Hard Roads (31 page)

Swinging the gun to my right, I shot Hector in the side of the head, quickly putting the sick fucker out of his misery. I’d been taught many years before how to use a gun and my aim was dead on. His head burst open from the hollow point bullets, the blood splashing out onto the ground and into the fire. Every person stood still, their eyes locked to me and the gun.

Swinging back towards my father, I tried to speak calmly again. “I’m leaving now, daddy, and you’re going to let me. You understand me? You’re going to let me walk out of here with JD.”

Tears finally broke free of my eyes and I stepped back into JD’s hands. He placed them on my shoulders, his body completely still.

My dad’s mouth opened and closed several times as he attempted to speak. Finally, he swallowed hard and nodded, a tear slipping from his own eye.

JD, Henry and I walked backwards as we left the backyard. Finally lowering my gun, I looked at my father one last time and turned to move around the house in the direction of the bikes. But I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy, not with a man who’d lost everything in his life except for one thing: his daughter.

“Holly!”

I turned back, raising my gun, but not in time to stop him.

The blast boomed out around the yard and a flash of white exploded in front of my father, the bullet striking someone behind me. I turned to watch as both Henry and JD fell to the ground and by the time I turned back to my father, he held the gun to his head.

“I’m sorry, baby girl, I am. But I can’t let you live your life with that man, not after what he’s done. And I can’t let myself live with it either. All I wanted was to go find your momma. I can’t live without her. I was too much of a fucking coward to take my own life, so I pissed people off in hopes they do the deed for me. I never thought it would end up hurting you.” Another tear escaped his eye and my jaw dropped when he said, “Forgive me, baby girl.”

“Daddy! No!”

My hand went out in the air to stop him just as he pulled the trigger, his body rocking sideways from the blast before slinking to the ground.

Falling to my knees, I felt something warm and thick on my knees and over my palms and I pulled my hands up to see the dark crimson red of the blood that covered them once again.

Epilogue

~ Holly ~

The water was hot and soapy as I dropped an armload of dishes into the sink. It was one in the morning and I was in the back kitchen of Martha’s Dine and Dash, located out in the middle of nowhere, Florida. We did pretty well because we were situated just off an exit of the main highway and this stretch had very few food fast food chains or convenience stores in the area. Mostly our patrons were truckers or families passing through, but the theme parks, beaches and other attractions in the state kept up a steady flow of customers.

The dinner rush had been busy this evening and I was exhausted from being on my feet. I wanted to go home and go to bed, but our dishwasher called in sick and both the waitress and hostess had to go home to their families. I offered to stay behind and clean up because I felt bad keeping the women away from their babies.

Three years had passed since my father died and in that time, I moved away, ending up in Florida after realizing how much I missed the heat. It’s weird, I know, but my body was built for sunshine and I worked my way down here after attempting my first winter away from the MC in the state of Tennessee. The snow nearly killed me and I vowed never again to live through it. After running out of money and not really having an education to fall back on, I took a job waitressing.

“You here all alone?”

I jumped to hear someone talking behind me. Turning around quickly, my hands splashed water from the sink so that it fell down onto my feet. I groaned when it soaked down into my socks and sneakers.

“Shit, Cass. You scared the crap out of me. What are you doing here?”

Cassidy shrugged her shoulder and her red hair bounced. “Pamela called me and told me you were here alone, so I was out anyway and stopped by. Need a hand with those?” She pointed at the pile of dishes in the sink. “I don’t think you should be washing dishes with that new tattoo on your wrist. I think you’re supposed to keep it dry.”

Glancing back, I looked at the pile and grimaced. “Yeah, that would be really fucking good, actually.”

She stepped forward grabbing the sponge out of the sink and handing me the towel. “I wash, you dry.”

We shot the shit for the forty-five minutes it took us to clean the dishes and the diner. Most of the time, Cassidy was rambling on about the new guy she was dating. She was in love and I smiled to remember what it felt like on some nights when I was staying with JD in the cabin: the small flutters in my stomach and the way my words would jumble or get lost entirely when I looked at him.

