Falling For Crazy (Moroad Motorcycle Club) (7 page)

"Hi Amy. I'm Christina...Cam belongs to me." Christina's soft voice put Amy at ease.

Amy reached out and shook the other woman's hand. "It's nice to meet you. I'm sorry for showing up and—"

Christina waved in front of her. "It's no problem. Cam told everyone you belonged to Jacko. Come on over and sit with us. I'll introduce you to the other women, and you can get something to eat."

She looked up at Jacko and he wiggled his brows, dancing his way off the porch. He left her alone. Disappointment filled her and a wave of shyness crept in. These women knew Jacko better than her. At least the person he was now. His whole changed personality perplexed her or maybe she hated to adapt to changes in her life. Whatever the reason, she missed the strong, serious man he replaced behind a façade of insanity.

"Desiree, can you get Amy a plate?" Christina pointed to a tall, curvy woman by the table. "She belongs to Merk and owns the Rail Point Bar in town. Lucky for all of us, she also picked up breakfast for everyone on her way here this morning."

Amy smiled, not knowing what to say. There were five other women staring at her.

"Going from left to right, that's Katie with the short brown hair, Jessie with the band Tee on, Tiff is the one with blonde hair, Tina's the one waving, and at the end is Lola. They're all Moroad women who dance at Silver Girls in town. Well, except for Tiff. She cleans the Sterling Building and has opened her own business to clean commercial buildings," Christina said.

She had no idea the women from Silver Girls belonged to Moroad MC. Before she had to move to Montana, she remembered another motorcycle club coming in and taking over the only adult entertainment business in town.

Amy gave a small wave. "It's nice to meet you all."

"Are you from around here?" Lola studied her. "You look familiar."

She nodded. "I grew up about eight miles outside of town, but I moved to Montana about five years ago."

Lola's eyes widened and she whispered, "Sarah?"

Her vision blurred, unused to acknowledging her sister to others. "She was my sister."

Lola closed her eyes an extra beat. "You look like her."

"Who's Sarah?" Tiff flipped her hair in front of her and fiddled with the end of the strands as she looked at the others. "Do I know her?"

"She belonged to Jacko before you were out of Junior High." Lola gave a short shake of her head, stopping any questions. "She died."

"Oh." Tiff sagged on the bench. "I'm sorry."

Desiree approached Amy and handed her a paper plate loaded with scrambled eggs, a buttered muffin, and two pieces of sausage. Amy's stomach growled, and warmth flooded her cheeks.

"That looks and smells wonderful," she said.

"Sit down here at the table. It'll be easier to eat." Desiree stepped back, making room.

"Thanks." Amy wasn't going to argue. She was starving.

Conversation flowed around her while she concentrated on her breakfast. She kept her attention on her plate and the men in the yard surrounding another fire pit. Even with the temperatures in the high sixties this morning, the Moroad members gathered around the fire. Whether at Cam's house or the motel, someone always flicked a lighter and got the wood burning.

As she bit into her muffin, Jacko walked outside of the circle and lay on the ground. She chewed while studying how the other's reacted to him leaving the meeting. Besides a couple glances, no one asked him what he was doing. There were a couple vacant lawn chairs and upturned logs spread around the perimeter of the men's circle. He could've sat anywhere. Instead, he chose to lie on the ground and stare into the sky.

"I have another bag of clothes for you." Katie interrupted her thoughts. "After Jacko called, I went through the rest of my closet. There's some sweaters and even a coat in there. You're probably freezing in the evenings. I swear, the guys don't feel the drop in temperature and only put on their sleeves when it's absolutely necessary and there's snow in the air."

Amy swallowed and wiped her mouth with the paper napkin she'd clutched in her hand. "Thank you for the clothes. Jacko told me you were the one who brought the bag over. I'm sure I can make do with the ones you gave me. You've been very generous and you don't even know me. I truly appreciate you helping me."

Katie grinned, a dimple showing on her cheek before she shrugged. "Half the stuff I own no longer fits me, so I don't need them."

"Are you sure?" Amy looked down at the lavender shirt. If Katie wore it once, she'd be surprised. The newness wasn't lost on her.

