Lock and Key (27 page)

If my son or daughter had lived fifteen years ago, would he or she be shooting pool with Wes right now? Would my daughter have a crush on him? Would my son be his best bud? Would my son have popped me a sweet smile just like Wes was giving his mom right now from across the room after he took that great shot? My eyes squeezed shut.

Dammit, I thought I got past this.

You will never be past this.

Especially when the possibility from an alternate universe is staring me straight in the face here in this goddamn haunted house.

I swallowed hard. My eyes caught Lock’s intense gaze. He tilted his head at me, his lips slightly parted.

He noticed, that was sweet, and that’s all that was, right? A kind inquiry into my well-being.

My troubled gaze lingered on his. I wish we could talk. I wish I could sit with him, my hand in his, his heartbeat under my ear taking away the strain in my chest, like we had relaxed together at the hotel.

The front door burst open and boisterous laughter and booming voices filled the clubhouse. Five men in One-Eyed Jacks cuts from the North Dakota chapter along with three women strutted into the room.

“Alright!” Alicia let out a loud whistle and clapped her hands together. “It’s Butler!”

I shot up from the sofa, a rush of adrenaline coursed through my body.

“Little Sister?” came Butler’s gruff voice and hearty laugh. “Woo! Look at you, baby!” Blonde, blue-eyed Butler charged towards me and swept me up in his arms. He sported more earrings in his left ear and a couple in one eyebrow, his blonde hair was still full, but instead of it hanging over his shoulders, it now stood in stiff tufts on his head. The stubble over his face gave his striking good looks a rougher edge. His skin was weathered, but his body had not gone soft with time.

He took my face between his hands and planted a brief kiss on my face, then my mouth.

“Oh my God,” I stuttered. “It’s so good to see you!”

“Hell, sweetheart.” Butler planted another kiss on my forehead then pulled me out of his arms. “You are still one hell of a walking hard-on!” He burst out into gales of laughter. So did I and the rest of the club. Everybody except Lock.

“I’ve been in Colorado for a couple of weeks and on my way home. Heard you were back, and I had to come see you.” His hands squeezed my waist. “You look great, babe. You doing alright?” The lines along the edges of his eyes scrunched up with his broad smile.

Butler and Dig had been close friends and together would organize all the winter runs in Southern California, Florida or Texas for the three One-Eyed Jacks chapters. Butler’s Old Lady, Caitlyn, and I would, on special occasions, join them and ride along with Wreck in a van packed with the tools and all the bike parts necessary for such a long trip. Otherwise Caitlyn and I and the other Old Ladies were stuck home alone waiting for our men to get back, calling each other constantly to see who’d heard from whose Old Man for any news, good, bad, or dubious.

“I’m good. I’m very good,” I said. “What a terrific surprise.” I wrapped my arms around his massive torso. My gaze rested on the president’s patch on his leather jacket. Butler ran his fingers through my hair and brushed his mouth across the top of my head. This felt good, seeing Butler again, to be reminded of a time when everything rolled along easily, or at least seemed to.

Today a fierce jumble of emotions had slapped me upside the heart valves one after the other.

What more?

The music blared louder, bottles popped opened, laughter hooted and bubbled over.

It all sounded good to me.

“Jake’s room is all the way at the end, you can’t hear much back there,” Alicia said.

We loaded more food into bowls and platters to bring outside.

“I’m not worried,” I said. “He had a big day, and he’s a heavy sleeper. He’s definitely out for the night.”

“Must be good to see Butler again huh?” Alicia’s eyes gleamed.

“It is,” I said. “Where’s Caitlyn though? Why isn’t she here? Those two were inseparable.”

Alicia froze. “Sweetie…”

“What? What is it?”

“Caitlyn was in a bike accident about three years ago.”

An icy shiver raced down the back of my neck. “What happened?”

“They were on their own in the middle of the Black Hills coming back from a day at the Reservoir. A car bumped into them. It was nothing major, but Caitlyn’s foot got pushed into the primary chain. Butler didn’t have a primary cover on his Panhead.”

