Ink (The Haven Series) (44 page)

Colton was every inch a soldier. Sam was smarter than anyone else gave him credit for. They’d get it in the end. And the end was finally just over the horizon. It had been a hell of a long journey.

“Battle born,” Will murmured, stubbing out his cigar. “Guess I'm just battle weary.”

And with his cut neatly folded on the table beside the gavel, the president’s patch cut off ready for the next man to step up, he leaned back and closed his eyes. The steel was cool against his temple.

He smiled.

And pulled the trigger.

***

Epilogue

"Thought I'd let
you go without saying goodbye, huh?"

"Colton ..." Callie simply dropped her bag and let herself be wrapped up tight in his waiting arms. She hadn't seen him in weeks – since after Will's funeral in fact - and, throwing her better judgement to the wind, she gave in to the urge to kiss him and got no protest in return.

With one hand sliding dangerously low on her back, the other buried in her hair, Colton seemed to put everything into that last kiss as he all but crushed her to his chest. And, practically melting into him, for one crazy moment she thought of ripping up her plane ticket right there.

But Casey was depending on her. Between juggling his family
- complete with a newborn who'd arrived three weeks early - and preparing to launch his new project, the guy was nearing the end of his rope. Not to mention desperate to see her after everything he'd had to be filled in on from thousands of miles away.

Besides, the contracts were already signed with Sketch's blessing. She was officially on the books at the newest branch of Addiction and her new colleagues, not to mention a camera crew, were waiting for her.

"What if I told you ... What if I 
asked
 you to stay?" Colton said, when they finally broke apart. His voice was even gruffer than usual and he kept her close, his arms around her waist and hers around his shoulders, their foreheads resting against each other as he looked into her eyes.

"I don't think I could ever say no to you," she
said, her hand sliding to his cheek with her confession. She smiled ruefully as he turned his head to press a kiss into her palm. "But ... I think I have to do this, Colt."

Those dark eyes seemed blacker than ever, but the lips that sought hers out again were unexpectedly gentle - their earlier fire doused by an awareness of the reality they were facing. Or maybe by her tears.

"Only girl I ever really gave a shit about and you're running out on me," Colton said, cupping her face in his hands to wipe away the tears with his thumbs. But, even as the sound of a tannoy announcement forced him to look up for a second, she thought he understood. "That's your flight they're calling, kid."

"What? But it's too
soon!" Callie exclaimed, suddenly flustered now that it was really happening and he was right there in front of her. She hadn't figured for him being there when the moment actually came. "Colt, I'm not ready ... I don't think I can ..."

"Don't reckon there's
 anything you can't do," he said, managing a rare grin as he reached for her bag and pushed it towards her. His last kiss was hard, but all too brief. "Go on – go conquer the fucking world, darlin'."

She didn't know what to say. There was only one response that seemed at once both infinitely right and totally wrong. He had to know what was racing through her mind though, simply because he always had.

Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Callie took a deep breath and a step towards the gateway - before turning and throwing herself back into Colton's inked arms to hug him tightly and press a tearful kiss to his cheek. "I ... Take care of yourself, Colt," she whispered, her voice choked with emotion.

And then she was gone.

***

Back at the clubhouse, Colton watched the dark amber liquid swirl in his shot glass before knocking it back and pouring a refill from the bottle he'd procured from behind the bar on his return from the airport.

He'd taken the scenic route home, not caring about the view, just wanting to prolong the inevitable - walking back through that door without her, knowing that he'd let her be the one that got away. Knowing that he hadn't said the words that would have made her stay.

He'd spent so long shying from it and yet he now knew that all it meant was something you couldn't live without, something you
 needed. And there were some things he couldn't imagine not having in his life – the club, his brothers, his bike ... and her.

Dealing with the whole truth of what had happened to Callie had been rough and it had taken a hell of a lot of restraint not to turn his anger on Sam. With both the man who'd stabbed her and the one who'd orchestrated it, however inadvertently, dead and gone
and neither by his hand ... That had left him with a lot of pent-up frustrations and no one to take them out on. He wasn't over it yet, wouldn't get his head round it for a long time.

But in the meantime, they had a club in crisis to keep whole and the only people who knew the full ext
ent of the damage were him, Sam, Johnny and Gunn. Keeping the mother charter president out of the loop was never going to be an option. The rest of them though, they were better off in the dark.

They'd taken it one step at a time, holding the funeral off as long as they could to buy some thinking time. If he'd had his way, a shallow grave would have replaced the usual
glossy black coffin and all the trappings. But that would have raised too many questions, so instead he'd been forced to wrestle the rage down and lock it up tight.

