Never met the man, but I recognized him from Kyle’s description.
Bear Rasmussen was alive.
The door creaked on its hinges again, and my gaze swung back to the house, where two more men stepped onto the porch, steaming coffee cups in their hands. The taller man was Boyd Wilcox, Eben’s son, and the family spokesman during his father’s trial. I jerked my head back, stunned, when I spied the shorter, burly man at his side. He turned his back to me, revealing the colors of a familiar motorcycle club on the back of his cut.
“You know that guy?” Levi whispered.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Name’s Tuck. Vice president of the Satan’s Sabers MC.”
Of all the people I knew before the flu, why did that motherfucker have to be the one to survive the pandemic?
TWENTY-SIX
Kenzie
Hot breath tickled my cheek and something nuzzled my ear.
Hector probably needed to go outside to pee. I groaned. I’d lain awake most of the night, falling asleep close to sunrise. Wasn’t anybody else up who could let the dog out?
“Go away.” I squirmed, rubbing my cheek against the pillow. “Find somebody else to pester.”
“Well, if you insist, but I kinda figured you’d want to see me first.” Ripper chuckled, sprawled on his side next to me.
My eyes flew open, and I catapulted myself into his arms. Inhaling deeply, I breathed in his familiar scent, then—seemingly of its own volition—my tongue darted out, and I licked his throat.
“You are a creature of habit.” He sat up and pulled me onto his lap.
I tilted back my head to get a good look at him. Not a scratch on him, although the bloodshot eyes and lines of fatigue bracketing his mouth indicated a sleepless night.
“Did you guys run into any problems on the mission?”
I deliberately kept my tone light and untroubled, reluctant to reveal how much I’d worried about him during the hours he was gone. It’s not that I lacked faith in his abilities, or believed the mission was particularly dangerous. No. Fate had royally screwed us over in the past month. I thought I’d lost him twice. I didn’t want to be one of those women who fell apart whenever her man disappeared from sight, but it was going to take me a while to recover my emotional equilibrium. I’d get there. Until then I’d revert to my old fake-it-till-you-make-it policy.
“Nope. Mission went fine.” He caught my chin and tilted my face up so I had to meet his eyes. “How ’bout you, Mac? You have any problems while I was gone?”
Well...damn. Ripper could see straight through my fake bravura, and he’d have none of it. We’d promised each other a relationship based on honesty, and here I was, trying to hide behind a false mask. Again.
He waited patiently for me to respond.
“I...I had a couple of bad minutes after you left. I buried my face in Hector’s neck and I cried like a baby.”
Ripper nodded, his brows angled low. “And then?”
“And then I reminded myself how smart and capable you are. That no matter what happens—whether it’s that crazy deputy in Medford or Pastor Bill and all his lies—that you always find your way back to me. So I sucked it up and waited for you to come home. Sahdev and I found a Parcheesi game, and we played till after midnight. I had a hard time falling asleep. I missed you, but I was okay.”
He smiled, and that elusive dimple dented his cheek. I cherished every time it made an appearance in his normally stoic face and traced the small depression with a fingertip. Ripper turned his head and kissed my palm, tightening his hold on my waist.
“Thanks,” he said simply.
Was it really this easy? I’ve always been cautious, think before you speak, my motto. Filtering my words so I didn’t expose my weaknesses. Ripper wanted nothing less than the bare truth. Nothing I’d said so far had led him to turn around and walk away. He saw me—the real me—and judged me good enough.
He stood, depositing me on my feet. “You wanna get dressed and meet me in the front room? Need to fill everybody in on what we discovered.”
I glanced down at my sheer pink cami and lace panties. “What? You don’t think I’m decent dressed like this?” I batted my lashes with exaggerated innocence.
“I know you’re not decent, Ms. Dunwitty. That’s beside the point.” He sighed. “Call me old fashioned, but I don’t like the idea of other men gawking at my woman’s body. Indulge me, will you?”
Well, when he put it like that, a request and not an order, it was easy to comply. I didn’t mind his possessive streak, as long as it didn’t get out of hand.
“Okay, babe.” I snagged my yoga pants from the top of the dresser. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
When I walked into the living room, Hannah handed me a cup of coffee, then twirled around to show off the shorts and tee she was wearing. “I lucked out. The people who lived here had a teenage daughter, and she left a lot of her clothes behind when they took off.”
I took a seat next to Ripper on the sofa.
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “First of all, Bear Rasmussen is alive.”
“Thank God.” Kyle pumped a fist in the air.
“He’s shackled,” Levi said. “And they had a shotgun trained on him when they marched him to the barn. He’s definitely a prisoner and not one of them.”
Kyle snorted. “Bear’s a good guy. There’s no way he’d sympathize with a bunch of Nazis.”
“How many people did you see?” Sahdev asked.
“Besides Bear, six,” Ripper said. “Five from the Wilcox Brigade. Jerrilyn, the founder’s widow. Dwight and Darryl, his nephews. Boyd, his son. And a young woman named Libby, who must be attached to one of the men. She’s pregnant, and from the looks of things, she’s weeks from giving birth.”
“And the sixth person?” Sahdev said.
“Man named Tuck,” Ripper said. “Vice president of the Satan’s Sabers, a support club for the Janissaries.”
“A friend of yours?” Kyle asked, frowning. “Hanging with the Wilcox Brigade?”
“Hardly a friend. I knew him before the flu, and he’s a total asshole. Last time I saw him was at a club party. His old lady had a black eye and split lip. He said she was a mouthy bitch who deserved what she got.”
“Charming.” I shuddered. Nazis and a wife beater, what a combination.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Kyle said. “How could five members of any family all survive the flu?”
“When’s the last time you saw Bear?” Sahdev asked.
“Eight weeks ago. He was driving back to the ranch from a horse breeder in Wyoming. I was hitchhiking, and he gave me a ride.”
Sahdev rubbed his chin. “It’s unlikely that they would all be immune to the flu. I suspect that no more than one or two percent of the population is immune. If none of them have fallen ill, that must mean that they haven’t been exposed to the virus. They must have been living in isolation before the flu. When word of the pandemic began to spread, they retreated to the most isolated place they could find—Valhalla.”
“Jerrilyn warned her nephews not to smoke around Libby. If the old lady is trying to protect the baby, it makes sense that they would retreat as far as possible from the virus,” Levi said.