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It was sunset now and soon it would be dark out. Chris wished fervently that Slick was on his bike and they were riding through the stars, neither of them concerned with death and dying.
Chapter 34
Hayley lay awake watching Chris sleeping beside her. He had returned from his dealings with Preacher in one piece from what she could tell. He’d held her and told her that everything was okay. He wasn’t hurt and neither were the boys and she supposed that was something, at least. She’d considered asking him what had gone wrong, though. Because clearly something had. He wasn’t nearly as relieved as it seemed to her that he should have been.
Hayley wasn’t certain she wanted to know how sideways a guns-for-drugs swap could go, however. With a one percenter MC like the Buzzards, she imagined several worst case scenarios. So she acknowledged to herself that she probably didn’t want to know, but neither did she want Chris to should his burden alone.
In the end she’d simply asked him if he wanted to talk about it. Chris shook his head and confirmed that she didn’t need to know or worry about it. It was over, he’d told her. He’d promised her that the debt to Preacher Prior was paid in full.
Chris had thrown himself into his work after that, citing his need to get his custom bike orders ready for the rally in Sturgis next week. Hayley might have assumed it was his way of coping with the trouble that she had brought down on them, and to some it extent it probably was. But each night Chris came home from the garage, he kept her close. And so because he wasn’t pushing her away she decided it meant that they could, and would, move past it.
She renewed her determination to keep things running smoothly. Since their return from North Carolina, Chris has insisted on buying her a new cell phone for safety reasons and also on driving her to and from the bar, even though it meant ditching Tex and Hawk and leaving them short-handed at the garage for an hour every day.
In spite of his precautionary measures, Hayley felt there was no danger at this point. Chris had meticulously checked to see if anyone had followed them both before returning the rental car in Virginia and the entire way home as well. He’d been satisfied that they had not been followed, but still hadn’t settled into the same ease of comfort he‘d had before the trip. But given the sacrifices that he’d had to make on her behalf as a direct result of her having tried to sneak away, Hayley wasn’t about to argue over her, most likely, armed escort around Rapid City.
She was fairly certain that Chris’ vigilance was due to her personal troubles, though, and had nothing to do with the Buzzards, since neither Chris nor the boys so much as acknowledged the members of the MC when they crossed paths at Maria’s.
On Wednesday, she awoke to the sound of voices in the living room. She entered the living room to find Jimmy and Chris speaking in earnest. They both turned their attention to her as she entered the living room.
“We’re rolling out late this afternoon,” Chris informed her. Hayley didn’t have to ask where. “I’ll keep my cell phone on and Easy’s staying in town with you.”
Hayley nodded. She enjoyed working at Maria’s and was pretty comfortable with the patrons, but she had no interest in visiting a town that had been laid siege to by thousands of bikers. Sturgis was not her scene.
“Stay safe,” he told her, “and don’t let your guard down. I’ll be home in two days.”
It was the first of two promises to her that Chris would break.
***************************
Hayley was slow to rouse from sleeping. At first she forgot that Chris was gone. She was trying to focus on what had woken her when the door bell rang, presumably for the second time. She glanced at the clock and Chris’ side of the bed. 11:27 pm.
Cautiously she got up and crept down the hallway. She was reaching for her cell phone, charging on the breakfast bar when a baritone voice she didn’t recognize said, “South Dakota Highway Patrol.”
Hayley’s hand froze. A knot of fear tightened in her belly. She snatched the phone off the counter and flew to the door. She flipped on the porch light and peeked through the blinds. A gold highway patrol insignia glinted from the Trooper’s hat. Beyond him, a white cruiser with a red stripe was parked against the curb.
“Yes?” Haley barely managed to get out.
The Trooper turned his gaze from the door to the window. “Ma’am,” he drawled. “Highway Patrol, Ma’am.”
Hayley punched in the code for the alarm system and unlocked the door.
“Ma’am,” the Trooper repeated. “I’m sorry to have woken you. But we’ve had an accident. Up on 90, outside of Sturgis.”
