Sixteen
SIXTEEN
CHAOS
The motherfucker manages to sneak up on me before I’m ready, lamplight swinging in the cool night air. It shouldn’t come as a surprise; everyone knows Amish don’t drive, and yet, in my head, I’d imagined a noisy little carriage rattling down the road, the horse’s gear jingling as it moved.
Instead, I get Andy wandering over from where he’s hitched his horse to a fencepost, yellow light from the lamp in his hand illuminating his baggy denim jeans and plain button-down.
“Strange place for a man to meet,” he remarks, head turning to follow my line of sight across the road to the cottage.
I push to my feet and dust my ass off before offering my hand. “Thanks for coming anyway.”
“Do I ask why?” He hitches an eyebrow at the house.
His horse blows out a shaky breath.
“Nope.” I tug out my smokes and lift them for him to see. “Do you mind?”
“Not if you give me one as well.” He splits a cheeky grin.
“Living dangerously, ain’t you?”
Andy shrugs. “The older men don’t like it, but it’s not strictly forbidden.” The guy plucks himself a stick.
I light his, then follow suit with my own. “You’ll have to excuse my bluntness,” I say. “But you seem pretty fuckin’ friendly for a man who was wronged by my club.”
Yeah, I did my homework after church. Pulled Fang aside once I’d managed to calm my shit and demanded a name. Stopped off on my way to Vanessa’s and faced two shotguns pointed at my head before I managed to wave my white flag and ask to speak to the man concerned: Andy.
His gaze flickers over the patches on my cut before he sighs. “No point poisoning the future with wrongs of the past, is there?”
“Noble way to look at it.” I lift an eyebrow.
“It was rumspringa,” he says with a sigh. “She made her choice. She paid the price.”
“Yeah?”
“Shunned,” he states while holding the smoke in his lungs. “Two weeks.”
“Ouch.”
“She’s over it. Married now. First child due in two months.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah.” He ducks his head. “We’re all excited. First grandchild for my parents. First niece or nephew for me.”
I tip my cigarette toward him. “What about you? No kids?”
“Not yet.” Hurt flashes across his gaze before he lifts his head and pins me with a no-nonsense stare. “What is it you want from us?”
I twist right and gesture to the farm behind me. “Need a barn built on our new property.”
Andy’s eyebrows shoot upward. “You’re the people who bought it?”
“Aye.”
“Huh.” He rubs his chin with the tips of the fingers holding the cigarette. “Elders will love that.”
“Come on,” I tease. “Heard your district is one of the more progressive ones.”
“We’re heading that way,” he cedes. “But a lot of us appreciate keeping things simple, too.”
“We won’t be any trouble,” I assure him. Much.
“How big are we talking?” Andy squints toward the house, standing tall behind the front paddocks like a gothic monstrosity against the dark tree line beyond.
A flicker of light from behind us draws our attention, Andy glancing across the road at the same time as me. The light spills across the front garden, painting her flowers in warm hues before the curtains are tugged closed, two inches or so left open between them. Hello, enigma.
“You know, a few of the brothers have heard some unsavory things about the woman who lives there,” Andy states. “I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she has tattoos on her skin that make me tend to believe what I hear.”
“Not tattoos,” I mock, lifting my ink-covered hands to cover my gasping mouth.
Andy smirks. “Very funny.”
“Don’t judge a book by its cover, brother.” I slap him on the arm and then turn toward the farm. “Go grab your motorhorse there and meet me in the yard. We’ll talk dimensions and costs, yeah?”
He rolls his eyes at my taunt and takes a last drag of the cigarette before stamping it out. “At least my ride doesn’t invoke fear whenever I pass.”
“Fear?” I scoff, calling behind me as I walk. “Why? Because it’s loud?”
A beat passes while Andy mounts his ride, catching up to where I am near the driveway. “Because you disturb the peace,” he calls down from the saddle. “It shows disrespect for others when you force your presence into their lives like that.”
“Good,” I grumble. “Fuckin’ thing is doing its job then.” I give what I get, and respect isn’t often one of those things. “I’ve got a deal for you.”
“Of course you do,” he sighs.
“How does forty acres of usable land sound?”
“As in, you’ll gift it to us?” He perks up.
“As in, I’ll let you farm it.”
He sags. “Oh. I’d have to run it past the elders, but it could be viable.” His mouth twists before he adds, “Is this payment for the barn?”
“Figured you lot would like that better than getting cash tainted with sin.”
He opens his mouth to answer yet shuts it just as quickly as the approaching growl of a motorcycle cuts the otherwise quiet night. Andy twists in his saddle to look behind us. I switch to walking backward. The hell?
“Your animal good with that fearsome noise you were just talking about?”
He veers off the road, cutting across the grass behind me to get nearer to the fence. “He’s pretty good.”
The lone headlight grows in size as the noise doubles, dust cutting across the bobbing white light.
This is what I get for leaving my fucking tracking on. Vanessa’s curtains appear to be still pulled, yet I can’t quite tell from this distance. If I’m this fucking on edge with a sole brother riding close to her house, I’m sure gonna be fucked when the whole fucking club runs riot across the road.
The rider slows their approach, perhaps having seen the horse or likely to cut the dust as he pulls to a stop before us. Loki.
“What is it?” I close the distance between myself and my enforcer in two long strides.
He leans back on the seat, the engine idling a grumbling burble. “Loading dock is on fire.”
“The fuck?” I glance back to where Andy patiently waits on his horse, the animal shifting its weight between its feet. “Why did nobody fuckin’ phone?” I glare at Loki.
He nods to my pocket. “We did. You didn’t answer.”
I pull the fucking thing free to check the screen. Sure enough, five missed calls, all placed between ten and thirty minutes ago. Fuck it all. I vaguely remember the thing vibrating in my pocket, but I’d immediately forgotten to check it when Vanessa had stepped out her front door to call for my goddamn partner in crime.
Appeared the furry asshole got leftovers after all.
“Fire crew there?” I gesture for Loki to scoot up toward the tank.
“Probably arriving as we speak.”
I lift a hand to Andy and point beyond the house. “I want it no more than forty feet from the back porch and make it as big as you fuckin’ can. Ride up and take a look.” I swing a leg over and get cozy with Loki. “I’ll come by in two days to work out the details.”
“Sure thing.” The young guy tugs on the reins, calming his horse as Loki kicks the bike into gear and rips into the driveway to get me to my bike.
Fuckin’ Matthias. I’d wager my left nut this stinks of his shit.