Hiding in Plain Sight (34 page)

The love we'd always held between us.

How we'd only had one another to lean on, to count on.

And that we'd tried unsuccessfully for so long to protect one another from the reality that was our lives.

But all of that was behind us now.

And my future was in surgery.

"Whatever happened to your hair, baby girl?" Mama asked.

"Any news?" I asked Atin over Mama's shoulder, ignoring her question since the answer was gonna take too much out of me.

"Not yet," I heard my brother in law reply.  Vana stood and took Mama's place, offering me a hug so strong and sure, I took strength from it.

"He be well," I heard her whisper against my ear.  "He is much to live for, yes?"

"How did you get here so fast?" I asked the three before me, settling back into my chair after getting a one-armed hug from Atin.

"We flew, Reese Ann.  On an airplane!"  Mama's eyes were shining at her new experience.  "Then Atin here got us a rental car."  I knew she'd never been out of Texas, shit, any further than Beaumont and this had been a real adventure for her.

'Thank you', I mouthed to Atin and caught his nod in reply.

"Mrs. Jovanovitch?" I heard a voice at the doorway.  By this point I was willing to answer to 'mud' if they gave me news of my Brand.

"Yes!" I yelled, pulling my top back down to meet my jeans as I stood.  "Here."  I tried using my indoor voice.

"Your husband has successfully completed surgery and is being moved to ICU," the young doctor advised.  She couldn't have been any more than eighteen, so how could she possibly be his doctor?  "We were able to remove all three bullets, and the bleeding has been contained."

She looked me dead in the eyes, and continued.  "He is lucky to be alive."

"Thank you," was all I could squeeze out of my throat.  I had to lock my knees against the relief that was pouring through me at her words.

"There is a waiting room up on the third floor, but they don't allow family visits after 9 p.m.  You'll have to hurry if you want to have a short time with him before visiting hours are over."  Hher voice seemed very clinical but since I was so emotional, I could see how I could be misreading her tone.

"Thank you," I repeated.  I didn't have any other words, but I did reach for her hand.  "Thank you so much."

She disengaged from me and lifted her hand before she nodded at Atin, Vana and Mama before she began to step away.  With a soft word, Atin followed her out into the hall, and I saw them began to speak together.  I went back to Vana and Mama.

"Reese?" Atin stood at the doorway.  "You want us to wait?  I have the keys and the codes to the house, but we can wait to take you back if…"

"I'm not leavin'," I announced abruptly.  "I'm stayin' here.  But can you bring me some clothes and maybe a toothbrush?  All the beds at home are fresh, so just settle anywhere and help yourself to anything in the fridge."

Atin walked to me and placed a hand on the middle of my back.  "Sister, he would not expect you to stay."

"I don't care.  I'm stayin'," feeling the bulldog stubbornness inside me kick in.  "I'll sleep on the floor if I have to, but I ain't leavin' him, Atin."  I took a breath and only realized then that I was crying by the way it hitched.  "I can't."

I let my eyes drift over the faces in front of me and tried to smile in order to add to my stilted explanation.  "He's my husband," I tried to clarify with a shrug as I wiped my cheeks and chin.

The light in all three pairs of eyes let me know they understood.

*.*.*.*.*

I almost didn't recognize him when they finally allowed me into his ICU bay.  I know I wasted almost half of my allotted ten minutes that first time, just eyeing all the tubes running in an out of his body.  The monitors seemed like something from a sci-fi movie with their soft bleeps and flashing lights. 

And all of it scared me shitless.

There was a nurse that went in with me that first time, and the most I remember was that she was very upbeat and chipper.  Her attitude and constant chatter, which I'd tuned out as soon as I'd seen Brand's long length on the bed, was too much for me.  I needed her to go away or at least be quiet so I could process everything.

"…pretty lucky that it missed the femoral artery although he lost a lot of blood."  I just caught the tail end of what she was rattling on about.  The whole time she talked she'd been on the move, straightening the sheet, adjusting tubes, checking the different bags hanging off and around his bed.

"Oh!  And here's his personal items from when he was brought in," she said handing me two large plastic bags with handles.  I had to give my hands a direct order to take them from her.  "So you'll be able to see him tomorrow, starting at 9 a.m.  Don't try to come in before then.  They're pretty strict about the hours."

"Can't I stay in the waiting room?" The higher, tight voice coming out of my mouth didn't sound like my own.  But that couldn't be helped, any more than I could help my eyes that kept drifting back to his swollen face with the tubes taped to his mouth and nose.

"There's a place about a block down…" she started then I saw her look at me; a look that was just short of a scrutiny.  "Let me see if I can get you set up for tonight, and then you'll be able to see him tomorrow.  We have your cellphone number, and if his condition changes, we'll call you, okay?"

All I could do was nod. 

I didn't want to go.  I

f I had my way, I'd burrow myself underneath all the wires and tubes and press myself against him, never allowing him to leave my side for the rest of our lives.

Chapter Thirty Three

Brand felt the gravel of the driveway shift under his boots and cussed long slow and low.