"Yeah, I don't need them." Katie laughed softly. "No matter how hard I try to cut down on the amount of food I eat or how many hours I dance, I'll never fit into that size again."

If someone asked Amy if she'd ever be too skinny, she would've laughed in their face too. While she still saw the healthy looking woman she once was in the mirror, the sharp edges of her hips and the ribs showing with every breath told her differently. Not all of her weight loss came from the last two weeks of starving herself. She'd lost weight after Sarah died and failed to bounce back to her normal weight.

"If I keep eating the way I am right now; I won't fit in the clothes either." She returned Katie's grin, feeling good to talk with someone.

A whoop sounded in the yard. Amy turned and caught Jacko crawling across the yard toward the woods. The food she'd consumed settled like a hard rock in her stomach, and she waited for someone to point out his odd behavior.

Jacko stopped his crawl and laid down flat on his stomach in the grass. She glanced over at the other women. A few of them smiled in Jacko's direction and went back to talking as if nothing abnormal was going on in the yard.

A savage war cry jolted her.

Jacko lunged to his feet and dove into the brush. She set her plate beside her.

Christina jumped up from her seat beside her and hurried out into the yard. Amy snapped her gaze back to Jacko who stood holding a prairie dog by the back of the neck up in the air.

Cam walked across the yard, removing his pistol from the back of his jeans. She scooted to the edge of the bench, shaking her head, the words to stop what was happening right in front of her clogged her throat.

"Cam, put the gun away." Christina walked right in front of her biker and pointed Jacko to the back yard. "Take it out of the yard. I don't want it coming back into the grass and digging holes."

Jacko jogged behind the house with the furry creature held an arm-length away from his body. Amy sat in a stupor. These people were crazy and Jacko led all of them into thinking he was normal.

"Anyone want to take a bet Jacko ends up with the huckleberry pie Christina made this morning?" Katie asked.

The women laughed and shook their head. Amy stood on shaky legs and dumped her plate in the garbage can. The incident with the prairie dog broke up the meeting and the men spread out.

Jacko returned to the front yard, grabbed Christina's hand, and bowed at her feet. Christina laughed and pulled Jacko off the ground.

Christina stepped over to Cam and put her arm around his waist. "We'll be over to the motel later today with the truck. I've gathered more supplies to make Amy and you more comfortable."

Jacko glanced at Amy, catching her eavesdropping. "Sounds good."

"Do you want more men at the motel?" Cam asked.

Jacko shook his head. "Nah, Johnson and Bear is enough. I've got it covered."

The others looked at Amy. She walked over and joined them. Coming to Cam's house only caused more questions she had no answers for.

She wanted to know how Jacko fit into the club. What was his job, besides providing cheap entertainment for them all? Did the women approve of the activities the men participated in? Was it true every single member of Moroad was a felon?

She walked beside Jacko through the lush grass to his motorcycle. She sat behind him without knowing where they were going to next. At almost noon, she wasn't ready to go back to the motel and sit in the dank room to waste away the day. Though the visit to Cam's house overwhelmed her emotionally, she rather go anywhere else but around other people or back to the motel.

Jacko rode away from the house. The dust from the gravel road tickled her nose and underneath the dry dirt scent, she inhaled the rich, almost cinnamon like musk scent she'd come to recognize as Jacko. Warmth filled her insides while the sun heated her shoulders. For once, her bones stopped shaking and strength filled her body.

Tired of the actions of others forcing her to hide, to lose everything familiar, she wanted to capture a moment to call her own. She tapped Jacko on the stomach and caught his gaze in the side view mirror.

He slowed down, pulled off the road, and coasted to a stop under the viaduct. She leaned against him fully. "Can you take me for a ride?"

"Where to?"

"My old house." She continued before she lost her nerve. "You only have to ride by, and then we can leave. I haven't seen it since I left."

His jaw ticked and he stared at her. Bolstered to see her family home again, she gazed at him not backing down from wanting to go somewhere familiar. Finally, he pulled his Harley back on the road. Instead of going through town, he took the other road leading away from Federal. She laid her head against the back of his shoulder in thanks.

