Chapter Five
The Horde had several generators, and all of them were gas powered. Battery-operated generators existed, of course; just about the whole world was actively trying to end combustion power itself, so robust battery options were available for most kinds of motors. Cox understood why; from extracting the oil to running the engines, the use of fossil fuels had fucked the globe to Hell and back. But the batteries required to power all these new electric motors weren’t without their serious environmental issues, either.
As a mechanic, he’d be out of a job when combustion engines finally went the way of the horse-drawn buggy, so Cox was in no rush to make the switch himself. Electric shit was like the shit Apple made—all of it sealed up and locked down so users couldn’t modify or repair it on their own. He resented the fuck out of products like that.
The generator the club used for fairs and rallies and shit was their largest portable, and it was pushing sixty years old. At this point, the thing was the Ship of Theseus a couple times over. Despite Cox’s best efforts, parts were harder and harder to find. He was going to have to start machining his own routinely, and that would be a huge pain in his ass. Eventually, he’d have to stop getting in the way of Badger buying an electric model.
But today was not that day.
With the generator finally rumbling, powering the lights that pushed back the falling dark, Cox put his tools away. Badger came up beside him as he closed the latch on the toolbox.
“One of these days, even you won’t get this fucker running.”
The president sounded like he meant to raise the topic of an electric genny again. Though Cox had been thinking along those lines himself, he was not in the mood for a discussion. “Maybe. Today is not that day.”
Badger only chuckled. While Cox dug up some hand sanitizer and did what he could to clean his hands with it, Badger followed and added, “You can take the night off. I’ll put Kel on Snake Watch for the rest of the night.”
Wiping his hands, Cox thought about that. Playing tour guide, or prison guard, or whatever the fuck with Autumn Rooney had not been a highlight event in his life. Interacting with that woman was a bizarre mental soup of irritation, impatience, and guilt, with a maddening itch of attraction, and he’d been counting the minutes until it was over. He also thought Badger was out of his gourd for thinking the woman was trouble enough to require somebody at her heels every second. The damage she could do had already been done.
However, Kellen was constantly on the make. Cox didn’t generally give a shit what any of his brothers did, so long as it didn’t affect him, but he obviously noticed, and he judged. Kellen Frey was a true-blue asshole. Now he’d feel responsible if he handed Autumn off to a guy like that and he did something shitty to her. Since she was a club adversary as well as a beautiful woman without a man in his way, odds were high Kellen would do something shitty to her.
Badger, of course, knew all this. So by suggesting that Kellen would take over, he was saying he wanted Autumn to have the kind of night Kellen would give her.
Cox thought that was pretty shitty as well—and it gave him some insight into why Badger wanted her covered so closely. Not because she was such a threat, but because he was trying to make her miserable.
The club president was being a schoolyard bully.
“Nah,” Cox said. “I got her.”
Badger’s forehead folded up. “Yeah? You sure?”
“Yeah.” He tossed the used paper towels in the plastic bin and headed off to find his assignment for the rest of the night.
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~oOo~
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The women were set up in front of the town hall, under a large canopy with a sign reading STAGING AREA clipped to the edge. Great mounds of tissue puffs in rainbow colors lay in drifts over tables and spilled out of bags, and several teens ran back and forth, delivering all that puffery wherever it was meant to go.
Autumn stood under the canopy, behind a table where she, Adrienne, Adrienne and Badger’s daughter Megan, and Candy were shoving wads of that colorful paper into chicken wire or winding long lengths of pipe cleaner around it. They were laughing and chatting like old friends. Autumn’s cheeks glowed rosy bright, and her copper ponytail swung pertly as she tossed her head back to laugh at something Adrienne said.
Cox had a sudden flash of nostalgia, an ancient memory of his mom as a young woman, all her friends over, laughing like loons while they crafted or scrapbooked together. In the long-ago days when she’d been happy and had a full, vibrant life. Before his father went to war and their world went to hell.
He shook the memory away before it could draw blood.
Candy noticed him first and sent him a toothy smile. “Hey, Cox!”
He returned a nod.
Autumn looked over, and their eyes met. For only a second, her own gleaming, lighthearted smile held. Then the transition, from laughing with the ladies to registering that her guard was back on the job, completed, and her expression blanked.
He didn’t like the weird twist he felt in his gut as he saw that downward shift in her mood. Fucking guilt. Somewhere along the line he’d started feeling sorry for her. When? And why? Because she was pretty? That was stupid.
She said something to Adrienne, who nodded and took a cloud of pink paper from her. Then, after she smoothed her ponytail and straightened her jacket, she strode toward him.
Cox stood where he was until she was close enough to ask in a normal voice, “Am I not allowed to help anymore? Are you afraid I’m going to undercut the Horde on paper flowers?”
“You can help more if you want.”
“But now you’re going to stand here and scowl while I do?”
He shrugged. “It’s my job tonight.”
