Club Property: Adults Only Motorcycle Club Romance: Roadrunners MC (14 page)

“Do you think that’s why he stayed away?”

“I wish I knew,” Carrie said and threw herself down on the bed.

Darlene looked down then reached out to grab the braid of strawberry blonde hair and stroked her fingers along it.

“You can still switch sides and forget about the opposite sex altogether,” she teased her friend. “You know I’ll love you more than any man ever would.”

“Shut up,” Carrie said, but let out a laugh.

There were a few seconds of silence as they stared at each other.

“So… what happens now?” Darlene asked.

“That’s a very good question,” Carrie answered. “The truth is I have no idea… but I’m not giving up yet.”

“Praise the fucking Lord,” Patch let out and pumped his fist in a show of celebration that was only half mocking.

“I thought you’d be happy,” Six said with a grin.

“What’s the news coming to you from the boys in San Francisco?” Crash asked.

“Just that the heat has now gone out of the situation,” Six replied. “Our informants in the police are saying the infighting story is the one being accepted for the gunfight that took out the two Mob guys. Supposedly the cops aren’t exactly pouring resources into solving the crime, which doesn’t really surprise me. They’re hardly going to bust a gut trying to find out what happened to a couple of career criminals. It’s probably not case closed, but the fact that we haven’t been implicated so far makes it unlikely that we ever will be.”

“What about the Mob?” Crash went on.

Six shrugged his shoulders to show he wasn’t particularly concerned.

“Their men were casualties of a street war,” he said. “The rhetoric in the immediate aftermath of that is always about getting revenge, but that eventually dies down. The Mob can handle the loss of two men in much the same way the Roadrunners can. They took a chance on ambushing us and it backfired on them. I think if they could kill us, they happily would without a second thought, but they’re not going to lose sight of their main business priorities over it. In other words, I don’t think they’ll be going out of their way to hunt us down.”

“So it’s safe to go home,” Patch said.

“Well, as safe as it will ever be,” Six replied. “Just keep your head down, your wits about you and everything should be fine.”

“When do we leave?” Crash asked.

“We might as well set off tomorrow morning,” Six told them. “Just get some rest tonight and we can make an early start.”

“What about the guns?” Patch asked. “Do we take them with us?”

“The boss said to leave them here,” Six answered. “The fall out from our encounter with the Mob put the Disciples’ deal off the table, but it might be revived from what I’m hearing.”

“After five weeks?” Crash said.

“That’s the talk at the moment,” Six went on. “We got the weapons across the border into Oregon, so they might as well stay here. They’re well enough hidden here and if the deal does go ahead it should be simple enough to pick them up and deliver them.”

“It wasn’t simple at the first time of asking,” Patch pointed out with a shake of his head.

“Well, it’s not our problem now,” Six said. “The weapons stay here, but we can go home.”

“I’ll check on the truck,” Crash said. “It hasn’t moved for five weeks now.”

He walked along to the kitchen to grab a couple of beers then went out to the vehicle. Popping the cap from a bottle, he took a long drink then wiped his hand across his mouth.

“Let’s see how you’re doing,” he said as he opened the door of the truck to slide into the driver’s seat.

Slipping the key in the ignition, he turned it and listened. The engine turned over a few times, but eventually sparked to life. Crash pressed his foot on the accelerator pedal to listen to the revs then left the motor running as he got out and lifted the hood.

Thirty minutes of tuning up got the engine running more smoothly, and he was sure the vehicle would be fine for the following day’s trip. He walked inside afterwards to wash his hands then went to find the other two men. They were sitting in the lounge drinking and he joined in the conversation when he sat down. It was more animated than it had been in days as they looked forward to resuming life as normal. The three of them went to get some rest when the fridge was emptied of the last bottles of beer and they were up early the following morning. Crash went to drive the truck out of the garage and was waiting with the engine running when the other two locked up the property then got in the passenger side of the vehicle.

“Let’s go home,” Six said.

“And stick to the main highway,” Patch said and laughed. “I’m in no mood for another trip on some shitty country roads.”

“The highway it is then,” Crash said as he got the truck moving.

He stopped at the first gas station he saw and watched the other two walk inside the store while he filled up the tank. When he went to pay, he bought himself some breakfast then went to join the other two on a bench to eat.

“This is bloody déjà vu,” he said as he remembered them stopping and eating breakfast on the ill-fated weapons transport.

“Just don’t tell me you saw any black sedans following us,” Patch commented. “All I want is a nice, smooth journey home, with no gunfights involved.”

