Chapter 30
I sit in my truck outside the guest house and watch Teresa Carson cross the road to the diner.
She’s aged a little over the years, but she’s still got those looks that can bring a man to his knees.
It's hard to believe that years ago I used to feel sorry for her.
Before she upped and left, she was a good mother.
She thought the world of her kids, which is why what she did never made any sense.
Her showing back up in Fork River came as a shock, not just to the boys, but to me too.
I head on into the diner myself, taking a seat in one of the booths and watching Teresa scan over the menu. She looks up and when she notices me, she places the menu back down and starts heading for the door. I snatch her wrist as she passes and hold her firm.
“Take a seat,” I growl under my breath, doing my best not to attract too much attention. Teresa wrenches her arm out of my grip, but instead of running out, she takes a seat opposite me and looks around us warily.
“I think you're a little too late to be worryin’ what the people in this town think of ya,” I mumble, staring at her across the table and trying to work her out.
“What do you want?” She glares back at me defensively.
“I’m here to ask you the same question.” I wait for her to give me something.
“Mitch, this has nothing to do with you,” she tells me, and I rest my elbows on the table so I can lean forward and laugh at her.
“I think you’ll find that’s a lie. After you left, who d’ya think turned them boys into men?
‘Cause it sure weren’t your good-for-jack-shit-husband.
Bill ran the place into the ground, he got so caught up in politics and reputations that he forgot what was in his blood.
Your boys needed you and you bailed. You had a little girl, a beautiful little girl.
You left them all like they meant nothin’ to ya.
” The anger bubbles up inside me when I look back.
“Those kids deserved better than what they got, even if they have come out better off for it.”
“Don’t you dare!” Teresa shakes her head at me as her eyes fill with tears.
“What? Call you out? Did ya really expect to come back into this town and everythin’ be forgotten?”
“Of course, I didn’t… I was… I wanted to explain.”
“Then why didn’t ya? Wade convinced his brothers to hear what you got to say. Hell, even Maisie who don’t know ya, and owes ya nothin’, begged Garrett to listen. You had the chance and you didn’t show.”
“And how the hell am I supposed to put it into words, Mitch? Yeah, I left them, I’m a shit mother, and now…”
“And now…” I pressure her for the truth.
“I got nowhere else to go,” she blurts out weakly, checking around her for anyone who might be listening. “I have to find my purpose. I want to be part of their lives and make up for what I did,” she whispers.
“Well, ya can start by explaining yourself to them, that's if they decide to give ya another chance. And I’d do it fast, because I gotta feelin’ whatever it is you’re hidin’ is about to come out anyway.”
“ What? Mitch, what do you mean?” I see the fear on her face and know it ain’t a coincidence.
“Do ya know why Hank sold that land, out by Grid 3, to Mason?” I ask, tilting my head and daring her to lie to me.
“No.” She looks back at me sternly.
“See, Teresa, I don’t believe what you’re sayin’. I knew Hank well, and he was never one to back down. He would not have sold that land if he didn’t have to, he was protecting someone.”
The bell above the door chimes and Teresa’s face instantly pales when she sees who walks through it.
“I’ve gotta go.” She quickly stands up, keeping her head down as she scurries out the door, and when Finn turns his head and follows her out with his eyes, he looks just as spooked as she is.
“What’s she doin’ here?” He takes her spot opposite me, looking confused as he watches her cross the street back toward the guesthouse through the window.
“D’ya know her?” I check.
“Yeah, I fuckin’ know her, from a past life, if ya know what I mean.”
Finn keeps his voice low.
“Wait, you tellin’ me she’s involved with the club?
” I scrub at my face wondering how complicated this could possibly get.
I took Finn on a few years ago, when my old friend and Bill’s brother, Jimmer, told me he needed a place to go.
Finn was a newly-patched member of another one of the Dirty Souls charters.
He was following in his dad’s footsteps and after he died, Finn did a few months in county jail.
Jimmer needed a place for the boy to go after he came out.
Since the boy's dad was a branded man before he left Montana, with Hank’s permission, and became an original member of the Dirty Souls with the club Jimmer set up, it seemed only fitting that Finn found his way home.
“Mitch, she was at Long Beach for as long as I can remember, and she weren’t anyone’s old lady. If you know what I mean.”
“Finn, are ya tellin’ me that Teresa Carson was a fuckin’ club whore?” I can barely believe what I’m hearing.
“That’s exactly what I’m tellin’ ya.”
“Shit!” This ain’t good. It ain’t good at all.
“Ya know, if she tells ‘em I’m here, it could be bad for me,” he explains, and for the first time since I’ve met the kid, he looks nervous.
“I never asked Jimmer why ya had to leave. The fact he wanted ya protected was all I needed to know. You wanna tell me now what you're looking so scared about, now ya know it could bite you on the ass?” I look the kid in his eyes.
“So, ya know how my dad left here with Jimmer? How he became an original member? He could’ve had his own charter. It’s what Jimmer offered all the original Dirty Dozen, and yet, for some reason, my dad chose to stay in Long Beach.”
“Maybe he liked the fuckin’ ocean,” I point out.
“Dad never left Long Beach because he didn’t trust its president.
He saw Cliff for what he was and he was building up evidence against him so he could take it to Jimmer, and the club could enforce a takedown.
That run we were on, the day my dad got shot and killed, no one else got hit, and that's because no one else was shot at. I know it was Cliff that organized it. So, I put my neck on the line and did what my pa never did and took it to the club president,” he admits, getting wound up.
“Jimmer wanted me to go back and be his eyes, but I couldn’t. I couldn't look the man, who did that, in the face every day and call him a brother. That’s how I ended up here. And I belong here, Mitch, I ain’t ever been happier,” he assures me.
“You're right about that, kid.” I nod my head.
“Ya can’t just leave the club, that ain’t how it works. The Long Beach charter members think I’m dead. If she reports back that I’m here, I could be in a whole lotta trouble.”
“From what I gather, her Long Beach days are over. I think that's why she’s here.” I put him at ease.
“Leave it with me, don’t panic, and stick to the job Garrett asked ya to do, last night.
Right now, I think Teresa Carson is the least of our worries.
” I nod my head at him before I get up and walk out.
There ain’t ever a dull day in Fork River.