Nolan: Return to Signal Bend (7 page)

“It’s sparkly,” Millie offered.

“It is that,” Shannon agreed. “I don’t know. Is it tacky?”

“I like it. It’s festive. Dad’ll think you’re gorgeous if you wear a burlap sack. And he’d be right.” Iris got up and went to Shannon’s standing jewelry chest. “You always look so great in green. I know what you should wear with it.” Smiling at the framed butterfly sitting prettily on top of the jewelry chest, Iris opened one of the necklace compartments and pulled out a piece that their dad had given Shannon for their tenth anniversary a few years back: a large pendant of a sapphire and an emerald in an intertwined platinum setting.

Shannon cocked her head. “A bit much for the clubhouse, don’t you think?”

“It’s New Year’s Eve. Do it up. Those leather pants, the new boots, a sparkly sweater, and this. Dad won’t know what hit him.”

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into those pants. My butt is too wide for leather pants.” After Shannon said that, she cast a guilty eye toward her daughter. One of her big deals as a mom of girls was to always try to avoid saying negative things about her own body so that they wouldn’t think it was okay to hate themselves.

Shannon wasn’t skinny—or fat, either, in Iris’s estimation. Rose thought she was fat, but Rose could have milkshakes morning, noon, and night and never gain an ounce. She thought Iris was fat, too. She didn’t understand the struggle of having a body that stored any extra weight at all.

Iris had always admired Shannon’s self-image. She was an imposing woman—the absolute definition of curvy, with ginormous boobs, a narrow waist, and round, sultry hips and ass. She was really tall, too—in those new boots, she’d only be a couple of inches shorter than their six-foot-five father. Her face was lovely, but her body was hardly the Vogue or Cosmo ideal of beautiful. Yet she was the most beautiful woman Iris knew—inside and out.

Men seemed to like her just fine, too. Iris had often seen men stop dead in their tracks and watch Shannon walk for as long as they could. And their dad could not keep his hands to himself. It could get gross, actually, all that old-people PDA. Shannon wasn’t as old as their dad, but she was still more than fifty.

Shannon was, to Iris, the model of that idea that if you thought you were beautiful, if your heart was beautiful and your mind confident, then you were beautiful, and people would know it.

She looked at her little sister. At nine, Millie was looking like she’d favor Rose. She was tall and slender—their dad, who liked nicknames, said she was ‘coltish’ and called her ‘Millie filly’—and her hair was the kind of strawberry blonde that Iris had tried and failed to replicate chemically.

“You look great in those pants, Shannon. What do you think, Mills?”

“I think you’re pretty in everything, Mom. I wish I could go to the party and see you.”

“We’re going to have a great time here, Mills. Our party will be just as big as Shannon and Dad’s. We’ll have music and dancing and games and movies and overindulging, and we’ll stay up past midnight—and for midnight, I have a surprise.”

“What’s over—over—?”

“
Overindulging
. It means we’re going to eat a lot of ice cream and pizza and popcorn.”

“Ooh! Can we make caramel corn?”

“Yep. We can do whatever we want, because the grownups will be gone
all night long
.”

Millie bounced up and down on the bed and clapped happily.

“Easy, you two. I’d like the house to be standing and everybody to be in one piece when we get back.” Shannon turned her back to them and stepped into the black leather pants, shimmying them up under her elegant silk robe. She really did look good in them.

“That’s a low bar. I think we can manage it.”

“Are you sure you’re good with this? It’s a lot of kids, and you’re young. You should be out partying on New Year’s. I’m the old fart who should be staying in and going to bed at ten.”

Iris had decided that the Horde New Year’s Eve party sounded like a terrible idea this year. She didn’t want to end up drunkenly making out with Nolan. The next time they kissed, if there was a next time, it was going to be for a good reason. She didn’t want to see him drunkenly making out with anyone else, either. And she didn’t want Kellen pushing up on her—which he’d done twice more since Monday. So she’d volunteered to have Camp New Year so that all the Horde parents could have a whole night off.

It hadn’t worked out exactly like she’d first thought—Lilli had said that it would be too much for Bo, her and Isaac’s boy, who had Asperger’s and didn’t do well in situations out of his control, and Badger and Adrienne had decided that John, their youngest, a toddler, was too young for the occasion. So Bo and John were spending the night with Lori Mortensen, who had been Bo’s babysitter all his life.

But Iris had charge of all the other kids: Isaac & Lilli’s Gia; Bart’s Lexi, Ian, and Deck; Nolan’s little brother, Loki; Badger and Adrienne’s three oldest, Henry, Megan, and Caroline; and, of course, Millie and Joey. Ten kids in all.

She was excited. It would be a party, and probably more fun than getting stupid drunk and doing something stupid, then spending the next day hung over and miserable.