“No!”

A primary chain rotated at 1500 rpm. Caitlyn’s foot might as well have been mashed into a high speed meat grinder.

“Yeah,” Alicia said. “Her foot was gone before the bike even went down. She bled to death before an ambulance could get to them. They weren’t even speeding. Just the two of them out for a nice afternoon ride. The idiot driver of that car took his eyes off the road for just a moment, but that’s all it takes, right?”

Outrageous, gorgeous, over the top Caitlyn… gone. My hands clamped onto the bowls of cheese puffs and the chili flavored corn chips.

“It was horrible. Butler was a fucking mess,” Alicia said. “He blamed himself for it. Even went nomad for a year. It changed him. He’s better now, but different.”

Butler had even left the club for a year and went out on his own? Guilt and pain are certainly powerful little demons.

“I think I get it.”

“I’m sure you do.” Alicia’s eyes settled on me, and she let out a sigh. “Come on, let’s get this stuff out there.”

I plonked the bowls of snack junk on the big table, and an arm wrapped around my middle and squeezed.

I held my breath. Butler let out a growl against my cheek. “It’s so good to see you again, so fucking good.”

I smiled at the emotion in his voice and the warmth of his large body against mine.

“I feel the same way,” I said, turning in his arms to face him. “Alicia just told me about Caitlyn.” My arms went around his waist. “I’m so sorry, Butler. So sorry. I…”

Butler’s lips stiffened into a firm line.

“You doing better?” I asked.

“Sure.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It doesn’t sting the way it used to, but it’s like nothing’s stable any more, like the earth is tilted a different way now, and I just don’t get it. Then it passes, but it’s still there. I can feel it underneath everything.” He raised a pierced eyebrow at me. “Am I right?”

“Yes,” I said softly.

He squeezed my shoulder. “We both took off, huh?”

I met his steady gaze. “I couldn’t face this place or everybody without him here,” I said. “I kept wondering why the hell did I survive? Why did I get to live and Dig and the baby had to die? Maybe if I hadn’t insisted on going out for a ride that afternoon, maybe…”

“Ain’t no maybes, Sister. That’s a losing game we keep playing with ourselves, ‘cause it just don’t change the facts, does it?” His arm tightened around me. “When I came down to see you in the hospital, you didn’t recognize me. That killed me. I wanted to be there for you, but I didn’t know what to do. I freaked.”

“I don’t remember too much.” I said. “I remember voices, pieces of conversations, but I was too far gone.”

“Yeah, baby you were,” he said. “I just thank God Caitlyn had insisted on giving Ruby a break that night and stayed with you in your room. If she hadn’t been there—” He inhaled sharply through his nose.

I pressed my lips together and gave him a watery smile. He kissed my forehead and smoothed back my hair.

“I’m glad you made it through. Feels good to hear you laugh, see you smile.” Butler’s hand rubbed up and down my back. “Tears are over, beautiful.” His lips touched mine and his thumbs gently brushed over my cheekbones.

“That’s right.” I straightened up and pushed at his massive chest. “Go get me a beer, big man.”

“Coming right up.” Butler winked at me and headed for the bar.

“Ain’t life grand, Sister?” Boner came up behind me and slung an arm around my shoulders I gave him a kiss on the cheek. He released me and trailed after a blonde who strutted by us.

“Yo, sweetness, where you going?”

I let out a laugh, and then my breath caught in my throat.

Lock sat on the sofa with one of the girls who had come in with Butler. She had gorgeous long, silky raven hair, big brown eyes, dangling turquoise earrings, large breasts stuffed into an orange tube top. A mini skirt barely hid what was between her thighs, and cowboy boots were at the end of her long, toned legs. She slid onto his lap with a deep giggle and traced the edge of his eagle wing tattoo with a long wine-colored fingernail. A red rage flared inside me.

That’s my tat, bitch.

