Chapter 2
Jigsaw
J ust as I expected, Comet didn’t have anything serious to talk to me about, and after a few minutes, his attention was drawn to something else and he left me to my own devices.
There were tables and chairs set up around the perimeter of the area for people to relax, and when I saw Phantom and Laura, I decided to join them.
Laura was close to five months pregnant, so Phantom didn’t want her to ride over to the Rally today.
He was worried something would happen to her, but after some convincing by her and by me, he finally relented.
She looked tired, and as I approached and took a seat across from them at one of the tables, she offered me a smile.
“How was your first Rally?” I asked her.
She leaned her head on Phantom’s shoulder as she spoke. “It was so crazy and unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Who knew there were that many motorcycles?”
I chuckled as Phantom placed a kiss on the top of her head. “Today was busy, but it was small compared to the twenty-fifteen. There were over half a million riders in attendance.”
Her eyes grew wide as she sat up and Phantom continued. “That was a crazy year. I hadn’t become VP yet, and it was my job to make sure the bikes were clean and secure for the Rally.”
She looked at him, confused. “You didn’t take part?”
He shook his head. “I wanted to earn my patch with the Bastards, so I did whatever menial job they gave me to prove my dedication and loyalty. If that meant shining over forty bikes every night to make sure they gleaned the next day,” he shrugged, “then that’s what I did.”
She gave him a kiss and asked me, “Were you a prospect at the same time?”
I shook my head and took the last swallow of my beer before placing the bottle onto the table and answering.
“I was twenty-one, traveling the country, and came back and stayed with Pappy during the Rally but took off a few days after. I knew the Bastards were around, but I wasn’t looking for a club. ”
“Can I ask how long you’ve been a member here?” Laura inquired.
“Just over six years. Nitro and Pappy were old friends, and he offered to let me prospect, but they patched me in a few months later.”
I shrugged, not wanting to get into why I only had to prospect for the short time.
Most clubs, it was at least a year, but after Nitro heard what went down in Minnesota, he was impressed with my willingness to not allow Willow to be cast out and took my time with them into consideration when he patched me in.
Phantom was aware of my time with the Phantom Renegades, but it wasn’t something widely known by the rest of the brothers.
We weren’t hiding it—it just wasn’t relevant to who I was now.
Six years ago, I was destined to be Buffalo, since that’s the only thing Popeye knew about South Dakota besides the Rally and Mount Rushmore.
I’d left Minnesota a broken man, so when Nitro suggested the club name Jigsaw, a broken and jagged picture, I liked the name and it stuck.
I nodded at Laura’s expanding belly and asked, “Have you found out if it’s a boy or a girl?”
She smiled and held her stomach as she responded, “I think there are only a few great mysteries in life, and the gender of a baby is one of the few that remain. So, we decided to wait until they’re born to find out.”
Phantom was beaming beside her as the music behind us grew in volume.
I never thought I’d see the moody bastard so happy, but when Laura came into his life, he changed.
All for the better. He was content and relaxed, and I envied what he and some of the other brothers had.
But to find love, you had to be willing to open yourself up to someone, and the last time I did that, I lost my club and my future.
Laura hid a yawn behind her hand, and Phantom looked over to her. “Are you ready to go to the house?”
She nodded. “You can take me over and I’ll hang out in the camper if you want to come back.”
He stood and held his hand out to help her rise from her seat. I stood and gave him a chin lift, and Laura waved as they walked off toward the back of the building, holding hands.
Phantom had parked his travel RV over at Roughstock and Cheyenne’s so he would be close to the clubhouse but Laura would still have the privacy he wanted his ol’ lady and baby to have. I would have done the same thing if I was him, but I didn’t think that would ever be me.
Turning, I looked out at the large gathering of people outside the Sin Den as the dark sky loomed overhead.
Usually, that would give me an ominous feeling, but something inside me said things were about to change for me, though I didn’t have a clue what it could be.
I loved my life. I still spent every Sunday taking Pappy to church, even if I wasn’t the biggest believer, and I had my brothers in the Sinners Revenge.
A woman would probably just complicate things.