Thinking of those days caused my heart to hurt, an actual physical cramp in my chest that made me reach up to place my hand over it. Looking down, my eyes traced over the thick black letters, “JD”, that I had tattooed on my wrist several days prior.

“Earth to Holly. Hello?”

I looked up and Cassidy was smiling. Blue eyes sparkled out at me when she said, “We’re done. The place is clean. We can both get the fuck out of here and go have some fun. The bar up the road is having ladies’ night. We should go.”

I shook my head “no” almost immediately. “I can’t. It’s the three year anniversary and I just need to get home and…”

“Oh come on, Holly. You can’t come out for just one drink?”

I shook my head, sorrow touching on my thoughts and exhaustion ravaging my body. “I’m sorry, Cass. I just want to go to bed.”

Her bottom lip pouted out and she gave me a sympathetic look. “Well, okay babe, but is it going to be like this for you every year? I mean, I get it, you’re hurting, but sometimes you have to leave the past in the past in order to move forward, you know? Shit happens and sometimes it really fucking sucks, but you can’t keep focusing on it or you’ll never escape it. Trust me, babe…” She placed her hand on my shoulder and I flinched away, the pain consuming me too much to allow the slightest bit of comfort. “…I’ve had to let go of a lot of baggage and I’ve been my happiest since moving on.”

Tears burned at the back of my eyes and I nodded, desperate not to let her see the pain in my expression. “Yeah, I know.”

When I looked up, she was staring at me as if she was studying me, attempting to see through the façade I’d worn for three years. I’d never given up my secrets of what had happened to me before I came to Florida. I didn’t want to weigh other people down with sympathy or remorse for what I’d been through. It was my burden to carry and it was one that I would hold close to my heart and protect from the outside world.

“Alright, well drive carefully. You look tired. Head straight home and text me to let me know you made it. Okay?”

Giving her a fake smile, I nodded my agreement before turning in the direction of the back door and heading out to my car. It was a piece of shit little thing. Red like the one I’d been shoved into when Hell’s Rebellion had taken me so many years before. However, I couldn’t fault it for all of its flaws because the engine was good and that made it reliable to get me back and forth between home and work.

Driving along the dark road, I fought to keep my thoughts from going back to the road that led to the deserted house in Nevada. Even more than that, I fought my thoughts from going back to what that house represented. So much blood, pain and death had been poured over the arid ground, sinking in and taking with it the memories of men who’d touched my life in one way or another.

I’d never forgiven my father for what he’d done. I could never forget the torment and pain that I endured as a result of his inability to forgive himself for what he’d done to my mother. Sure, he’d taken her from a life where she was abused and hurt, but he’d thrown her into another life where she had to endure a different type of pain. I’d thought about it for so many hours and days during the passage of time since his death and I decided that maybe it had been me that kept her in the life she’d chosen with him. Maybe I had been that small piece of light in the darkness of the MC that had kept her youthful and alive. Given the amount of time she’d dedicated to me in those years, it made sense and I hoped that she would be proud of me for having escaped, for making something of my life where I could be in charge of my own destiny. No longer was I held down by the hand of a man, but instead I was lifted up, set free from a life of bikers and crime, of drugs and weapons and all the bad things that come with it.

Regardless of whether my mom herself would have ever escaped, I guess it only mattered that she’d survived. Like her, I’d found my own way to survive and I’d put the past where it needed to be: behind me.

Pulling up to my small, one bedroom house, I looked over the garden that I’d been working on for several months. It felt good to sink my hands into dirt that was damp with life, not arid and washed out like the Arizona desert where I grew up. The bulbs I’d planted were beginning to peek up through the soil and I smiled to see new life.

Stepping inside the house, I set my keys and purse on a side table in the front hall, grabbing my phone out to send a quick text to Cass like I’d promised I would. The house was dark and I attempted to navigate my way to the bedroom. Passing through the living room, I banged my knee on the coffee table and found myself hopping around on one leg as I held the injured knee and muttered every cuss word I could think of under my breath. Fucking shit hurt.

