Never Trust the Living (Battle Crows MC Book 7) Read online

  I sighed, blowing out a relieved breath before looking toward the door where Gary came in.

  “Here, daddy-O. Sign here, here, and here. And she’s free to go.” He tossed a pile of clothes onto the bed. “Since yours were discarded when you were brought in, I grabbed you some scrubs.”

  Then, with a flourish, he whipped the signed papers out of my hands and was gone.

  I looked at the scrubs on the bed between us and said, “You need help?”

  I had no doubt in my mind she needed help.

  She swallowed hard, but she didn’t fake it.

  “Yes,” she admitted. “I’m not sure how high I can lift my arm right now. I felt like he pulled it out of the socket when he yanked me up off the ground.”

  I held my anger in check as I got her dressed. Which was hard since she wanted to shield almost every inch of her body with her hand or the hospital gown as we did.

  “This would be easier if you dropped the gown,” I teased.

  She swallowed and looked away. “I…”

  She didn’t say anything after that, and I realized that I should stop.

  If she needed the privacy, I would give it to her.

  I’d give her just about anything right now. Anything as long as it didn’t have to do with me leaving her.

  Fifteen minutes later, we were dressed and standing next to my bike.

  I stared at it, wondering what in the hell I was supposed to do now.

  “I don’t know if this is allowed or not,” I admitted, looking from her to the bike and back again.

  She laughed softly, then walked over and got onto the back of my bike, as if she’d done it a half a million times.

  But she hadn’t.

  When was the last time I’d had her there? At least a year. Two or three? Possibly when we went out to eat at a restaurant to celebrate Cannel’s arrival back home.

  Holy shit.

  Feeling my stomach somewhere in the vicinity of my knees due to it sinking there, I straddled the bike and started it up, only then realizing that I had no clue where we were going.

  “Where am I taking us?” I asked. “I have the address, but without pulling out my phone…”

  She gave me directions, and not once did she scoot close to me.

  Though, that was fairly normal when she rode on the back of my bike.

  She never wanted to get too close.

  Then again, that was something that she always did.

  Something she’d always done since the moment that I’d married her.

  The next stoplight we were at, where she pointed that I should take a right, I reached backward and bodily moved her so that she was snugly against my back.

  “You’re making me scared being all the way back there,” I admitted. “You shouldn’t be on the bike in the first place, but with you that far back, I have no way to control you if anything happens.”

  Meaning, if we went down, she would go no matter what, because I wouldn’t have her where I needed her. Against me.

  She gasped at the move, and then slowly, hesitantly, her arms went around me exactly how I wanted them to.

  “Now, which way did I need to go?” I asked.

  She started to lift her hand from my chest, but I held it steady.

  “Just talk to me, beautiful.”

  So she did.

  Turn by turn, until we arrived at the Airbnb she was renting.

  It was a nice place on a shady, tree lined cul-de-sac.

  The worst house on the block was hers, and that was only because the yard needed mowed, and the weeds that were notorious for growing an inch in a day obviously chose this day to do it.

  I pulled into the driveway and stared at the front door.

  It was closed, but the glass windows on either side of the door had been boarded up.

  This was obviously where she’d been assaulted.

  Anger once again rose in my chest, and I stared at it for long moments.

  Dory got off the back of the bike and slid to the ground, pulling off the purple helmet as she did.

  Placing it on the back seat where her ass had previously occupied, she started toward the front door.

  “No,” I called to her. “Let me go look first.”

  She shot me a look over her shoulder, but I shrugged it off.

  “It’s happenin’, darlin’,” I said. “I’m going to make sure that it’s clear before you get in there poking around.”

  She stayed out on the porch while I made a round of the house.

  The place was cute.

  Way cuter than I would’ve thought she could find in a town as small as Accident, Florida.

  Something in which I found an answer to moments later when I went back out on the porch to hear her soft voice saying, “I can’t believe it, either. I mean, this is the nicest neighborhood in Accident. How does this happen?”

  “I’ll bet it was the little shit on the corner,” someone, a woman, said. “The thug that lives there was in jail.

  “Wake didn’t do this,” came Dory’s soft reply. Always so soft. Even in anger like it was now. “He may have just gotten out of jail, but he’s the one who saved me.”

  That was news to me.

  “Baby,” I called as I headed back into the foyer to find an elderly couple on the porch. “You can come inside now.”

  “You her young man?” the woman asked.

  “The one that’s left her living by herself for the last four and a half months?” The male of the pair narrowed his eyes on me.

  Dory’s lips twitched as she headed toward me. “Gladys, Fred. This is my husband, Bram. He’s been away for the last four and a half months.”

  Liar.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said to them both. “Thank you for taking care of her while I was away.”

  “You’re welcome.” Gladys beamed.

  “Well, it’s been a really hard day for her, so I’m gonna get her in bed,” I said. “Thank you for checking on her, though.”

  After saying our goodbyes, we went inside of the house to find it cold and empty.

  The place was great on the outside, but the inside was sparse, denoting it a BNB, and definitely not a place where someone lived often.

