Confusion
Creed
What would she gain from a bunch of old farmers and their families, other than friendship? I looked out toward the falls and processed what she just told me. She was fooled into a contract that had her nearly nude for all to see. She loved acting, but she was worked constantly for her entire adult life. It was my mother and step father that did it to her. She had a reason to hate them, maybe even more than I had a reason. At least my mother let my dad raise me without fighting him and left me alone.
“I entered that contract knowing I’d do the kind of work I did and I’m not ashamed of my movies. I’m just ready to put it all behind me and find a new life. I don’t know, maybe I am fake. How am I supposed to know who I am without Hollywood? I’ve worked since I was six years old, not many people can say that, can they?”
I glanced at her, and she was looking straight into the falls with her arms crossed and leaning against the railing. “I don’t know how to answer that question.” I was not expecting to learn what I just did.
“I miss riding horses, baking, having lunch with friends, spending time with my family, and I haven’t seen Addie in person since she was a baby. Maybe Callie’s life would have been different if I never signed that contract, or if I just took the lawsuit and broke the thing. I tried with her, I really did. I offered to pay for her college and support the both of them if she left Shane. I knew if she was scared to leave him I could keep her safe. Callie was a friend to me no matter what I faced, but she never let me be there for her.” She paused for a moment. “I like having money to buy nice things. I will never deny the fact that I probably made more than I deserved, but I’m not ashamed of it. I also think I could survive without it. I swear I’d give it all away if it meant Callie and Addie could be happy and healthy with me instead of abused and malnourished because of him. I keep picturing the worst things happening to them and I can’t live with those thoughts. They deserve so much more out of life. It’s not fair that I live some lavish life while Callie works her ass off and has nothing to show for it. She can’t even afford to keep Addie fed while paying for Shane’s vices. He’s the most selfish man on the planet. Imagine not caring if your wife and child starved because you sold their food stamps for cigarettes and beer.” Her voice broke and that was a true emotion. I didn’t think the best actress in the world could fake the look in her eyes. A shocking pain hit my heart when she reached up and wiped a tear away, then she looked at me with the rest of her unshed tears in her eyes. “Will you please help Callie and Addie? I don’t know who you are or why my uncle thinks you can save them, but please, I’ll even pay you. I’ll pay any price to get them back.”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that question. “We build bikes, so there’s nothing to pay for and yes, we do help Darren from time to time. He uses our military experience for things he can’t quite do under the thumb of the law. If Callie doesn’t want to leave Shane then we can’t force it on her. She has to want the help, otherwise we won’t break the law to do something she doesn’t want us to do.” That was a lie, but there wasn’t much I could say otherwise. I never had a problem breaking the law if it meant saving people.
She turned to face me. “I think I deserve the same respect. Tell me about you and why you’ve got such a huge stick up your ass.”
My mood quickly darkened. “I don’t have a stick up my ass.”
“Right, its a log. You got to hear my story, now I want yours.”
I shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. I’m a former military officer and I own a custom bike shop. I run it with some of my old military buddies.”
“Why Cold Springs?” She asked.
I nodded, that one was easy. “We did it for Magnus. He needed to be home with his mom, who was sick at the time, so we all came with him for support. I guess you already know the people of this town weren’t always his biggest fans.”
She leaned against the railing again and looked up at me. “There were a lot of us that never believed for a second that he raped Deanna. She was my biggest tormentor in high school. I’ll admit there were plenty that believed her at the time, but most of the kids in school knew better. She still managed to screw his life up, didn’t she?”
I shrugged, because that wasn’t my answer to give. Magnus was finding happiness again, getting out more, and winning the fight against his demons. He was a hell of a soldier and still one hell of an operative. He had his family close and was doing much better than the bitch that turned his life upside down. “He’s doing just fine these days. From what I hear, she’s struggling in life. I guess that’s karma.”
She gave me the sweetest half smile and I got lost in those eyes again. “I guess so. It never pays to be fake or a liar. Hollywood is filled with people like her. They’d sell you out to the tabloids without a second thought. They’d lie just to get the money. That’s why my relationship with Lane didn’t work. One of his fellow teachers sold us out to the tabloids. He was worried about his job and broke up with me. It’s also the reason Tristan and I didn’t work out. I guess I wasn’t worth sticking in there for and that’s okay. I couldn’t blame them. So, where were you from before the Military?”
I sighed. “Maryland, D.C., and Chicago. We moved a few times. My dad’s parents were in Chicago, so we lived there for the first half of my life. Then we moved to Maryland and later D.C.” I didn’t have much to say about it. I had no intention to give her too much information. The fact that my mom’s family was less than an hour away was nobody’s business. They weren’t my family, they were hers.
