Rebel Heart (11 page)

Fucking senseless.

That’s all Richie ever was. Here Kade was, defending his and the clubs honor in the most physical way possible, and all Richie was doing was making shit worse.

Figured.

Detective Lewis and Kade fell to the ground. A few prospects and their girls jumped out of the way of the brawl, stumbling against barstools. Detective Lewis swung once, making sharp impact with Kade’s temple, then twice, upper cutting his nose until blood began to seep from his nostrils.

When he had finally had enough, he eased off of Kade and stood up like nothing had happened, stepping over his bruised body. He loosened a knot in his neck and sauntered out the door and into the night as quickly as he had arrived.

Two prospects lifted Kade off the ground and eased him into a barstool without having to be told. They were still only boys. Couldn’t have been any older than eighteen or nineteen, but Kade saw more loyalty and honor in them than he did Richie. Disjointed, he scanned the room for him through swollen eyes as one of the prospects pressed an alcohol soaked bandana against his wounds. He furrowed his brows and winched. The shit stung.

“Where is Richie?”

Prospect one shrugged. The other nodded toward the door of the clubhouse. Kade could hear the sound of Richie’s Harley starting up. It was an older model that needed work and it made a distinct clunking noise when the engine started up.

“God dammit,” Kade muttered.

That was Richie’s way. Get shit faced, stir up bullshit, and leave. Kade would have been surprised if he had done anything but. Especially with Nash away.

Suddenly, heavy rock music was blaring again and people had scattered throughout the clubhouse in clumps, losing interest in Kade’s bloody form.

That was how fights always went.

People enjoyed witnessing the brutality of it all.

Not the aftermath.

“I’m heading out.”

Kade stood up and wiped the blood from his face, catching a glimpse of himself in the dusty mirror behind the bar. If he didn’t already feel like shit he certainly looked like it. Still, he had something he needed to do. Tonight. He could deal with Richie later.

The girl who had been eyeing Kade earlier flashed him a look of disappointment as he stumbled past her and out the door. The chilly February air greeted him and stung his face. It was a brutal cold that surrounded him as he straddled the seat of his Bonneville and started up the engine. With an unsteady hand, he revved down on it hard, heating it up. The bike shook to life beneath him.

He eased down on the clutch and sped out of the gravel parking lot, upshifting until he was going sixty in a twenty-five zone. He made an aggressive turn and pressed down hard on the throttle, passing lone vehicles in the night, mostly logging trucks whose drivers honked at him.

Stella.

Kade didn’t know why her smiling face always had a way of flashing through his head. It had been five years. Long enough to forget her. Long enough to forget any woman. But she was never just
any
woman.

When she left, wherever it was to, she had taken part of Kade with her. Not that he could blame her. A years worth of accumulated mistakes on his end had made it impossible for her to stick around.

Kade sighed.

Fifteen minutes later he found himself parked in front of Mel’s tiny trailer. Her blinds were closed but the lights were on and Kade could make out her moving shadow behind them.

It didn’t make much sense—him being here. But then again, nothing had made much sense since Stella had left.

Kade switched off his bikes ignition and walked across Mel’s driveway. His boots crunched against the gravel as he ascended the dirty concrete steps that led to her front door. He hesitated before ringing the doorbell, catching a brief glance of his reflection in the storm door, illuminated by the streetlights. A rustling noise sounded from behind the door but Mel didn’t answer.

Kade opened the door and paused with his fist rose in mid-knock. He patted the pocket of his cut to make sure the ring was still there.

It was.

He started to turn away. He told himself that he was making a
huge
fucking mistake. Every part of him told him to run away while he still could. But drunken ideas had a way of taking hold.

Kade could hear Mel inside talking to her daughter Stevie, who had just turned six. She probably didn’t even know that he was outside. There was still time for him to turn back and go on with his life, or at least what was left of it.

It wasn’t like Mel was incapable of finding someone else. Hell, there wasn’t a warm-blooded man within a hundred miles that wouldn’t have dropped his hat at a chance to be with her. But for whatever reason it was Kade whom she fancied herself with.

It was an accident really.

A decision made in the heat of the moment on a night when they had both found themselves missing Stella and Maddox. It had started with a shared cigarette outside the SOW clubhouse but magnetic warmth brought them together. Kade’s hands explored Mel’s body with a hunger he hadn’t experienced since Stella had left. But it was the reminder that Mel wasn’t her, could never be her, which kept him grounded.

When it was over, Kade didn’t chop it up to much. He figured it was a onetime thing. A fluke encounter. But as usual, life had a way of making other plans.

This time around Kade made sure there were no secrets. He was honest with Mel in a way he had never been with Stella. He told her that she deserved to be happy in the long term but that he didn’t think
he
would ever be. Through years of precise practice he had learned how to fake it. How to put on a face and appease people when he needed to, but Stella was the only person who had ever dug deeper. The only one who had ever seen Kade’s self-destructive behavior for what it was. And even though he was a complete basket case, she stuck around for as long as she could. She loved him and she persevered.

Still...

Kade couldn’t allow another woman to make the same mistake. His misery was nagging and perpetual in nature and it wasn’t up to Stella, Mel, or any woman to save him.

When he shared this fine print with Mel, the look in her eyes told Kade it was okay. She didn’t understand it. She couldn’t have, at least not fully. But regardless, she was sweet about it.