The vote for a new president would wait until the dust had settled. Johnny and Sam were holding shit together until then. Brothers were still reeling from the shock of Will's passing and the mystery shrouding his final hours wasn't helping. Long-term, it'd probably all come tumbling out eventually. For now, they didn't need that kind of loss of faith in the man who'd led and influenced them for so long. Even if he was gone.

Colton’s shoulders slumped as he drank, and the memory of the weight of that coffin came flooding back. It had been a hell of a burden to bear, for all the wrong reasons, and Sam had watched him like the ticking time-bomb even he knew himself that he was. But he'd gotten through it, in the end.

That night, barely out of hospital a week, still hurting and all too aware of what her future held – what they'
d conspired while she healed - Callie had come to him.

He'd meant to send her away. Delaying the inevitable was just making it harder on them both and she was recovering from a brutal attack and major surgery, all because of her connection to him. He still couldn't stand that and didn't know how she could either. He'd meant to send her away.

But he'd always been a selfish bastard when it came to her and the prospect of one more night with her in his arms had been too much to pass up. And all night, they'd been content to lay like that in his bed - him staring up at the ceiling in the darkness, her face nuzzled against his neck. While she was there, the noise in his head was a little quieter.

Once more, she'd saved him.

Before, it hadn't even been just from that bullet, back in what felt like another lifetime. Even setting that aside, she'd given him something to hold onto that was just his - a reason not to get lost in all the shit out there. And now, instead of telling her, he'd let her walk away. He'd let her go.

There wasn't enough whiskey in the world.

***

The sound of boots clumping across the clubhouse drew his attention. Although it felt like every charter in the northern hemisphere had passed through lately, a rare lull had fallen and was there to be broken. But a glance revealed only Sam and Colton silently turned his gaze back to his glass, at least in the second before his double-take. The sergeant, as he pulled up a chair, looked even more like shit than he had of late.

"Got a knock on the door at 2am," Sam said flatly, raking a hand through the spikes of his hair in distraction. "Not that I was asleep anyway."

Colton waited for more, watching as the fidgeting hands wiped over an exhausted face and then fumbled through pockets, hunting for something and coming up with a nearly empty pack of smokes.

"Just opened the door in the dark and shoved my gun in someone's face," came the mumble around an unlit cigarette, as the hands searched again and retrieved a lighter. "Didn't even give a shit if it was the damn cops."

Colton eventually returned his attention to his glass when nothing more seemed to be forthcoming. "And was it?" he asked finally, not looking up as he swirled what remained of the amber liquid in slow circles.

Sam managed a laugh and shook his head as he exhaled. "Nah. That it was not, brother," he said. "It was Taylor. Stood right there on my doorstep.
Taylor.
”

Colton slowly met his brother's conflicted eyes and Sam nodded, a humourless smile tugging the corner of his mouth upwards. “
Yup. With a couple of bags at her feet and a baby in her arms. Blonde hair, blue eyes, just about a year old. She says he's mine."

And, lost for anything meaningful to say, Colton did the only thing he could - handed over the bottle.

Goddamn women. There wasn't enough whiskey in the world.

***

She’d have killed for a whiskey, but with the combination of the long-haul flight and the painkillers she was still having to take, it probably wasn’t the smart thing to do.

But the cabin pressure was making her throat dry and Callie knew she wouldn't be able to concentrate on even the most mindless of magazines, not with everything jamming up her brain. The thought of hours in this confined space was already making her beyond edgy. Hours of what was lost,
what ifs
and
what could have beens
. And through it all, the memory of that last kiss so raw and real she could still feel it.

Thinking that the pretence of reading would at least prevent the need for making polite conversation with any of her fellow Row 32H passengers, she reached for the bag stowed obediently under the seat in front. Unzipping it and reaching inside, trying to ignore the ache that made it feel distinctly like her heart had somehow lodged itself in her throat, her fingers brushed something she immediately
knew hadn't been there when she’d packed.

Briefly wondering what it meant for her inadvertent lies to the mandatory
did-you-pack-this-bag-yourself
and
did-you-leave-it-unattended
inquisition, she pulled the envelope out and turned it over in her hands. Her curiosity was only further sparked when she noted her name scrawled on the front in familiar writing.

Sliding her finger under the flap, she carefully tore open the envelope and pulled out the piece of paper inside. Her eyes widened as she unfolded it, fresh tears welling up to cloud her vision.

A black ink sketch of a phoenix, signed with only two words.

One day ...

THE END