Falling For Crazy (Moroad Motorcycle Club) (17 page)

"Once it warms up, I'm going to take you for a ride." He smoothed her hair off her forehead and inspected the thin red line where the bullet grazed her head. The superglue held her skin together. Even the swelling was down. "Tomorrow, you should be able to wash your hair. Your skin has had time to close. Does it hurt?"

"No." Her answer came out breathless.

He hated upsetting her. Sarah had lived to argue, but Amy's patience and maturity always came first for her. For him to get her riled up, he knew the depth of her feelings and now he needed to make it up to her.

"Good." He whistled on an exhale. "We'll go for a short ride. You need to get away from the motel and the fresh air will help improve your mood."

Her eyes narrowed. He smoothed her eyebrow with his thumb. Sarah's temper had always come out of nowhere and disappeared just as fast. He could never keep up or predict how to handle her. Amy simmered, and suddenly he wanted to work at getting her in a better mood.

"Are you going to stay pissed at me all day?" he asked.

Her lips firmed and finally she said, "Are you going to act crazy all day?"

"Momma...," he whispered. "I am crazy."

Her brows shot up as a small gasp came out of her mouth. She stiffened in his arms and held on to him in fright. He pulled her tighter against him, unwilling to let her pull away.

She stared over his shoulder and grabbed his biceps and whispered, "Don't move."

That got his attention. Whoever was behind him frightened her.

"Amy, reach into my vest pocket and get my pistol," he whispered.

Her eyes snapped to his. "I don't think that'll work."

"It fucking will." He strained to look toward the building without moving his head. "Where the hell is everyone else?"

Amy's whole face changed. Her mouth curved up. Her eyes danced with amusement. Her cheeks indented. His body remained tight.

"You want to explain what's behind me, before I stand up and kill whoever thinks they can sneak up on me," he said.

"It's not someone." She reached up, held his head, and peered at him closer. "You have a tick crawling up your neck. It probably came off the wood you carried to the fire."

He lifted his hand. She grabbed his wrist. "Don't. I'll get it."

She leaned closer and wrinkled her nose. "Hold still, I want to make sure it hasn't bit you yet."

Her hand rested on his shoulder, and she walked her fingers up his neck. He shivered. She giggled softly.

Her warm breath fanned his ear. "Do ticks freak you out?"

"No." He grunted.

"Oh, okay." She pulled back, slipped off his lap, and walked to the fire with her arm straight out in front of her, her thumb and finger pressed together, holding the tick.

Once she finished putting the tick in the flames, she watched it burn and kept her back toward him. He stood, walked over and put his arms around her from behind and pulled her back against his chest. She'd opened the door to talking. He better take advantage of her willingness to listen before she changed her mind.

He kissed her temple, below her injury, and swayed with her in his embrace. "The only thing you need to think about is staying safe. Cam only knows one side of the story. Bear, Johnson, and the rest of the guys know their side of what happens within the club. I'm only giving you enough information to make you feel secure about staying with me, being with me, because everything else shouldn't touch you. I need to protect you, and in doing so I'm going to keep a lot of things that happen away from you. You'll drive yourself nuts if you try to understand what goes through my head or figure out what makes me tick."

She snorted.

He chuckled. "What? Bad choice of word, Momma?"

"I hate ticks," she mumbled.

"Yeah, well, I'm not a huge fan of them myself. You helped get it off me, and I appreciate it. You can pick all the ticks off me as you want." He tapped the end of his finger against his head. "But, leave the way my brain ticks alone."

She turned, planted her hands flat on his chest, and lifted her chin. "Never."

"That's not the answer I wanted to hear."

Her slender shoulder came up. "I think it is exactly want you want."

"Damn it, Amy. I told—"

She silenced him with a finger to his lips and stopped him from moving. "Someone needs to take care of you because you suck at taking care of yourself. I gave you my word that I'm
in
. You can't change who I am. It bothers me more when I know I can help, and you refuse. If you want me to accept you and your need to keep the club business secret, I'm not going to ask you to break any rules. But, respect me enough to be there for you and if you need me to listen, trust me to understand or at least comprehend what is happening. That's what I need from you, to be with you, to feel secure in whatever kind of relationship we're having together."

