are invited. It’s good to see all the kids running around and playing. It’s also nice not to have the stress of outsiders, excessive drinking, and fights. There’s no live band today. We have music, but it’s coming through speakers around the room and controlled behind the bar. The bartender decides on the music. Kayla’s playing a mix of rock and country music. Most of my brothers hate country music. They loudly grumble and complain every time one starts. Kayla just laughs and dances along with the music. That little twig is doing this on purpose.
The food at our holiday celebrations is always the best, especially at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. The women in our club spend days preparing every dish you can imagine. Most of them are made from scratch. You can’t beat southern home cooking.
With all the threats going on, everyone is on edge today. We’ve doubled security until all this is over. So far today, it’s all quiet in Willow Creek. No emergency Church meeting has been called. I don’t believe I can handle another one any time soon. The last one almost killed me. It’s a bad night when your cousin, best friend, and father have to hold you down. Mark my words. I will find Joel Clark. He will pay for what he’s done to Lily.
You know what else is trying to kill me? The universe. Yep, it’s lining up tight against me. And to top it all off, my family is helping. Dad always pairs Coty with me in any level of lockdown. His dad is more than enough protection for their family. Since Hendrix lives next door, he gets paired with the Micheals family anyway. He ups their protection tenfold.
We don’t just protect our families when trouble arises. Our protection extends to our friends around town. If someone lives alone and there’s no one close by to pair them with, we bring them to the clubhouse. My grandmother pairing Lily with Kayla was fine. It would have been better if she still lived in the guest house. I’d even call it a blessing. With the day Lily had and it being her first club lockdown, she needed a friend with her. Having Kayla there last night wasn’t good. It wasn’t a blessing. It was a curse. It’s proof the universe will never be on my side.
Having Rodeo and Kayla in my house last night was a disaster. After Church, I wanted to go home, help Lily come to terms with our new living arrangements, and hold her in my arms all night for the first time. It was a great plan. But NO! My best friend can’t get along with the woman he’s obviously in love with for five minutes. Okay. Maybe they didn’t argue and bicker every five minutes. It was still enough to have a headache today because of them. I’m about ready to toss the two of them in the backyard of the clubhouse and demand they work it out within the fence. It’s what we do when our brothers have disagreements. Vikings protect and love one another like family, whether we’re blood-related or not. We also fight like family, too. Sometimes, it takes slugging it out.
“Hey, angel. You enjoying yourself?” I lean down to press my lips to her temple.
Lily’s sitting with Mom and a few ole’ ladies. The women in my family made it their mission today to introduce Lily to all the wives. Even Harley helped. We got to the clubhouse around two this afternoon. We ate Thanksgiving dinner around five. Now everyone is in little groups relaxing. Families with babies and small children have already gone home.
She turns and kisses my cheek. “I am.”
“Go away, Jack,” Mom orders.
I’d rather not, but I’m not about to ruin this day. I walk away, keeping their table in sight. Lily turns back to the conversation and laughs. She’s been happy all afternoon. Some of the moments were fake. None of us can forget yesterday. Moments like now it’s real and beautiful to watch. She’s not even trying to hide her bruised nose. She belongs here. She doesn’t realize it yet or understand our world, but this is her world, too.
Movement at the entrance of the hallway catches my attention. Jay’s motioning me over. Rodeo’s heading that way. I don’t see Dad or Worley Bird. I walk toward my cousin at a pace that won’t alarm our families. Maybe whatever is going on will be good news. Only, there’s that thing with the universe not liking me.
“Your dad wants to see us in his office.” Jay leads the way.
Dad, Worley Bird, and Nick are waiting for us. Nick looks exhausted. He won’t rest while there’s an active threat against us. When this is over, he’ll hibernate for a few days.
“Nick has news.” Dad motions to him.
“Joel Clark is back in LA,” Nick says.
That makes no sense. No one says anything, not even Dad. I look between Jay and Rodeo.
“How’s that possible?” Jay asks.
“He was here yesterday, right? We all say him on the library footage.” Rodeo’s as shocked as I am.
It’s good for Lily that he’s not here anymore, but I wanted him. Every member of this club wanted to get their hands on him. My legs can’t hold my weight anymore. I drop down into one of the chairs in front of Dad’s desk.