“No, apparently babysitting me is your job tonight. The scowl you throw in for free.”
The woman was quick on her verbal feet, he’d give her that. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
She gave him a new look, curious and surprised.
“What?” he asked, unsettled by something in her eyes. Like he’d given something important away.
“You have a nice laugh.” Her voice was quiet as a secret.
“What?”
Again, that look. “You just laughed. I complimented you on it. No double meaning, just a compliment. I promise you, Cox, I am not the wicked witch you think I am.”
He didn’t remember laughing.
It wasn’t that he never laughed. In certain situations—drunk with his Horde brothers, mainly—he laughed often enough. If he got drunk enough, he could get to a place where he had a lot to say. But otherwise he kept all emotional shit bottled up in public. And mostly in private, too. He knew a lot of men who tried to keep a lid on certain emotions, those they considered weak or unmanly. But Cox knew all emotions were weakness. If you gave the good ones an invitation, the bad ones slipped in behind them and tore everything apart.
“If you wanna make them paper flowers, go on ‘head.” He heard his father in his voice again and cleared his throat.
Autumn looked over to the table where the women were still making ... whatever that was. Then she turned back to him. “Actually, I want a drink. I’m going to head to that bar—No Place.”
With a wave to the ladies, she turned and started walking away, like she was going to stroll from the park all the way there in the dark. The girl who hadn’t wanted to walk from the inn.
He caught up to her in a couple long strides. “No Place can get pretty rough. The wine bar’s closer, too. More your speed.”
“You don’t have any idea what my speed is.” Stopping suddenly, she put her hands on her hips and looked up at him. They were at the edge of the park, about to turn onto Main Street. “What would you say my drink is?”
“No idea.”
“Take a guess.”
He hated stupid games like this; he didn’t give a shit what her drink was. But he’d started this, so he sighed and gave her an answer. “You’re probably into wine. Or something with juice in it.”
“Unless I am lounging on a beach in a bikini, I do not drink anything with juice in it. Though yes, I drink wine, I’m not ‘into’ wine. My preferred drink is Jameson, on the rocks. I also like Guinness, or any quality stout.”
The flash of image his mind conjured of Autumn Rooney in a bikini slowed his receptors down a bit, and he needed an extra second to hear the rest of her words. Once he had them, he focused there and got the other shit out of his head. “A redhead named Rooney likes Irish whiskey and Irish beer. You a big fan of St. Pat’s, too?”
She started walking, and he joined her. “Not really a fan of a holiday where great crowds of men get blind drunk whether they’re Irish or not. But my father is second generation, and he has ties to his family there. He’s proud of his roots.”
“You take after him, I guess.”
“I’m adopted, so no. Not in the way you mean.”
For the first time, Cox was actually interested in something Autumn had to say. His interest had been creeping slowly nearer for a while, he realized. His first impulse was to back off, but then he also registered that he felt a lot less uncomfortable with this damn assignment while they talked. So he went with it.
“Adopted, huh?”
She cast a slanted look sidelong at him. “Yes. As an infant. I figured you knew that. I assume you guys did oppo on me.”
“Oppo?”
“Research on the opposition. Looking for things that could hurt me.”
“Dom did, yeah. I don’t recall much of it being talked about at the table, though.” Or maybe he hadn’t been listening. He paid attention to the particulars of the work, but he was quickly irritated when talk in the Keep got gossipy. He tuned most of that shit out.
“Well, yes. I was adopted a few days after my birth. By a gay couple.”
Surprised, Cox stopped short. Autumn took another step before she stopped as well and turned around to shoot him a challenge in a look. “Are you scandalized that I have two dads?”
“Why would I be? It’s not 1950.”
“You pulled up short. And this?” She gestured around them with both arms, encompassing Signal Bend the night before a major town event—the banners and decorations, the pastel mini-lights framing most doors and windows on Main Street, the boardwalk beneath their feet. “Is 1950.”
“It’s not, Autumn. Maybe we’re slower than a big city about comin’ around to change, and maybe we don’t think all change is a good thing, the way city folk seem to, but we get there on the right shit.”
“And you think LGBTQ+ is the right shit?”
“I think anybody who tells anybody else how to live their own damn life is a fuckin’ asshole. That’s as far as my opinion matters. Doesn’t affect me, don’t got a place to talk about it.”
She stared up at him, her eyes sparkling in the streetlights, her pretty lips parted like she was about to reply, but she didn’t. She simply stared, until Cox had the out-of-nowhere sense that she might kiss him.
His cock stirred, and that shook him out of the moment right quick. He took a short step back, then continued down the street. She kept up with him, and they carried on in silence for a while.
“Was it hard?” he asked eventually, because the question sat in the middle of his head and wouldn’t budge.
“Being raised by a gay couple?”
He nodded.