  She walked to the couch and took a seat, her breath leaving her upon hitting the soft cushions.

  “What guy were you talking about when I came out there?” I asked.

  She looked at me stubbornly. “He didn’t do it.”

  I took the seat at the coffee table and said, “I think I, of all people, know better than to say anything about anyone’s actions. How about you tell me exactly what happened, so I can have some idea of what’s going on right now.”

  She blew out a hard breath that caused the frizzy hair on either side of her face to blow away from her face before saying, “I go on a walk every morning. I like to go before it gets too hot. Today, I walked out like usual, turned to lock the door behind me, and was hit from behind. One second I was standing, and the next I was curling in on myself to avoid blows. The man down the street was running when he heard me cry out. He came up and scared whomever it was away but was stuck staying with me rather than chasing him down.”

  Secretly, I was glad that he’d stayed. I wouldn’t have wanted her to be alone.

  “Has anything strange been going on lately?” I asked. “Has anything happened that would’ve provoked that?”

  Had her brother been alive, I might’ve seen it coming. But since I knew he was dead…

  “Nothing.” She shook her head.

  I sighed. “Did anyone else see it happen?”

  She shook her head again, her eyes getting heavy. “Not that the police officers knew of.”

  “And which police officers were these?” I asked.

  I hadn’t seen any come around the entire time I’d been there, now that I was thinking about it.

  “This town is quite tiny,” she said. “Smaller than even Intercourse. They have one part-time chief of police who also works at a refinery two towns over. And then there’s the sheriff’s department that apparently had quite a large drug bust at the docks. That’s where they all were today. They had one young guy come over about forty-five minutes after I got to the hospital, and then he left once he took my statement.”

  Her words only served to piss me off more. “So this town is lawless or something?”

  She shrugged. “I chose it because it was perfect. No cops. Nobody constantly watching over me twenty-four seven. But, I suppose, it’s not the best single woman capital of the world.”

  Her words only pissed me off more. “You’re not single.”

  Her eyes shot up to meet mine. “I sent divorce papers, Bram. I’m about as single as I can get before the judge approves it.”

  “So what we talked about in the hospital. You’re not willing to give me another chance?” I asked.

  My voice sounded wrong somehow.

  Void of emotion.

  She must’ve realized it, too, because she winced. “Bram, things would be better if you weren’t saddled with me anymore.”

  “I wasn’t saddled with you at all,” I snapped, unable to help the emotion this time. “I had a wife that I adored. I just didn’t let her know that I adored her, apparently.”

  She stiffly sat up and stared at me with a look of astonishment on her face. “Are you telling me that you like me? All those times you gave me shit about my eating habits. About how I couldn’t stand to be dirty. Or hell, even how your family treated me at almost every single social gathering you took me to… and you’re going to tell me that you adore me? Bram, if you adored me, you wouldn’t have allowed any of that to happen.”

  She had a very valid point.

  “I’ve battled with depression since I was a young kid,” I
said. “I don’t know what happened, but whatever it was, Amon made it worse. I can’t seem to break out of it sometimes, and pushing people away seems to be the only way that I can get some alone time to actually think. Or be. Or fuck, I don’t know. Deal with the bullshit that’s swirling around me.”

  Her mouth fell open. “Depression? You have depression?”

  “Depression that’s also seasonal. Meaning, in the winter months, it gets worse,” I admitted.

  This was stuff that I should’ve told her years ago. Before she’d ever agreed to marry me.

  Yet, I was a selfish asshole, and did stuff that benefited me. As in, she made me happy, she was the perfect cover up, and she got me out of a relationship with Mimi that was slowly suffocating me.

  “Mimi never has, and never will be, something that I want ever again,” I admitted, having a feeling I should set her straight right then and there. “Mimi, at this point, is only a girl that I used to know. The last few months with her was downright suffocating, and to be honest, only made my moods worse. You were the breath of fresh air that I didn’t know I was missing until it was there, winding its way through my oxygen starved lungs.”

  She swallowed hard and looked away. “It’s too little too late, Bram.”

  But there was a quiver in her voice.

  A little niggle of something that I knew, if I dug hard enough, I could make bigger and bigger until she gave me what I wanted.

  Her.

  “You can’t get divorced in Texas while pregnant,” I said quietly. “If, at the end of this pregnancy, you still want to get a divorce, I’ll grant you one.”

  She blinked. “You can’t?”

  “No,” I confirmed. “No judge will allow that to happen.”

  She sighed.

  “But in the next few months, you’ll try to make this marriage work,” I said. “And I mean really try. I’ll, on the other hand, do everything I can to convince you that we are meant to be.”

  She snorted.

  “We are,” I said softly. “We’re meant to be. And I’ll prove it to you.”

  She leaned her head back. “I’m eighteen weeks if my missed period is anything to go by. That means you have twenty-two weeks to convince me. Which, might I add, won’t be easy. Because I’ve spent these last four and a half months reinventing myself. Meaning, I’m not the same pushover Dory anymore.”

  I smiled. “I don’t want pushover Dory, anyway.”

