"Nobody rattled me," I told him. "I was riding too fast and the road was loose. That's it."
"If you say so."
I wouldn’t even dignify that with a response. His only purpose in life was to make other people feel like he was superior to them. The only member of the club who acted like God's gift to everyone, and he was equally hated across the board. Sometimes, I felt like Fox should cut him loose. Other times, I knew the only reason he was still in this club was because Fox was falling apart after losing Mandy.
Her body turned up in a creek bed a few miles outside of town—neck snapped in two. At least, that's what Fox told me when hecame to visit. He just wasn’t the same, either. I understood the pain of losing a woman, but Sara was still out there somewhere living her best life. Mandy, on the other hand… Fox had a lot of grieving to do.
I let the silence settle for a mile or two before I spoke again. "What's been going on in town? I've been staring at ceiling tiles for three months. Catch me up."
Tony's expression shifted, and whatever smugness had been there a minute ago disappeared. "It's bad, Crank. Real bad. Somebody killed Mandy."
I sat up straighter despite the pain. "Yeah, that's what Fox said… What's goin' on with that?"
"It's looking like the Locusts. Fox is convinced it was them—some kind of message or retaliation for the territory dispute we've been having with them out on Route Nine."
"Is there proof?" When Fox visited weeks ago, they had nothing. All he knew was that whoever had done it was really strong. Mandy had no defensive wounds or DNA under her fingernails, and other than a snapped neck, it looked like she'd simply fallen asleep. What sort of monster could do that to a helpless woman? And why?
"Not yet. But Fox doesn't need proof to start a war, and that's exactly where this is headed. The Locusts deny it, obviously, but when has a guilty man ever admitted to anything?" Lightning's nonchalant tone was typical of him. He didn't mind conflict one bit because he was cocky and overconfident. He really thought he was stronger and better than everyone, and he believed himself infallible.
I stared through the windshield and tried to process what he was telling me. Mandy was a good woman. She kept Fox grounded, and she'd been kind to every brother in the club, myself included. The idea that someone put their hands on her and left her in a creek bed made me want to punch someone.
"I need to be there," I told him. No matter what I felt about Lightning, the club members were my brothers, and Fox was like a father to all of us. I had to be there for him.
"You need to heal up. You can barely walk, Crank. You'll look like a peg-leg pirate." He chuckled as he brushed me off, and it enraged me.
"I don't care. Fox needs bodies around him if this is going where you say it's going."
"And he'll have them. But you on a cane aren't one of them, not yet." Lightning looked over at me with a smug expression and turned on the radio, which was my clue that the conversation was over. I was lucky he'd given me that much without being nasty. So I bit my tongue and turned to watch the fields pass by.
He dropped me at the trailer park where I got out of the truck the same way I'd gotten in, slowly and painfully, and I stood in the gravel lot watching him drive away before I turned toward my door.
My trailer had been entirely untouched while I was gone. I unlocked the door and stepped inside, and the stale air hit me along with three months of dust and neglect. Dishes were still in the sink from the morning of my wreck. A coffee mug with a dried black ring at the bottom sat on the counter next to my cell phone and keys, which someone had apparently returned atsome point. And the TV still blared the same news channel I'd been watching that morning before I left for the races.
I made my way to the couch and lowered myself down with a grunt, propping the cane against the armrest, and saw a gray hoodie balled up against the far cushion, half buried between the seat and the back of the couch. I reached for it and held it up and knew immediately that it was Sara's. She'd left it here the last time she came over, and I'd never gotten around to giving it back.
I laid it on my lap and leaned my head against the back of the couch and closed my eyes, remembering how she looked when she wore it for me. Standing in my kitchen with the zipper half zipped and nothing underneath it, her hair down around her shoulders, and lusty eyes.
I'd pulled the zipper down slowly and watched the fabric part over her breasts, full and soft and warm against my palms when I cupped them. She'd gasped and arched into me, and I'd lifted her onto the counter and stepped between her thighs while she wrapped her legs around my waist and pulled me in.
I was hard instantly, just thinking about her.
God, I missed her. I didn't know how many times I'd dreamed of her while trying to recuperate. And when nurses asked me why I didn’t have anyone come to visit, Sara was the only one I wished would show up.
Three months in a hospital bed with no privacy and no relief had wound me so tightly that just the memory of her skin was enough to put me over the edge. I undid my jeans and took myself in hand and let the fantasy play out behind my closed eyelids.
I remembered the way she tasted when I kissed down her neck and along her collarbone, and the way her fingers dug into my shoulders when I pushed inside her. She was always so warm and tight, and every sound she made went straight through me. I remembered the way her hips rocked against mine when she was close, and the way her head fell back and her lips parted when she finally let go. God the way she would pull me deeper with her legs locked around me and whisper my name, not Crank, but Garret, like it was something private that only she was allowed to say.
My hand moved faster and my grip tightened.
Images of her played through my mind. Her backside in the air bent over that barrel in the storage shed behind the diner, her tits in my face while I slid in and out of her, and the whimpers she'd make when she was so close. It all had me right on the edge ready to blow in under five minutes.
When I came, it was like Niagara falls exploded on my flannel and all over my jeans. My body twitched and jerked while my mind replayed dreams I'd had and memories I wanted to relive. I stroked myself until I'd soaked up every last drop of enjoyment before my dick started to go soft and my chest released the tension that had been building for months.
It took me a hot minute to make it off the couch, but I cleaned myself up with a handful of paper towels from the kitchen and was still standing at the counter when I heard rumbling outside. The unmistakable thunder of a dozen or more bikes started low and built fast, and I grabbed my cane and made it to the front door and pushed it open just in time to see the Gravehounds crawling past out the trailer park, headed toward town.
Butch was near the back of the pack on his red Softail. He looked up at me as he approached, and I called out to him from the doorway. "What's going on?"
He slowed just enough to shout over his engine. "Locusts showed up at the Anvil harassing Fox. We're rolling to back him up."