That was her problem. She was sweet about
everything
. There was none of the fire in Mel that had burned incessantly inside of Stella. But Mel, like Kade, was broken. All she wanted was someone to pass the time with. Someone her daughter could call a father. And if a couple silly vows spoken in front of a holy man and a crowd of people dressed in their finest was what could make that happen for her, well then Kade figured it was the least he could do.

Sometimes when he was with her he felt like he actually wanted to be. Sometimes he thought it was love, or at least a semblance of it.

Kade’s internal monologue was interrupted by the sound of the door opening. Mel stood in front of him with a confused expression etched across her classically pretty face.

And it was then that Kade had an epiphany. A single stream of thinking took over the entire moment. He would marry this girl. And even if he didn’t love her yet, he would learn to.

“Kade?”

Mel reached up to touch the bruising on Kade’s face with a look of horror.

“What’s going on? You’re bleeding.”

She stepped aside and allowed him to pass her, calling out to her daughter, who was glued in front of the TV with her thumb in her mouth.

“Stevie, go into your room sweetie. I’ll be in soon to say goodnight.”

Stevie nodded and gathered up the heap of stuffed animals that surrounded her. Kade gave her a wink and a smile and she giggled before entering her small bedroom. She was all too familiar with his battered appearance. It was Mel who found it uneasy. She entered the kitchen and grabbed a rag and some alcohol, nodding at an empty chair at the table.

“Sit down,” she instructed, “I’ll clean you up.”

Mel never asked what happened, and for that much, Kade was grateful. He took a seat and allowed her to rub the alcohol soaked rag over his wounds. She was careful and precise.

“Are you alright?”

She kept her voice low, not wanting Stevie to overhear anything. Kade nodded and reached up, grazing his fingers carefully over her jaw. He smiled.

“I am now.”

Mel blushed and took a seat across from Kade at the table. She really was quite pretty. The kind of woman any man would have been happy calling his wife. Kade couldn’t help but study her.

Mel furrowed her brows.

“What?”

“Do I have something on my face?”

Kade shook his head.

“Nah, you’re just beautiful. That’s all.”

Mel smiled softly and looked down as a deep blush spread over her face. She wrung her hands together and said nothing. Kade exhaled a deep breath. He didn’t see the point in putting it off any longer. All the other boys were getting married—hitching up and having kids with their old ladies.

There was just nothing gratifying to Kade about jumping in and out of bed with random women he’d never get to know. Not anymore. With a sudden dose of confidence, he reached into the pocket of his cut and pulled out the tiny velvet ring box, setting it down in front of a visibly confused Mel. She stared at it with wide eyes, tracing her pointer finger over it before opening it.

“Kade...”

“What are you doing?”

Mel spoke softly, stumbling over her words. Her honey blonde hair spilled over her pale shoulders and fell into her face. She brought her legs up beneath herself in her chair as she analyzed the ring.

It was beautiful.

“I want to marry you.”

Kade spoke steady and with purpose. He reached for Mel’s clammy hand from across the table and gave it a squeeze. She shook her head and looked up at him with a frown.

“You’re drunk...”

There was a brief lapse of silence.

“Aren’t you?”

Kade shook his head. He was, but that didn’t matter. He had made this decision sober.

“I’m asking you to marry me.”

“I want to be able to call you my old lady.”

“But what about Stel-”

Mel started to interject but Kade held up a hand to stop her.

“Stella left five years ago.”

“This is about you and me, Mel. Not Stella.”

It couldn’t have been any further from the truth, but what did it matter? Mel gave Kade a skeptical look and dropped the subject. Neither one of them relished in talking about the past.
Especially
the aspect of it that involved Stella.

“Why?”

“Why do you want to marry me?”

Mel spoke in a hushed tone and looked over her shoulder at her daughter’s bedroom door. Kade nodded at it.

“I care about her.”

His words were precise and matter of fact.

“I cared about Maddox. I care you. I don’t know, Mel. It just...it
makes sense
doesn’t it? Us getting married?”

Mel sighed and reached for the glass of wine she had poured for herself prior to Kade’s arrival, taking a long drink. When she spoke her voice was laced heavily with sarcasm.

“Gee, that sure is romantic.”

Kade gave her a nudge and cupped her chin in his palm.

“Come on...”

"Would it really be so bad? You know Dice would be thrilled. And you know Stevie would be...”

Mel shook her head and cut Kade off before he could continue speaking.

“What about me?”

Kade pulled back.

“What’s wrong?”

“You don’t want to marry me? Is that it?”

Mel sighed and picked up the ring box, holding it in front of Kade’s face.

“
This
is what’s wrong, Kade.”

Kade was dumbfounded. In the entirety of his relationship with Mel he had been led to believe that this was what
she
wanted.

“If you don’t want to marry me just say it.”

Mel sighed and stood up. She paced from one end of the small kitchen to the other as she tried to collect her thoughts.

“No Kade.
I do
. It’s just...I want to hear
you
say it. I mean, you’ve never even said it! And I get it. It’s not your way. But here you are...”

Mel paused and waved a hand over Kade’s large frame.

“Asking me to marry you when you’ve never even told me you love me! God! When Richie told me you were going to do this I didn’t even believe him!”

Mel’s voice cracked.

“I need you to say it, Kade. Do you love me or not?”

There it was. The straw that always seemed the break the camel’s back. It wasn’t like Kade hadn’t expected the question to arise eventually. Still, he couldn’t seem to get past the last part of what she had said.