Lock and Key (24 page)

“And eagles all over his house and the shed,” I said smiling at the memory. “You painted a lot of them before you went into the army, didn’t you?”

He blinked up at me. “Yeah, I did.”

“It’s a gift, what you have, to draw like that, paint that way. It’s very special.”

He snorted. “Special? Grace, I’ve been passed around most of my life, gotten bits and pieces here and there. I can tell you, I am grateful I never got stuck in foster care though. The only special I’ve ever known came from my Gran and Wreck.”

“What happened to your parents?”

“Dad stayed on the res after his big career came to a finish, and did a few odd jobs here and there, devoted himself to alcohol. I haven’t seen him or heard from him. Wreck had found out that our mother had landed some rodeo organizer and ended up in Oklahoma with a few more kids and a nice house. Everyone blonde and blue-eyed. Don’t think I would have fit in with that American dream, do you?”

“You never… um…?”

His eyes tightened. “What for?”

“She’s never tried contacting you?” I asked.

He shook his head at me and went back to his french fries.

I squirmed in the hard wood chair. “The eagle is a very special symbol isn’t it?” I asked. “He’s considered the spiritual link between heaven and earth, the carrier of prayers? A connection with the Great Spirit, a symbol of higher truth, honor, and bravery, right?”

Lock’s opaque eyes slid back to mine. “Very good, Mrs. Quillen.” He wiped his hands on his paper napkin then crushed it in his fist.

“I paid attention in school, Mr. Flies as Eagle,” I said.

His one hand pushed against the table, and he pressed back into his chair.

“It’s a little unusual though, your eagle,” I said. “Is there a reason his wings are spread out like that, one pointing up and the other down?”

His eyes glinted at me. He took in air through his nostrils. Was he bracing? Maybe he had never shared this before? Maybe I should just shut up already?

“One wing points up for my Gran, because she taught me how to fly. The other wing points down to the earth for Wreck, because he gave me a second chance at life after all my dad’s shit. Wreck’s the one who taught me to let go and ride free over the earth.”

I wanted to lunge at him across the table over our greasy, crumb-filled dishes. I wanted to wrap Lock in my arms and kiss the base of his throat where the tip of the eagle’s wing pointed up to the sky. I was suddenly desperate to taste his skin on my tongue and to nestle myself in his warm embrace.

But I didn’t move, I didn’t dare breathe. His large espresso eyes held mine, and the world fell away. A delicate stillness shimmered between us through the clatter of dishes, the ding of the cash register and voices that shouted and laughed from the recesses of the kitchen.

Our waitress appeared seemingly out of nowhere and smacked the bill on the table. I flinched. “There you go. Have a good one!” she squawked and charged past.

Lock tore his eyes from mine. His hand covered the bill and squashed it. He took out his chained wallet and threw several singles on the table for a tip, stood up, and without a word, strode towards the cashier. My heart shrank. I swallowed down the lukewarm tea to drown my disappointment.

The ride home was uneventful and smooth. I concentrated on the rhythmic, vibrating chant of the engine and the flat and grassy prairie that rushed by us. A flutter went through me at the sight of wheat fields billowing in the wind looking more like waves on a golden ocean.

Two hours later we entered Meager and got to the club. Lock parked the bike in front of the shed where Boner was crouched on the side of a bike. He dropped his wrench on the ground, wiped his hands on a dirty rag, and smiled at me.

“Hey baby, everything go alright with Big Daddy?” He took the helmet from my hands.

“We talked. It was okay. He got tested,” I said. “We just have to wait and see now.”

Lock busied himself over his bike. He marched to my car, put my small duffel bag on the ground, muttered a muffled “Later, Grace” at me and strode off towards the clubhouse lighting a cigarette.

“What’s up his ass?” asked Boner.

I pressed my lips together and shrugged my shoulders. “It’s been a long day. He’s tired.”

“Yeah right, having you on the back of my bike for two days would be real tiring,” Boner said. “For fuck’s sake!”

I forced a grin across my lips. “You ought to know, Boner. You’ve babysat me plenty of times.” I brushed my lips against his stubbly cheek, and he wrapped an arm around me and squeezed tight.

“Love you, Sister.”

“Me too, hon. Big time.” I planted a quick kiss on his lips and let go of him. “Gotta get to Ruby. Fill her in.”