“So, you settled in Cold Springs because of Josh, but you’re from three different places and served in the military. What branch?” She asked.
“Army.”
She rolled her eyes. “Come on now. I was honest with you and it’s your turn now. It was more than just the Army, wasn’t it?”
I looked out at the waterfall and decided that part of my life wasn’t exactly a secret. “Seventy Fifth Ranger’s Regiment, then I was selected to join the Combat Applications Group, otherwise known as Delta Force.”
She looked completely lost so she must not have been familiar. “Special ops, our missions involved counterterrorism, hostage rescue, and recon. We sometimes had high value targets.”
Her eyes grew. “You mean like making a lot of money to assassinate people?”
I chuckled. “No, not at all. High value targets are those of which disabling them would do major damage to the enemy.”
“Oh, like Osama bin Laden?” She asked.
“Yes, but that was before my time.”
She smiled warmly. “You were valuable to our military.”
I shook my head. “Never really felt that way. Anyway, there’s not much to tell. We came here for a friend, decided to stay, and that’s the end of the story.”
“But why the compound?” At that point she was standing with her arms crossed and glaring at me like she was expecting a lie.
“Compound?” I shook my head. “It’s simply a private community. We all have homes around the lake, there’s a community center that offers a gym, an indoor and outdoor pool, movie room, bar, a basketball court, and a community kitchen and dining area. We pay our taxes just like everyone else and it’s secure. These guys are military retired, and they all work for me or the community in one fashion or another. Some fix bikes, some design them, others are in sales, and some are office support. We employ the women you so kindly referred to as whores, and they live there as well. Some have jobs cleaning, some cooking, some for laundry, some are secretaries, and some are mechanics. They aren’t paid to have sex with us, that’s a terrible rumor.” The last one wasn’t the whole truth. Most did have sex with my men, they just weren’t paid to do it. They enjoyed it and it was not a part of their job description. They simply liked to party, and some got their freaks on. Most of them had a reason not to live outside the community. Maybe it was an abusive lover, or they had pasts that weren’t our business. They were all vetted and none had criminal histories that put us in an awkward situation with Darren.
I knew she didn’t believe me by the look on her face.
“What?” I asked.
“My dream was to live on a lake like that one and you bought it all up. How does a former military man afford such a thing?” She had doubt written all over her face. It was obvious she never Googled me.
“I wasn’t born into your typical family. My father passed away a few years back and I received a very large inheritance. It's not a huge secret.” Damn, if she did look me up she would learn that Nicole Powers was my mother. It wasn’t something I wanted anyone to know. I couldn’t have hid it if I tried, but I never admitted to it.
“Okay, so if Creed is your last name then what’s your first name?”
I chuckled, because if there’s one thing I hate, it’s my first name. “Now that is privileged information. Anyhow, I need to had back. I have a meeting this afternoon.” I was ready to cut the conversation short. Just because she told me about her experience in California and it wasn’t what I thought, it didn’t mean I completely trusted her. I knew her kind, they were all just like Addison and my mother. She would have to prove a lot to me before I told her much of anything else. We walked back up to my bike, which made for an uncomfortable ride to the park, and I didn’t expect the ride to the shop to be much better. The entire ride I could feel those perfect breasts pressed up against me and the fact that I was sitting between her legs gave me a permanent hard on the entire ride. After learning more about her I didn’t expect the ride back to be much better. In fact, I expected it to be much worse. I had to admit to myself that I was insanely attracted to her, but that didn’t mean I would let someone so close to the Meadows family anywhere near my life. Having her body pressed against mine made me hard for most of the ride to the shop. That might have just been the most painful ride of my life. Once I parked the bike, she swung her leg around and I shut my eyes and tried to calm my twitching dick. Fuck she was beautiful, despite the knots in her hair and the way she clutched her ass and complained how bad it hurt from my hard as hell seat. Imagine that, a spoiled actress complaining. I rolled my eyes and leaned my bike on its kickstand while ignoring her bitching about it.
“This isn’t gated in to your compound.” She pointed at the bike shop.
“Its an open business, of course it’s not gated off.” I unlocked my toolbox to get her purse.
“This isn’t what I was expecting.” She looked around then again at the block building.
“What exactly did you expect?” I handed her the purse, and she shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know, a mechanic shop behind the gates. This building is huge and looks brand new.”
I shoved my keys in my pocket. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Where’s the gate to your compound?” She asked as I guided her toward the shop.
“It’s a community, and its that driveway over there.” I pointed across the road to the long lane that led to the gates.
“This all looks very nice. You must have put a lot of hard work into it.”
