Tainted (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-seven

(Three Months Later)

Sawyer stepped out of the limo when the driver opened the door, waiting impatiently for Vida.

“Let’s go; we’re late.”

“It’s not my fault. You’re the one
who overslept.” Sawyer blushed, remembering the late night she’d had with Kaden, which had resulted in her oversleeping. She opened the door to the office building that Kaden had rented a space in for the band’s new tour manager.

“I haven’t seen
Jordan since Indiana. You’re going to love her, Vida. Kaden rented this space for the next three months while she organizes the tour and straightens out R.J.’s mess. R.J.’s finances might be in a downward spiral with him in prison, but the band was smart enough to not give R.J. that type of control over their own assets.

“We can go out to lunch with her before hitting the furniture stores.” Sawyer needed to buy more furniture to furnish the large house that Kaden had purchased not far from the one that Colton and Vida had purchased the previous month. Both women had decided to s
ettle on the outskirts of Queen City. The city that they had once dreamed of escaping.

Vida had found her dream of living in a close
-knit community, and Sawyer, sick of traveling, had enrolled in culinary school.

Sawyer and Vida strolled into
Jordan’s office, coming to a stop at the disorganized mess. Huge boxes were stacked in the middle of the floor. The office furniture had just been delivered and not yet placed. The small room looked like a tornado had been there.

Jordan
’s blonde head peeked over the filing cabinet.

“I know it looks terrible
, but I’ll have it in shape in no time.” Her excited voice had both women smiling. You couldn’t help liking the woman; her personality was so freaking bubbly. She reminded Sawyer of a bath bomb.

“I’m afraid I have to cancel lunch
. I have another delivery coming, and I was hoping it would make it here before you arrived, but they just called. It’s not going to happen. Can I take a rain check?”

“I can do better than that
. Come by the house for dinner tonight. Vida and Colton can come. I’ll even invite Brenley, Colton’s sister. That way, you can get to know everyone at once.”

“That sounds terrific.”
Jordan smiled, unwrapping a picture frame from bubble wrap and placing it on her desk before going to a box and taking out another one. Unwrapping it, she placed it on her desk as well. Vida helpfully moved the box closer to her desk.

Jordan
took out another picture, unwrapping several layers of bubble wrap.

“
Jordan, you really like bubble wrap, don’t you?” Sawyer said jokingly.

“I learned my lesson
. That bastard with Digger went through my suitcases. I just had these printed when he threw them all over the room.”

“You must be close to your family
,” Sawyer said, picking up one of the frames from the desk.

Sawyer had a new respect for the woman who had a picture of a man who
se appearance was dangerously lethal. Vida whistled over her shoulder. No wonder Jordan hadn’t been afraid of Max and Jackal; the man in the picture frame was staring back with a gravely serious expression. His blue gaze grabbed and held your attention, and that was just with a photograph.

“
Jordan, if I wasn’t head over heels in love with Kaden, I would beg for an introduction.” Of course she would have to have a few drinks to work her courage up first.

“Sawyer, R.J. isn’t around anymore and Kaden’s already hired me. You can call me by my first name now.” She laughed as Sawyer set the picture down and picked up another one
, wanting to see another picture of the striking man.

“What is your first name?” she
asked absently, only giving her half of her attention as she turned the picture frame toward her.

“Penni.”

Sawyer stared down at the picture in her hand, almost fainting. Only Vida grabbing her for support had her able to hold on to her control.

Penni was in the picture
, sitting on a huge boulder with green lush mountains behind her. Sitting next to her, laughing into the camera, was a beautiful, dark haired woman. She was dressed in a dress, and the girls were obviously trying to keep the wind from blowing it up. Her gentleness could easily be read in her face, just as the heart-wrenching sadness in her eyes couldn’t be missed.

“
W—
who
w—
was the man in your picture?” Sawyer asked with a hoarse voice.

“That’s m
y brother, Shade,” Penni answered, staring at Sawyer curiously. “He looks kind of scary, but he can be sweet.” Then she added, “Sometimes.”

“Who’s the woman?” Vida questioned with a tight voice.

“That was my college roommate, Lily. I already miss her. We became really close friends. She doesn’t graduate until next semester.” Penni took the picture frame from Sawyer’s hand, setting it carefully back down on the desk.

“I want to thank you
, Sawyer, for convincing Kaden to give me that interview. I know he wouldn’t have hired me without your help. I didn’t make the best impression during my internship with R.J.”

Sawyer didn’t answer
, gripping the desk for support. One of her nails broke, but she didn’t feel the pain.

A knock sounded and Penni went to answer it
. Sawyer and Vida gathered themselves during the reprieve. Seeing the deliverymen, they used the excuse to escape. Neither woman said a word until they were in the elevator. Vida was already crying when the elevator door closed.

