She took the phone with a smile and pointed it at me, while her partner looked on with concern.
“Uncle Lloyd, this is no joke,” I said, facing the camera, before I turned to Debbie and pulled out the box.
Her face went pale, and she wobbled.
For a second, I was afraid she’d have another vasovagal syncope—the way she had the day I’d found her behind the gas station. “Don’t faint and ruin this for me, Red.” In the corner of my eye, I caught Adam pulling out his phone as I sunk down to one knee.
Debbie steadied herself with an arm against the wall.
“Deborah Ellen Benson, I know you’re just getting used to that last name again after all these years, but…” I looked up to see love in her eyes and hoped to God I hadn’t rushed this. “I’d like you to change it again. This time to Carver. Please marry me.” I opened the box.
Her smile and the tears in her eyes said it all. “Yes. Two eagles. One nest.”
She wobbled, and the box dropped when I got up to kiss my woman and keep her from falling.
“You’re supposed to put the ring on her,” Adam said.
Debbie seemed to get her breath back, so I retrieved the box and claimed my woman with the ring I’d bought for her. It wasn’t a large stone, but it still meant she was mine, all mine, and it would substitute for the tattoo I’d suggested for the top of her cleavage.
“I love you, Luke Carver,” she said. Then she turned toward Brolin and added, “And this is not a joke, Uncle Lloyd.”
Epilogue
(The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other. –Mario Puzo)
Debbie
The morning light snuck around the edges of the curtains. It was his day, so I’d lain in bed for the last hour, relishing Luke’s hand cupping my breast and thinking about the mirror. It was the same breast that had his name indelibly marked on it, just as his name was marked forever on my soul.
He squeezed me lightly and mumbled, “Morning, Red.”
Oh, how I loved that name. “Morning, Wrench.”
“You’re still here.”
Normally, I’d be up and fixing breakfast by now, but that sometimes bugged him. Getting up late was a compensation for his time in prison. I hoped he’d get over it, given enough time.
“It’s your special day,” I told him as I wiggled my ass against his morning wood.
“Does my wench want to play?”
Calling me Wrench’s wench was our inside joke.
“I call mirror,” I told him.
His cock jerked behind me.
I’d learned that in front of the mirror was the ultimate turn-on for him, so I saved it for special occasions. Doing me doggy while I leaned against the bathroom counter gave him a full view of my breasts swinging with every thrust. It was great for me, and even better for him.
I’d been thinking about it since before he woke.
His fingers moved down to my mound and found my folds already slippery for him. “You’re wet as sin,” he said in my ear.
I wiggled against him again. “Just waiting for you to wake up.”
A minute later, I braced against the counter as he entered me.
His thrusts sent shocks all the way to my toes. They always did when my man gave in to the animal inside. He pushed harder and faster. The sound of flesh slapping against flesh filled the room.
I looked up into the mirror to see his blue eyes filled with lust and love as he watched my boobs swing. When we did this, he filled me so completely I couldn’t hold back. I couldn’t put off the tension that built within me.
He reached his magic finger around to press my clit, and my blood sang. It was like pressing a button that electrified all my nerve endings as I shook and came around him.
I locked my knees to keep from falling down, and a few thrusts later I looked into the mirror again at the face I loved to watch. He tensed up as he released inside me.
After a minute of heavy breathing, with his weight against my back, we cleaned up and went back to bed to snuggle. We had a few hours before we were due in town.
I was his wench, and he was my man.
It was a perfect afternoon for the grand opening of The Wrench Works.
Luke had been resistant at first, because I’d leased the building when I’d originally come back, and I’d done it without talking with him. But that was part and parcel of it being a surprise.
Today I hung on his arm. More than two dozen bikers took up one side of the space, half of them from the Howlers. Like oil and water separating, the other side contained my family.
Even Serena and Duke had made it back from London, and my cousin Vincent and Ashley were down from Boston for this special day.
Duke wandered from the family camp over to the biker side, where he was welcomed, probably because of his ink.
Luke
Debbie had been relieved to hear that all of her family, including her aunt and uncle, were joining us today.
It wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but having a shop other than my garage was a big step for me.
The door to the street opened, and Brooklyn walked in with Adam and his partner, Rylie Brolin. Brooklyn spied us and hurried over with what I hoped was good news. Adam’s broad smile seemed to confirm that.
Adam’s wife, Kelly, marched our way to hear the news.
“I got to watch the perp walk,” Brooklyn gushed as she bounced on her toes. “I never thought I’d see the day.” She beamed with excitement.
Her attacker’s family connections had kept the local prosecutor from charging Walter Blackmunn with rape at the time, but they didn’t have the pull my new extended family did at the FBI.
Brolin put her arm around my sister. “And I got to cuff the bastard and tell him it was for Brook.”
Adam and Brolin had reinvestigated and gotten the US Attorney to bring federal charges before a grand jury.
The man I’d been sent to prison for beating up would finally face a justice beyond what my fists could deliver, and I couldn’t have been happier for my sister.
One by one, all the women gave Brooklyn words of encouragement and hugs now that she would get to see her attacker in court. She’d been warned about how traumatic her testimony might be, but she was determined to see it through.
For me, seeing Blackmunn sent to a federal lockup would also be sweet. His attack on my sister had changed all of our lives, and he deserved every day he would be sentenced to and more.
Adam took me aside from the group talking about Brooklyn’s case. “I didn’t want to say anything until we had confirmation…” He urged me farther out of Debbie’s earshot.
“Confirmation of what?” I asked.
“A CODIS check confirmed this morning that we have a DNA match on a torso discovered in a landfill in Pennsylvania.”
I waited.
“It seems Cliff Butner isn’t on the run any longer.”
I gasped for Adam’s benefit, but wasn’t truly surprised. I hadn’t known exactly what had happened between Cliff and Spencer that day, but this answered the question. The Howlers had short-circuited the justice system.
“How does this affect the case against Cindy?” I asked.