I opened the showroom door and held it open for her. “If you mean hiring contractors, it wasn’t so bad.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. You must have worked really hard to build your business and your compound.”
“It’s a community, not a compound.” I corrected her again.
“Why is everyone a veteran that lives and works here?” She asked.
I stopped and looked down at her. Those fucking gorgeous eyes met mine and I swallowed hard. How are those eyes even possible? “Not everyone that works here are veterans.”
Garrison started approaching us. “Creed.” Garrison gave me a nod then looked at Morgan and he realized who she was, and his eyes grew.
“Morgan, this is David Garrison, one of our salesmen.”
He stuck his hand out and she shook it. “Morgan Rossi, it’s nice to meet you. Did you serve with Creed?”
I chuckled. “Yeah right.” That was when I heard Victor in the back make seal noises and clapped his hands. “Garrison here wasn’t quite made for our kind of missions.”
Garrison laughed. “Fuck off, Creed.” He looked at Morgan. “I was a Seal.”
Victor made the seal noises again. “Once a seal, always a seal.”
Garrison rolled his eyes. “I’ll show you a fucking seal, Victor!”
Victor appeared and Morgan’s eyes landed on him. She tilted her head in confusion as he approached with a shop towel in his hand. “He doesn’t look like military.” She whispered.
Victor was a hippy. His long brown hair sat in a ponytail and his beard was long and unkept. He was wearing a Grateful Dead t-shirt and a pair of jeans with holes in them. If I had told him once or a million times, he never listened and went by any dress code. He stopped next to me and looked at Morgan. “I would shake your hand, but…” He looked down at his greasy ones. “I don’t think you want dirty hands. I’m Victor, the resident artist and forever dead head.”
“Oh, do you also live in the compound?” Morgan asked.
He shook his head. “Hell no, I have a small patch of land and a nice mobile home just outside of town.”
Yeah, so he could smoke his weed and spread his love to all the hippy chicks in southern Indiana.
Morgan’s eyes lit up. “That sounds perfect. I hope to purchase a little land myself someday. There’s nothing like a quiet and peaceful life away from the city.”
Victor nodded toward her. “You grew up here, right?”
Morgan nodded. “Sure did, it’s the best place on earth.” She looked at me. “So, do I get a tour of the compound or not?”
I shook my head. “Nope, and its not a compound.”
She rolled her eyes. “A secret community is a compound.”
“Its not a secret and it’s a community. We don’t allow strangers inside for a reason.” I looked at Garrison. “Did the rental company drop off her car yet?”
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
I took out my phone to look at the time. “Damn, I’m needed…I have a meeting here soon.”
“You don’t have time to show me your shop?” Morgan asked.
“Sure, but I don’t have long.” Company D was to ship out the next day for a recon trip to Mexico. The CIA got word there was a slave farm in the deep south the cartel ran. We were to put eyes on it to see if any Americans were being held down there. We weren’t looking for one specific person, just to see if it was true and report back with what we found. Unfortunately, when young people take the wrong path, they may find themselves owing money to some big time dealers. If the dealers can’t pay the cartel with money they pay with slaves. Instead of killing the kids that owe money, they kidnap them and send them to those slave farms. They work off their debt or die in the process. If we were given the opportunity to take out a high valued member of the cartel, we took it, despite it not being a part of the mission. That would be where we made enemies of powerful people. If there was a bounty, we had no problem claiming it.
I guided Morgan toward the bikes on our showroom floor, but of course her curiosity prevailed.
“So why can’t people enter your compound?”
I rolled my eyes. “This shit again?” I couldn’t exactly tell her that Company E were all undercover. Their identities and just their faces alone weren’t known for obvious reasons. They went undercover as gang members, or drug dealers, mostly posing as American bikers. They joined motorcycle gangs here in the US and went on runs with them to gather information for various government agencies. They spent a great deal of time in Mexico. When they were home at Creed’s Lake, they did not go out into public. They relaxed and enjoyed the amenities our community offered. They could walk around freely without worrying about their identities being exposed to the wrong people.
We stopped in front of a restored classic Indian. It was one of my favorite bikes. “Because it’s what makes us feel safe after a life of special ops missions. We’ve done and seen a lot of shit, so falling asleep in a secure location helps us relax. Most of my men want to live secluded lives where they can just build bikes and relax.” It wasn’t a total lie. Some of us lived through hell and were still fighting demons.
She finally let it go, and we finished our tour. I had to leave her with Victor and Garrison, but damn she left me in a bad way. After parking my bike in front of the community center, I pulled out my phone and called Dahlia. I needed a quick trip to Louisville.