Jacko glanced over at the other Moroad members returning to the backyard of the motel, then lowered his voice. "I hear you, but you need to stop questioning me when the others are around."

"I know you're not crazy," she whispered back. "You gave me eight hours last night and not once did you leave the bed, talk my ear off, or revert to separating yourself from me."

He inhaled deeply. "I can't get into this now."

"When?"

Bear looked over at him. He bounced on his toes, grabbed her ass, and twirled her in the air. While he distracted the others, he whispered in her ear. "I'll explain after we get to where I want to go on our ride."

Her arms came around his neck. Her legs hooked around his hips. She laid her head on his shoulders. "Then let's ride."

Carrying her, he strode past the guys, lifted his chin, and took Amy to his motorcycle. Five minutes later, they were on the back road heading north. He wasn't even sure he could give her the man she remembered. He wasn't sure he even wanted the old Jacko back.

T
he two-story, farm-style house sat smack dab in the middle of the canyon between two peaks of the Bitterroot Mountains. Amy held on to Jacko's hand as he walked her up to the wraparound porch. Besides the weathered paint and lack of inhabitants, the house stood proud and regal as if the past owner enjoyed the backdrop of nature at their doorstep and the solitude the rural area in the Silver Valley brought them.

Jacko stepped up on the porch, opened the door, and walked right into the house. Inside, she gazed around at a fully furnished home. The floral printed couch faced the river-rock fireplace. The television—one of those bulky box ones—sat in the corner, the screen covered in dust. Each end table held a lamp, the shades covered in cobwebs.

Amy tugged at Jacko's hand, holding him close. With no warning or explanation on why they'd stopped at an abandoned house, she wanted to know why the area rug on the floor, the dead potted plant on the stand beside the stairs, and the empty coat rack stood beside the door. She feared he'd walk up the stairs and introduce her to a bed-ridden old woman who would die before the house rotted.

"Why are we here?" She curled into his side, anxious to leave.

Jacko let go of her and walked over to the fireplace. He plucked a light pink candle from the candleholder. Her gaze went to the dark red end and realized the candle had sat on the mantle and faded over the years. A shiver went up her spine.

"Jacko?" She crossed her arms and cupped her elbows.

"When I was seventeen, I got arrested for robbing a gas station." He broke the candle in half, dropped it at his feet, and faced her. "I ended up doing two weeks of community service and no jail time because my dad was a Defense Attorney and played his son's bad behavior on boredom and too much free time. While I picked litter up along the interstate, working off my punishment, he disowned me. In his eyes, I'd fucked up. That's all it took for me not to give a damn what he thought of how I acted or the activities I decided to do."

She rubbed her arms. Even when Jacko was with Sarah, Amy never thought of where he came from or how he'd grown up. He was a man in his thirties then and at forty-two years old now, she still knew nothing about him.

"That was my first taste of breaking the law. My second time came a month later when I bought a gun from an old biker from Moroad MC and helped bring a load of powder through Idaho to Montana." Jacko blew out his breath. "My Moroad sponsor died in prison about two years later and by then I'd already patched in and spent nine months in prison myself for armed robbery. When I got out, I came back here to the house and found it exactly like it is today."

"This was your parents' house?" she asked, looking around for any sign that Jacko had once lived here. A pair of boots, a jacket, a filled ashtray, nothing.

"It's still my parents' house. They continued to pay the mortgage until it was paid off. They left because they were embarrassed by how I turned out. Apparently, abandoning your child isn't as bad as abandoning a house. Dad made sure the bank never slapped a foreclosure sign on the door. He had a reputation to protect," he said.

She shook her head. "Did they tell you that?"

He laughed. "My mom visited me once while I was in prison to cut her ties with me and told me never to contact them. I had no reason to doubt her, and when I got released the first time, I came back to what you see here now."

