"Tie him up," Fox ordered, then he glanced up at me and Sara and looked away, like he was ashamed.
Butch and Rusty hauled Lightning to his feet, and someone produced a length of chain from one of the bikes. They bound his wrists over his head then looped the chain through the binding and connected the other end to the hitch on Fox's bike. Lightning didn't fight it. His face was gray and his eyes were vacant. He knew what was coming as the whole club watched the president walk away.
Fox mounted his bike and kicked it to life. The engine roared and he pulled forward until the chain went taut, and then he whipped out of the lot and onto the road with Lightning stumbling behind him, fighting to keep his feet. One by one, the other bikes fired up and followed, a procession of headlights and thunder pouring out of the parking lot until the sound of them faded south.
I stayed there with Sara, who stood staring at the road and the fading noise, shaking as she sobbed. Then she turned and buried her face in my chest.
All I could do was stand there.
31
SARA
Dust from thirty bikes still hung in the air when the last engine faded south. The parking lot had emptied in under a minute, every patched member chasing Fox and the chain dragging Tony down the road. Now it was just me and Garret standing in the parking lot as I cried. I took a step back when his arms didn't come around me, feeling like I'd crossed a line by making physical contact.
He was staring at the road. His fists were at his sides and his shoulders were rigid and I had no idea what was about to come out of his mouth. The way we left things when he showed up at the hospital didn't leave me much hope that anything would change no matter what truth came out or how sincere my apologies were.
"That was really brave, Sara." The venom I'd heard in his tone the last time we spoke was gone, but he still sounded upset. "What you did took guts."
Tears continued to fall, and I wiped them with both hands and tried to hold myself together. "I wanted to tell you so manytimes. Every single time we were together I wanted to say it, but Tony had me so scared I couldn't breathe. He told me he would kill me, Garret."
He listened to me but I watched his throat bob as he swallowed, and his hands never unclenched.
"I know things between us are probably done," I said, voice cracking. "I know I hurt you and I know you may never forgive me for keeping Kip from you. But I need you to understand I never wanted that. Tony backed me into a corner and I made the only choice I thought would keep my son alive."
His eyes shifted when I said Kip's name. Something softened behind the tension.
"Kip?" he said.
"Yeah." My hand was already reaching for my phone. "Kip Peter Ducette."
My screen lit up and I turned it toward him. I had taken a picture of us the day we drew with sidewalk chalk on Mom and Dad's front porch. Kip had chalk dust on his hands and his hair sticking up and that crooked grin that split his face.
Garret looked at the picture and his shoulders dropped. His jaw unclenched and his eyes went glassy. A single tear rolled down his cheek and he didn't wipe it away. He stood there staring at the screen and I watched the toughest man I'd ever known be reduced to tears. I didn't want him to feel hurt, but I could see he was choosing vulnerability instead of anger.
"He's so sweet, Garret," I whispered. "He's stubborn and loud and he laughs at everything. He's got your eyes and your jaw andthis serious face he makes when he's concentrating that looks exactly like you when you're working on an engine."
Garret's hand came up and covered his mouth and his chest hitched.
"He loves being outside. He'd live in the yard if I let him, chasing bugs and kicking his ball and getting filthy. And he's smart, Garret. He already knows shapes and colors and the whole alphabet."
His body was getting more rigid with every word, emotion building behind the tough guy facade he wanted me to see, but tears rolled down his cheeks. I assumed they were anger, and I knew I had it coming. I deserved everything he was going to say. He would blow up and let me have it, and I wouldn’t interrupt him.
"Say something," I whispered. "Please."
His mouth opened but nothing came out, so I looked down at his feet and waited for him to explode. But when his hands cupped my cheeks and forced my head up, his lips covered mine and took my breath away. It was so demanding I couldn't pull away if I wanted to, and I didn't want to. My tears came harder then, mingling with his as he started walking me backward.
Garret's mouth never left mine and his arms never loosened as my feet shuffled to keep up. He guided me across the gravel, past the diner patio, up the steps, and through the front door of the diner. And once inside his hand reached behind him and flipped the lock.
His hands dropped from my face to my hips and lifted me onto the counter beside the register where my back hit the menu board on the wall and knocked it sideways, and his mouth neverbroke from mine. When his hands slid up under my shirt, his thumbs brushed the underside of my bra and I arched into him.
"Garret," I breathed between kisses. I felt desperate to know what he was thinking and why this was happening. I couldn’t take it if he just wanted some physical release to use me and then pushed me away again.
"Don't talk." His mouth slid along my jaw, then my neck, teeth dragging across the skin below my ear. "Let me have you, okay?"
His hands pushed my shirt up and his mouth followed, kissing down my collarbone and across the swell of my chest above my bra. He pulled the cup aside and his lips closed around my nipple, sucking until I whimpered. Then my fingers laced through his hair and held him there while his tongue circled and flicked and his beard scratched against my sensitive skin.
"Please… I…" I whispered, but I didn't know what else to say. Whether this was makeup sex or one last moment of connection before we were done for good, I didn't want to waste the experience feeling turmoil.