“Alright,” Boner said. “I’m gonna swing by the hospital for a visit, but you keep in touch, yeah? Or I’m going to come find you, and it’ll be ugly.” He swatted my ass. I scowled at him over my shoulder, and he blew me a kiss. I blew one back.

I got in my Land Cruiser and started her up. My Pink CD blared over the speakers. Thank God for Pink. I swerved out of the lot and took off. My brain was still numb from the ride. My muscles ached, and my Lock hangover showed no signs of wearing off anytime soon, on my body or in my brain.

“You like him, don’t you?” Ruby’s voice broke through my reverie of this morning’s events.

I only gave her a blank look. I really didn’t want to dissect this right now.

“You want to see him again?” Ruby’s eyes lit up. “Get back in his bed?”

“Yeah Rube, I like him.”

“Why is that so hard to admit?”

I shook my head. “Things got emotional between us somewhere along the line. I don’t know exactly.”

“Emotional?”

“What I mean is we seemed to know how to reach out to each other. We understood each other. I felt something…” I said, my one hand gestured in the air.

“Something you haven’t felt since Dig?” Ruby asked.

My forehead knit together. “That sort of intensity, yeah. There was something raw there all knotted up with…”

“His big, beautiful dick?”

“Ruby!”

“Or, no…” Ruby’s eyes flew open. “His pecs?”

“Oh for Pete’s sake! Will you stop talking liking a teenager?”

“It’s annoying isn’t it?” She grinned at me and sucked in oxygen from her mask. “Come on, tell me about his pecs!”

We both laughed, and I threw myself on the edge of her bed.

“He does have a perfect chest,” I said. “Not overly defined or bulky. It’s lean and just… perfect.”

Ruby laughed. I curled up next to her on the bed and laughed too.

I had missed this with her. We always gabbed on the phone regularly, but there was nothing like being together, like this. Only I would have preferred her not being attached to an oxygen tank in a hospital bed.

“So, where’s the problem?” Ruby asked.

“From the beginning I’ve been the one keeping him at a distance,” I said. “The last thing I need now is to get involved with a member of the One-Eyed Jacks.” I rubbed at my eyes. “But this trip opened up something in the both of us. But just as I started feeling comfortable with him and with these feelings, he pulled back. He couldn’t look me in the eye this morning except for the strained conversation over lunch. Then when we got to the club, he barely said goodbye. He just walked off. It was cold.”

“He got that nickname for a reason,” Ruby said.

I chewed on my lip. “Maybe the real me just doesn’t add up for him.”

“You want to translate that for me? Before I smack you upside the head?”

“Ruby, he told me himself. He’s been fantasizing about ‘Little Sister’ for years. He heard stories about me from Wreck, from the guys. He’s seen the photos of me and Dig on the walls of the clubhouse,” I said. “No matter what, I’ll always be someone else’s Old Lady to him.”

“Dig is dead and buried, Grace.”

“I know that. But now that Lock’s had me, maybe I just don’t live up to the ideal or the fantasy he’s had in his head,” I said. “In the harsh light of day maybe he realized he’s just not that into me, as they say. Could be as simple as that, you know.” I let out a heavy sigh. “Come on, Rube, a guy like that is better off fucking the hot young things that are always chasing after him around the club anyway. How about that?”

Ruby stared at me from behind her oxygen mask. She tugged it off her face. “Once again honey, you are over thinking things,” she said. “If he wasn’t interested, he wouldn’t have insisted on taking you to Montana, and he certainly wouldn’t have been panting for seconds after his first taste. And from what you’ve described, he was pretty damned enthusiastic about you between the sheets.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Between the sheets, yes.”

“Okay, so he’s just another asshole biker. Big surprise.”

My stomach tightened. “No, I don’t think he is…”

“And there we have it.” Ruby smirked at me.

“Bitch.”

“You like him. A lot,” Ruby said. “And by the way, what he said to you at the clubhouse, that was frigging poetic.”

I shook my head at her. “He was just freaked out that night. He got carried away when he said all that. That’s it.”

“I had my dream on my hands and in my mouth, and I never fucking realized.”

I gnawed at the inside of my cheek. That heat flared again through my insides, but this time the soreness only stung. “Now he’s stepping back,” I murmured.