"You okay, baby?" Reese called, tightening her arm around his elbow.

"Yeah, wife," he murmured, embarrassed as always by his unsteady gait.

Five weeks after the shooting, and he was still having to step carefully due to the weakness in his left hip.  The doctor had explained that the bullet tumbled when it had hit him, tearing and shredding the gluteus medius and tensor fasciae something or other.  All he knew was that his hip still fucking hurt like a son of a bitch, whether he was walking, sitting or even lying down.  Not as much as at the beginning which gave him hope that the pain would eventually be completely gone, and he'd have his full range of motion back.

"I think you're walking better, though," she said, looking up at him, sunlight dappling her face and hair that was just now starting to look like a normal hairstyle.

"Perhaps," he agreed, his eyes moving from her to the trees, some of which were just beginning to change colors with the cooler weather.

"God, it's so beautiful here," she breathed, slowing her steps to match his.  "Did you always want to live in Montana?"

They were still getting to know one another, and every damn day there was a new discovery between them.  While most were discoveries that led to shared joy, there had been a couple that were for the moment 'shelved' until they could talk about them without heat.

"I thought Wyoming was where I thought I would settle.  To be close to Atin and Vana," he admitted.  "But once I was assigned here it was…it felt like home to me."

Her eyes were moving over the trees and the bits of swirling leaves and petals that had been caught in the wind.  "I can see that." 

Before, he knew she would've pressed herself against him.  But the wound on his side, going through the fleshiest part of his waist, had become infected before he'd been scheduled to be released—extending his hospital stay by another week. 

Reese was much more conscious of that injury than he was.

"Only another fifty yards, you think?" he heard her ask.  She did that for him, calling out the distance which he was sure to give him the support he'd need to make it the last few feet to half way.  At first, he'd had to use a walker, a device which had galled him to have to maneuver over the pea-sized gravel, but it wasn't long until he was only having to use a cane on their morning walk.  A trek they made together everyday rain or shine.  They'd since progressed to him walking without any assistance except for her arm.  He counted that as progress on more than a few levels.

She pulled his arm against the side of her breast as they walked, and he felt a definite stirring behind the buttons of his jeans at her small movement. 

He'd taken three bullets: one at the top of his right leg, another on the side of his waist on the left side that had gone through, and the third which had punctured his scalp over his right ear traveling the outside of his skull before exiting from behind.  He had heard from a number of people that he was lucky to be alive.

At last, they made it to the old-fashioned metal mailbox and Brand reached inside. He made a point of putting all his weight on his left leg while she'd stepped around him to gaze over his arm as he pulled out each piece of mail.  Circulars, bills and a large envelope from his former employer was all the box contained.

"When are they going to leave us the hell alone?" she asked, shading her eyes at the dappling sun and raising them to his.  As close as she was, he could see her brown roots and found he missed the natural color of her hair.

He hadn't given her the full story of his involvement with the ATF and his assignment with the Hellions, preferring to only give her the basics, which she hadn't questioned.  But with his injuries on the job and by another agent, much less his superior, there had been a lot of communications between him and the ATF.  Especially after his resignation had been received.

There had been no contact from the Hellions.  Not at the hospital and not after they'd been home, though he'd expected it.  Actually, he had anticipated being pulled out of bed and killed for his perfidy and subterfuge. 

But to date, nothing. 

Which, he decided, was more cause to worry.

"Kiss me, my bride," he instructed, putting all the memories behind him in order to gain the resolve to face the long walk back to the house.  The next few minutes were so enjoyable he was disappointed when Reese pulled her head away.

"Unless you're gonna prop me against the post and screw me for glory, we should probably be getting back, " she acknowledged, slipping her small but strong arm through his.

He laughed, though a portion of his mind caught on the mental picture of her with her jeans and panties around her ankles as she bent to accept him from behind.  And that image had his cock at full salute.  Not that they hadn't been playing.  At first, it was only with hands, bringing them both to hard won orgasms that, while taking the edge off, didn't satisfy their hearts in the least.  Mouths were next and, again, a release was found but the release didn't hit either of them at the same level, and they'd found they needed more than just one cresting to satisfy the ache inside.

Brand had found that his wife went strictly by doctor's orders and when they were told to confine their lovemaking to external pleasuring only, she'd obeyed that rule as if it had come from Mt. Sinai on a stone tablet. 

"They know what they're talking about, baby," she'd groaned pulling away from him again and again when his cock had instinctively sought out her core.

Brand was, it could be said, so horny for the feel of her wet heat around his turgid length that the crack of dawn wasn't safe.  All the other was simply foreplay when it came to the blaze of fucking his wife and he wasn't ashamed to admit it. 

It was to the point he was willing to slip the doc a couple of hundred just to have him lie and say he and Reese could finally get down to it in a way both his heart and body burned to do.

"Mama said she'd do the computer video thingie at ten," Reese's voice cut into his musings and brought him back to their return trip back to the house.

"How's Vana?"