As I approached the mass of individual conversations, I looked around and gave chin lifts to a few people I knew as well as my brothers and the Death Hounds who were visiting.
There was a coolish breeze coming in from the north, and I decided to walk inside and grab a long-sleeved shirt from my room.
There were ten rooms upstairs, and the club’s senior members took up seven of them.
We offered Dawg and his ol’ lady, Lori, one of the rooms, as well as Gunner and his ol’ lady, Sadie, from the Death Hounds.
The last one would be kept open in case there was a need, but seeing the door was still padlocked from the outside, I knew there hadn’t been any trouble so far tonight.
That didn’t mean there wouldn’t be trouble.
Hell, it wouldn’t be a rally if the vet Roughstock kept on retainer didn’t have to come and stitch someone up after a fight.
I made sure one room was stocked with medical supplies, some extra water so we wouldn’t have the same issue as the year it was so fucking hot that people began to dehydrate and drop like flies.
Not on my watch. I was beyond a Boy Scout when it came to the safety of my brothers, so I stocked up here and at the ranch.
After changing my shirt and slipping my cut back on, I grabbed a few rolled joints from the little wooden case in my dresser and left my room, making sure to lock it up behind me.
Walking down the stairs, I patted the newest prospect on his shoulder, and he stepped to the side to let me pass.
His only job was to guard the stairs that led to the rooms. He was a solid prospect, and I believed Roughstock would have us vote on his patch soon.
He was an ex-Army Ranger, so he had my vote.
As I looked around the clubhouse, I could see the alcohol and weed were flowing freely as Animal helped behind the bar.
During the Rally, it’s beer or shots and nothing else.
The guys didn’t have time to mix cocktails, but we made sure to have some of those weird fizzy seltzer things for the ladies.
They tasted like someone stepped on a piece of fruit and washed it off in the seltzer, but the ladies seemed to love them.
Walking back outside, I saw the crowd of people filling the parking lot and the field off to the side where the bonfire was going.
The breeze was still nippy, so I headed toward the fire.
Looking up at the road, I saw bikes parked two-wide on either side and hoped someone didn’t get drunk and plow their truck through all that chrome.
But we had signs and a prospect on both ends of the road, and there wasn’t anything out here but the ranch and the Sin Den, so anyone coming through would know to be careful.
Raven, the club’s Road Captain, was standing off to the side of the bonfire with a beer in his hand as he spoke with someone.
I approached, and he turned and gave me a chin lift before going back to his conversation.
Every year, we met new brothers from new clubs, so seeing someone I didn’t know wasn’t unexpected.
“What’s shakin’?” Raven asked as I stepped up to him.
“Just chillin’,” I responded, handing him a joint from the pocket of my cut.
The man in front of him had a cut that said Booger.
I couldn’t imagine getting stuck with such a gross fucking name, but to each their own, I guess.
I couldn’t see his club patch, but everyone who came out here knew not to start trouble.
The bigger clubs with nationally known names weren’t going to bother with a little hole in the wall bar off the beaten path, so trouble, while always around, never blew up.
Booger reached out and offered me his closed fist. “Name’s Roger, but everyone calls me Booger.”
Raven chuckled and looked at him as he lit the tip of the joint and blew the smoke out. “No offense, man, but what kind of name is Booger?”
He shook his head and looked at the ground.
“I swear, I’m never gonna live that one damn moment down.
” He lifted his head and explained. “When I was a prospect, I got a head cold, and when our President was speaking with me, I sneezed and accidentally blew a wad of snot onto his cut. I thought it was gonna be my head on the line, but he laughed, slapped my shoulder, and proclaimed me to be Booger.”
By the time he got through with his tale of woe, I was laughing so hard that tears were building in my eyes, and Raven had dropped the lit joint as he doubled over in hysterics. He reached down and picked it up as I wiped my eyes and shook my head.
“That sucks but at least you got your patch,” I remarked, and he shrugged. “What’s your club?”
“I’m with the Concrete Barbarians out of Chicago,” he returned, and I tried to mentally roll through the clubs I knew, but I’d never heard of that one.
