Chapter Seven
The compound rose out of the Delta like something from another time.
Diane climbed off Burial's bike and stood in the gravel lot, taking in the converted cotton gin with its brick walls and corrugated iron roof. Bikes lined the lot in neat rows. Men in leather cuts moved between buildings with the easy confidence of people on their own ground.
She was holding a bucket of flowers.
The irony wasn't lost on her.
"Is there somewhere with light and water?" The question came out before she'd fully processed her surroundings. "The flowers are dying."
Burial's mouth twitched—not quite a smile, but close. "This way."
He led her through the compound with the same quiet attentiveness she'd noticed at the funeral home. Not walking in front of her, not commanding or directing. Just... present. Positioning himself slightly behind and to the side, his eyes scanning everything she couldn't see.
The rear guard, she realized. Even here, in his own territory, he was watching her back.
Brothers paused to stare as they passed. A florist carrying flower buckets through a motorcycle club wasn't exactly standard fare, and their expressions ranged from confused to amused to openly curious.
One of them—a massive man with a scar riding his eyebrow—stepped into their path.
"Burial." His voice was gravel and silence. "This the one who threw the vase?"
"This is Diane."
The big man studied her with eyes that had seen too much and remembered all of it. Then his mouth curved, just slightly.
"Good arm," he said, and stepped aside.
Diane didn't know whether to be flattered or terrified.
"That's Hollow," Burial said as they continued walking. "Sergeant at Arms. He doesn't talk much, but when he does, it matters."
"He seems... intense."
"He's earned it."
They reached a corner of the compound near the garage bays, where afternoon light slanted through high windows and a water spigot jutted from the brick wall. Diane set down her buckets and assessed the space with a florist's eye.
Good light. Running water. Enough room to work without being in anyone's way.
It would do.
"I'll get the rest from the van," Burial said.
"I can—"
"I'll get them."
He was gone before she could argue, moving through the compound with that unhurried stride that somehow covered ground faster than it should. Diane watched him go, then turned back to her flowers.
The roses were wilting. The baby's breath looked sad. Everything she'd salvaged from the shop needed water and care and time she wasn't sure she had.
But cut flowers were what she knew. So she got to work.
She was elbow-deep in stem trimming when the women arrived.
There were five of them, moving across the compound with the easy confidence of people who belonged here. They ranged in age and appearance—a juke joint owner, a farrier, a baker, a distiller, a tattoo artist—but they all carried themselves the same way.
Like women who'd found their place and weren't giving it up.
"So you're the florist." The one in front had ink crawling up both arms and the assessing gaze of an artist. Megan, Diane remembered from the rundown Burial had given her about the club. Levee's woman. "The one who hit Raymond's collector with a vase."
"Word travels fast."
"In a motorcycle club?" Megan grinned. "Honey, word travels faster than the bikes. We knew about you before Burial even brought you through the gates."
The other women spread out around Diane's makeshift workspace, examining the flowers with varying degrees of interest. One of them—dark-haired, with the practical hands of someone who worked with horses—picked up a stem and turned it over.
"These are dying," she said.
"I know. That's why I'm working fast."
"Can you save them?"
"Some of them." Diane snipped another stem, angled the cut, dropped it into water. "The ones that can't be saved go in the compost. The ones that can become arrangements."
"For funerals?"
"For whatever people need." She looked up, meeting the woman's eyes. "Funerals, weddings, hospital rooms, apology bouquets. Whatever helps people feel like the world still has beauty in it."
The women exchanged glances—a silent communication that Diane couldn't quite read.
"I'm Nora," the dark-haired woman said. "Outlaw's. The one with the ink is Megan. That's Grace, Ruth, and Jolene."
Jolene. The president's woman. Diane had heard her mentioned at the funeral home—something about the compound needing to know what was coming.
"You're assessing me," Diane said.
Jolene smiled. She had the weathered beauty of a woman who'd spent her life in Delta heat, and eyes that missed nothing.
"We're meeting you," she corrected. "There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"Assessment is what the brothers do. Cold, tactical, calculating whether you're an asset or a liability.
" Jolene picked up one of Diane's finished arrangements—a small spray of white roses she'd put together almost without thinking.
"Meeting is what we do. Figuring out who you are, what you're made of, whether you'll fit. "
"And if I don't fit?"
"Then we help you find your way anyway." Jolene set down the arrangement with surprising gentleness. "The compound isn't a prison, Diane. You're here because Burial brought you, and Burial doesn't bring people home. Ever."
Something in her voice made Diane pause.
"What do you mean, ever?"
"I mean in the six years that man has been riding with this club, he has never once brought someone to the compound who wasn't already a brother.
" Ruth spoke up, her voice carrying the authority of someone who dealt in hard truths.
