Chapter 15
Fifteen
I don’t know how you were raised, but you should really unlearn that shit.
—Creed’s secret thoughts
Creed
My anger had cooled hours later, and I knew that I’d gone overboard when I’d yelled at her.
Yet, I didn’t apologize.
And I wouldn’t.
Mostly because my sister was staring at me so stubbornly across the table from me with a look of determination on her face.
“We don’t even know that it’ll be an issue yet,” she pointed out. “So far, I haven’t had any other issues.”
I sighed. “You’re also pregnant. You can’t really check your iron levels on your own. And just because you haven’t had an asthma attack doesn’t mean that you won’t.”
She waved my worry away. “I’m not pregnant.”
“You’re not?”
She rolled her eyes. “No. My doctor mixed my labs up with another girl’s that came in at the same time as me. She’s pregnant, not me. I, on the other hand, still have anemia.”
I looked up at the ceiling. “This isn’t a good idea.”
She was getting just as impatient with me as I was with her.
“You no longer get to have a say in my life,” she said. “I can’t believe you lied to me. I also can’t believe that you left me like that. I had to go to your funeral, Justin.”
“Creed,” I automatically corrected her. “You can’t call me that here. You have to call me Creed.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s going to take some time, okay?”
A slow smile lifted up the corner of my lips. “Just be careful, Bernice. I’m serious.”
She sobered. “I would never put you in danger.”
“I know you wouldn’t mean to,” I pointed out.
“But we have to be oh, so careful here. That’s part of why I didn’t tell you.
You’re not just a normal person anymore.
You’ve attacked every single law enforcement branch in the country.
You’re extremely popular among certain circles.
If you come here, you’re going to have to be quiet and calm. You can’t bring them to our doorstep.”
Bernice leaned forward in her chair, putting her elbows on her knees. “I think you’re trying to get rid of me.”
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyeballs and wiggled them.
“I’m nervous, okay?” I said. “I’m scared that you’re going to leave. I’m scared that you’re going to stay. I’m scared that if you stay, we’re going to be found out. And I’m scared that if you leave, I’ll never see you again.”
She got up and walked toward me.
I heard her bare feet bouncing lightly on the wood floors as she wrapped her arms around my head.
“We’ll figure this out, okay?” she said. “In the meantime, let’s talk about that girl you’ve been trying not to talk about since yesterday.”
I had been avoiding all topics of discussion that pertained to Birdee.
“I’m not ready to go there,” I admitted.
“Well, you might not be, but I am,” she said. “I want you to sit back and think about something for a moment.”
I pulled away from her and stared up at her frowning face.
“What?”
“Does she have a good family life?”
I grimaced. “No.”
And that was the fuckin’ truth, too.
Vito was good to Cody and Mable, but I had yet to see him with all three girls.
“And, if she doesn’t have that, and she sees someone that could have that, do you think she’s really going to sit back and not say something?
” she pushed, her frown of disapproval hitting me in the solar plexus.
“I met that girl less than a week ago, and I could see the determination on her face to make your life better. She didn’t know me at all outside of you.
Why do you think she made that decision, Creed? ”
I refused to examine why.
Mostly because I was a coward. And if I admitted that she was special, and had done this out of the goodness of her heart, then I’d have to admit that I overreacted and I was wrong.
And I tried not to do that very often.
“Want to go out to eat?” I changed the subject.
She studied me for so long that I nearly started to squirm. “Sure.”
The breath of relief that whooshed out of me would’ve been comical had that niggling feeling of doubt when it came to Birdee Calvert hadn’t started to balloon into an elephant that was sitting directly on my chest.
“I have to be at work at nine, but I can take you to breakfast really quick.” I powered through the feeling. “And then when I get home, we can talk about what you want to do for real.”
Something that we needed to figure out sooner rather than later, because she would be missed.
Not to mention, she would need to change her appearance if she chose to stay. And delete all of her social media and pretty much check out of her old life.
Apollo could help her, but she needed to make a decision.
She couldn’t have both. She couldn’t come here when she wanted to see me. She couldn’t be texting me every day to keep up with my life. She either needed to live here or never talk to me again.
Which was an impossible decision.
She knew an evasion when she saw it. “Sure.”
We got dressed and headed out, me fully decked out in my uniform, and her in every single layer she’d brought with her.
She hadn’t been prepared for the harsh Montana winter.
Hell, neither had I.
But I also wasn’t a willowy, five-foot-three, anemic asthmatic.
The drive to the diner took no time at all, work traffic having already cleared out for the day.
I pulled up just outside of the diner and got out, walking around the front of the game warden vehicle to get Bernice’s door.
She smiled at me gratefully and got out just as a familiar head of brown curly hair exited the coffee shop, just one shop down from the diner, out onto the sidewalk.
She didn’t see me at first, only focused on her feet.
I looked down at said feet to see a pair of brown boots that’d seen better days.
Even her jacket was somewhat raggedy.
She needed a better jacket.
Not that I was going to tell her so.
But I could scowl really hard and let her know my displeasure.
As if she could feel my anger, she looked up and froze.
Charleigh was behind her and bumped into her.
Birdee’s coffee slipped from her fingers and fell to the ground, splashing everywhere.