They ate quickly to get on the road again and Patch’s remark stuck in Crash’s mind. He found himself nervously scanning the vehicles behind as he drove, but there was no sign of anything suspicious. For some reason there was no shaking off the anxiety, and he could sense it in the men sitting beside him as they approached the outskirts of San Francisco.

“Home sweet home,” Patch said, but there seemed to be an edge to his voice.

Crash continued to watch for any signs that vehicles were following. He knew the chances were slim to none, but couldn’t stop being watchful as he drove. The volume of traffic around them began to build when they moved on to city streets, but they negotiated the remainder of the journey without any problems and eventually arrived at the Roadrunners’ building. There was a palpable sense of relief when the gates of the parking lot closed behind them and Crash stopped the truck at the door of the building.

“You’re not coming inside?” Patch asked.

“I’ll take the truck to my workshop,” Crash replied. “I have the proper tools here to make a better job of the bodywork repairs I did at the safe house.”

“You’re going to start on that right now?” Six asked.

Crash shrugged his shoulders. He was really in no mood to go to his apartment. He was sure there was absolutely no chance that Carrie was still there, but there was still a nervousness about going home that he couldn’t shrug off.

“I might as well,” he said.

The other two looked at each other, but said no more and got out of the truck. Crash then drove the vehicle to its final parking spot for the day and got out. He walked across to the fridge and opened it up with the intention of getting a beer then decided not to. Instead, he went to gather the auto body tools and equipment then began the job of restoring the truck bodywork to its original condition. It would remove all signs that the vehicle was in a collision just in case the police ever did come sniffing around it.

A couple of hours passed quickly as he concentrated on what he was doing, but he gave up when tiredness began to creep over him. He washed up then went looking for Patch and Six. His search ended up in the recreation room, but there was no sign of his friends and he guessed they’d already done what they needed to then gone home. He decided to stick around to have a beer and talk with some of the other men, but he eventually decided to call it a night.

It was dark when he walked out of the building to the parking lot. The crash truck was where he left it five weeks before and the engine cranked slowly when he turned the key in the ignition. It eventually caught and he revved the engine a few times before putting the vehicle in gear and driving over to the gates.

“Heading home,” the man beside them said.

“First time in five fucking weeks,” Crash replied.

“Yeah, I heard you were lying low in Oregon,” the man said. “Things have calmed down though.”

“So they tell me,” Crash replied and gave a quick wave of his hand when the gates opened.

The nervousness returned as he drove in the direction of his apartment. His palms grew clammy as he approached the building and he cursed the fact that the lamps on his street were still out of order. It only served to remind him of the evening that Carrie came back into his life, and the darkness of the scene around his home added to his trepidation. He brought the truck to a stop in its usual spot and saw no light in the window of his apartment when he glanced up towards it.

“She’s gone,” he let out under his breath, but his nervousness wasn’t only about Carrie.

Things might have calmed down, but he couldn’t get the idea out of his mind that the Mob would want revenge for the loss of its men. It made him stay in the vehicle longer than he normally would, and he glanced around to check for any suspicious activity. There was none as far as he could make out, but he still slipped a hand inside his pocket to the butt of the gun he was carrying when he got out of the truck.

He was quick to cross the street and climb the stairs to the building entrance. Once inside, he made his way up to his apartment and only started to relax once he was inside. A quick look around showed no signs of Carrie or any of her belongings, and he guessed she must have packed and left when he didn’t show up as intended. His intention was never to treat her badly, but he couldn’t help thinking that the way things worked out might be for the best.

He wasn’t sure there was a future for him and Carrie, and there seemed as many things stopping them getting together now as there were when she was a teenage flirt teasing him at the army base. At least in his mind there were plenty of problems he could see that would make a relationship difficult.

“Just forget about it,” he tried to convince himself. “She’s gone and you don’t need the hassle of her returning.”

He walked to the kitchen and looked in the fridge, but there wasn’t much in it. That meant if he wanted to eat, he would need to go to the store. His only meal of that day was breakfast at the gas station and thinking about food made him hungry.

“Should have got something before you came home,” he berated himself, but there was no choice now and he went to get his jacket.

His fingers curled around the butt of the gun when he walked out and shut the door, but he was only a few steps away from his apartment when he heard the sound of the phone ringing. It made him stop and he listened for a few seconds as he debated going back. In the end he suspected that the person would more than likely ring off before he got there and decided not to bother.

“They’ll call again if it’s important,” he muttered as he carried on to walk down the stairs and left the building to go to the store.

“Shit,” Carrie snapped and drew her hand back as she pulled the phone away from her ear.

