AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Duncan knew Jay well enough to see the tension in his jaw and the stiffness in his shoulders and understand that he was nervous. But when he spoke, his voice was steady. “While you all were having your slap fight up there, we talked, and we think this is stupid. No offense, Dex, but you’re wrong. Leaving one or two patches back—whoever it is—doesn’t save the club. We’d need to leave more than that back, enough to keep everything going, and we can’t afford to lose that much manpower for this job. Right?” When they kept staring and said nothing, Jay went on. “Right. We keep the club whole by kicking the Nameless’s whole ass. So we’re all on the run. Debate over.”
Duncan’s dad turned to Sam’s dad. Dex turned to Eight. Jazz and Apollo shared a look. Fitz and Caleb grinned at each other. Then they all broke into laughter.
“Well goddamn, JJ,” Eight said, still grinning. “You down there anglin’ for my job?”
Jay’s cheeks colored, but he didn’t act embarrassed. Instead he grinned and said, “Watch your back, old man,” and the whole table laughed.
Jay had been laughed at a few times at this table, and he always took it badly. But this was different. Duncan watched his friend to see if he understood that this humor was full of pleasure and pride. He’d impressed them—and he’d calmed burgeoning friction at a time when the rapport around the table needed to be tight. They were laughing with him, for him, not at him.
After an uncertain moment, during which he studied the table warily, Jay got it. His grin spread across his face and he sat back, looking like the Cheshire Cat.
Duncan swung a leg out and kicked his friend’s boot, letting him know he was impressed, too.
––––––––
~oOo~
––––––––
They finished out the meeting with yet another recap of the plan for the run, and the various scenarios they were prepared for once they got to their destination. They were riding two thousand miles west in January, but the trip would take them straight through the southwest, until they hung a right and headed north along the California coast. The weather forecast looked clear most of the way, and the cold wouldn’t be too awful.
After the meeting, Duncan had to clock in. As he headed to the lockers to grab his spare uniform, he felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. “Just a sec, son.”
Duncan tamped down a sigh as he turned around. He really hoped his old man wasn’t going to try to make a case for him to stay back now, after all that mess in the chapel. The matter was decided.
He loved his father with his whole heart, front to back and side to side. He’d grown up thinking of him as a god. Maverick Helm looked like a tough motherfucker—and he was—but as a family man, his heart was wide open. He’d never held back his love or his enjoyment of his wife and kids, and he’d worked hard to give them everything they needed and most they wanted.
He did not, however, want any of his children to live the same kind of life he lived. For years, he’d done everything he could think of to keep Duncan from a patch, and he’d nearly beaten Dex to death when he and Kelsey got together. Eventually his need for his children to be happy pulled him back, but his protective streak was fucking infuriating.
Kelsey and Duncan were fully enmeshed with the Bulls. Hannah was the last one left, and she wanted in the family business, too. She was by far the most defiant of the three kids, and now she was eighteen. She only wanted to work in the convenience shop, but Dad did the hiring, so she didn’t have a chance. If there had ever been any chance he’d give in with her the way he’d relented with Kelsey and Duncan, she’d blown that up when she’d started flirting with Monty awhile back. Monty was too smart to fuck Mav’s baby girl, but the guy couldn’t help flirting with any and all girls who looked at him twice.
Nothing had happened between Monty and Hannah, and neither of them had been sincerely interested in that, but now Dad had the idea that she might get with a Bull to add to his dire imaginings of Hannah’s life. His feet were sunk in cement on the issue of Hannah working in the shop.
Lately Hannah was threatening to bail on the whole family—like run away and disappear—if Dad didn’t back off. Duncan didn’t really think she’d do it, but she was the only of the three kids who might actually.
They all three had talked about it more than once. Even Kelsey, who tended to act like a parental proxy, thought Dad was irrational about the issue. For one thing, the man had made a family in the Bulls. Kelsey, Duncan, and Hannah had been raised in that family; it was what they knew, who they loved, and the lens through which they understood the world. Of course they’d be most comfortable making their own lives within that circle. He had made them comfortable there.
Virtually all of their generation of club kids wanted to stay put. Including Zach, now VP in Laughlin, four Bulls sons had taken the patch, and Sam’s younger brother, Mason, was prospecting and would no doubt make number five in a year or so. Kelsey and Athena were with Bulls. Hannah’s interest in dating and all that was sporadic at best, but if she decided she wanted romance and family, she would probably love to land a Bull of her own one day.
If it was Monty, though, Duncan would stand with Dad in her way. He loved the guy, but Monty was a hound.
Even those club kids who weren’t interested in a patch or being with a patch weren’t turning their backs. It was a good family, and they all felt it. If Hannah did really bolt, it would be because Dad wouldn’t let her in closer.
Dad should be proud that his kids wanted to make their own lives in the nest he’d built. He’d given them a life they wanted to keep. But all he saw was the occasional danger and turmoil that shook the club. Like riding to California to take over another MC. A friendly patch-over had failed, so now the Bulls were going in force, ready to start and win a war if they had to.
For some reason, when he thought of his children’s future, Dad could see only the hard times, not the many more good times, and not the way the family closed ranks and kept each other strong during the hard times.
So when he turned to face him after the chapel, Duncan fully expected his old man to try to make a case for him to stay home from the run, or at least consider it.
Instead, Dad said, “Talk to me about that Sierra at the back of the lot. Mason said you had him tow it in.”
When Duncan laughed in surprise, his father frowned at him. “That’s funny?”
“No, it’s just—” There was no point in trying to describe the whirl of thoughts and feelings that had just spun needlessly through his head. “Never mind. Yeah, I was on my way home from Kelsey’s last night and stopped to help a woman on the side of the expressway with a horse trailer hitched to her truck. The engine’s shot—threw a rod. So I called Mace to bring the wrecker, and I towed her and her horse down around Checotah, where she lives. I told her I’d check it out today, see if there’s damage to the chassis or anything else, then see if I can get my hands on an old engine to drop in it.”
His father had started to smile about halfway through Duncan’s explanation. “This girl pretty? That why you didn’t come home last night?”
Duncan laughed. “Yes, Dad. She’s very pretty. And yes, that’s why I didn’t come home. I like her.”