“I’m very sure. Gia’s fourteen. She can help. And Millie, you’ll be my helper, right? You’ll keep the little ones entertained, too?”

“Yeah! We can do art!”

“We can. We can do lots of stuff.”

Millie jumped down from the bed. “I’m going to get my art stuff! Can we make an art station like at the museum?”

“Sure. Why don’t you set that up in the dining room. I’ll help in a few minutes.”

“Okay! We need to make sure everything’s safe for little hands!” Millie had run most of the way down the hall before her sentence was complete.

When Iris turned back, Shannon was standing there in her black leather pants and pretty black lace bra, her silk robe open. Her expression was wisely amused. “You dispatched her handily. There something on your mind?”

“I have a question.”

“About Nolan.”

Iris sat down on the end of the bed. “Is it that obvious?”

Shannon sat next to her. “Honey, I won’t say everybody knows that something is going on between you two, but I will say that it is known. Your dad knows, too. We’ve talked about it.”

Great. People were talking about her and Nolan, and Iris didn’t even think there
was
a her and Nolan. “But that’s just it—nothing is going on. Except…I don’t know. It’s strange. I think we’re just friends, though. Pretty sure.”

“Then what did you want to ask?”

Now, Iris was shy and ashamed to ask. “I think it’s stupid.”

“Ask, Iris. No harm in that.”

“I was going to ask you to let me know if he was…with anybody tonight. I know that’s creepy and awful, but things are weird between us, and it would help me know what’s going on.”

“Weird how?”

There was a protective edge to Shannon’s tone, so Iris smiled and shook her head. “Nothing bad. It’s more that I don’t think he knows what he wants, and I don’t know how to
be
around him.”

“Be you. Always be you, no matter what.” Shannon sighed and stared at the floor for a few seconds. “You know, Nolan’s…he’s gone through some hard things.”

So had Iris, but she didn’t say that. “I know.”

“You know about the girl in California?”

“Yeah, I know. I saw her video. That was a long time ago, though.” The girl had made a video of her doing all the things on her bucket list before she died. Her family had put it online a few months after her death, and it had gone viral. Everyone Iris knew had seen it.

It was a happy, funny video, and a devastatingly sad one, too.

Nolan had been in a lot of the footage. Seeing him with that girl had made Iris see him as more than just another club kid. She’d fallen for him a little, watching him love that girl.

“I don’t think it was so long ago for Nolan. He’s been alone ever since, and I know you know he doesn’t need to be.”

That was true. Every girl within about a hundred miles of Signal Bend, and probably many thousands of girls across the globe who’d seen him in that video, being all hot and sweet and perfect, wanted to get with Nolan Mariano.

Iris had watched the video over and over, and though she couldn’t remember the girl’s name, she could still remember, almost verbatim, the words she’d said to Nolan at the end of the video:
You helped me have everything. Thank you for loving me. It will break my heart to leave you. Don’t be sad for long. I want you to have a life of love and good things.

“It’s been four years.”

“I know, Iris. But grief doesn’t have a timeline. Maybe you’re right that he doesn’t know what he wants. I think you probably are. But you can’t make that decision for him. You can only decide for yourself. So no, I’m not going to tell you if he gets with anybody tonight. I’m going to do all I can not to notice that at all, and to keep your father from noticing, too. Okay?”

“Okay. It was a dumb idea, anyway.”

Shannon hugged her. “Not one of your smarter, no. But now I understand why you’re having Camp New Year instead of going to the clubhouse.
That’s
a smart move.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Even in these days of calm, the Horde met in the Keep every Friday. Even on New Year’s Eve. While the women got things set up in the Hall for the Horde New Year’s Eve party, which was, in effect, the Signal Bend New Year’s Eve party, the fifteen members of the club sat around the table.

Nolan liked the way things were now, a balance between past and future at the ends of the table. In the center were Dom, the current Intelligence Officer, and Bart, the former IO, and the soldiers: Tommy, Kellen, Thumper, Saxon, Cox, Darwin, and Mel.

Badger, as President, sat at the far end, flanked by Double A, his VP, and Nolan, his SAA. Facing Badge at the other end of the table was Isaac, the former President. At his flanks sat Show, Isaac’s VP and a former President himself, and Len, Isaac’s SAA.

That had been the case since Isaac and Len had been released from prison the summer before last.

Before then, Showdown had held the gavel, and Badge had been his VP, with Tommy at SAA. The leadership now was young—Badge was only thirty-five, and Nolan, at twenty-six, was the youngest SAA in club history—but it was the right leadership for the club as it stood. Nolan thought maybe Isaac, Show, and Len had been through too much, had seen too much darkness, to shepherd a club that worked in the light.