She resisted the impulse to throw the device at the wall and smash it to pieces, but let out an exasperated groan as she dropped her arm to her side. When she first returned to college after the trip to San Francisco, she found herself calling the apartment number once an hour. Her enthusiasm for doing that wore off fairly quickly, and it wasn’t long before she was only trying once a day. She still wanted to speak to Crash, but the frustration of just listening to the number ringing out on every occasion she tried became more than she could bear.

She tried to concentrate her energies on lectures and studying to take her mind off the situation, but in the last few days the urgency to contact him became more pressing in her mind. When the latest attempt just got her a ringing phone again, she knew she needed to get out of her room before she really did destroy her phone in a fit of aggravation. She slammed the door shut after stepping out to the hallway and decided to leave the dorm building to get some fresh air. Her mind was all over the place as she walked and it was only when she heard her name being shouted that she stopped to look around.

“Where are you going at this time of night?” Darlene asked as she approached her friend.

“What time is it?” Carrie answered with a question of her own.

“Nearly ten o’clock,” Darlene replied. “I was just going home.”

“Going home from where?”

“I went for a drink with a couple of friends,” Darlene explained. “So… where are you heading for?”

“Don’t know,” Carrie answered. “I just needed to get out of my room before my head exploded.”

“Have you heard anything yet?”

Carrie’s shoulders dropped as she grimaced.

“No,” she admitted in a resigned voice. “And things are getting worse.”

“What do you mean?” Darlene queried.

Carrie glanced around and saw the lights of a coffee shop still shining.

“Come on, I’ll buy you a drink,” she said and linked arms with her friend to lead the way across to the place.

There was no one waiting at the counter and it allowed them to walk straight up to it then give their order. Carrie paid for the drinks and they waited for them to be served before making their way across to an empty table.

“What did you mean things are getting worse?” Darlene asked. “Has something happened?”

“Oh something’s happened alright,” Carrie said. “I missed my period.”

“Shit,” Darlene replied. “Do you think you’re… you know.”

“I’ve been late before,” Carrie answered. “But it’s been more than a week now.”

“That’s not good.”

“I thought at first it might just be the stress of what happened over the last few weeks,” Carrie went on. “I’ve never been this late before though.”

“I take it when you seduced your crush and made sweet love… you didn’t make him wear a condom,” Darlene said.

“No,” Carrie said as she shook her head.

“Well, that wasn’t too clever,” Darlene went on. “I’m also taking it that he didn’t pull out.”

Carrie cringed as she shook her head again.

“Next you’ll be telling me you’ve been throwing up in the morning,” Darlene commented.

“Nope, that hasn’t happened,” Carrie replied. “But what the hell will I do now?”

It was a stupid question. She already knew the answer and it was confirmed to her when Darlene went on speaking to state the obvious.

“You have to check. There’s no point in just hoping that you’ll get your period. If you really are pregnant, then the sooner you find out about it the better.”

“I know,” Carrie replied and picked up her cup to take a drink before putting it down. “But I’m scared to find out.”

“Well, at least if you know you can do something about it,” Darlene pointed out.

“I’m not scared of being pregnant,” Carrie said. “It’s being on my own that worries me more.”

“You think this guy won’t be interested?” Darlene asked.

“He won’t even fucking know if I can’t find him,” Carrie replied. “I tried again tonight and I’m sick of hearing that number just ring.”

“What would you have said to him anyway?” Darlene pointed out. “Hi, how are you and where the fuck have you been for the last five weeks? Oh yeah, by the way, did I happen to mention that I might be pregnant?”

“That’s not funny,” Carrie complained.

“It wasn’t meant to be,” Darlene replied. “I’m just saying you should find out for sure one way or the other before you speak to him. If you tell him you think you’re pregnant then find out you’re not, he might think you’re playing games to get him.”

“He might not want me at all,” Carrie said in a depressed voice and slid the tip of her finger around the lip of her cup as she stared at it.

“Look, your starting point now is to find out if you’re going to have this guy’s baby,” Darlene said. “For all you know, it might be a false alarm and it really is just a late period. If it’s not, then you having his kid might be just what he wants.”

“Or not,” Carrie replied.

“Shut up,” Darlene countered. “I’ll go out first thing tomorrow morning to get you a pregnancy testing kit then come to your room. Once you know for sure what the situation is, you can move forward and decide what to do.”

“My parents are going to kill me if I’m pregnant,” Carrie let out in a flat voice.

“Yeah, but when did you ever worry about what anyone else said?” Darlene commented and smirked. “If you’d listened to me, we could be in bed kissing intimately and you wouldn’t need to worry about getting pregnant.”