Reese's mother had decided to return to Atin and Vana's place, saying that his brother's wife needed her more than he and Reese did. 

He knew it had to have hurt his wife to let her mother go, but when Vana had confessed to being pregnant, and because the doctor was calling it a 'high risk pregnancy' it became a no brainer.  Plus, the three of them had a certain emotional symmetry that was hard to deny.  Brand had never thought to ask Reese if that connection between her mother, his brother and Vana ever bothered her.  And in the golden light of the early fall morning, he was loathe to bring the subject up.

"Mama said the doctor was almost suggesting complete bed rest for her, but Vana still wants to be in her kitchen," Reese replied, shaking her head. 

"Back in the old country, Vana's family was known for their wonderful cooking.  They drew people from far and wide to attend their restaurant and take home one of their cured meats or goulashes to eat later."  Brand remembered, even as a young boy of her family's fame.  It was horrible to think she was the only one of her family to survive and by surviving at such a young age, she didn't have half the knowledge that was to have been her's before the rest of the family passed.  "Your mother enjoys cooking with Vana, yes?"

"Very much.  I think, though, Mama needs someone to look after.  Vana fits that requirement," Reese mumbled, turning her head away to gaze at the trees on her far side.

"Does that hurt you, my precious draga?" He turned the conundrum of Reese and her family over in his mind.  Her father had succumbed to the damage his body had taken, but he hadn't been able to deduce an ounce of sadness of his passing by either the man's wife or his only daughter.  No word had been received from any of her other brothers, and they'd heard from Melvin that even Clay had abandoned his post on the front porch.  Leaving the house uninhabited.

"Kind of," she breathed.  Then turning her head to bump against his forearm, she continued with a softly given, "not really.  I probably should, I mean, she's my mom and all.  But she and Vana?  There's something there even I couldn't give her."

He raised his eyes from the gravel and saw they were only about thirty yards from the porch.  Typically, his leg would be screaming in pain, but today it was only a dull ache and the realization made him smile. 

He'd just lowered himself into one of the chairs on the porch his wife called an Adirondack and had draped his legs over the stool while she'd gone inside to get the coffee when he heard it.

The deep growl of motorcycle pipes.  Not just one coming up the road, he thought. 

More like three? 

Four, maybe?

"You need to put on more coffee, my lovely wife," he advised as she handed him his cup.  Tilting her head and turning it to the driveway, he caught her soft smile before she turned and went back into the cabin.

He wasn't smiling though.  Brand wondered why the club decided to make a visit without notice.  The Glock 9 always in place at his back was a comfort, in this instance.

He watched as they drove their bikes to within three feet of the first step, aligning themselves side by side.  As each motorcycle shut off their engine, Brand allowed his eyes to take in each of them.  Trey to his far right, Dare, then Bishop and finally Huff. 

"Got news, brother," Dare called from his seat.  "Okay to come up?"

Brand was surprised not only to see them but to have them be so respectful as they asked to come up onto the porch.  "Reese is making coffee.  Have a seat."  If they were going be gracious, he would offer the same in return, albeit with a lot of alert caution.

Trey took the other chair next to Brand while Dare sat himself in the porch swing Reese had talked him into during their last foray to the Garden Store.  Bishop lowered himself to the top step, and Huff gave Brand his back as he took up a stalwart position just beneath the last tread, standing in the dirt with legs splayed and arms crossed.

"Oh, hey, fellas," Reese called, coming through the door with a tray of coffee mugs, a thermal carafe with sugar and creamer balanced carefully in her hands.  Setting the ladened tray on a stray end table, she offered greetings before going back into the house.  "You boys play nice now," she muttered with a smile and a wink in Brand's direction that had all the men grinning in return.

For a few moments, there were only the sounds of the men pouring coffee, the tinkle of the spoon as it swirled in whatever they needed in order to drink the dark brew.

After a hefty slurp of the hot doctored liquid, Trey started the conversation which saved Brand the trouble of asking why they were at his home.

"We haven't seen you around, Brand."  The other man's eyes were glancing from the trees to the driveway before they finally landed on him.  "Not on the road, in town and especially not on Hellion property."

Brand felt his heart speed up.  This was usually how it started.  Small words, casual words that let you know you had gone too far away from the club before the discipline would be enacted.  But he was no longer a part of them.  Was he?

"No call from Reese to the Honeys.  No texts from you.  What's up, amigo?"

Brand decided to come clean, to not allow his affiliation with the Feds to color his words.  "In light of everything, I figured the Hellions wouldn't…"

"You fuckin' thought wrong, brother," Dare shot back, interrupting Brand's speech.

"Do you remember your vow when you were jumped in, my brother?" Trey's voice was soft though firm as he picked up Dare's cryptic statement.

"Ah…I pledge to protect my brothers in the name of real life, real freedom and to do what is needed to ensure all innocents remain as they are.  We live free or die and allow others to do the same," Brand repeated.  Those words, when he'd given them, had scored across his heart, words he had believed from the time he was six years old.