Dream & Dare (23 page)

“Blue says you do. He says the club wants you, and you want it, and I’m holdin’ you back. Am I?”

He was going to beat Blue into an oozing blob. “Blue’s got no business sayin’ shit to you.”

“That’s no answer, baby.”

“I’d never ask you to go back into that life.”

Still playing over the keys, she shook her head. “Not an answer, either. Do you want it? Is it me keepin’ you from it?”

“Beebs, how’m I supposed to answer that? After everything that happened?”

She dropped her hands from the piano and turned to him. “With the truth.”

“Jesus, baby.” He dropped his head and closed his eyes, trying to make sense through the clamor of warning bells going off in his mind. Blue would pay for this meddling. He’d pay dear.

But he wasn’t wrong.

Hoosier looked up and met his wife’s eyes. “Yeah, I want it. I don’t feel like myself without that leather on my back.”

A deep sigh and a nod of her head. “Blue says this club will look after us like the Blades didn’t. Is that true?”

“I’m gonna kill Blue.”

“No, you’re not. He’s just tryin’ to help.”

“No, Beebs. He’s trying to get his way.”

She shrugged that off. “Is he right? Would we be safer with this club than we were with the Blades?”

“Yeah, I think so. Vulture’s a family man. He thinks like I do, that family is what makes men like us human. They protect their people. But it’s full outlaw, Beebs. Real dark work. You know that.”

“But you want it. And we’ll be safe. Safer, at least. Right?”

The answer was yes, but he was still afraid he’d hurt her to say it, so all he did was sigh.

She looked back at the piano and started to play, this time striking the keys enough to make notes ring. She was playing ‘Born to Run.’ Beginning quietly, so slowly the song was at first almost unrecognizable, she played the intro over a couple of times. Then, moving into the song, she picked up the pace, still not the upbeat tempo of the original. The effect was haunting and sweet.

Hoosier loved Springsteen, everything he’d done. He sat quietly, listening and watching, unable to resist mouthing the words, and he waited for Bibi to arrive at the moment where she could say whatever she needed to say next.

He’d just mouthed the words
I want to guard your dreams and visions
when she spoke. “Take the patch, Hooj.”

“Baby, I don’t need it.”

She stopped playing and looked at him. “You do. I saw it even without Blue gettin’ in my face. You’re missin’ somethin’ you need. And maybe we need it, too. I want you to take the patch.”

He was still going to beat Blue into the ground, but for now, he wrapped his beautiful, strong old lady in his arms.

“Thank you. Thank you. I love you.”

“I love you better.”

“Yeah, you do.”

THIRTEEN

“Demon’s been workin’ hard to finish the last bedroom at their place, so we’ll have plenty of room. The little one I’ve been stayin’ in don’t have much space for two people.”

Hoosier was being released from the Center soon, maybe in as little as a week. His body was strong enough, and he had enough language and memory, that he didn’t need enough therapy to require in-patient care. Bibi could drive him in a few days a week for appointments.

But they were still homeless, and he was moving in with her to Demon and Faith’s house. He loved those kids. They might as well have had his and Bibi’s blood. But he hated the thought of living off their kindness. He hated it so much it made his stomach sour.

“I…want…our h-h-house.”

“There’s nothin’ left of ours, baby.” Bibi laid her hand on his. “We gotta start over. The insurance paid out, so we can find someplace new when you’re ready. But let’s get you all the way back first. You can’t sign a contract you can’t read, Hooj.”

The doctors and therapists kept telling him how lucky he was. The word ‘miracle’ had been thrown out a few times. He was an old man, but he hadn’t been rendered senseless by the trauma he’d experienced. By all rights, he should have been taking up residence across the Center, in the dementia wing with the much-younger Margot. Instead, he had a lot of his cognitive capacity and memory back, and he was still making progress toward more. His mind had rebounded, and though his body was weaker, it was not weak.

It wasn’t enough. The life he and Bibi had built over four decades had been flattened. Nothing left. Not a scrap of fabric, not a stick of furniture. At seventy-three, he would be leaving the Center homeless, not yet strong enough even to begin to build a new life. Living off of people he’d taken care of most of his life. He didn’t like the way tables had turned.

He huffed and leaned back in his seat.

They were sitting on the café’s little patio, eating lunch with Connor and his girlfr—no, not his girlfriend; they were getting married soon. New memories were still difficult to keep hold of. People he hadn’t known well before weren’t sticking in his mind as well as they should. They kept saying it would improve, and he guessed it was improving. Not quickly enough.

Hoosier and Bibi were eating lunch with Connor and his fiancée, Pilar. The wedding was coming up…in the summer? And, knowing that he had trouble remembering her, Connor and Pilar had been coming to visit him together. Before, Connor mostly had mostly come on his own or with his mother. Since Hoosier had begun to speak, though, he’d seen more of the pretty Latina his son couldn’t keep his eyes or his hands off of.

Pilar had saved him and Bibi. He knew that. It was new knowledge that had stuck, and whenever he saw her, if he could get to that memory, then he could connect why she was important. She was important to his son. His son, who’d been a family man since the day Blue’s oldest daughter was set in his young lap, was finally getting a family of his own.