“Welcome to South Dakota, Booger,” I chuckled, and he reached over as Raven handed him the joint.
I didn’t want to share my weed, so I pulled out another and lit the end, inhaling deeply as Raven and Booger continued to speak.
My eyes kept moving through the crowd gathered around the bonfire as I finished the joint by myself.
My head was fuzzy and my mouth was dry, but for the first time today, I was relaxed.
A beer appeared at my side then one was handed to Raven by a prospect. “Grab my friend, Booger, a beer, would ya?” I requested.
He nodded, and Booger said, “Appreciate that.”
A moment later, the prospect handed him the beer then scuttled off to check on another brother. I twisted the top off the bottle and felt the cold liquid quench my dry throat as I drank deeply. Raven kept cutting his eyes to me, but I wasn’t interested in whatever he wanted to discuss.
“Later,” I said and walked away from his conversation.
There was a spot on the far side of the fire where no one was standing, and from that vantage point, I would be able to see the entire front parking lot, the field, and the side of the building.
It was slightly elevated, and as I walked there and turned to face the party, I felt the same pang in my stomach as I did every time we had a gathering.
Loneliness.
I’d cut myself off from connections past my brothers and Pappy, and as I watched everyone smiling, laughing, and enjoying their conversations, I started to question why I’d isolated myself from women.
Then, the thought of Willow popped into my head, and I wanted to kick my own ass.
We had one night six years ago, and although she wasn’t the last woman I was with, she was the most memorable.
There was something about her and the night we’d spent in that seedy motel that refused to leave my memory, no matter how much weed I smoked or how many beers I drank.
“I’m crazy,” I said to myself before I began to walk around the perimeter of the bonfire.
The party wasn’t my scene tonight, and I was ready to go inside. I was a little unsteady on my feet from smoking so much so fast, so I carefully walked back onto the gravel lot. When I looked from my feet to the people in front of me, I instantly stopped moving.
I must have been stoned out of my mind, or drunker than I thought, because there was no way I was seeing what I was seeing. Walking toward me, with her long legs and a sway in her hips, was the woman who’d fueled too many dreams over the last six years.
She stopped in front of me and was almost eye-to-eye when I said her name softly, almost like a whispered prayer. “Willow.”
She smiled at me, and I looked down her sexy body, taking in the full sleeves of ink adorning both arms. But it was what was written on the front of her black T-shirt that I wasn’t prepared for.
Scrawled across her chest, in big white letters, was written ‘Property of Willow'.
Well, fuck.
Someone yelled from somewhere off to the side, and I snapped my head to see what the problem was when I saw a little terror running through the crowd. People were lifting their legs as he darted between them.
Paige yelled, “Jack,” and when he was in front of me, I bent over and scooped the little asshole into my arms.
He growled, and I turned to look back at Willow, but there wasn’t anyone standing there. I pushed up and peered through the crowd, looking for the black shirt and tattoos, but it was dark along the fringes of the gathering.
“Fuck,” I said to Jack as Paige jogged up and took him from my arms.
I took a step forward, trying to find Willow without any luck. Then, I questioned if she was even there to begin with, or if my mind had conjured her up in a drunken, weed-fueled haze.
“Jigsaw? Are you okay?” Paige asked from behind me, and I turned back to face her and the little fucker who liked to piss on my bike tires.
“Yeah,” I sighed and shook my head, “I just thought I saw someone I knew, but I must’ve been mistaken.”
“Who?” she asked, looking around.
I placed my hand on her back, guiding her closer to the clubhouse as I remarked, “It doesn’t matter. I was mistaken.”
After finding Animal and leaving Paige and the holy terror asshole dog with him, I walked into the clubhouse and straight to the stairs.
I patted the prospect on the shoulder, and he stepped aside so I could move past him.
After climbing the stairs and unlocking my door, I walked inside and removed my cut, making sure to hang it on the hook before I collapsed onto the bed.
Covering my eyes with my arm, I let the dizziness build as I thought about what had just happened.
Was she really standing there?
Why did she disappear?
Why did her shirt say that?
And the most important question of all—where were the Phantom Renegades, and why was she at the Rally alone?