"He rides rear guard. He handles the aftermath.
He watches the back door and keeps himself to himself, and he doesn't let anyone close enough to matter. "
"Until now," Megan added.
Diane felt heat creep up her neck. "It's not like that. He's protecting me because Raymond Hebert threatened my shop. It's practical."
The women exchanged another glance.
"Honey," Grace said, and her voice was kind, "we've all told ourselves that story. 'It's practical.' 'It's just protection.' 'He's doing his job.'" She gestured around the compound. "We ended up here anyway."
"These men will move heaven and earth for the people they claim," Jolene said quietly. "They'll burn down everything that threatens you and rebuild whatever you need from the ashes. But they're not easy to love, and they're even harder to leave."
"I'm not—" Diane stopped, unsure what she was trying to deny.
"You don't have to decide anything right now." Nora's voice was practical, no-nonsense. "Just know that if you're here, you're one of us. At least for as long as you stay."
"And the flowers?" Megan nodded toward the buckets. "Those are staying too?"
Diane looked at her makeshift workspace—the salvaged blooms, the ribbon spools, the scissors she'd grabbed from her shop as everything fell apart around her. This was what she had. This was what she knew.
"The compound could use something that isn't chrome and engine grease," she said finally.
Megan laughed, sharp and surprised. "I've been saying that for two years. Finally, someone who agrees."
The tension broke. The women's postures softened, and suddenly Diane wasn't being assessed anymore—she was being welcomed.
Ruth offered to show her where to find food.
Grace asked if she needed help setting up a better workspace.
Nora mentioned that the farrier's shed had extra buckets if she needed them.
And Jolene stood back, watching with those knowing eyes, saying nothing but seeing everything.
By the time Burial returned with the rest of her supplies, Diane had a proper workspace established in the corner near the garage bays. The light was good. The water was running. Her flowers were trimmed and sorted and slowly coming back to life.
He stopped at the edge of her space, taking it in.
"You work fast."
"I had help." She nodded toward the women, who had drifted back to their own corners of the compound but were still watching from a distance. "They're not subtle, are they?"
"They're protective." He set down the last of her buckets. "The compound is theirs as much as it is the brothers'. They wanted to know what you're made of."
"And what did they decide?"
"That you're one of them." His voice was quiet. "Or you will be."
Diane didn't know what to say to that. She turned back to her flowers, trimming stems with more focus than the task required.
"The funeral arrangements," she said. "Mrs. Delacroix. Did they make it?"
"Crossroad delivered them himself. The service went well."
Something loosened in her chest. One thing, at least, she hadn't lost to Raymond Hebert's violence.
"Thank you," she said. "For making sure they got there."
"You built them. I just drove."
"You did more than that." She looked up at him—really looked. At the scar across his jaw, the grave-quiet eyes, the split lip that was already healing. "You killed a man so I could finish those arrangements."
"I killed a man who was going to hurt you." His voice didn't waver. "The arrangements were a bonus."
The words landed in her chest and stayed there, heavy with meaning she wasn't ready to examine.
"You're strange," she said finally. "You know that, right?"
"I've been told."
"A gravedigger who looks at my flowers like they're miraculous. A Tail Gunner who'd rather watch the back door than lead the charge. A man who buries people for a living but doesn't know what to do with something that's still growing."
Something flickered in his expression. Not quite vulnerability, but close.
"That's what you see?"
"That's what you show." She set down her scissors. "But I'm starting to think there's more."
He was quiet for a long moment, his eyes holding hers across the bucket of roses between them.
"Stay," he said finally. "Here, at the compound. Until Raymond's handled."
"Is that an order?"
"It's a request." His voice dropped. "From a man who doesn't know how to ask for things."
Diane looked at him—at the soft-voiced gravedigger who'd walked into her shop and turned her life upside down, who'd killed for her and watched over her and brought her to a place full of chrome and leather and people who'd already decided she belonged.
"Okay," she said. "I'll stay."
Something shifted in his expression. Not quite relief, but close.
"Good." He turned to go, then paused. "The women. They'll look out for you when I can't be here."
"I can look out for myself."
"I know." And there it was again—that almost-smile. "That's why they like you."
He walked away, disappearing into the compound with that unhurried stride. Diane watched him go, then turned back to her flowers.
The roses were recovering. The baby's breath was perking up. And somewhere in a converted cotton gin full of motorcycles and outlaws and women who'd found their place, Diane was starting to think she might find hers too.
She sat among cut flowers in a motorcycle compound, thinking about a gravedigger whose soft voice and scarred jaw made no sense together.
A man who buried things for a living and who looked at her funeral arrangements like he was seeing something he'd forgotten existed.