“No. My dads are amazing, and they gave me a wonderful life. They’ve shown me love every day of my life, they’ve supported me and cheered me on and been wonderful. Sure, they drive me crazy sometimes, but only in the way good parents drive their kids crazy.” They walked a bit farther, coming to the end of the shops, before she added, “But if you’re asking if the world was hard because Norman Rockwell never painted a family like mine, sure. I’ve had to fight some things people in straight families don’t. But seeing as my bio-mom was a fifteen-year-old who’d been raped by her stepfather, I think I got the better end of the family deal.”
“Fucking Christ!” The words burst from Cox’s mouth, loud enough to make Autumn shrink back. When she glanced down, he realized his fists were clenched—and slightly raised. He shook them out. “Sorry. I got a thing ... trigger, or whatever you want to call it, about kids gettin’ hurt.”
For a few more seconds, she regarded him warily. Then, with a nod, she started walking.
They came to the end of the boardwalk. The sign for Marie’s glowed up ahead. As they stepped off onto the dirt shoulder of the road, Autumn said, “You don’t have to answer, obviously, but I’m curious, so I’m going to ask. Do you mean a real trigger, like something bad happened to you as a kid, or do you just get mad when kids are hurt, like everybody should get mad?”
That was not a question he would normally answer, because he didn’t answer such personal questions—and also because he didn’t have much of an answer at all. For reasons he could not reach, however, he found himself making words, and giving something as close to an honest answer as he’d ever given.
“Nothin’ like that happened to me as a kid, no. Or to anybody else I was close to back then. But it’s more than regular mad. I don’t know. I guess ... I guess I just remember what it felt like to be a kid, how the world felt bigger than I could wear, and ...” He trailed off, not sure how to say more, and silenced by the intensity of Autumn’s focus on him. Something he’d said had capture her interest especially.
They’d stopped walking again, and somehow she’d stepped onto the macadam. There wasn’t a lot of traffic in most of Signal Bend after dark, but they were nearing the loose cluster of open-late establishments: Marie’s, the Chop House, No Place, Valhalla Vin. This was the only night life in town, and cars and trucks had been rolling by throughout their walk.
Cox understood that she’d stepped backward onto the road half a second before he understood how quickly a set of truck headlights was bearing down on them. He reached out and grabbed her, yanking her toward him, out of the road, just in time for the loud blare of a horn and a whoosh of sudden air as a heavy-duty pickup flew past them, close enough to touch.
He didn’t know if he’d pulled her that sharply or if she’d buried herself so tightly against his chest of her own volition, but now she was tucked within his kutte, her face pressed to his shirt. He still held her arms; she was trembling.
“Jesus fucking shit,” she muttered.
Cox almost chuckled at the clank of those words in her soft, cultured voice. “You okay?”
She heaved out a long, deep breath and stood up straight to look up at him. “I’m okay. Thank you. Though I gotta say I’m surprised.”
Not understanding, Cox frowned. “About what?”
“That truck would have solved all your club’s problems with me.”
She thought he’d have let her get pancaked on the road because she’d bought a property they hadn’t wanted sold?
“Fuck you,” he snapped, furious at once. He was still holding her, so he snatched his hands back as if her arms had turned to spinning saw blades. “Fuck you.”
Fuck this stupid job, too. Cox turned on his heel and headed back toward the park. He’d tell Badger somebody else could keep an eye on her. Not Kellen, though.
“Cox!” she called almost immediately.
He ignored her. Fucking bitch. He’d let her wriggle into his head somewhere, he’d been conversing with her, asking personal questions, giving personal answers, and all the while she was over there thinking he’d hurt her.
“Cox!”
Again he ignored her. He could hear her running to catch up, and gaining on him. He’d sooner jump into traffic himself than run away from her, but he lengthened his strides. She was short; those little legs could only make so much gain, even running.
Then she called, “Daniel!” and the name went through the base of his skull. He’d turned around before he realized it. She was right there, panting. Her ponytail had slipped, leaving a soft sag of hair around her face.
“Don’t fucking call me that,” he snarled. When he moved to turn away again, she grabbed his arm.
“Hey, wait.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry. What I said was shitty. I was going for banter. I missed.”
He glared, unwilling to get pulled back into personal talk with her.
“You saved my life, Cox. You literally saved me just now. I’m grateful, and I’m sorry I ruined my thanks with a swipe at you.”
There were still no words he cared to say, but he failed to hold back a sigh, a sound she obviously considered encouraging.
Still holding his arm, she said, “I don’t know what to think about feeling this way, after everything. But I would like to continue our trip to the bar. I’d like to buy you a drink—which is the least I can do.”
“You wouldn’t have been on the road if you’d been on your own.”
“Maybe. But I was planning to wander around town tonight, before I had a companion, so maybe I would have been exactly the same place even without you.”
“That’s stretching logic ‘til it gets pale and stringy.”
Another of those curious, surprised head tilts. “You have quite the way with words. You should use them more.”