Price of Angels (19 page)

              Passion.

              The archangel was awake.

              As he turned toward the shower, he had a fast, indistinct glimpse of the wings inked into his back.

Holly felt a lightness in her chest. She’d had maybe an hour of sleep, but physical exhaustion was no match for the swelling hope that filled all her dark corners.

              Her immediate future was no longer a mere play at survival, awaiting the moment her family caught up to her. For the first time ever, she could think about her future as
hers
.

              Michael had done that for her. Simply by promising, he’d changed the course of her whole life.

              She had no idea how to thank him for that.

              “Holly, table six is yours,” Vanessa said as Holly passed her coming out of the kitchen. There was a deliberate coldness to her voice. She refused to make eye contact. She, along with the other girls, continued to blame Holly for Carly’s death.

              Holly felt a fast stab of grief, regret, guilt. “Okay.” Her voice dimmed in her throat.

              But then she was out on the floor of the bar, amid the din of chattering lunch patrons, and she reminded herself that it was only a few short hours until dinnertime, and Michael’s appearance.

              The guilt wasn’t going anywhere, but it could live in one of her mental storerooms, alongside her countless other regrets.

              There was a familiar, slender dark-haired silhouette at table six by the window, Ava Lécuyer managing, as usual, to make jogging pants and a shapeless sweater look elegant.

              Her mother sat beside her. The beautiful biker queen with the golden mane: Maggie Teague.

              And across from them, a woman in office clothes with a sleek red bob that Holly had seen a time or two, one of the other old ladies.

              Holly took a fortifying breath and approached their table with a bright hello.

              Ava glanced over, gave her a bare smile of recognition.

              Maggie said, “Hi,” as she flipped through her menu, one eye on the redhead, pretty features tight with concern. “We’re going to have Chardonnay” – she gestured between herself and the redhead – “and–”

              “Ginger ale?” Holly guessed, looking at Ava.

              Another small smile, this one surprised. “Yeah, that’d be good.” She turned to her mother. “Merc and I are in here a lot,” she explained.

              “Oh, bless you,” Maggie said to Holly. “He must drink y’all out of Johnnie Walker.”

              Not expecting a friendly overture, Holly smiled. “We keep an extra case on hand.”

              “Smart.”

              A thought struck her. A fast flare of nostalgia, the kind she felt for something she’d never had, and probably never would. What would it be like, she wondered, to be one of these Lean Dogs old ladies? There were women in Knoxville who looked down their noses at the biker wives, but even among those snobs, there was a certain amount of awe and respect. Maybe even fear. These three women at this table, they could strike fear in people, thanks to their connections. What must that feel like, Holly wondered, desperately, to be a woman capable of making others afraid?

              She guessed she’d never know. Michael wasn’t offering to tattoo his name on her, after all, just utilize his professional skillset.

              Regroup.

              “I’ll be right back with your drinks…”

              Her breath caught in her throat. On the sidewalk outside, beyond the deeply-tinted window, stood her husband.

“An engine is like a woman.”

              “I’m dying to see where this goes,” Mercy said.

              On the other side of the picnic table, Aidan gestured for him to be quiet, his attention still on his young pupil. Carter Michaels had never done one thing mechanical in his life, but Aidan was convinced he could make a mechanic out of their newest, youngest prospect.

              “An engine is like a woman,” he repeated, “because you have to know what you’re doing. You make the right diagnosis, the right adjustments, and it’ll start right up.”

              “Wait, I’m confused,” Mercy said. “You diagnose all those poor women you sleep with?” He bit down hard on his grin when Aidan shot him a dark look.

              Beside Mercy, Tango reached for another onion ring from the communal pile in the middle of the table and said, “Nah. The diagnosing comes after. When the burning sensation starts.”

              Mercy couldn’t contain his sharp, punching laughter.

              Tango chuckled.

              Carter turned a thin smile into a throat-clearing.

              Aidan said, “Alright, how’s an engine like a woman?”

              “Hey, man, this is your analogy. I’m just making fun of it.”

              Aidan made a face.

              “God, you’re a cry baby these days,” Mercy said with a dramatic sigh, earning a scowl. Aidan had been seriously on edge for the last few weeks, and he for one was tired of it.

              Gracefully, Carter stepped in. “No, I think I know what he means,” he said, defending his sponsor. “Engines are touchy. You’ve gotta put some work into them, to get them running right.” Then he frowned, disappointed in his own explanation.

              Mercy reached for his soda. “An engine is like a woman in that you have to love it,” he said, relenting. “You learn. You make understanding its strengths your top priority, and you help doctor it through its weaknesses. You become an expert, on that engine, and then you stand back and marvel at its power.”

              Tango whistled. “Cajun biker poet,” he said, appreciatively.

              “I don’t guess anybody has to wonder which woman you were comparing it to,” Aidan grumbled.

              “Nope.” Mercy grinned at him. “You can suit yourself, brother, but I like a quality engine.”

              Again, Carter tried to hide a smile.

              Growing serious, Mercy said, “You’ve just got to study up, kid,” to Carter. “Being a mechanic’s a trade like anything else. Some people take to it more naturally than others, and some have to work a little hard. Same as any job.”

              Carter nodded and sighed, his shoulders sagging. “Yeah, I know.” In the afternoon sunlight, his hair was brilliant gold, his young face dotted with faint freckles.