The cheeky humor was unexpected, but Carrie couldn’t help her laugh coming out.

“Yeah, you should have turned me,” she said.

Darlene stuck out her tongue.

“It’s too late now, you heterosexual freak,” she went on.

They finished their drinks as they continued chatting then made their way to the dorm building afterwards and ended up at Carrie’s room first.

“I’ll see you tomorrow bright and early,” Darlene said and hugged her friend.

“Do you want any money?” Carrie asked.

“No,” Darlene answered as she turned to walk away and threw the last comment over her shoulder. “But I get to name the baby if I help and it turns out you really are pregnant.”

“Fuck off,” Carrie yelled after her friend and shook her head when she walked in her room.

She stripped off to have a shower and put her hand on her belly as she stood under the water. The thought of having Crash’s baby was something she would have happily wanted if they were together. It was the thought they might not be that was uppermost in her mind though, and she didn’t really want to contemplate being pregnant and alone. She went to lie on her bed afterwards, but there was no getting any sleep in the darkness. Things were starting to spiral out of control and she couldn’t help wondering if it wouldn’t have just been better to leave the past behind her.

It was still dark when she got up in the morning and she paced relentlessly across the floor of her dorm room as she waited for Darlene to turn up. She tried to force herself to sit down every ten minutes or so, but the nervous tension pervading her body made it impossible and she was on her feet again within seconds on each occasion. When the knock on her door eventually came, it was just after eight o’clock.

“Where have you been?” she asked when she opened the door.

“The pharmacy just opened,” Darlene protested. “I couldn’t get here any quicker.”

“Did you get it?”

Darlene held up the bag she was carrying and nodded her head.

“So, what do I do?” Carrie asked.

They went to sit on the bed and Darlene reached in the bag to bring out the box. She quickly opened it and got the instructions. It was her that read them and she passed on the information about how the test was done.

“I can’t handle this,” Carrie said when she was handed one of the strips.

Darlene got to her feet and dragged her friend up.

“Just get it over with,” she said.

Carrie was set off in the direction of the bathroom by a push and shook her head as she opened the door to walk inside. She moved across to the toilet to get the test over and done with. When she was finished, she couldn’t bear to look and just opened the door to hand the strip out. She got the second one from the box handed in.

“Do it again,” Darlene said.

Carrie’s complaint came out without her even thinking about it.

“For fuck’s sake, do I have to?”

“Yes,” Darlene insisted. “The instructions say that false readings are possible and to do the test twice just to make sure.”

Carrie’s lips tightened together as she went through with it and she opened the door afterwards to pass the second strip out. She couldn’t bear to sit waiting and went to wash her face to give herself something to do. Her hands were trembling as she splashed the water on her cheeks and she stood staring at herself in the mirror. She ended up concentrating on her reflection so much that the scream from the bedroom made her jump. Grabbing a towel, she dried her face and quickly walked out of the bathroom.

“Well?”

“Mummy Nelson,” Darlene said.

“It’s positive?” Carrie said.

Darlene nodded her head and rushed across the room to hug her friend.

“Shit,” Carrie let out in a quiet voice when they moved apart. “What the hell do I do now?”

“You have to tell him,” Darlene said.

“Yeah, thanks for that helpful information, Einstein,” Carrie let out sarcastically. “Just because I’m pregnant with his child doesn’t mean I’m telepathically linked to him. I’ve been trying to speak to him for weeks without any luck. How am I supposed to tell him if I can’t get in touch with him? This is a nightmare.”

“Try again,” Darlene urged.

Carrie had lain awake for much of the previous night thinking about calling Crash, but she heeded Darlene’s words that she should wait until she knew for sure about the pregnancy. Now that she did know, she suddenly found herself reluctant to pick up the phone. She couldn’t bear the sound of the phone ringing out again and not being answered.

“You do it,” she said and handed her phone over.

“I don’t know the number,” Darlene protested.

“Just hit redial,” Carrie said. “His name is Crash.”

“Don’t you mean crush?” Darlene said cheekily.

“Shut up,” Carrie remarked. “Just help me out here.”

“OK,” Darlene said.

In truth, she didn’t really want to make the call, but she could see the nerves of her friend and just went ahead. The phone was the same model as her own, so she knew how to activate the redial and heard the sound of the ringing straight away.

“Crash speaking,” a deep voice said when the call was answered.

The surprise of the call actually being picked up brought a shocked look to her face and it was only after a few seconds that she managed to stammer out a response.