Birdee hissed as the hot liquid splashed her, but still bent down to pick up the trash despite now wearing part of her coffee.
“Shoot,” Charleigh apologized profusely. “I’m sorry.”
“No worries,” Birdee said as she threw the cup of coffee away in the nearest trash can, which happened to be halfway between her and me. “You ready?”
“Sure.” Charleigh looked from me to Birdee and back.
But Birdee didn’t.
She got into what I assumed was Charleigh’s car and didn’t look back.
“You should go buy her another coffee after this to make up for being a dumbass,” Bernice supplied as we watched them both drive away.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, trying to erase the way it made me feel to see her not pay attention to me at all.
I held the door to the diner open for my sister, and we got the table in the front corner that awarded us a great view of the town. I noted Odin and Weaver in the corner, but didn’t go up to say hello.
“This place is amazing,” Bernice said, but I was only partially listening, still stuck on the way it made me feel to see Birdee so aloof with me.
“Yeah, it is,” I said.
The next thirty minutes went like this.
Bernice would talk, offering never-ending chatter.
And I would supply one-word answers as I tried, and failed, to think about anything but the pain on Birdee’s face.
Then Vito, Mable, Romeo, and Cody came in while talking and laughing, and my control just…snapped.
“Weaver,” I called out when I saw him and Odin standing up. “Would you mind giving my sister a ride home?”
Weaver smiled apologetically before saying, “No can do. I have to get to work. There are a few power lines down thanks to an avalanche out on Eerie Road.”
I felt panic start to claw away inside of me.
I needed to see her.
I needed to…
“I’ll take her,” Odin grumbled darkly.
I was opening my mouth to say “absolutely not” when Bernice, all flowers and sunshine and hope, hopped up and said, “Thanks. My brother’s done being a dumbass and wants to go apologize to Birdee for being a complete dick to her.”
“Does that mean we can talk to her now, too?” Boone, who I hadn’t seen until now, asked from a couple of tables over.
That just showed where my damn mind had been.
Not on breakfast, and certainly not on my surroundings. Which was a complete shock to me seeing as I was always aware of my surroundings. Half of my life in a prison had honed me into a real-life danger warning system.
“Never said you couldn’t,” I pointed out.
“No, but you were pissed as fuck, and we thought that meant that we were cuttin’ ties,” Huxley said from behind me.
I frowned and looked over my shoulder to see him fixing himself a cup of coffee.
I pinched the bridge of my nose before saying, “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“That’s good, because I’m fairly sure she hasn’t gotten her locks changed yet.” Boone raised his cup of coffee toward me.
I ignored everyone and everything and left, heading next door to the coffee shop.
“Hey.” I smiled at the same older woman that I’d spoken with last time. “I was hoping to get another cup of your milk concoction for my girl.”
“Your girl?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “From the last I heard this morning, you and her aren’t anything.”
That stung.
But…
“I might’ve fucked up,” I admitted, scratching my head sheepishly.
She snorted and made the cup of non-coffee.
When she handed it over to me, she leveled me with a glare that could peel paint.
“That girl is the best thing this world has ever seen, and not a single soul in this world knows it but me, my son, and that new friend of hers, Charleigh. If you don’t fix whatever you broke inside of her with whatever words you spewed—which I somewhat know about thanks to the conversation I overheard with Charleigh and her today—I’ll fucking kill you.
I’ll scoop your eyeballs out one by one and make you eat them.
And I don’t care if you’re affiliated with the Dixie Wardens or not. ”
I wouldn’t smile.
A feat that I managed only barely. “I’ll make it right.”
She handed me the drink before saying, “That’s seven fifty. And leave me a good tip.”
I gave her a twenty and took the drink, heading out of the coffee shop and straight to my truck.
I drove straight to Birdee’s work and pulled to an abrupt halt a few doors down.
Getting out, I marched toward the door only to find a piece of paper on the door that said, “CLOSED.”
I frowned.
“You lookin’ for Stacy?”
I glanced over my shoulder to see one of my club brothers, Bowie, standing there. “No. Birdee.”
“Ahh,” he said. “You won’t find her there. That’s why they’re closed. Her and her hot little friend turned in their resignation. Stacy’s fuckin’ pissed as hell.”
“Resignation?” I turned fully to him, girly drink in hand. “Where did she go?”
“It’s funny you think I’d know something about that when I just got back…” He chuckled. “I just know she doesn’t work there anymore because Stacy and my pop got a drink last night and I heard him bitching about it.”
Bowie worked for the family oil field business, and was gone two weeks, home two weeks. He didn’t get to just jump into a higher role—though he wouldn’t have wanted to even if he could. He worked from the ground up, and was now the big boss in charge of all the peons at the job sites.
When he wasn’t in the field, he was working at his father’s office, which just so happened to be right next door to where Birdee worked.
Had worked.
“Thanks,” I muttered, looking down at my drink.
He studied me. “Thought she was persona non grata?”
“That’s what I’m hearing,” I said. “But she isn’t. I was an asshole.”
“Coffee ain’t gonna cut it then, my friend,” he pointed out.
No, he was right.
Coffee wasn’t going to cut it.