The last time she'd seen the house, she'd thought her whole world had slipped away. After hoping, praying, and waiting for six months for Sarah to return, Jacko informed her Sarah had been killed and she needed to leave immediately, go far away and tell no one what happened.

She'd started life over alone without any family. Now she found herself thrust back into a world where men controlled the outcome and her wounds were still tender over losing her sister. She no longer wanted every guilty person to pay. She wanted a life where she could get up every morning and not worry about who was standing outside her door and at night, she could sleep without fear of burning.

Jacko pulled down the private road leading to the house. She peered through trees that'd grown twice as tall in her absence and caught a glimpse of the green single story home she grew up in. The bad memories of losing her mom and her sister fogged her recollections of the good things like running barefoot in the yard through the sprinkler and staying out after dark to catch the crickets that chirped loud enough to keep her awake at night.

She took her time studying the faded paint on the front of the house and the weeds in the overgrown yard. The beige curtains her mom bought in Federal on sale still hung open in the windows. Jacko shut off the engine of the motorcycle and she slid off before he could stop her.

A need to peek through the windows at the inside and find a part of her that was missing drove her forward. At the front bay window, she cupped her hands against the glass and squinted inside. Everything remained exactly as it was left. A pair of her white sneakers sat beside the couch. Sarah's black and periwinkle colored ski jacket hung on the back of a chair. She shifted farther along the window, peering back into the kitchen. The dirty dishes from the night Sarah was taken still sat in the sink.

Chicken strips.

That's what they had for dinner the night Sarah was kidnaped. Both of them had fought over the crispiest piece, until she'd let Sarah win and received six extra fries in return. Six. Sarah had counted.

Tears blurred her vision, and she pressed her hand against the filthy glass. Personal loss held her prisoner, looking in from the outside. Locked out of her past. She expected someone else to live in the house, maybe a new color of paint on the siding or a garage built on the property, and strangers living her life. A life she wished she could get back.

"Have you seen enough?" Jacko asked beside her.

She gazed up at him, letting the tears fall. Something inside of her ignited, pushing the fear, the pain, the hurt away. "Why hasn't someone bought the house?"

"I paid off the mortgage five years ago before I went to prison." He looked away. "I thought someday..."

"You thought Sarah was coming home," she said, finishing his sentence.

Learning the truth crushed her and at the same time reinforced her feelings for Jacko. She reached out, wanting to ease the pain in Jacko's eyes. He was the one person who understood what she'd lost. What he'd lost. What the world lost.

She wanted to hold him and make him feel better with hugs and kisses. Except, the scars Jacko carried were burned into his soul. How could someone survive what he'd been through?

Somehow, he'd lost hope when Sarah got murdered. His losses were too much, and he'd changed. She couldn't fathom how his mind worked, but she understood pain.

He gave her comfort being near. They shared the same pain and in different ways they each cried for the past they'd never get back.

She squeezed his arm. "Why didn't you sell the house when you found out they'd killed her?"

He gazed toward the window. "I don't know."

She accepted his non-reason. Maybe he truly never wanted to face the fact Sarah was gone or want to come back to the house he'd spent time in getting to know her sister. Maybe the ghosts kept him from taking care of the property and renovating the neglected house. Or, he preferred living in town, even if he slept in a stinky bed with mold on the ceiling.

She inhaled, stopping herself from thinking too hard about something she couldn't change.

Jacko slipped his hand inside hers. "Come on. There's nothing else here for you."

She walked down the driveway. At the edge, where the concrete met the gravel, she stopped and let go of Jacko's hand. She kneeled on the ground and covered her mouth.

Three sets of handprints, side by side, biggest to smallest, permanently etched in time in the concrete. She placed her right hand in the first impression. The fingers were the exact length of her own.

"Mom laughed as hard as we did the day we came out here after the men finished pouring the driveway. I was afraid of getting in trouble for ruining their work because the company was due back the next day to take the boards off the edge." She shook her head in amusement. "Sarah wasn't afraid. She egged mom on until we all kneeled together and counted to three. Even then, both of them put their hand in the wet, cold concrete, and I waited. They squealed and giggled, more like sisters doing something against the rules than mother and daughter."