“Oh
, God. Oh, God. Oh, God!” Vida held on to the side of the elevator.

Sawyer weakly reached out
, pressing the emergency stop on the elevator panel. Bursting into tears, she fell to her knees on the elevator floor.

“
S—
she’s
a—
alive! She’s alive!”

Vida came down next to her on the floor
. Sawyer reached out, hugging her close as both of them cried.

“Callie’s alive!”

Epilogue

Sawyer opened the door to the back porch, carefully balancing the two glasses of ice tea. She accidently spilt a few drops as she closed the door with her foot, remembering the days when she could hold two glasses in each hand. She didn’t miss waitressing at all. She had enough people to wait on at home to fulfill that need.

Walking barefoot across the porch
, she stepped carefully down the steps, determined not to spill any more. The grass felt wonderful on her feet as she walked across the yard.

“What took you so long?” Vida asked
, taking her glass.

“I checked on Faith.” Sawyer climbed on top of the picnic table beside Vida so that she could get a better look at the game going on across the yard. She took the baby monitor out of her pocket
, laying it down next to her on the table.

“How much weight has she gained since her operation?”

“Three pounds,” Sawyer said proudly. “The doctor said that was really good, that most babies born with drug addictions won’t gain weight as fast,” she said, relieved at the progress her adopted daughter was making.

“That’s wonderful. Wait until she
’s old enough to eat your cooking; she will really start gaining weight.”

“Mom!” A little boy haltingly ran across the yard
, his crutches slowing him down.

“What?” Sawyer asked
, seeing what the problem was before her son could answer.

“
Roxi and Axel won’t let me climb up the tree.” Sawyer could understand their concern. His foot brace would make it almost impossible and they had been very protective of George since the adoption was final.

“Go tell your
dad; he’s strong enough to lift you up to the limb.”

“Okay.” Satisfied that his request would be granted
, he turned around, searching for his father in the crowd. Her son was becoming a little spoiled. Sawyer leaned her face up to the sun, hiding her smile at Roxi and Axel’s disgruntled looks.

“Colton hit a homerun.” Vida stood up
, jumping up and down on the bench.

Sawyer sat up
, jerking her friend back down.

“Jeez, Vida. You trying to make them babies come early?”

“From your mouth to God’s ear. I haven’t seen my feet in a month.”

“Enjoy it while you can. I don’t envy you
. Two crying babies at night. It was bad enough when George and Grace had ear infections and there was a year separating them in age. If Kaden hadn’t been so much help and so good about getting up at night, I would have been terrified adopting them.”

“I don’t know why. You’re a fantastic mom
, Sawyer.”

Sawyer grinned at her friend
. She was blessed and she knew it as she watched George complain to his father.

Kaden picked up George
, and with Colton’s help, lifted him into the tree house with Grace. Roxie and Axel quickly climbed up the ladder, on the side of the tree, to play with their friends.

Both men started walking toward their wives.

“Did you ever think when we were little that we would get this lucky?”

“No. I didn’t
.” Sawyer picked up her glass of tea, her tattoo catching her eye. The word freedom had several forget-me-nots wound through it, connecting it to a birdcage. Inside the birdcage, a tiny Robin sat on the perch, staring back with golden eyes. The cage was covered with flowers, and the vines spelling out Vida, Kaden and their children’s names. The ink work was beautiful; Colton had done his best work on her. He had even scrolled Callie’s name on the dangling cord, holding the key to the open cage door.

Coming in Spring 2014 by Jamie Begley

Shade’s Fall (The Last Riders, #4
)

Prologue

“S
hh… baby, you’re going to be fine.”

Shade stood in the corner with his brother, Razer, from The Last Riders standing tensely by his side. He knew Razer had come to care a great deal for his sister-in-law.

Both of them were watching with grim expressions as Lily tried again to get out of the hospital bed. Beth, her sister, prevented her with a soothing voice, murmuring words over and over again that neither men could hear over Lily’s cries.

The doctors had relieved the pressure on her brain last night, saving her life. Her hand that had been broken had been put in a cast that morning. The trauma combined with the pain and medication had left her disoriented.

Every cry and whimper that passed her lips increased his resolve to take his vengeance out on the two men who were responsible for her injuries. The police had them in custody and they wouldn’t be getting out anytime soon, but Shade had every faith that the judicial system would release them on parole. He would be waiting for them when it happened, just like the biker who had dared to touch her and the deputy from Treepoint. Both had disappeared just as Joker and Dale would.

Lily finally slipped into a fitful sleep, tossing and turning on the hospital bed while Beth continued sitting by her side, holding her hand.

Shade stepped forward. “You should both go and get some sleep. I’ll stay until you get back.”

“I’m not leaving her,” Beth protested.

“Go and get a couple hours rest at Sex Piston’s parents house; it’s just a few blocks away. I’ll call as soon as she wakes.”