“It was him in the library,” Nick confirms.
The only way Clark could get out of here and back to LA that fast was to fly.
My eyes lift to meet Nick’s. “You were watching the flights all night.”
“I was.” Nick nods once. “I watched every flight out of Tennessee from the time he left the library. Nothing. Clark wasn’t on any of them.”
Dad and Worley Bird are as disappointed as I am. Worley Bird watches Dad close. As an Ariel’s Angel, Lily had the club’s full protection and everything it offered. She’s no longer a file on Dad’s desk. She’s not another case or rescue anymore. She’s family. Lily has something more now, something greater. It comes with a price, though.
It doesn’t matter how long ago we lost my sister. The pain never ends and will never go completely away. My family tries to function as normally as possible, as others think we should. Those people have no clue what dark hole we live in. When something happens within our immediate family, no matter how small or great that something is, Dad remembers losing Ariel like it was yesterday. We all do. The rest of us have gotten better at hiding our explosions than Dad has.
“How did he pull it off,” Jay asks.
“I started checking the flights landing in LA just in case I missed something.”
Nick is beyond exhausted if he’s admitting to possibly missing something. He’s never done that before. The club and Ariel’s Angels have grown. We may need to look into getting Nick an assistant. We can’t expect him to keep up with everything by himself.
“At 1:34 am Pacific Time this morning, a private jet landed in LA with a J. Clark on board. Joel lives in the same subdivision as his parents. I haven’t gotten into those cameras yet.” Nick taps a few keys on his laptop and turns the screen toward us. “But this is the last traffic camera before their fancy gated community.”
Jay, Rodeo, and I get closer to the screen. Dad doesn’t move. He’s already seen it. I lean back against the chair and run a hand through my hair. Joel Clark is clearly the driver of the black Mercedes in the photo.
“So you forgot to check private flights.” Rodeo releases a long breath and rubs the heel of his hand against his temple. Yeah, he’s had a really long night.
“No. I checked every flight out of Tennessee, commercial and private.” Nick points to his laptop screen. “The private plane he was on took off from Birmingham.”
I sit up straight. We can’t fault Nick for missing this. None of us thought anything about checking Alabama. There’s nothing we can do about Clark right now.
“What about the Mavericks,” I ask.
Nick pulled the camera from outside the back door of the library up again after Lily and Kayla called during Church. Joel ran out the door, through the sitting area, and off-screen. We only watched from the moment he ran out the door the first time around. No one else was there. Backing the footage up a few minutes revealed a man hiding among the decorative bushes and trees in the garden. Zooming in distorted the image to the point that Nick couldn't get a positive ID. Lily wasn’t wrong, though. Even from a distance, the man resembled Trace’s buddy, Buck.
“Nothing around Willow Creek. Our sources in Chattanooga say the Mavericks are celebrating Thanksgiving at their clubhouse like we are,” Dad replies.
“Should we call off the lockdown?” Worley Bird asks.
Dad stares at his desk, not looking at anything in particular. “No. It’s getting late. Everyone expects it for the night. We’ll end it in the morning if nothing happens.”
“Okay, boys. You know the drill for the night,” Worley Bird dismisses us.
My eyes land on Lily the moment I step into the Den. She’s still with Mom and laughing. I wanna soak this up for a while, but without everyone else around.
I clamp my hand on Rodeo’s shoulder. “I’m taking Lily home. Bring Kayla after things here get cleaned up. Don’t you two break my house.”
“No promises,” Rodeo grumbles as he heads toward the bar. If he starts an argument with her now, it’s Dad’s and Worley Bird’s problem.
I weave through the crowd, not letting anyone stop me to chat. These fools will talk for hours if I just say hello. I smile and toss my hand up when a brother calls out, but I don’t stop.
I put a hand on the back of Lily’s chair. I speak to all the women at her table. “Thank you, ladies, for dinner. It was amazing as always.”
Mom knows we’re leaving. She stands, and I wrap her in a hug.
“Don’t mess this up,” she whispers.
“Don’t plan on it,” I whisper back.
“You’re your father’s son. I’m no fool.”
I lightly chuckle. “Okay, Mom. I’ll try not to.”
“That’s better.” She pats my arm. My mom’s weird but in a good way.
I offer Lily my hand. “Let’s go home, angel.”
