Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tess
“I think you better tell me everything before we go inside,” Paige says as we both sit in the car in her parents’ driveway.
“What?” I ask as I turn to face her, confused. My brain feels like it’s been flooded with murky liquid and thinking is as difficult as running under water. “Are you asking if I did it?” I swallow hard, praying her answer isn’t yes.
“No. God, no. I know you’d never do something like that.” She reaches out to take my hand which is lying limply on my lap.
“I’m asking what the hell happened between you and the biker.”
I tell her everything, from the hot few weeks of sexual bliss and budding relationship goals to the text that brought it all crumbling down on my head.
“He’s married with two kids?” Paige’s eyes are wide.
I shrug. “I don’t actually know because Mack implied he led me to believe something that wasn’t true.”
“Well, you have to find out.”
“That’s easier said than done. Since I’m the number one suspect in an arson case involving his house.”
“He loves you. He’ll believe you.”
“Firstly, no one loves anyone. It was sex. We had a fling to scratch a biological itch?—”
“Bullshit, Tess. I can see it in your face, not even you believe that.”
“Don’t interrupt. As I was saying, it was just physical, and if I didn’t believe he wasn’t a two-timing asshole cheating on his pregnant wife, how can I expect him to believe me?”
“Love will conquer all.”
I throw my hands up. “Paige, quit drinking the Kool-Aid. Romantic love doesn’t exist. You’re buying into what the romance genre wants you to believe. Love is an archaic idea—way back it was a necessity, now it’s something people tell themselves because of their biological urges.”
“So then why would it even bother you that he had a family? If it was just sex?”
I pause mid eyeroll and swallow hard. I’d been crushed. Totally crushed. And the thought of him thinking I started that fire crushes me too. Sniffing, I turn to my best friend. “I can’t let myself feel right now. Please.”
Paige awkwardly leans across the car to pull my head against her shoulder, and I cry.
“You need to, Tess. It’s time you let yourself be vulnerable.”
“Call him again. Mack said the arson case was closed, which means he knows it wasn’t you. Mack apologizes by the way.” She shoots me a glance, but I don’t bother scolding her for forgiving him on my behalf. Instead, I wring my hands, anxiety thrumming through me. With Page’s help I managed to get ahold of the judge and set up a meeting, but I’m nervous. If I fuck this up, he won’t get his daughter and it’ll be all my fault.
“He’s not answering. Ten unanswered calls are telling enough, Paige. He doesn’t want to talk to me. And I can’t blame him.” I throw my bag onto the scale and watch the red numbers display the weight of it. “He wasn’t even at his place. No one was. And his clothes are gone.”
“What about personal items?”
“He didn’t have any personal items. Just clothes and toiletries and all that is gone.” I feel panic edging inside me. “What else did Mack say?”
She’d gone to the house across the field despite the caution tape while I was in the shower.
My bag moves down the conveyer belt and Paige puts hers on the scale. “He yelled and threatened me for coming onto an unstable property, which was uh…” She doesn’t finish her thought. “He apologized for?—”
“Skip that,” I demand, interrupting her. She gives me a look that says she’d smack me if it weren’t for the fact that I’m in a love crisis. “You already told me he apologized.”
She nods. “He seems to mean it. Even though he also said he still thinks you’re a brat for all the other shit you did.”
I roll my eyes. “I figured. Tell me something useful.”
“Case had an affair with a woman named Lisa, while working undercover for the RCMP. She was an old lady of one of the higher-ranking members. That’s like marriage in the club.”
“I read Harley and Hearts too, Paige.”
She smirks, wiggling her brow. “Yeah, you did.”
I look skyward. “Paige!”
“Okay. Sheesh. Anyway, her old man, a guy named Preacher, was abusive and I guess Case protected her often and one thing led to another, and she got pregnant. Case had no idea she was pregnant when he helped her escape the Club after a particularly brutal beating. His only condition to getting her out was that she stay away and never contact him again because if she was found after running she was as good as dead, and if the Ransom found out he helped, he’d be buried right beside her.”
The woman behind the counter interrupts us, first to gush at me and tell me how much she loves my books and then to tell us we need to hurry.
“These are last-minutes seats, ladies. The flight will be boarding any minute.” Nodding in the direction of our gate, she hands us our boarding passes. “I’ll tell them to hold the plane for a few minutes, but you need to hurry or the pilot will rip me a new one.”
“Thank you!” I say, snatching the tickets and then Paige’s wrist as she hands the woman one of my books out of her carry-on bag. We rush for our gate.
“When this is all over, I need a drink. A strong one. And do you always keep signed books in your bag?”
