Twisted Asphalt (Asphalt Outlaw Series Book 1) (22 page)
Read Twisted Asphalt (Asphalt Outlaw Series Book 1) Online
Authors: Blue Remy
CHAPTER 29
Amy’s world was black and white. No color existed since that
fateful night two weeks ago. All she did was go through the everyday motions.
Get up, feed horses, ride, eat, sleep, repeat.
Romeo moved back to the rebuilt ranch, Amy stayed at Mace’s,
or Sam Dean, ATF agent, as she found out at his funeral. Three funerals in
three days was almost more than she could handle. No one whispered a word about
the truth behind Maggie’s death to Thorne. Maggie’s funeral had been
beautifully done, with hundreds of people flocking to the site to give their
condolences.
Stone’s funeral was a bit more dramatic, every club member
from every chapter showed up, Romeo pulled the casket behind his bike to the
cemetery. Hundreds of people milled around the clubhouse at the wake, though
Amy remembered almost none of it. A closed casket funeral was requested,
wanting people to remember him for how he had been.
Only three people showed up to Mace’s funeral. Amy, Antonia
and Agent Jones. The casket was in the grave when they arrived, Agent Jones
waiting for them. He told her Agent Dean had left her everything in his will,
since he had no family.
She spilled everything to Romeo as she wept on his shoulder,
unable to cope with having lost everyone important to her. Romeo was sentenced
to prison along with several members of the club for illegal gun trading, but
Jones stood up for them, telling the DA this was an orchestrated maneuver with
the ATF to bring down local members of the Temer Gallo.
They all got lucky and had no clue why, only Romeo.
Strangely enough, Romeo had taken the news better than she had. He went on with
his life, tucking his emotions neatly inside himself and running the club like
Stone had.
A surprise came the day after Sam’s funeral. She hadn’t
wanted to get out of bed. Romeo asked Antonia to stay with Amy for a while,
until she could function properly. She had been kicked out of bed, forced to
get dressed and almost held down and force fed coffee and breakfast.
The doorbell was her reprieve from Antonia playing Mother
Theresa. Swinging open the door, expecting one of the brothers checking up on
her, she was hit with confusion at the cowboy standing there. Behind him was a
truck and a horse trailer attached to it.
Another blow, this one from the grave.
Sam had bought Amy a prize Quarter Horse. The horse was
aptly named Whiskey Outlaw, which had her in near tears. The delivery man
handed her an envelope and drove off, leaving her alone in the barn with the
horse. Opening the envelope, she pulled out a letter addressed to her.
Amy,
By now, you know the truth. I meant every word I said to
you. I love you and always will. Whiskey is a gift for you to remember me by,
to never forget I adore you and will always cherish the gift you had given me:
unconditional love.
I will always love you,
Sam Dean
Amy crumpled the letter, her heart breaking all over again.
She thought she was done with tears, but she was proven wrong once again. She
left the barn and didn’t return, allowing the ranch hands to attend to the
horses.
* * * *
Two weeks later, she was ready. She had to quit feeling
sorry for herself and live her life. She had to suck it up and get over it,
move on. Her first step was to visit the barn and actually look over Whiskey.
The hands had been saddling Phaedra for her, keeping out of the barn
completely.
Today was different.
She was trying to start fresh, to not see Mace everywhere
she turned. To hear his laugh and look around, only to realize it was all in
her head. That first step into the barn to look the horse in the face was so
hard.
She found an old shirt, and slipped it on as she made her
way out to the barn. She knew she looked odd, long sleeved shirt, shorts and
boots, hair up in a ponytail, but she wasn’t in a fashion contest, so who
cared?
Making her way into the barn, she walked over to Whiskey’s
stall. He stuck his head out from the open section, hearing her near. “Well,
aren’t you a beauty.” He was seventeen hands tall, and the color of aged
whiskey, a beautiful chestnut coloring she hadn’t seen on a Quarter Horse
before. Reaching up, she ran her hand gently down his nose, laughing when he
swung his head up, nudging her hand for treats.
“Oh, the boys have been spoiling you, haven’t they?”
Stepping away, Whiskey nickered softly as she scooped up some hot mix granola
for him to munch on. Carrying over the pail, she held it as he shoved his nose
into the metal bucket and started munching on the mix. Amy sighed tragically as
she rubbed the top of his head, watching his ears move, listening to all of the
sounds around them. “Observant, too. How well do you ride though?”
“Pretty damn good from what I heard.”
Amy grew completely still. Her eyes misted as her breath
quickened. She was hearing shit again. Was this ever going to end? Would she
hear him randomly for the rest of her life? Clamping her eyes shut, she
squeezed out the unshed tears and let out an exasperated breath.
“You’re losing it, Ames. You’ve got to pull yourself
together. This shit is going to get old quick.” She muttered to herself,
shaking her head clear of everything that could be considered clutter. “Maybe I
need to start meditating.”
“I hear sex is better to relieve stress.”
Her head jerked up as all breath left her. Lowering the
pail, she turned toward the back of the barn. A shadowed shape stood in the
open doorway, darkened by the sun at its back. Brows furrowed as every fiber in
her screamed it was Mace standing there. Impossible! He had died right before
her eyes.
“Scratch that. I need a fucking shrink or a priest.” She was
certifiable. Not only was she hearing crap, she was now projecting images of
Mace. Was he going to become her imaginary BFF?
