Highway Don't Care (Freebirds) (26 page)

  Maybe everything would look better after a nap.

Chapter 13

I promise to treat you as good as my
leather, and ride you as much as my Harley.

-Sons of Anarchy
      
 

Gabe 

  I knocked on Cheyenne’s door looking for Ember.  I’d
ridden my bike for three hours before I decided I was being an ass and needed
to apologize. 

  I’d seen the way she looked at me when I told her earlier
I couldn’t do this anymore.  I knew she was worried, but something had to
give with those assholes.  I couldn’t keep putting my future wife and
children’s lives at stake.  Luke said all they needed was a little more
information on a crime ring that the gang was involved in, and nearly the whole
East Texas chapter of the gang would god down.  If that didn’t work out,
then I would turn to the more drastic measures of taking care of the problem
myself.  My family couldn’t live in fear for the rest of their lives.

  I’d stopped in the office and had a sit-down with Sam and
Max.  We agreed that something needed to be done, and we would have a
meeting with everyone (minus the women and kids) at the shop later that
night.  I’d left them shortly after to go find Ember and apologize for not
going to get her last night.  I knew she was upset, but after I unloaded
all the junk front the truck, I’d sat down and gone over what I could possibly
do to fix this situation.  I’d come up with those two options and nothing
else.  I hadn’t even realized it was so late until the sun peaked over the
horizon and stabbed through a crack in the blinds.

  Ember walked in a few moments later, and I seemed to spit
out my thoughts before ever thinking about how they would come across. 
She probably thought I blamed her, but I didn’t.  This wasn’t her fault in
the slightest. 

  She wasn’t in the house when I got to the back, so I went
in search of her at Cheyenne’s place.

  Cheyenne opened the door with a child attached to both
legs screaming.

  I looked down and reached for Pru who had big crocodile
tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong?”  I asked.

  “They had their shots today.  The shots make them
run fevers and feel bad for 48 hours.  So here we are.”  Cheyenne
said dryly.

  I gave Pru a kiss on the forehead when she laid her head
down on my chest wiping tears and God knows what else on my shirt.

  “Where’s Ember?”  I asked.

  “I haven’t seen her, like I said, we just got back. 
I was about to run up to the shop, could you carry Pru for me?  That’s
probably where she is.  Sam just said everyone was there.”

  Nodding in agreement, I walked with Pru while Cheyenne
picked up Piper.  Pru was fast asleep by the time we got to the
shop.  Pizza had been ordered sometime in the fifteen minutes I’d been
gone, and everyone started chowing down.

  Everyone that is, except Ember.

  Turning towards Max I asked, “Is Ember asleep at your
place or something?”

  “No, I thought she was with you.”  He replied.

  It was then that it sunk in.  She left.  She
heard what I said this morning, and left.  Passing Pru to Blaine who was
the closest, I ran out the door and slammed into the house.  Glancing
around the living room, I noticed what was missing.  Her blanket was gone;
her shoes that were normally strewn half-hazardly in the corner were gone.

  I went into the bedroom and it was the same.  All
her clothes were gone.  Her toiletries that covered the counter were no
longer there. 

  My hands went to my hair as I yanked on it.  Of
course, she would do this.  She didn’t want my child to be in danger, so
she left thinking she was doing the right thing.

  I walked into the living room and finally noticed the
note on the coffee table and on top was her ring.

 
Gabe,

  I’ll let you know where I end up.  Don’t worry about
me, worry about your sweet girl for now.  I’ll give Max updates when I
can.

  Ember.

  The tearstain on the bottom of the note is what broke my
heart.  Oh God, she had better be all right or I was going to do something
this world had never seen before.  I balled the hand not holding the note
into a fist so hard that my knuckles cracked.

  Max walked through the door taking one look at my ravaged
face and nodded his head that he knew she was gone.

   He handed me a paper and key and then said,
“She went to the cabin.  I have sensors set up.  The whole place is
wired.  The code is on this paper.  No one will get in without me
knowing.  She’s laying on the bed right now sleeping.  Here are
directions.  Pack a bag and stay a few days, I think y’all need it right
now.  I would have known earlier, but my phone was dead.”

  I ran to the room and packed a small overnight bag, and
then back into the living room.  Max was gone, which wasn’t
surprising.  Walking at a fast clip out the door, I straddled my bike,
glanced at the directions, and took off.  I rode hard and arrived in forty
minutes instead of the hour Max said it would be.  The gate at the bottom
was locked so I pulled the bike over in front of the gate and shut it off.

  Swinging my leg over and off, I hopped the fence and
walked up the long driveway.  It was a sweet spread.  Trees lined
both sides of the driveway and about a third of the way from the gate a creek
ran underneath through a large drain. 

  I walked about half a mile when I saw a pond.  No
fish jumped from what I could tell, but that didn’t mean they weren’t
there.  Around the bend of the pond, the cabin came into view.  I
couldn’t see Ember’s car, so that meant that she parked behind the cabin
itself.

 
Pulling the key out of
my pocket, I unlocked the door.  The main room looked neat and tidy. 
A wood burning stove dominated the entire left side of the room.  Large
cedar beams lined the vaulted ceilings.  The cabinets were cedar as
well.  Overall, this looked beautiful, and had a ton of potential.

  I walked quietly to the hallway where I assumed the
bedrooms were.  The bedrooms split one on each side, and I stood in the
middle of the hallway to look into both rooms.  Ember was asleep in the
one on the left.