Pilar was describing something wedding-related. About the dress. She was going to wear her grandmother’s dress. Hoosier could not have cared less about wedding plans, or dresses, but he tried to pay attention anyway. He wanted to remember the girl his son loved.

Had he ever met her grandmother? He didn’t think so. There was something…he remembered something about Pilar. Had she gotten help from the club? Was that how they met? He felt sure that was it, but he couldn’t remember what.

He was still the President of the Night Horde SoCal, but he shouldn’t have been. Bart should have taken the President’s patch, if not while Hoosier was in a coma, then certainly when he’d woken and had still been all but a vegetable. He would have, if he’d been in the VP chair. In fact, that decision had once almost lain before him. But Bart had not. They were all acting in interim, waiting for his return.

Could he return? Could he ever lead again? Hell, could he even do his miles? He’d known long before the fire that he was a lucky son of a bitch to be able to ride hard at his age. He’d been President of his club, whatever its patch, for twenty-five years. That was a long damn tenure in a hard life. Now that he was on the bench, unable to drive, let alone ride, maybe the bench was where he belonged.

But he looked across the table at his son, who was smiling at the woman he loved, listening as though her talk of lace and flowers were actually interesting. Connor was wearing his kutte, his sunglasses tucked in the pocket.
Sergeant at Arms
, he knew one of the patches on the right side of his chest read—he couldn’t read it, but he knew anyway. Damn, Hoosier was proud of his boy. Not a boy, not for a long time—a man. And a good one. A warrior. A protector. Strong and caring. Warm and loving. The best of father and mother.

Hoosier wasn’t yet ready to walk away from that life. His recent memories might still be shaky, but he had his past firmly in hand. He was proud to wear a kutte, and he was prouder still that he shared that with his son.

Bibi and he hadn’t been able to make more than just that one child, but they’d done it right. And their life had been filled, after all, with young souls who’d needed their care. Bibi had turned her mothering light outward and shone it over everyone she knew.

~oOo~

Hoosier walked into the shop at Cali Classics. It was the middle of the afternoon, so the place was abuzz with projects. But his eyes first went to Blue’s station. He was doing a simple maintenance job, and Connor and Faith were messing around at his worktable.

He went over. Blue stood up, giving his full attention over, and Hoosier could feel the whole shop take notice. They knew he had news. But first he needed to deal with the kids. So he focused on Connor. “What’re you up to, boy?”

“Hi, Uncle Hooj.” Faith came over for a hug, her hands greasy, grease streaked even through her ponytails.

He picked up the five-year-old and gave her a squeeze. “Hey, Faithygirl. What’s the news?”

“We’re looking for things that match.”

Hoosier scanned the table, which was strewn with random nuts, bolts, washers, and other little metal parts that tended to accrue in loose lots around the shop. “That match what?”

She laughed. “I don’t know yet.”

Connor stood up straight. At twelve, he was starting to want to be a man, and Hoosier often saw him emulating the men around him. Luckily, in this club, most of the men around him were worth emulating. “Uncle Blue said it was okay. We weren’t in his way, Dad. I swear.”

Blue gave half a chuckle. “They were fine. Oughta put ‘em both to work, they spend so much time out here.”

“That’s fine, son. Where’s your mom?”

“Auntie Beebs and Mommy took the big girls to get a matty-patty. Mommy said I couldn’t come because I’m too little and I just ruin my nails anyway.” She held up her grimy hands to show her nails. “That’s okay. I had fun here.”

‘The big girls’ were eight-year-old Serenity, as well Vulture’s two youngest, who were still at home, in middle and high school: Ashley and Katie. Hoosier knew why Bibi and Margot had taken Vulture’s girls out, and it was probably for the best.

“Well, I’m glad you had fun. You and Connor clean up now, though.” He turned his attention to his son. “Then I want you to go out to the showroom and tell the girl there…” He paused, trying to remember her name; she was new.

“Ember,” Blue filled in. “That’s Ember.”

“Ember. Go out to Ember. Tell her I said to keep an eye on you.”

Connor’s expression soured. “I can watch out for Faith, Dad. I don’t need a dumb sweetbutt to watch us.”

He wasn’t so proud his son was emulating the men in that way. “Don’t question me, boy. Do as I say.”

Connor’s eyes flared, and then he nodded. Hoosier set Faith down and looked at Blue. “He’s gone.”

Blue sighed and hung his head. “Dammit. Guess you’re saved from makin’ waves, then.”

Vulture had had a heart attack on a side road and dropped his bike at sixty miles an hour. Tough old bastard had held on for almost a week, but he’d died earlier that afternoon, with his two grown daughters at his side.

Becka and Maggie had sent their younger sisters away from the hospital, deciding that seeing their father that way was too upsetting. Hoosier hadn’t agreed, he thought the whole family should be there to say goodbye, but he hadn’t interfered.

His attention had been on the club. They were deep in talks with a new supplier. He, Fat Jack, and Vulture had been riding back from a complicated and unsatisfying meet when Vulture had fallen.

For a while, the doctors had thought he might live. When they’d started talking about long-term care, Hoosier had sat Blue down and asked what he thought about Hoosier taking the gavel. Not temporarily, but permanently: a clear sign to their business associates that the club was stable.