Passing into the bedroom, I stripped off my dirty work clothes and moved into the bathroom to shower and wash away the turmoil of the workday. The warm water over my skin relaxed the tension in my muscles and brought a smile to my face. After climbing out and drying off, I looked down at the tattoo on my wrist and blew out a heavy breath before applying some A&D Ointment over the thick black letters.

I didn’t even bother getting into a nightgown before crawling in bed and curling up in the warmth of the soft mattress and blankets.

“You’re late.”

Rough from sleep, his voice echoed through the room just as a bedside lamp flicked on beside us. Turning back to me, he looked at me with eyes the same color as the whiskey I could smell on his breath. “I was about to come looking for you.”

Reaching out, I placed my hand on the warmth of his cheek and smiled. “I’m fine. Pamela and Ellen had to go home to their kids and our dishwasher called out so I got stuck cleaning up after the dinner rush left. It was a busy night tonight.”

Large arms wrapped around me and he pulled me against him, his full lips finding my neck when he kissed me. My head fell back at the sensation and I reached down to pull his hand up where I could see it. The word “Munch” was tattooed across his wrist in the same lettering as “JD” was tattooed on mine. We’d gotten them done together and in memory and honor of each other.

Looking over at the clock, I was concerned that he was up waiting for me. “I thought you had to work tomorrow. Why are you still awake?”

His mouth was still pressed to my skin when he answered, “I called out. Figured we could head out early tomorrow since you don’t have to work. We can leave here when we wake up and take our time heading out to Nevada.”

It wasn’t a bad idea and I looked forward to days on the road, the wind breaking against my face as I held onto the man I loved most in this world.

Like the two anniversaries that had come before, we held true to our promise to ride out and tend to the grave of the man who had given up his life to save us both. Tears welled in my eyes to remember Henry. For the little amount of time that I’d known him, he’d become the image I saw when I thought of what a father should be.

I wouldn’t be alive today if he hadn’t risked everything to trick Hector into giving me up and JD wouldn’t be alive if he hadn’t jumped in front of him when my father had pulled the trigger. It had been Henry’s blood on my hands that night and I tried to shake away the memory of watching him die. He’d sacrificed everything for JD and me and we’d sworn to ride out every year to clean off his grave and visit him as a thank you for everything he’d done.

“Did you get the bike ready?”

“Yeah, babe. I tuned it up this afternoon when I got home. My trusty steed should have no problems taking us across the country.”

His hands slid up my body and gripped over my breasts possessively as his mouth fell on mine. Passion ignited between us and, even though it had been three years that we’d been together, I still felt faint when he touched me or looked at me with hunger in his eyes.

Positioning himself between my legs, he took no time pushing himself inside me and forcing my breath from my lungs. Carnal and raw, his need and desire for me never seemed to fade. I was his to do with as he pleased and he knew it, taking advantage of that fact every chance he could get. I don’t know if it was because our love was forged in the dark heat of tragedy, but it was a love that was never-ending, a bond that was welded so tight, that nothing would ever be able to come between us.

. . .

After exhausting ourselves the night before, we slept in the next morning, packing the few things we needed to take with us and climbing on JD’s bike to head out west in the direction of the life we’d left behind.

I didn’t mind the trips because I would forever honor Henry for being the first person in my life to honor me regardless of what I could do for him in return. He was the example I kept in my head of not only the code of the road but the code of a well-lived life.

Who knows, maybe if a man like him had raised me, I wouldn’t have hated the MC life so much, but that hadn’t been in the cards and I realized fate had a funny way of playing things out so that they eventually would come together to make a person understand why bad things had to happen in order for good to come out of it.

Life was nothing more than the sunlight breaking through a storm. The beauty of good made more beautiful for having breached the dark and violent clouds. It made you appreciate it more when you could compare it to the nightmares and shadows that came before.