Like a taunt, a siren song, Keira called me several times.
Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” raced along with me until she gave up trying to get through to me.
Which was when I accepted that I wouldn’t be around to see her grow old. I wouldn’t be around to taste her lips at seventy…
I was a dead man walking.
And as the thought filtered through my mind, I whispered under my breath, "Happy birthday to me."
Thirty-Six
Keira
PAST - Seven weeks later
As I pulled up outside the compound, the gates opened when the Prospect, Jaxson, caught sight of the SUV and registered who it was behind the wheel. I waved at him in thanks then carefully headed up the driveway.
When I heard music pounding from the clubhouse, even from this distance, I grimaced. I hated parties, and there always seemed to be one happening here—day or night. Didn’t matter that it was eleven AM right now, that most people were at work and kids were at school, the party never stopped.
Though I’d intended on going inside, finding Storm, and asking him what the hell was going on with him recently, the noise made me shrivel up and shrink away from going in there.
I’d never felt comfortable here and had never understood how Rene had fit in so seamlessly. She was like me. Quiet, shy. Retiring. She loved needlepoint and had done the most beautiful beadwork that took hours upon hours…
Thinking of her made me miss her.
Thinking of her made me realize how little I missed my own mom.
The urge to visit Rene’s grave compelled me to park the SUV and to head over to the compound’s private cemetery.
I never came here without Storm, and without there being a hundred other men and women in the vicinity, so the dead silence filled me with raw relief in comparison to the noise from the clubhouse.
Wading through the many gravestones of brothers and Old Ladies who’d passed over the years since the club’s inception, I found Rene’s.
The entire place was neat, the grass trimmed, no trash anywhere. But Rene’s sparkled somehow. From that alone, I knew Rex came here, I knew he tended to it personally.
The thought had me biting my lip, guilt whispering through me as I thought about how infrequently I visited her. Sinking down to my knees, I sat there, just staring at the words on the tombstone.
Loving Mother, Old Lady, and the original First Lady.
I reached forward and traced the engraved words with my fingertips even as I whispered, "Rene, I think I’m losing Storm."
Something had happened a month ago. Around his birthday. I didn’t know what, but he’d changed.
He slept away from home for runs. That was it. All of a sudden, he was barely at the house.
Cyan missed him, I missed him. Our home felt empty without him. It was hell waking up in bed to an empty space after years of him always being there. Of having him curled around me.
"I just…" I gulped. "I don’t know what I did wrong."
She gave me no answer, of course. But verbalizing it helped.
Yesterday, after he missed a parent-teacher conference, I knew that was it, I had to take a stand. I had to come here, I had to confront him, but I was scared.
Just like my mom.
My head buried firmly in the sand.
It was safer that way, after all.
What you didn’t know, didn’t hurt you, but I was hurting regardless so that wasn’t true.
A soft sprinkle of rain sputtered overhead, drenching me through, but I needed it. It made the scent of the grass stronger, more pungent, and the flowers laid here sprinkled their perfume throughout the area.
When it stopped, I didn’t move, but a sudden blaring of sound had me jerking in surprise.
A few minutes later, I heard footsteps crunching through the grass, and just as my heart leaped with hope that it was Storm, and that he’d noticed the SUV, I turned around and saw Kendra walking toward me.
I frowned when I saw her wearing a cut, because Storm hadn’t told me she’d become an Old Lady. Brothers never took off their cuts, and if anyone dared wear it, they’d only survive if the person was their Old Lady.
Christ, I never even touched his. I always left it where he laid it, like it was Babe Ruth’s jersey at Cooperstown.
Kendra and I had never been particularly friendly. I got the feeling she’d tried to become an Old Lady over the years, but when that hadn’t worked out, she had, instead, become a clubwhore. The years of that lifestyle hung heavily on her face, but who was I to judge? Maybe she enjoyed it. Maybe she had fun?
"Hi Kendra."
She didn’t greet me back. "I saw your SUV, then saw you sitting out here… What’s going on?"
"Just visiting Rene." I bit my lip, figuring I had a chance of finding out if Storm was acting as weird at the clubhouse as he was at home without having to confront him.
Everyone had a little breakdown from time to time, right?
"Why?"
"I felt like it. I miss her."
Kendra sniffed. "Don’t know what there was to miss. The old bitch wasn’t exactly a pleasure to be around."
Shocked, I gasped. "She was! She was such a sweet person."
"Maybe to you," she sneered. "She treated clubwhores like we’re second-class citizens."
I found that hard to believe but, at the same time, knew it wasn’t outside the realms of possibility. Rene had told me once that Bear had cheated with a clubwhore, so it wasn’t as if she’d like the women who routinely targeted men who had partners and tried to be with them just so they’d get branded.
It was very much a dog-eat-dog kind of environment; one of the many reasons I hated it.
"Nothing to say to that, Keira?" Kendra snarled.
"No. I don’t know how she treated you," I admitted, her aggression surprising me. "I never really got the chance to see her interacting with any of you."
She sniffed. "Well, trust me, she wasn’t sweet and lovin’."
I frowned at her, but then I looked at her cut, really looked at it, and my mouth tensed when she started stroking one of the patches on the front.
Heart in my throat, I took in the VP’s patch, and registered she was wearing Storm’s cut.
A smile curved about her lips, so cat-like in its form that, for a second, I found it hard to believe that she took such pleasure in hurting me.
"Why are you wearing Storm’s cut, Kendra?" I asked softly.
"I picked up the first thing I could find on the bedroom floor," she told me, trying and failing to be coy.
I jerked up my chin. "You’re sleeping with Storm?"
"Oh, we’re doing the exact opposite of sleeping, honey." She leaned back against the fence that circled the perimeter of the cemetery. "He’s been acting strangely since his birthday. Have you noticed that?"
I gulped. "Yes."
"Do you know what happened? He’s been…" She smiled again. "…rampant."
The adjective would have made me snicker at any other time. Instead, it was like a hammer to my heart.
"I don’t know," I muttered blankly, reaching up and pressing my knuckles to my temple where an ache was starting to bloom.