She stands and says goodbye to everyone. The sight of her hugging my mom makes me want to rub my chest. Some of Dad’s off-the-wall decisions over the years don’t seem so crazy anymore.
The ride back to the house is short, quiet, and peaceful. Like yesterday, Lily sits next to me with my arm around her. It’s fine with me if the console never lowers when she’s in my truck.
She looks down the driveway when I open the front door. “Where’s Kayla and Rodeo?”
“They’re going to help clean up. They’ll be here after.” Or they’ll destroy the clubhouse when they start bickering.
“Oh, we can help.”
“No, ma’am.” I spin her back around and walk her further into the living room. “You and I are going to relax and take it easy.”
She leans back against my chest and looks up at me over her shoulder. Something I’ve longed to see twinkles in her eyes. “How easy? How relaxed?”
I stop breathing for a moment. My angel is a seductress. The universe might now hate me after all.
“You’re killing me, angel.” I briefly close my eyes to break her spell. I’m an idiot. The biggest on the planet. “You wanna get a shower before we go to bed?”
Her pink lips part with a small gasp. It’s cute and sweet. It’s part of her seductress spell. I’m sure of it. She can have sweet for a moment. I press my lips to hers. Whatever she was about to say can wait. Her lips slowly move with mine. The tip of her tongue lightly brushes my bottom lip, activating her little spell again. When she tries to turn her body to fully face me, I lift my head, ending the kiss.
“Shower?” I ask again.
“A quick one.”
“Nothing quick here, angel.”
She sucks in a breath. I lead her up the stairs and walk her backward down the hall to my bedroom door without breaking eye contact. Our bedroom now. I push the door open and walk her one step inside.
“Go.” I give her another quick kiss and nudge her toward the bathroom.
While she showers in the master bathroom, I grab a pair of sleep pants and quickly shower in the guest bathroom. I check the doors. Both are locked. Rodeo has a key to my house. He’s crashed here so often at one point he might as well have moved in with me.
A quick call to Jay confirms everything’s quiet and fine. I return to the bedroom and sit on the foot of the bed. Tonight, we’re sleeping in this room, in this bed. There will be no girl sleepover party in the living room tonight. My back still hurts from sleeping in the recliner.
My eyes dart to the closed bathroom door. I’d love to be in there with her. One night in my house and not even in my bed is too soon to be taking showers with her. Or is it? The water shuts off before I can find out.
Her little seductress spell weaves around me the moment she steps into the bedroom. Last night, she wore pajama pants with a matching long-sleeve top. The shortie pajama set she’s wearing now is designed to kill a man. She’s a dream standing there barefoot, with long legs and thick thighs. Yep, I just might die tonight.
When one foot lifts and rubs over the top of the other, and her hands tremble, I’m on my feet.
“Come on, angel. Let’s relax.” I walk her to the side of the bed and pull back the covers.
“And take it easy,” she adds as she slides between the sheets.
“As easy as you need.” I slide in next to her.
Wrapping an arm around her, I pull her to my side. She curls into me and rests her head on my shoulder. Her fingertips gently trace over the tattoos on my chest. Both bedside lamps are on their lowest setting, allowing her to study the designs.
“I knew you had tattoos on your chest.” She softly presses her lips to one.
Yep. I’m a dead man. “You been picturing me shirtless, angel?” This is the first time it’s happened.
She grins and lifts one shoulder. “Maybe.”
Oh, there’s no maybe to it. From the gleam in her eyes, she’s not only imagined, she’s had fantasies, too. Good to know, cause so have I.
Her lips press against another tattoo. Light kisses follow the design up my chest. Before she reaches my neck, I raise up, pin her to the mattress, and claim those tempting lips with mine.
“Jack,” she says my name with a ragged breath.
“Yeah, angel. I’ll take care of that.”
But first, wanna see my fantasy. Wrapping an arm around her waist, I lay back and flip her over me.
“Jack!” That gasp was all surprise.
“You look beautiful up there, angel.”
“You’re crazy.”
“You like my crazy.”
She does. Once she admits it to herself, she and I will explode like fireworks. The seductive gleam returns to her eyes. Oh, she’s halfway there already. I crook my finger and motion her to me. Her grin widens. She lowers toward me.
And the world explodes.