“Let me get a marriage certificate before you call a priest.
At least make it worth his while.”
Amy dropped the pail. Images around her began to swim out of
focus. Closing her eyes, she breathed in deep and slowly exhaled, reopening her
eyes. The figured moved deeper into the barn, darkness melting away from the
body.
“Mace!” Amy screamed as she ran toward him, flying into his
arms. Through tears, she cupped his face and planted kisses all over any
exposed skin. He was alive! Her whole shattered gray world blossomed with color
as she showered him with affection.
He. Was. Alive.
It took a moment for her brain to catch up to her heart, but
when it did, anger heated her to her very core. Pulling back, she glared at
him. “You’re fucking alive?” She yelled at his smiling face. “What the hell!”
Pulling back her right arm, she swung forward, her weight moving with her, the
feeling of her knuckles cracking against his chin was euphoric.
He grabbed her wrist as his head snapped to the side, those
beautiful pale ice-like eyes narrowing. “I’m alive. But we’ve got to talk, Amy.
There are things you need to know.”
“How could you do that to me? You lied to me, then you let
me believe you were dead? You willed everything to me? What the fuck?” Amy
yanked her wrist away, the conflict of emotions ripping her apart. She didn’t
know whether to be pissed off or jump his damn bones. He looked the same,
except his hair was gone. The dark tawny locks were cut boyishly, messy and
rather fitting for an agent. And he was clean shaven. But he was still Mace.
Mace took her hand and gently pulled her out of the barn,
toward a blacked out SUV. “Someone from the club came to us, asking us to take
down the club members who were placing everyone in danger. They helped train me
in club life and they brought me to the club with the name Mason Younger. I was
supposed to bring down everyone, Amy.”
“Who came? Why would they turn on their family?” Amy stared
at Mace in total disbelief. “What am I supposed to even call you?”
“Agent Sam Dean died that day, Amy. That’s why everything is
willed to you. Mason Younger was brought back to life in the helicopter and
survived the surgery to get the bullet out. Romeo made sure I had the best
doctors taking care of me.”
Amy put on the brakes at the passenger door of the SUV,
staring at Mace in total disbelief. “Romeo was the rat? He knew the whole time?
He let my father get killed?” Her voice grew in volume as she tried to
comprehend what Mace was telling her. There was no way her brother would turn
on the very club that raised him.
Mace stepped around her and pulled open the back passenger
door. “Someone wants to see you.”
Brows furrowed as she stepped around Mace to look into the
dark vehicle. Stepping up and into it, the door closed as she let out a shriek.
“Daddy!”
Stone sat in the back of the SUV, his arm in a sling, but
very much alive. She must have died. This was heaven. It had to be. “Ames, we
don’t have a ton of time, but I asked him to bring me here to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye? You’re alive! What the hell is going on?” Amy
cried, already having enough of the games.
“I’m the one who went to the ATF, Amy. I knew Demon was
selling our plans to
Muerte
and it had to be stopped.” Stone held up his
hand to shush Amy before she could speak. “I did it to keep you and Romeo safe,
Amy. I lost Gail, I wasn’t going to lose you, too. Demon would have killed you
in the end, which he almost did. I was wearing a flack vest. He never got me,
until he shot my arm.” He lifted up the arm in a sling. “Mace and I told Romeo
what was going on the morning you walked in on us. He had to know what we were
dealing with. The ATF has put me into protective custody. This is the last
we’ll see of each other, but you’re going to be okay. You have Mace to look
after you.”
Amy shook her head as her dad filled her in on everything.
Romeo had let her believe he was dead, that they were dead. How was he holding
it all in? How did he not explode?
The door opened, Mace stuck his head in. “We need to get him
out of here, Amy. It’s not safe here.”
She nodded, blinking back the water works. This was getting
old, but at least he was alive. Sniffling, she leaned toward him, kissing his
scruffy cheek. “I love you, Daddy.”
Climbing out of the SUV, she turned to face Mace. “The club
knows you’re alive? Or just Romeo?”
Mace rubbed the top of his head, dimples showing as he
grinned at her. “They all know. Romeo told them the FBI stepped in and used me
to prosecute the Temer Gallo. They don’t know anything else. I’d prefer it stay
that way—that is, if you’ll let me come home?”
Amy looked away, lips rolling between her teeth, trying to
not cry,
yet again
. Hands set to her hips as she looked at him, slowly
shaking her head. “If you’re late for dinner, the posse will be out looking for
you.”
His whole face lit up while he swept her up off her feet,
her shrieks echoing through the barn, his mouth smothering the sound as he
kissed her.
Today was the first day of the rest of her life.
###
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Blue Remy
About the Author
Having survived a tragedy, California native Blue Remy, who
now resides in the hub of the South, brings an authenticity to her novels that
can only come from personal experiences and the heartbreak of being a man's
property and ol' lady with intimate knowledge of what women have to struggle
with in everyday club life.
Remy writes books that cross over genres and grip male and
female fans with their combination of gritty MC realism and romance. She
secretly indulges addictions of coffee, cupcakes, collection of boots, and
anything Wonder Woman. Blue is an active supporter of the WWP, and the
Motorcycle Safety Foundation.
Please visit Blue Remy online
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