  “Speaking of,” she said softly. “Dory. Why are you calling me that and not Dorcas?”

  I felt something sickening lodge in my throat. “Dorcas was a way to keep you at a distance like I needed you to be. I knew you didn’t like it. And I exploited that.”

  She closed her eyes. “Today, right now, I think you’re no better than Amon.”

  She couldn’t have said anything more excruciating.

  CHAPTER 13

  Unlike men, a margarita hits the spot every time.

  -Dory to Bram

  DORY

  “Getting onto a motorcycle with a man that you’re trying to hate is the worst form of transportation when you’re holding a grudge against the driver,” I grumbled darkly.

  “Did you say something?”

  I looked over at Bram, then looked back at the bike that I was being forced to get on.

  Why had I ended up in this situation again?

  Oh, that’s right. Because I didn’t have a single emergency contact to put down in the case of something shitty happening. Like passing out while you were at work.

  The worst was, I’d arrived at the hospital unconscious, and had woken up with a very angry Bram standing directly over me.

  And the doctor was telling him why I couldn’t hold anything down.

  Hyperemesis. It’s where you throw up and can’t stop.

  I was pregnant with Bram’s child, and it was trying to punish me. Just like Bram tried to punish me for the entirety of our marriage.

  In the last week that Bram had been helping me pack up my things and get back home, I’d started experiencing the worst vomiting I’d had to date.

  As in, I was throwing up nearly twenty-four seven to the point where I was dry heaving half the day.

  Which led to Bram calling his brother, and Tide recommending I go see his father-in-law, who of course is all the way back in Texas.

  Which led to now, me standing next to Bram’s bike, with the diagnosis of hyperemesis for my troubles.

  “Cupcakes sound good,” I said softly.

  The doc, Daniel Proctor, Sabrina’s dad and Tide’s soon-to-be father-in-law, had given me a Zofran in the office. And for the first time in a week, I wanted something to eat.

  A cupcake.

  “I can take you to Jeremiah’s place. We can get you a cupcake.” He sounded excited even.

  And that was likely due to him freaking out to the point where he was all but force feeding me food and drinks over the last week to make me better.

  Which, I guessed, wasn’t going to happen.

  At least, not for a while, according to Dr. Proctor.

  “Let’s go get you that cupcake,” he urged. “And seriously, this is the very last time we’re going on this motorcycle. So not even your puppy dog eyes are going to convince me to allow it again.”

  That caused me to smile.

  Our trip back from Florida went a little funky.

  Mostly because, after purchasing me a brand-new vehicle—yes, brand new, with the top-of-the-line everything—he hitched up his bike to a trailer and drove us home.

  Only, the entire time I’d dreamed of moving back to the bike.

  The open air helped with the nausea, and though I knew riding while being pregnant was dangerous, it was dangerous any time.

  Bikers were clearly the lower class when it came to the road.

  People in cars just didn’t see them.

  Which sucked, because Bram would never give the bike up.

  Anyway, after having to stop half a million times on the way home due to motion sickness—or so I’d thought—we’d gotten home and I’d convinced him every time we needed to go somewhere that I wanted to do it on his bike.

  But when Dr. Proctor saw us riding up on Bram’s bike, he’d promptly discouraged that mode of transportation until I was no longer pregnant.

  “We’ll see,” I grumbled as I fitted myself to his back.

  And there, I wouldn’t admit to liking being pressed against his back.

  To him actually wanting me wrapped around him.

  When we rode, I could pretend.

  Pretend that everything was okay when we both knew it wasn’t.

  “Do you remember when I first got on your bike?” She snickered. “That day was… something.”

  “That day was a total and complete fuck up,” he agreed, his laughter causing his chest to rumble. “And we really shouldn’t be laughing about that day, but shit. On top of everything else that had happened, I’d forced you to go on a ride. You were scared to death to be on my bike, too.”

  “It scared me,” she admitted. “The way that we got so close to the road when you turned. The wind in my face. Your shoulders being so broad I couldn’t see over them to watch where we were going. It was a combination of things. But when we got where we were going, it felt like part of my soul had been let free.”

  Why was I telling him this?

  Because I didn’t want him to stop giving me rides on the back of his bike.

  If I only had a few months left, I was damn well going to get everything out of it I could. One more ride on his bike. One more memory to tuck away for when I needed to relive it the most.

  Just one more of everything, please.

  “And that one time that we tried to get a cart full of groceries home on the back of the bike,” I continued. “We lost a bag of apples, and I made you turn around to go get them because we needed them for dinner.”

  “They were road rashed as fuck,” he agreed. “But you made one hell of an apple pie that night.”

  I swallowed hard as I said, “It was your birthday the next day. That was the day that Cannel had been home for a month. And you wanted to celebrate your day with her.”

  His shoulders tensed. “You didn’t come.”

  No, I hadn’t.

  Mostly because Cannel hadn’t wanted me around, though she hadn’t really wanted anyone around, and I’d given her that freedom.

  “She needed her family. Not some interloper,” I whispered.

  His shoulders hunched, and I watched as his head dropped.