Epilogue - Olivia
One month later
The High Vale Recorder comes out on Thursdays, runs to twelve pages, and is mostly preoccupied with high school sports and a column about the roaming habits of deer.
This Thursday it has my name on it.
Fifteen hundred words on Marvin's. It celebrates fifty years of a man unlocking that door before five in the morning and four generations of families eating breakfast at the same counter, plus some light-hearted gossip about the regulars.
I interviewed nine people and it’s the least prestigious thing I’ve ever written.
But it has my name on the byline. Olivia Martin, new resident of High Vale and local reporter. Marvin's pinned it up by the register with a heart drawn around my name. I’ve been promised free coffee and pastries for life.
Savage is in the hangar eating donuts off a tool bench while Lucky does something to the Cessna’s engine.
“What I'm saying is there ought to be a commemorative plaque,” Savage says.
“On your truck?”
“Yes, on Sheila. Something tasteful. Brass, maybe.” He points half a chocolate donut at me. “Your ol’ lady never missed a beat. Hell of a girl, like my Sheila. Brave as hell.”
“Savage, has anyone told you that you’re nuts?”
“They have, and they stopped breathing afterwards.”
I sit on the wing step in the sun, listening to them joke around.
I’m safe here, for now. Rotmere thinks I’m in their pocket, living right where they can keep an eye on me.
I’ve already written a couple of stories that leave a bad taste in my mouth.
But I’m deeper undercover than I’ve ever been before, working for the Outlaws MC, just like Lucky is.
Then Doc's pickup comes through the gate.
He doesn't get out, and instead he leans on the door with his elbow through the open window and waits for Lucky to walk over. I walk with him.
“Bethany says Rotmere lifted your suspension,” Doc says. “She’s tracking their outbound correspondence. Effective Monday. Same rotation, same rate. They’re down a pilot since Budkin disappeared.”
Lucky nods. “So they bought the whole robbery distraction and nobody clocked the plane?”
Doc's mouth twitches, which for Doc counts as smiling. “State police have it down as a robbery. Two men in masks came through the fuel island, took the safe out of the back office, and the propane cage went up in the middle of it. Nobody's very sure whose fault that was.”
“And me?”
“You panicked and you drove off.” He looks at me over the top of his sunglasses.
“Which is what a frightened woman does when masked men come through the door of the room she's sitting in. Peters had you in an office for an hour and then a robbery happened around him. And you’ve been compliant about everything they’ve asked you to do. They think you’re an asset.”
Doc puts the truck in gear. Then he stops, and looks at me. “Peters is going to ask you to write some egregious shit, Olivia. Can you do it?”
“Yes, if it means we can bring them down.”
He taps the wheel. “Oh, we will. We’re almost there. We’ll get those women out and start to name and shame. Those bastards won’t know what hit them.”
Three weeks ago, I drove five hundred miles and told my aunt the truth.
All of it, at her kitchen table, while she listened carefully.
She's staying with my cousin in Marysville now, just in case Rotmere rumbles my cover.
That was her decision, framed as helping with the new baby.
She squeezed my hand a couple of times and told me to stop looking so guilty.
Doc's got somebody in my cousin’s town who’s keeping an eye on things. I'm not supposed to know that, but Lucky let it slip.
Nancy took early retirement; that's what the magazine's website says.
She put her house up for rental and disappeared. Six days ago, I got an email from an address I don't recognize.
Don't look for me. I’m fine. I’m sorry.
My source is still up there, but she’s talking to Doc now instead of me. And Bethany had a girl, with Striker crying so hard when he came to deliver the news at the Saloon that Wrench had to hug him and give him some brandy.
“Savage,” Lucky says. “Give us a minute.”
Savage looks between us with an expression of dawning delight.
“Absolutely.” He backs away with both hands up, still holding a donut. “You won't know I'm here.”
“Outside, Savage.”
His face falls and he walks out the hangar door.
Lucky wipes his hands on a rag and takes a long time about it.
“I want to say something.”
“Go on, then.”
He puts the rag down.
“It's fast. I know it’s too fast.”
“That's a very romantic opening.”
“There's protections that come with being married to a patched member that don't come with being the woman he's seeing. The legal kind. Doc was talking about keeping you safe once we’ve started exposing Rotmere, and he was right.”
The hangar is very quiet.
“Married?”
“I bought the ring a week before he opened his mouth.”
He takes a box out of his pocket and kneels.
“I'm not asking because it's safer,” he says. “It is safer… I’ve seen what those people do. I'd marry you in a parking lot tonight if it put one more wall between them and you. But that's not why.”
“Then why?”
“Because I love you, Olivia. Marry me.”
“Yes. I love you too.”
He stays still.
“Lucky. Luke. Yes. Put it on my hand before you drop it.”
He takes a sparkling diamond ring out of the box and slides it onto my finger. It fits perfectly. Then he stands up and gets both arms around me, lifting me up into his arms.
“Say you love me again,” I tell him, when we’ve stopped kissing.
Savage arrives at a dead run and throws his arms around us both.
“I knew it.”
That's when Wrench comes in through the hangar door with a face like thunder.
“Savage. You need to come down to the Saloon… now.”
“I'm busy. There's been an engagement.”
“Congratulations, both of you, genuinely.” Wrench's eyes go back to Savage and stay there. “There's a woman at the bar asking for you. Knows your real name.”
Savage turns around.
“What?”
Wrench scratches his jaw. “You heard what I said, manito. She says she's married to you."
Nobody says anything.
Then Savage looks at Lucky, and Lucky looks at me, and we start laughing.
“Fuck,” Savage says faintly. “I knew this would happen because of Hawk’s wedding. I caught the bouquet. I’m doomed.”
Read Savage’s story in Savage Biker’s Bride