“What about what he said to you at Erica’s? Insisting that you two were happening?”

I frowned at my sister.

“Stop it, Grace!” said Ruby.

“What? Don’t actions speak louder than words?”

“Did you ever think maybe he’s putting the brakes on in the harsh light of day not because he’s feeling too little, but because he’s feeling too much? Maybe what he feels for you is really intense, and that’s new for him.”

“Maybe.”

“That’s always a lot for a guy to deal with,” she said. “And for a guy like Miller, who has nothing except his bikes and the club, who has always kept a ‘lock’ on everything in order to survive, it’s probably a hell of a lot. It means change and letting go. And then letting someone else
in
?
That’s a big deal for anyone. It happens to be a big deal for you, too.”

I bit the edge of my thumb. Ruby slapped my hand from my mouth. “No witty, clever comeback?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“You want more with him Grace, you should explore it.”

“That’s just it, though,” I said on an exhale. “I don’t think I’m capable of more. So his pulling back is just as well.”

“Oh please. Have you tried? Since Dig, really tried… ever?” Ruby asked.

“You know the answer to that.”

“Yes, I do,” said Ruby. “The answer is a big fat no. So, here’s a better question: Did you ever want to
this
badly?”

She held my gaze. I didn’t answer.

Ruby leaned her head on mine. “It’s okay to like him, you know. It’s a good thing, Grace.”

I blinked up at her. “Is it? I haven’t done the real relationship thing at all since Dig. I just can’t. And from what Alicia told me, he’s barely done it himself.”

“Okay. Humor me here. For the sake of this conversation, forget the cringe worthy words “relationship” or “commitment.”

I rolled my eyes at her.

“Grace, listen.” Ruby took hold of my hand and squeezed. “Do you want to live something rich and whole with one other man? Do you want to give to him and accept what he has to give you and create something new together? Something special, exciting, warm and safe, just for the two of you? Wouldn’t you like to do that with Lock? From what you said, you two obviously have the chemistry for it.”

“We certainly have chemistry.”

“It’s not hard when it’s the right person, honey,” Ruby said. She rubbed my fingers and grinned. “In fact,” she said, “it’s a delight.”

“You think I don’t remember what it can be like?” I asked.

“Do you? Don’t you want it again? You can. But you have to choose it, Grace. Have the goddamn balls to say yes to it. We make our own choices in this life. And by the way, the choices our parents made had nothing to do with us. You understand that, right?”

I turned my face away from her and swallowed.

“It’s never too late,” she said and nudged my arm. “You know, it wasn’t easy with Alex, but it was so right. We managed. It was so worth it.”

She seized my hand. Her breath hitched in her throat. Her eyes had filled with water.

“Ruby what is it?”

“Don’t let this sink Alex,” she whispered.

“Stop. Don’t talk like that.”

“I’m being a realist,” Ruby said. Her chest struggled for air.

“I’ll kick his ass.”

She grinned weakly. “I made him promise to kick yours too.”

“Of course you did.”

She cleared her throat. “Think about it, Grace. Actually, don’t think too hard about it, knowing you. Just dive in. It’s been too long. You’re a sensible forty-something now. Although, shit, you’ve always been this sensible, just not so freaking uptight.” Ruby let out a hoarse laugh.

“I’m not uptight.”

“For God’s sake, you used to be this hot biker chick. My sweet little sister, the scary biker’s Old Lady,” Ruby said. “Who would have thought? And I ended up marrying the clean upstanding white collar citizen with two college degrees. You definitely had our mother rolling in her grave for years!”

We both laughed, and I threw the tissue box from her side table at her.

She tossed the small box back at me. “Grace, you want real, you got to get real. And don’t tell me you don’t want real. You’ve always been about the real. It took me a long while to catch up with you.”

“Aw, after everything I put up with from you. I’m really touched.” I put the box of tissues back at her side.

She grinned at me. “It’s good to see you so hot and bothered about a man. Finally! There’s only so much mediocre fucking a woman should tolerate in her lifetime.” Her eyes held mine. “Hang on to Lock, Grace.”

Years of mediocrity and making do ended that night for me at Dead Ringer’s when I had looked up from my whiskey and set eyes on a dark-eyed, enigmatic man.

“I’m
not
hot and bothered,” I said.

“You sure as shit are! And so is he.”

“Shut up.”