She plucked a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket. A slight grin broke over his face. He pulled out his lighter from his pocket and flicked it on. The girl leaned in and touched his wrist as he lit her cigarette. She draped her arm around his shoulder and took a drag. My jaw clenched. I always hated it when Dig would light another woman’s cigarette. There seemed to be an instant of sensual intimacy in that quiet exchange that always bit at me.

It bit me now. Hard.

Another one of Butler’s girls, a blonde with pink highlights, perched herself on the arm of the sofa on the other side of Lock and scored her fingers through his cropped hair and laughed at what they were saying.

I had no right to be jealous, but my body was having it’s own violent reaction to the Lock spectacle before me. He wasn’t mine. He was not my boyfriend, not my lover, not my man, not my anything. He had made that clear in the shed. We happened, it’s over. End of story.

Wasn’t that what I had wanted all along?

“Beer, my dear,” Butler tucked a beer into my hand. My fingers gripped the icy bottle. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to drink its contents or send it smashing across the room. Butler clanked his beer against mine and slung an arm over my shoulder.

“To living, Little Sister. Living large.” He took a long pull from his bottle.

I took a gulp of the cold brew. Butler pulled me in closer to his body and kissed the side of my face. I swallowed more beer.

To hell with it, I couldn’t help it. I had to see.

My gaze darted back to Lock. His black eyes glinted at me. Even halfway across the great room their dark heat seeped right through my veins as two very willing young women filled his hands. My pulse pounded in my ears. Why did he have such power over me?

Butler leaned in and whispered something in my ear; I don’t even know what he said. I couldn’t listen. I was listening to Lock’s eyes, translating his glares, and he extracted from mine.

I chewed on my lower lip.
Why are you doing this?

Lock’s eyes narrowed.
Why are his hands and mouth all over you all the fucking time?

My eyes remained bolted to Lock’s magnetic glower. The blonde leaned down, licked his ear, her breasts rubbed against his shoulder. Grinning, she whispered in his ear and stroked his chest.

Heat blasted my face.
Is that the way you want it?

For a moment, Lock didn’t move a muscle. Then he grabbed the blonde’s arm and pulled her down into the sofa next to him. She barked out a laugh.

A brick settled in the pit of my stomach and crushed everything inside me. Lock had pushed me away and shut us down. Yet now he had the nerve to be ticked that I was hanging out with Butler?

This was Butler, not some skanky hook-up, but an old family friend. Lock had two club sluts panting over him, touching him everywhere I had caressed and kissed him, everywhere I still wanted to touch him. And pretty soon all this would lead somewhere as it usually did. The hallway, his bedroom. Maybe with both women. Isn’t he the popular one? Oh, what did it matter? He’s probably already fucked them before.

I gritted my teeth until my gums burned. He obviously wanted to make a statement this evening, and he was doing a grand job of it.

Why was this so damn hard? I’m usually so good at letting go and moving on. I need to have fun with my old friends who I know and love and who love me.

More people had shown up and the party had moved outside to the yard. The prospects grilled burgers and hot dogs. A keg had been tapped, and a bonfire burned, the flames and heat licking out at us. Alicia had somehow managed to whip up huge heaping bowls of macaroni salad. Suzi and I and a couple of the other female hanger-on’s stacked piles of paper plates and filled cups with rolled up napkins and plastic utensils. Several of the men had started a little boxing match for betting. Cheering and heckling filled the air.

I found Butler at the fight. My brow snapped together at the sight of a shirtless Lock fighting in the makeshift ring with one of Butler’s brothers.

“He’s good, I haven’t seen him fight in a while,” Butler said.

“Oh?”

Did I sound uninterested enough? I hoped so.

Lock’s bare upper body glistened with sweat. His long sinewy arms were taut and close to his body. He suddenly snapped one arm out, then the other, and punched his opposition repeatedly. His opponent howled, shuffled back. Lock’s leg shot out and cracked against the guy’s jaw. Blood gushed down the poor guy’s teeth and across his mouth. Lock’s eyes were those of a predator bearing down on his prey. He took a few hops back and waited for the other guy to come to his senses.