AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“When I was inside, she sent me a letter and told me how sorry she was for leaving. Said I saved her life, and she would always be grateful.” I shrug like it’s no big deal, but I know Jude isn’t finished.
Jude’s eye twitches and the other two guys’ eyes ping-pong between us.
“Jude, you don’t understand what it was like for her. She needed to escape, and I gave her that. If she had stayed, I can fucking guarantee that piece of shit would have found her and finished what he started. She had no one, and I was locked up.”
“I would have helped her,” he says a little too loudly, startling the waitress setting the food on our table.
“Uh…you boys need anything else?” the woman nervously asks, darting her gaze between Jude and me.
“No thank you, ma’am,” Barrett answers for us, turning on his Southern charm. No need to scare the woman trying to do her job.
“She didn’t know that Jude,” I say in a quieter voice. “She was scared and lost. She apologized for leaving in the letter, but she was running for her life. Who’s to say her testimony would have helped, anyway? They found the gun, and I beat that fucker half to death. And you want to know something else?” I ask before taking a bite of the best damn meatloaf I’ve had outside of my mom’s. “I would have done it again, even knowing I’d spend time in prison. I would have done it all again.” I chew the meatloaf and moan in pleasure.
Jude is watching me like I’ve lost my damn mind.
“So what? You plan on finding her? Making her your old lady now that you’re out? Has fucking every girl who looks like her just been a coincidence? Or are you just sowing some wild oats?”
“Jesus fucking Christ. Can a man eat in fucking peace without you throwing twenty questions at him?” I take a bite of my meatloaf and glare at him while I finish chewing and swallow. “No, I don’t plan on finding her. I never wrote her back. She was happy living in New Orleans. That’s all I need to know.”
What I don’t tell him is the way her eyes haunted me when I was inside. Not the terrified eyes of the girl I picked up in the rain, but when she smiled at me in the diner. It was as though she didn’t believe there were kind souls in the world willing to help a girl who so desperately needed it. I don’t tell him the number of times I read her letter and imagined her happy and smiling in her new life. I never got to see that, but damn, I wish I had.
“Well, at least you saw reason. Linc, this girl didn’t come to your defense. She basically let you rot in jail.”
Jude is right in a way. She did leave me to fight the charges on my own, but here’s the thing—she’d been fighting on her own the entire time she was being beaten by her boyfriend. She saw an opportunity to get away from the hell she was living in. I’ll never hold that against her. I was a big boy and knew exactly what was going to happen the second I saw those flashing lights. I hadn’t wanted her to stick around. I’d done plenty of things to land me in jail. That was just the one thing I got caught for.
“Doesn’t matter. She’s living in New Orleans, and I’m not. But understand this Jude, I don’t hold anything against her, and neither should you. Heaven help you if you ever find yourself in the situation I was faced with. I doubt you would have made a different decision.”
“Don’t count on it, mate,” Jude scoffs. “I like my freedom way too much to get tangled up in that kind of mess.”
“Can we please drop it? I’d like to eat my meatloaf in peace and have a few beers with my brothers. No use crying about something done and over with. I’m out, and I’ll never see her again. End of.”
Jude nods, hopefully dropping the subject to never bring it up again.
After finishing our dinner, we decide to grab the van from the hotel parking lot and head to the bar that’s about a mile down the road. Our bikes would likely draw too much attention in this sleepy town at this time of night. The last thing we need is some drunk locals deciding they don’t want a bunch of bikers around. We learned the hard way years ago that Texas can be tricky like that. We aren’t the sort of club that has brothers with something to prove. There’s only four of us here, and since my stint in jail, everyone has taken to keeping a low profile on runs. No need to cause a stir when we don’t have to.
We pull up to the bar that’s nothing more than a nondescript brick building on the edge of town. The only indication they serve alcohol is the few neon beer signs hanging in the blacked-out windows and the sign above the door.
“Jimmy John’s Bar,” Wyatt mutters. “Real original.”
Barret opens the door to a low-lit open space, with the bar on one side of the room, tables in the middle, and pool tables on the other side. Your typical blue-collar watering hole, and just the kind of place we all feel most at home.
“Nice, they have darts,” Jude comments when he spots the well-used dart boards hanging on the back wall.
Barrett shakes his head. “What is it with you and darts?”
“That shit was his national pastime in England. He’s been playing since he was old enough to throw straight,” Wyatt replies.
“Too true, mate. Anyone care to make a wager?”
We all groan. No one in the club has ever been able to beat him in a game.
“Spoil sports,” Liam whines as he and Wyatt grab a table.
There aren’t many people here at this hour, which doesn’t surprise me. It’s not too late, but it strikes me as the kind of town where the regulars wake up early for work and aren’t out late drinking on a Tuesday night.
The waitress walks over to the only other customers in the place, playing pool with a tray of beers. “I’ll be right with you,” she calls as she hands the men their drinks.
Barrett and I belly up to the bar and scope out their whiskey selection.
