Dream & Dare (19 page)

Now he was sitting in the chair Bibi usually occupied, with his bed table adjusted low and settled over his legs, while the illustrious and nefarious Dr. Philpott sat on a stool in front of him, pointing at the damn flashcard.

“Mr. Elliott, can you tell me what that is?”

Yeah, you jackass. It’s a carrot. I’d like to shove one up your ass.
But he stared at the flashcard and willed it to be a word he could say. The feeling was akin to a physical push in his mind.
It’s a carrot
.
Carrot. Come on, Hooj. Get a goddamn grip.

Then it came to him.
Kuh-air-ut
. He pushed that idea forward. His heart rate went up; he was working up a fucking sweat trying to make that stupid word. “K-k-kuh…air…air…ut. C-car-rot. Carrot.” He looked up, past the doctor he hated, to the woman he loved. Tears streamed down her face unheeded, dripping off her chin. “Carrot.” He grinned at her, and she grinned back. “Carrot.”

Philpott responded to that breakthrough by dealing another flashcard on top of the carrot. Asshole. “And this?”

He looked down at the new picture. This time, he had to push just a little bit less. “Duh…duh…dog.”

The words on the flashcards still didn’t make sense as words. They might as well have been written in Sanskrit. But he was learning to talk again, and he would learn to read again. As he’d learned to walk again, and to feed himself, and to take care of his physical needs—all of it the way a child learned, as if he’d never known how before. And yet not, because he’d known all along that these were things he’d taken for granted and lost.

He hadn’t lost his Bibi, though. She had been the one constant presence in his unstable, flickering understanding of the world he’d rejoined. She had brought him back—dragged him back, even.

As he had once done for her.

~oOo~

Hoosier and Blue both left the Desert Blades, but they did it of their own will. They weren’t kicked, and the table voted them out in good standing, leaving them their ink and their bikes. Chuck could fuck himself.

They’d both been out of a job, but almost immediately, Vulture had approached them. First, he’d offered them both a patch. Blue had taken it. Hoosier had declined. He blamed his outlaw life for what had happened to Bibi, and Vulture’s club was hardcore outlaw.

But Vulture had understood, and he’d offered him a station at the club’s shop, Cali Classics Custom Cycles, anyway—and that, Hoosier had taken. Making nothing but straight money was barely enough to keep them afloat, but it was enough. He would take care of his family. He would keep them safe.

Hoosier parked his bike in the garage one evening and came into the kitchen. The smell of cooking meat was strong and savory, but the kitchen was empty. Something in the oven, he guessed. “Hey,” he called.

“Daddy!” Connor trotted into the room and came for him with his arms up. Hoosier picked up his boy and gave him a squeeze.

“You have a good day?”

“Yeah. Auntie Margie made finger paint and we made a moo-wall. We painted ALL OVER THE WALLS!”

Hoosier frowned. “You did, huh?”

“Don’t worry, big guy. I taped paper up and
then
we made a mural.” Margot came in and went to the oven. Opening the door and glancing inside, she said, “We got a chicken casserole in about…”—she looked up at the clock—“fifteen minutes. Time for you to wash off the garage stink. Is Blue with you? I haven’t heard from him since lunch.”

Hoosier kissed his son on the cheek and then set him back on his feet. Connor ran out of the room, probably off to take something apart. “He’s finishing up a job. He’ll be a while, but we can wait supper on him. How is she today?”

“It’s not a good day.” Margot smoothed her hand over the little bulge of her belly. Only days after they’d found Bibi, while she was still in the hospital recovering from what had been done to her, Margot had found out she was pregnant. The timing was some kind of nasty cosmic joke.

In the four months since, Margot had been getting a crash course in mothering. She’d taken over the running of Hoosier’s family. Every day that he worked, Margot was here. They never left Bibi alone. Not ever, not for a second.

Hoosier felt sure, deep in his soul, that if they turned their backs on her for even a second, she’d disappear. Just wink out of existence.

He went to the cabinet and pulled down the bottle of Jameson. Pouring himself a full four fingers, he asked, mostly rhetorically, “Does she have good days?”

Margot fixed herself a glass of ice water. “I know she’s not ever Beebs, but you know…most days, there’s at least something a little normal—she’ll chat for a second, or she notices Connor, or maybe she’ll come out to the garden or something. Yesterday, she even asked about the baby. But today she’s been angry and distant. Days like this are hard. On Connor, too.” She hesitated, and Hoosier knew where she was headed next. “She should see somebody, Hooj. I’m here for whatever she needs, but I don’t know how to bring her back. She needs real help.”

“She doesn’t want that.” Hoosier hated the idea of talking to strangers about anything, but he was desperate enough to get his wife back that he’d suggested it to her more than once. She hardly talked to him under normal circumstances these days—if any circumstances these days could be considered to be normal—but she wouldn’t engage that topic at all.

Margot took a drink of her water, and Hoosier saw that her hand shook a little. He steeled himself to hear whatever she was afraid to say. “Maybe it shouldn’t be her choice.”

That, he hadn’t been prepared for. He slammed his empty glass to the tile counter, and she jumped. “I’m not fuckin’ committing my wife, Margot. No fuckin’ way. Don’t ever bring it up again.”

“I’m sorry, Hooj. I’m just worried. She’s not getting better. And Connor feels it, too.”