Often, Nolan wondered if he, too, had seen too much to be effective in his role. His tendency was to see the most nefarious possible cause to any problem. But he had learned patience, he practiced it as if it were a kind of religion, so he mainly kept that dark tendency to himself.

Most of the meeting was usual business, with some extra focus for end-of-year information. The Horde owned several Signal Bend businesses: Signal Bend Construction, where many of the members worked; Valhalla Vin, which Nolan’s mother managed; Signal Bend Health and Wellness Center, which Len’s wife, Tasha, a doctor, ran; and they were part-owner in several other business in and around town. On this final day of the year, a lot of the meeting was taken over by Double A, going over figures. Nolan paid enough attention to understand that they’d had a good year. The past few years had all been good—not extravagantly great, but comfortably in the black. Where they wanted to be.

When the topic moved to forecasting for next year, Nolan tuned out. He didn’t much care about the plans. It was all the same to him, as long as there was somebody to tell him where to swing a hammer. There was some discussion of the next year’s town events, and he turned his ear to that a little, since he’d be in charge of security, but once he heard it was all the same as usual, he let his mind wander again.

Where his mind wanted to wander was toward Iris. He hadn’t seen her since early in the week, at Marie’s, but Kellen had started talking around the clubhouse—quietly, to the younger members, not to Show—about her. Especially her tits. He had been appreciative more than disrespectful, so Nolan had no grounds to bash his face in, but he wanted to. He kept hoping Show would overhear the shithead and do the face-bashing for him. But no such luck.

His head got quiet when he was around her. He didn’t know why, but it was true. But he was trying to stay away, because she was not somebody to just fuck around with. Kellen should have known better, too. Not only because she was Show’s kid, but because she was family, and a good person, and not somebody who deserved to be the one a fucked-up asshole worked out his problems on.

He’d tried to figure out what this new draw he felt toward her was about. That stirring he felt—maybe it was something real, but he couldn’t tell. When he thought of Analisa, that wound still hurt. A lot. It didn’t feel like there was room in his heart for anybody else.

Right after Ani’s death, he’d told his mom that loving her had shown him that he was capable of loving, despite all the darkness in his life. And that was true—he’d loved Ani with his whole heart, and he’d been good to her, and good for her, he knew. But it seemed he’d been wrong to think that he’d be capable of loving again. Or feeling anything deeply again. Except anger.

When there was a long pause in the discussion, Nolan refocused completely and saw Badger staring at the table before him. He seemed troubled, and that wasn’t something that usually came around in the Keep these days.

“Okay,” the President said. “Dom has something to share with us. I don’t feel good about this, but I’ve sought some good advice, and it’s something the whole club needs to know. We need to decide together what we do about it. If anything.”

Wondering if the good advice Badger had mentioned accounted for those sideline meetings with Isaac, Show, and Len, Nolan took full heed as Dom nodded and sat forward.

“First, I’ll say that I wasn’t looking for this. Not directly. I keep my ear to the ground, because I want to see trouble coming. I don’t want to get blindsided just because things are rolling quiet here.”

“Say what you found, Dom,” Isaac’s voice was low and calm, and Nolan knew that Isaac had heard whatever the news was already.

Dom took a deep breath and blew it out. He glanced at Bart before he spoke. “I’ve got good, reliable intel that David Vega is alive.”

Nolan’s eyes immediately went to Bart, and he saw his brother flinch. But Bart said nothing.

“That guy is like a fuckin’ cockroach,” Tommy muttered. “All the bad guys he’s crossed, and he’s still kickin’?”

Dom nodded.

“What’s the intel? Exactly.” Nolan kept his voice as level as he could. He knew that everyone at the table would be watching him, trying to gauge his response. When SoCal had been in such trouble the previous summer, Missouri had had on the table, more than once, the question of sending their aid in, even though Hoosier had not made a request. Every time, the idea of sending men had been voted down.

Every time, Nolan had been the sole voice on the losing side of that vote, the only proponent of fighting with their SoCal brothers.

Now they were all watching him and Bart, the two most aggrieved members. Vega had hurt many of them, but Isaac, Show, Len, and Badger wanted no part of any kind of retaliation, not even in the service of another charter.

Nolan had thought, last time, that Isaac might come to his way of thinking; he’d seemed deeply conflicted. But in the end, Badger’s insistence that vengeance was an unwinnable fight, and that, absent a request for help, they’d be going in for their own vengeance, had swayed the former President. Nolan had been alone.

Mere days after that vote, Riley had been killed. Now Bart was here in Signal Bend, patched in again to this charter. While Nolan waited for Dom’s answer to his question, he kept his eyes on Bart.

“He was sighted in Canada. Manitoba.”