              It was lunch time, and despite the forty-two degree temp and the tugging wind, the day had turned out sunny, and all of them were too restless to be cooped up any longer. Their hands were tight and chapped from the cold, joints stiff from working on unhappy bikes just as resentful of winter as they were. When the pavement gained the faintest trace of warmth from the sun, they sent Carter out for Burger King, and were now eating it on the picnic table out in front of the bike shop.

              “Ghost’s got other stuff you could do,” Mercy went on between bites of burger, “but you’ll need to be able to work on your own bike. You gotta learn this stuff anyway.”

              Carter’s shoulders slumped further at the mention of “bike.” He was having trouble with the idea of trading his red Mustang for a Harley.

              “Yeah,” he mumbled, staring at his food.

              “You could get something decent, with the money you get from the trade-in,” Tango encouraged. “Better than what I had.” He snorted. “You guys remember that old Indian I had?”

              “I remember the sound of it backfiring every fifteen seconds,” Mercy said.

              “We shoulda had it bronzed,” Aidan said. “Proof it even existed.”

              There was the sound of a throat clearing behind Mercy, and it startled all four of them.

              Aidan’s eyes tightened, narrowing a fraction, signaling a threat.

              When Mercy turned, he was prepared to see something he didn’t like, and there was Michael, hands on his hips, watching them from behind his sunglasses with his expressionless semblance of a face locked in its usual positions.

              “Can I talk to you?” he asked.

              Mercy was beyond done with this asshole’s failure to be a human being. He feigned searching the table. “You’re talking to
me
?” Hand on his chest, overly dramatic.

              Michael’s face compressed the smallest bit in a frown. “Yeah.”

              Mercy turned his back to him. “I’m eating lunch.”

              “I want to talk to you,” Michael persisted in his toneless voice. “For a second.” A beat, then, the faintest trace of some emotion: “Please.”

              Clearly, the man was suffering a major catastrophe if he was almost having emotions and saying
please
. It would serve him right, Mercy thought for one dark moment, to make him wait some more. But the Lean Dog part of him, that didn’t want to cause even more club drama than he already had, sighed and turned around. “What about?”

              Michael motioned with his head toward the parking lot and walked that way. So this was a private talk, then.

              With a grimace as his knee pulled, Mercy stood. “Don’t eat my fries.” And followed his least favorite brother.

              Michael came to a halt in front of a customer’s waiting bike and turned suddenly, bringing Mercy up short. His hands went back on his hips. He held his head at an angle that projected deference. There was some sort of eagerness in him, a stress Mercy had never noticed before.

              Without lifting his shaded eyes to make contact, Michael said, “How did the meeting with Abraham Jessup go this morning?”

              Mercy shrugged. “It went. Why?”

              “Did Ghost make a deal with him?” His voice was taking on a tight, clipped sound; not his normal, businesslike quality, but one less stable.

              Christ. Michael McCall was
feeling
things.

              “Yeah,” Mercy said. “He’s gonna give him that northeast territory that Junior abandoned. He’s got decent coke to sell.”

              “Shit,” Michael said to himself. Then his head tipped back, gaze fixed to Mercy’s face, the shapes of his eyes just visible through the lenses of the glasses. “What do you make of him?”

              Mercy was shocked. “You want to know if I like him or not?”

              “That’s what I asked, isn’t it?” Impatience. Anxiety. Veiled, but there, under the granite surface.

              Mercy studied him a moment, the way his knuckles looked white where his fingers were digging into his hipbones. A vein stood out in his throat, a muscle in his jaw throwing a thin, straight shadow where it was raised. The man was riled. Given his normal state, he could have been on a rampage, for all Mercy knew.

              “Ghost is letting the guy deal,” he said, carefully, not knowing what Michael’s stake in all this was. “And all our dealers are shitheads; comes with the territory. But–”

              Michael inhaled.

              “ – this one makes my skin crawl. I don’t know anything about him, but no, I don’t like him. Guy gives me a bad feeling.”

              Michael nodded. He swallowed and his throat worked. He glanced away, out across the vast Dartmoor lot that spread off to his right toward the nursery. “You met the son-in-law?”

              “Weird as hell.”

              Michael nodded again. “Thanks.” He turned to walk away.

              “Hey,” Mercy said, staying him a moment. “Why do you care?” he asked, curious, but not unkind.

              Michael hesitated. “They’re very bad people.”

              “Well…so are we, most of the time.”

              He shook his head, brows drawing together in an obvious scowl. “Not like this.” He glanced at Mercy, briefly, before he left. “Not even you.”

Ghost was in the trucking offices, because that was where the most incompetent managers always seemed to be. The newest secretary, a mousy, nervous thing, stood off to the side, hands clasped together in front of her, while Ghost pawed through the paperwork nightmare on the desk.

              Michael hesitated in the doorway. It had always been a priority of his to keep anything personal or dramatic away from the club. He never wanted to cause his president any worry.

              But he was too full of pulsing energy to let that stop him now. It might have been the hangover, but it felt like an awakening of sorts. Like someone had doused him with cold water. He had something to do. Something personal, even dramatic. And he felt, after all he’d done, that the least his president could do was grant him the time he’d promised.

              “Ghost?” he asked, stepping into the office.

              He startled the secretary, and she shied hard, bumping into the wall.