It was another hour before exhaustion had Beth leaving reluctantly with Razer.

After they left, Shade sat down in the chair by Lily’s bed, looking at the woman who had been on his mind since the moment he had seen her come out of the diner across from the sheriff’s office. He and Razer had gone there to get their bikes inspected and the sisters had both appeared eating ice cream. Shade had taken one look at the stunning woman and known that he was going to have her.

His lips twisted wryly. He hadn’t known then that he was going to have to wait, but patience was his one and only virtue. He waited, planned and plotted to attain his prize, and Lily was a prize. He hadn’t been in her company for more than a few seconds before he’d realized that she was perfect for him; however, Lily and her sister both had dreams for her, and Shade wanted her to have that time of freedom before he took it away.

His control had almost broken twice. Once when they had gathered for the Fourth of July picnic and he had looked across the backyard to see Lily holding a toddler while Charles, her high school boyfriend, stood close by, touching her. They had looked, for all appearances, like a happy, young family. If his brothers hadn’t held him back, he would have ripped the dumbfuck apart. He could tell Charles thought he was staring into his future with Lily. Shade had planned on showing him once and only once that Lily would never have anyone other than him. She would never carry anyone’s child but his. Charles still remained to be a thorn in his side, though Shade had a plan to deal with him when the time was right.

No one was going to stand in his way when it came to claiming Lily.

The night of Razer’s bachelor party had been another time he’d lost control. She had come to Rosie’s bar to talk to Razer; she wanted to protect her sister so badly that she had faced her fear of being around alcohol. He had been in the back of the bar with Bliss on his lap trying to convince him to let her and the stripper take turns later that night when one of the brothers had given him the head’s up that Lily had entered the bar. Half drunk, he had barged forward, tired of trying to fuck her out of his mind, but Knox had held him back when he had come close enough to hear her true age. He had gone ape shit.

He was just drunk and horny enough not to care anymore what anyone said. If he could have gotten to her, Lily would have been the one in his bed that night. Of course he would have had to lock her in and barricade the door against his whole MC, but he wouldn’t have had any compunctions about doing either one.

Unfortunately, they had managed to hold him back; however, he’d had the satisfaction of his fists pounding out his frustration on each of them, especially on Razer because Shade still didn’t trust that Razer had told the truth of not knowing Lily’s true age.

After last night, when Lily had coded, there wasn’t anyone who didn’t know that he had reached his limit. He was done waiting. He had sworn that if Lily survived, she would be his. No more waiting, no more fucking around. He planned on getting
Lily the way he would have taken on one of his missions in the SEALS. It was why, behind closed doors, he was known as the deadliest sniper in the US armed forces with over two-hundred–and-twenty-six confirmed kills, and those were the ones they knew about, not the privately contracted ones by the government that he’d still carry out when the price or the reason was motivating enough. He had been given the nickname Shade because of his ability to blend into the shadows, hitting his targets with cold-blooded precision that others considered impossible.

Part of what made him so successful in taking out his target was learning everything about them, knowing their strengths and weaknesses. Especially their weaknesses.

To gain Lily’s trust, he had to find out her weakness. Her sister and she had secrets that they hid from everyone, refusing to talk about Lily’s past. No woman had as many anxieties and fears as Lily without a reason. To reach her, he would have to overcome those fears.

Each time he had tried to find out about the cause of her panic attacks, he had been thwarted. Neither had
she confided in Razer or Penni, his sister, who he had managed to bribe into transferring colleges to become Lily’s roommate, not even the therapist Beth had hired. He had broken in to her office several times, searching, but each time he had read through her chart, none of the reasons had been addressed. The therapist was trying to build Lily’s trust slowly. Fuck that. She was for shit as a therapist, something else Shade intended to change. The only thing the woman had done was put a rubber band on Lily’s wrist, teaching her to give herself pain as a way to relieve her anxieties. Shade had every intention of teaching Lily the same thing except in a more enjoyable way.

Shade sat by the bed, watching Lily sleep as the day slipped into night. When the nurses had checked on Lily and tried to get him to leave the room, his cold gaze had intimidated them into silence, sending them scurrying from the room.

When the outside had been completely swallowed by night, Shade got up from the chair, going to the door and closing it after the nurse. Determined to find out Lily’s secrets, he only had one option left. Razer had let it slip that Lily slept with her bathroom door open, depending on a nightlight. Twice since Razer had moved in with Beth, their electricity had gone off because of storms during the middle of the night. Both times, Lily had become hysterical when she had awakened in the dark. Beth had to go in both times to calm Lily down.

Lily was beginning to wake; he had noticed she had begun to move about beneath the covers. He prayed the drugs would keep her disoriented enough that, when he was finished, she wouldn’t remember what he was about to do. Shade’s fingers flipped the light switch, plunging the room into darkness.