  Her face was tear stained, and her breath caught in her
throat every other breath.  It was my undoing.  I dropped to my knees
and ran my hand over her hair, smoothing it down.  She slowly opened her
eyes, blinking away the sleep.

  I moved my face closer to hers, and then ran the tip of
my nose along her face.  I kissed her nose before leaning back on my heels
and regarding her slowly.  Her eyes filled with tears, and then spilled
over. 

  “Alright, crazy girl.  I know I said something that
set you off, and I can guess how it sounded and what you think I meant. 
Let me tell you what I really meant.  This gang has to go; I don’t want
you, or my kids getting hurt.  So either I’m going to help bust them, or
I’m going to take them out.  I don’t really care what it takes, but it’s
going to happen.  I need to be able to not fear for your safety when we go
buy shit for our kids.”

  Her mouth dropped open about halfway through my
explanation, and by the end of it, her tears dried up.

 Rolling herself onto her back, she threw her arm over her
eyes and muttered, “I’m a dumbass.” 

  “You’re not a dumbass.  I can see where you got that
I wanted you to leave, but how could you think I’d just want you to leave like
that?”

 She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to.  She
thought she would lose me eventually, and always in the back of her mind, she
was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “You’re not getting away from me.  You’re mine
now.  Forever.  In fact, I have a few calls to make.  Be back in
a few.”

  She still had her arm over her eyes, and using her left
hand she gave me thumbs up as I left the room.

  I dialed Max and let it ring.

  “I need a few favors.”  I said when he answered.

  I went on to explain what I wanted, and he said he would
have it done by Thursday.  Which meant we had two and a half days here by
ourselves before I had to get her home for our surprise.

  The next few hours we spent exploring the property.

   “This is where I got stuck.  When we first
moved here this was all flooded.  The swamp from the next land over
flooded and it extended to the back of our property.  I was riding through
here one day by myself on the 4-wheeler when I got high centered on a
rut.  I had no clue why I’d gotten stuck, and I needed help.  I had
to walk back to the cabin from here, and about half of it was in calf high
swamp.”

  “What’d your dad have to say?”  I asked while glancing
over the area, trying to pretend that I wasn’t terrified for the little twelve
year old that was in the middle of a fucking swamp.

  “He was pissed at first.  He told us never to go
back there without one of them.  That I was lucky an alligator didn’t eat
me.  When he saw the 4-wheeler, he knew immediately that I was high
centered.  We spent nearly two hours getting it unstuck, and by the time
we got back we were both covered from head to toe in mud.  It’s one of my
greatest memories.” 

  We continued to walk, and finally circled back around to
the cabin where we went into the AC to cool down.

  “This is the room that reminds me of him the most. 
I remember him cooking us bacon and eggs.  He would cook the eggs in the
bacon grease, and it would taste amazing.  No one else cooks eggs like
that, and I have yet to find a restaurant that does it either.  He also
used to make some breakfast sandwiches that were similar to Egg
McMuffins.  The only difference was that he made them with over easy eggs,
so as soon as you took a bite, you’d have the yolk everywhere.”  She
smiled.

  I watched the expressions flit over her face and asked,
“You don’t talk about them much.  Where was your mom?”

  “She didn’t come over until later in the afternoons, and
then would drive home later that night.  She wasn’t into ruffing it, but
when she was here, she had a camera in her hand and a smile on her face.”

  “I’d love to see the pictures sometime.  So Max has
fixed the place up since you were last here?”

  She glanced around before saying, “Yeah.  He’s done
a lot.  I haven’t been here since my parents died.  It was always too
difficult to think about coming here when I knew they wouldn’t be.  Hence,
why I’ve stayed away.  Max obviously didn’t have the same problem. 
He put in indoor plumbing, and electric.  The rest of the house still
looks the same though.”

  I loved the way she lit up when she spoke about her
family.  It seemed to me that she kept this part of herself hidden; if she
spoke of it, she would feel the pain of losing them even more.  So
instead, she ignored it all together.  Except here, she couldn’t, because
everything she saw reminded her of them.

 Her expression turned sad so I distracted her with food,
as any good man would do.

“I’m getting pretty hungry, Em.  What do you say we go get
something to eat?

  “That sounds pretty good, actually.  I haven’t eaten
since last night’s pizza.”

  I glanced at my watch, noting it was two in the
afternoon.  It’d been over eighteen hours since she’d eaten, and I felt a
sharp ache in my chest when I realized it was my fault.

  “Em, you know you can’t do that anymore.  You have
to make sure you eat for the baby.”  I admonished.

  Her expression went from sad to desolate, and I curled
her into my chest when I noted it.

  “What is it?”

  “What if he doesn’t make it?”  She cried.

  “Our boy is a fighter.  If he’s anything like me,
he’ll come out swinging.  Try not to worry so much.  There’s nothing
we can do about it right now, and we need to make sure we keep our attitudes
positive.”  I said as I kissed her forehead.

   Getting her emotions back under control she said,
“The closest place is Mineola.  It’s about a thirty minute drive.”

  “Then that’s where we’ll go.  By the way, do you
want this back?”  I asked holding out her ring.

  I was rewarded with her sweet smile.  She held out
her hand and I slipped it back onto her finger.  Lifting her hand, I gave
it a kiss before I wrapped my arm around her neck and led her to the
bike.  Our hips bumped as we walked, and she giggled the entire time.