"Where are they or have they passed on?"

"They're alive. Cam had someone find out where they went. I have an older sister in Florida and they moved near her." He stepped closer. "That way their son, Jack Baker, a felon, can't disturb their lifestyle. Far as I care, they're dead."

She inhaled deeply, absorbing the information. "I'm sorry. I can't imagine what you went through all alone, and you were barely an adult."

He shrugged. "You have to love someone to miss them, and love was never a part of what I had when I was a kid. There were rules and ways to act, but never love. My parents' treatment of me had conditions and consequences."

"Yet, you brought me here. The house must mean something to you," she said, wanting to give him something to prove his childhood couldn't have been as bad as the memories.

He closed the distance between them and his mouth softened. She leaned toward him willingly as his hand came around her neck.

"I brought you here, because it's one place where nobody can overhear what I'm going to tell you. We're away from the club, safe from any of my enemies watching, and yeah, maybe this place reminds me I'm not crazy. There were times I remember where I learned how to ride a motorcycle for the first time and I had my first blowjob inside a Chevy Nova out in the driveway. I can't remember the chick's name, but I thought that was the best feeling in the world." He moistened his lips and studied her. "You believe I'm damaged goods, Momma."

She let her head fall forward and rested her forehead against his chest. Her words coming from him pained her. She'd spoken out of anger and vulnerability at not knowing which way she could help him the most.

"I've changed for a reason." He kissed the top of her head. "Look at me."

She raised her head. There was no doubt Jacko was open, sane, and speaking to her. His clear gaze held hers, waiting for her to give him encouragement to go on. She nodded, eager to know how he went from a quiet, if not rowdy man, to one who everyone thought needed medicated.

"In the last five years, I've loved and lost. There were times I wanted to say fuck it to life and take everyone to hell with me if they stepped in my way. I spent most of my years before Sarah in prison, and I spent the years after losing your sister in prison. By the grace of the club, I got out early. While I was inside, all I thought about was how to pay back those who killed her and how I could keep you safe. I thought I put you somewhere you could live happily for the rest of your days, and that never happened."

"You had no idea Los Li would come after me," she said.

"But it happened, and I'm going to fix it." He smoothed her hair away from her face. "I'm going to do it my way. I know you have doubts that I'm capable—"

"I don't have—"

"Sh." His gaze softened. "You do, and so does everyone else. For the last five years, I've led everyone to believe I went crazy in prison. It happens to a lot of men, and nobody questioned the changes happening right in front of them. At first, I started talking to myself. Then I stopped talking altogether until other inmates stopped trying to get me to open up. I'd attack others for no reason and got a reputation that made others leery of me. I started enjoying my time in solitary, because inside, alone, I could turn away from the security cameras and be myself."

Her throat closed, and she swallowed. "I don't understand. Why would you turn away from everyone?"

"I had three reasons. One, because being crazy protected me. No one suspected the crazy man in the laundry room of killing the man who kidnapped his woman. No one questioned me when the Reds member who drove the car with Sarah in it to the border ended up with his throat sliced in his cell." Jacko held on to her tighter, making her listen when all she wanted to do was pull back and deny what he was telling her. "I've killed everyone involved that took Sarah from us, except for the last two men. They're still breathing and in a couple of weeks, their filth will no longer be contaminating your world."

She turned away. The room spun, and she closed her eyes. He'd confessed to murder. Not one or two, but more, plus the man the other night. In giving her the truth, he involved her in his plan to take out the others involved in Sarah's murder.

She pried her dry tongue off the roof of her mouth. "What's the second reason you decided to pretend you're crazy?"

"If I get caught and arrested I'll be considered criminally insane." He gazed around the living room and finally settled his eyes back to her. "Despite what my parents think, I did listen to my father and I used my experience while locked up inside to better myself. I became smarter, stronger, and had everyone doubting me, which I used to my advantage. Now, I know how to work the system better than my father does with his big, fat, attorney status after his name."