“Mani—sighted by who? Santa Claus?” There was some light laughter at Thumper’s remark, but nobody was in a particularly joking mood.

Dom answered, “The Brazen Bulls had Nomads up north, working with the Cree. It’s Eight Ball sent me word. That’s how I know it’s legit. Vega is hiding out north of Lake Winnipeg.”

“Jesus on a pogo stick,” Tommy grumbled. “Did the Nomads engage?”

“No. Far as we know, Vega doesn’t know he’s been made. Nomads called Eight. But the Bulls know that Vega is Horde business, so Eight backed his guys off.”

Thinking about those sideline meetings of Badger’s, Nolan asked, “How old is this intel?”

Badger met his eyes. “Three weeks.”

“And you’ve been sitting on it all that time.”

“I had to make a decision about what was best for the club, if it was right to even bring it up.”

“That’s not your call to make.”

“Yeah, Nolan, it is. We’ve voted more than once to put our back to Vega and move forward. That’s the right call. We are not that club anymore.”

The muscles in Nolan’s hands had begun to ache from the effort he was making to keep them from coiling into fists. “We haven’t voted since he fucked SoCal and got Riley killed.”

Bart turned blazing eyes on Nolan and finally spoke. “Don’t you bring her name into this room. That’s not yours to do.”

“Bart—”

“No. Make your case, but do
not
use my wife to do it.”

Losing his internal fight, Nolan slammed his fist on the table. “He’s got to die. If he doesn’t, he’ll just rear his head again and take more of what we love away. Ten years since Vega killed Hav.
Ten years
. He’s still on some fucked-up crusade to end drugs by any means necessary, and he doesn’t care who the fuck gets hurt.”

Double A held up a calming hand. “You don’t know that’s still true. He lost his own wife and children last summer. And his cover is fully destroyed now. He’s Most Wanted with four cartels. He’s in hiding. His days of being a threat are over.”

Nolan laughed bitterly. “You’re an asshole if you believe that, A. You say he’s in the sights of four cartels, and yet he’s still breathing. We found him accidentally. I’d say the odds are good he’s still protected. And that means he’s still somebody’s asset.”

Showdown leaned on the table and turned toward Nolan. “You need to think with your head, son. Not your heart. We’re not on anybody’s radar now. Vega doesn’t have it in for us personally, and even if he’s still fighting, we’re not on that battlefield anymore. Vega gave us Santaveria to pay for what he did to Hav—and what he did to the rest of us.” Show glanced at Len, at Isaac, and then at Badger before he set his eyes again on Nolan. “That debt is paid.”

“It’s not! What
I’m
owed is not paid.” Nauseated with rage, Nolan again turned his regard to Bart. “Come on, man. You can’t let what he did just
go
.”

“I killed the man who sent the men who killed my wife. Emilio Zapata. Not Vega.”

“Vega engineered the whole thing! He was why we were working with Dora. He hid behind her and manipulated us all. It was his plan that put Riley in Zapata’s crosshairs. You have to see that.”

“If you say her name in this room again, I will beat you unconscious.”

Tommy cut in before Nolan could respond. “You’re laying SoCal business on this table, Nolan. What happened out west is not our vote.”

“I’m laying Night Horde business on this table. We’re all brothers, right? One club.”

Badger held up his hand. “Let’s vote it. The question on the table is whether to pursue retaliation against David Vega.”

Once again, Nolan was the only vote in favor.

~oOo~

When they were done in the Keep, Nolan wanted to get out as quickly as he could. Fuck the party. He needed to ride. But he wasn’t even all the way through the Keep door when he felt the iron grip of Len’s hand on his shoulder. “You and me need to talk.”

“No. I’m taking off.” Nolan tried to shake Len off, but that old bastard’s scarred, inked hands were strong as hell.

“You’re gonna sit at the bar with me for a while. We’re gonna have a couple of shots of Jameson together. And we’re gonna talk.” As he’d spoken, he’d all but dragged Nolan through the Hall and shoved him onto a stool. He grinned at Chloe, one of the newer club girls, who was behind the bar. “Couple of shot glasses and a fresh bottle of Irish, doll.”

“Irish?”

“He means Jameson,” Nolan clarified. “I’ll have Jack.” At Chloe’s nod and grateful, hopeful smile—Nolan had favored her some—he turned to Len and glared into his one good eye. The other had been lost in the same horror that had taken Havoc.

“I know what you’re gonna say, and I don’t need to hear it.”

Chloe brought the booze and had the smarts to know she should get lost without being told. Around them the buzz of a big party was starting up. All the old ladies were busy setting up, bossing club girls and hangarounds. On any other night, Nolan would have enjoyed watching the commotion. Even his mom looked like she was having a good time. But tonight, after that meeting, he wasn’t capable of anything like enjoyment.