“I do,” Paige says. “And no drinking until you’ve had really awesome make-up sex with your biker. After that I’ll buy you as many as you want.”
Her words are painful because the chances of that happening seem slim. After all, I’ve done nothing but cause him trouble and when he needed me, I wasn’t there. And now, he may lose his daughter and although I didn’t start the fire, it feels like the final straw that’ll show him I’m not worth the effort.
When we reach our gate the line is already moving, and Paige doesn’t finish her story until we’re buckled into our seats.
“So, you were saying Lisa was hidden from the MC and Case had forbidden her from contacting him…”
“Right. Good. A distraction.” Paige takes a tablet from a bottle and swallows it, breathing in when it goes down. She’s not a fan of flying but the taking off and landing parts are the worst. “Ativan is a lifesaver. I better talk fast because once this kicks in it’ll be night-night for me.”
We both accept the almonds and soda being handed out by the flight attendant in business class and Paige continues her story.
“So, he doesn’t hear a thing from her for a year, but then one day he’s in the shop where he works on his bike. By the way…” She looks at me with a grin. “Do you know his bike has a name? It’s Lady.” She laughs, shaking her head. “Men are so weird. Mack’s bike has a name too. It’s Mercy because he almost died once while riding her.”
“You know a lot about Mack suddenly,” I reply, suspiciously. “He’s our sworn enemy, Paige.”
“Do you want to hear the rest of this story or not?”
“Fine, fine.” I make a zippering motion with my fingers against my lips.
“So, she shows up, and tells him about his daughter. Tells him she wants him to meet her. And he’s like ready to get himself pulled from the case, but his handler says it’s not possible. It took a year to get him patched and they’re in too deep. He only got patched that fast because Mack vouched for him.”
“God, that must have been horrible.” I knew about Mack but didn’t say anything about it to Paige.
“Anyway, I guess someone in the MC spotted her leaving the shop and followed her. She was never seen again. They questioned Case about it and the only thing that kept him alive is telling them she was there to beg for money and that he’d set her up, telling her to come back the next day for some cash and that he planned on surprising Preacher.”
“This story gets worse and worse.” I think of Case and how it must have destroyed him to keep his shit together after first finding out he had a kid and then finding out his child’s mother and former lover had been murdered. I shiver in my seat and Paige reaches up to close the little air vents above us.
“So poor Case had to stay deep undercover and not even think about Lisa or their daughter for fear of Preacher finding out Reece existed. And then finally after several more years stuck undercover, they finally took the club down and he finally got to meet his daughter. She was already four years old by then.”
“So, who was the woman in the picture on Case’s phone? Who’s Lulah?”
Paige looks skyward, thinking. “Lulah is Reece’s aunt, by marriage to Lisa’s brother.” Her statement comes out like a question. “I guess they were raising Reece and when they found out about Case being her dad they agreed to let him meet her and after seeing them together regularly they decided to help him get custody of her.”
Paige tells me the rest of the story and when I see her eyes drooping I tell her I need to work and pull out my laptop.
Paige wakes up two-and-a-half hours later just as we land on the tarmac at Pierson International Airport in Toronto. I’d written several chapters of a new story but had to tuck my laptop away for landing. I’m actually surprised I’d been able to concentrate. Case’s story was playing in my head on repeat and my guts feel like they’re being consumed by a beast with anxiety over my meeting with the judge.
“Hey, sleepyhead. We made it.”
She yawns and turns her phone off airplane mode. It chirps several times.
She glances down at it and smiles.
“Why are you smiling?”
I peek, and she hides her phone. But I’ve already seen it’s a text from Mack.
My brow knits. “Since when are you and Mack texting buddies?”
“That guy isn’t the only Mack in the world, you know.”
“Oh, so you know another Mack?”
“I might.”
I roll my eyes. “The guy’s an ass.”
She grins. “He’s a bad boy with a great ass.”
As soon as the plane is still, we both rise and collect our stuff. “For once can you please use your powers for good and get us out of this plane first? It’s rush hour and if you miss your meeting…”
I flag down the attendant and before the door to the plane opens, we’re first in line.
“A cart will meet you at the gate and take you to the luggage carousel. You were last on the plane so your bags will come off first.”
“Thank you!” Paige says and pulls another paperback out of her carry-on, handing it to the woman.
I look at Paige.
“What? They’re for emergencies!”
“Book emergencies?”
“You’re the author, that’s your superpower, mine’s knowing you and having these.” She pats her carry-on. “Now let’s go help your biker get custody of his daughter.”