Talon - A Warriors MC Romance novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Gate Again

In front of the club and the deputy, Alexis walks out with her bruises showing and refuses to go home; Terrence says one quiet thing to Dane and Dane goes grey.

"Stay inside," June said.

"No."

I was already pulling her sweatpants on over my jeans because I could not stand in front of Terrence in nothing but a borrowed shirt.

"Alexis, he brought a cop."

"I know. I want him to see me."

She stared at me, and then she picked up her phone.

"Then I'm filming," she said.

The yard was full when I came out.

A dozen men in black leather stood in a loose half circle inside the gate, big men with beards and bad knees and arms folded.

Dane stood at the center of them.

Talon stood on his left, and he did not look at me as I came down the steps.

He moved one pace, so that when I stopped, his shoulder was exactly beside mine.

At the gate the deputy tipped his hat, and Terrence raised both hands, palms out.

"Alexis, baby. Thank God."

He had put on his council voice.

It was the voice he used at the fundraiser dinners, warm and a little tired, a man who had spent a long night worrying.

"Stay on your side of the gate, Terrence," Dane said.

"I'm not here to cause trouble, Dane. I just want my wife."

"You want her?" Talon said. "Look at her."

Terrence did look.

He let his eyes travel over the gauze on my brow, the cut on my lip, and the dark prints his fingers had left on my wrist.

His face did a good job of seeming shocked.

"Oh, sweetheart," he said. "You fell again."

The deputy shifted his weight.

"Ma'am," he said, "your husband reported his truck taken last night, along with about nine hundred dollars from a household envelope. He's willing to drop it if you come home."

So that was the story he had built out of the envelope.

"I didn't take anything from your envelope," I said, and my voice came out steadier than I felt. "I took the truck because you broke my head on the cabinet."

"Alexis."

"There are six stitches in my face."

"Honey, you were hysterical."

"Look at my wrist, Deputy."

I held it up where the whole yard could see it.

The deputy looked, and for one second his friendly face slipped.

"Looks sprained," he said. "Could be from anything."

"It's the shape of a hand," June said, from the porch, in a voice loud enough to carry. "I'm an ER nurse of eleven years. I've documented a hundred of those. I'll testify to it."

And she held her phone up so the camera caught the deputy.

Behind her, at the edge of the porch, I saw Wick, the skinny prospect, holding his own phone sideways and recording the whole yard.

The deputy saw them both.

He looked at the circle of bikers, and the two phones, and Terrence's smile, which had begun to look painted on.

"Mr. Kingswood," the deputy said. "I think we should leave this to the paperwork."

"She's my wife, Deputy."

"She's a grown woman standing on her own two feet in front of me," the deputy said. "I don't see her wanting to come."

"I don't want to," I said. "I'm not going home, Terrence. I'm not going back to Alder Street. Not today, not ever."

It was the first time I had said no to him out loud in five years.

My knees were shaking.

Talon's hand came to rest against the small of my back, flat and steady, and stayed there.

Terrence looked at that hand.

Something went out of his face and something else came in, and for just one breath I saw the man from the kitchen.

Then he put the smile back on.

"All right," he said pleasantly. "All right, baby. You take a few days. Get your head straight."

He turned to go.

Then he stopped and looked at my brother.

"Dane," he said, in a voice so low I almost missed it. "First Friday, Hourigan."

That was all.

He got in the van, and the deputy followed him, and the gate arm swung closed behind them.

Around me, the men started talking.

Somebody laughed with relief.

Wick said, "I got all of it, I got every second," and June said, "Send it to me, right now, baby."

But I was looking at my brother.

Every drop of color had gone out of Dane's face, and his hands had closed into fists at his sides.

He did not look at the road where Terrence had gone.

He looked at me.

I knew that look.

It was the look he'd had when I was nine years old and he had broken my mother's good bowl and was deciding whether to tell her.

"Dane," I said. "What did he mean?"

My brother turned and walked into the clubhouse without a word.

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