“It’s only been a few weeks. What happened to her—” He stopped, unable to say more. He’d never been able to speak of what he’d seen, or what the doctor had told him about her injuries. And she’d never told him what those days had been like. He didn’t need her to say; the blanks had been filled in by her condition when he’d found her.

“Months. It’s been four months. I can feel the baby moving, and I didn’t even know I was pregnant when they took her. She’s not getting better.” Margot put her hand on Hoosier’s and lifted her sad eyes to his. “I miss my friend. Connor needs his mother. You need your wife. When this baby comes, I don’t know if I’ll be able to manage Connor anymore. And I don’t think she’ll want me around then, anyway. Something’s got to get better before then.”

Bibi had come into the room, and Hoosier had put his hand up to try to stop Margot from finishing her thought. He hadn’t managed, but it didn’t seem to matter. If Bibi had heard what they’d been talking about, she didn’t react or remark. She went to the refrigerator, opened it, pulled out a little round bottle of apple juice, and then turned back the way she’d come.

“Beebs? Baby, hi. At least say hi.” Hoosier knew better than to reach for her. She couldn’t abide to be touched.

But she stopped and turned to face him. “Hi.” The word was flat and cold.

Margot tried, offering, “I made a casserole. It’ll be ready in about fifteen minutes.”

“Not hungry.”

“We were thinking about waiting for Blue, so it might be later before we eat.”

“Not hungry.” She turned again and left the room. As an afterthought, on her way through the doorway, she added, “Thanks.”

~oOo~

“Vulture’s gonna talk to you again.” Blue handed Hoosier a beer. “I think you should listen and think hard.”

They were sitting on the deck of Blue and Margot’s new house. Margot was seven months pregnant, and they were getting serious about the reality that a baby—a little girl—was coming. Around the continuing tasks of keeping Hoosier’s family together, Margot was beginning to feel the need to feather her own nest. So Blue had bought her a nest.

Hoosier remembered these last months when Connor was on his way. Bibi had painted, papered, slipcovered, and curtained every square inch of their house.

That had been a happy time, a happy memory. Now it only made him sigh.

“Why? Nothing’s different. I can’t bring my family back into the outlaw shit, Blue. I can’t.”

“I didn’t say this before, but I’m goin’ to now. You’re thinking about it wrong. You can’t keep them safe outside the fold. You don’t just wipe off twenty years in, Hooj. You know that. You’re not built for the straight n’ narrow. What you need to do is come in closer. The money’s better, for one thing—and I know how tight things are now.”

“Fuck you, Blue.” He moved to stand, but Blue’s arm shot out and held him in place.

“I’m just sayin’. You got needs you’re not meetin’. But here’s more. The problem with the Blades was the
distance
, not the closeness. We were on the field, but we didn’t matter. Nobody was countin’ us in their whole check. You take this patch, you’re in it. People are payin’ attention when we take a risk. We matter. Our families matter. We don’t get set aside or left behind.”

The truth was that Hoosier missed the MC life every single day, and working at a bike shop owned by an MC made that loss bitter and acute every single day. He had no concept of his own identity without the club. He was suffering. Fuck, he was completely miserable.

He wanted it back. He wanted the brotherhood, the fellowship, the strength. He needed it. He needed to belong somewhere. He needed a haven, and his own home was no longer that. His home was the site of his worst failure and his deepest guilt.

He turned and looked through the open back door. Bibi sat at the table inside, shucking ears of corn. She was better, a little. Capable now, at least, of noticing the world around her. But she was still so damaged. She cared about nothing, not even her husband and child. Not in any way they could see.

No. He couldn’t risk bringing that world anywhere near her again. He’d lose what little he had left of her.

Feeling that bitter sense of loss, he shook his head. “No. Call Vulture off if you can. I’m out.”

“Damn, brother. I get it, I do. But it’s a mistake. And I fuckin’ miss you.”

“Yeah.” It was the only response Hoosier had to offer.

~oOo~

Home that night, after Hoosier had put Connor to bed, he found Bibi in the kitchen, dishing herself up a bowl of butter pecan ice cream. He smiled. They’d had a good day at the Fordhams’. She’d even gotten involved in the conversation at supper, and she, Margot, and Connor had blown bubbles in the yard.

She looked over her shoulder as he came into the room, and his heart leapt when she smiled at him. She never smiled anymore. “You want some?” she asked, pointing the scoop at the carton of ice cream.

“Don’t mind if I do. Thanks.” He leaned on the counter and watched as she brought down another little glass bowl and filled it.

As he watched her, his cock filled out. They hadn’t had sex in six months, they’d barely touched in that time, and he missed the hell out of her, but he ignored the need that pooled low in his gut. Maybe he’d never have her again. If she’d only smile at him every now and then as she just had, he thought it would be enough. His love for her was so much bigger than the needs of his body.

However, when she handed him his bowl, their hands touched, and he must have broadcast his body’s need. Or she’d seen his erection swelling in his jeans. Something. Their eyes met, and she yanked her hand away and put her back to him again.

Holding the cold bowl of ice cream, Hoosier came up close behind her, but he didn’t touch her. “Bibi.”

She didn’t respond, but he needed to talk to her. He needed to be able to talk to his wife. He
needed
it. So he put his hand lightly over her shoulder and felt her go stiff at once.