Charlie's Heart: MC Romance (Burning Bastards MC Book 3) (8 page)

Will do, I love you too. Do what you can for him, I did all I could legally. Watch out for Sheriff Houser & Attorney Buel trouble brewing. Call me Daddy I miss you. Xoxoxoxoxo.

The x’s and o’s were an old fashioned way of sending kisses and hugs, but he would understand.

She went home and couldn’t sit still for five minutes. She wanted to visit Pressley in the hospital, but knew her every move would be questioned and scrutinized. Knowing the young man was lying in the hospital without anyone who cared close to his bedside bothered her to no end, and she picked up the phone to call the club. Hopefully Big Dog would be there.

After vetting Tiny, the bartender and clubhouse caretaker, informed her that Big Dog was at school for parent/teacher conferences. Steven was in the second grade this year and Selma remembered the child well. He was actually the son of Big Dog’s sister. When she died, the big man adopted the little boy as his own, and from all accounts the kid was flourishing under the care he received from his father and stepmother, Future.

Charlie had told her when they were eating dinner one night that Future was now pregnant and Big Dog was a nervous wreck. She smiled remembering the way he’d laughed about the tough guy being whipped and loving it.

He said something that stuck in her head and never left. “I was never fortunate enough to have kids of my own, I always wanted one or two little rugrats hanging around, but I never found a woman I’d want to be the mother of any kid of mine. Too bad we didn’t meet twenty years ago.” He’d leaned over and kissed her with longing and she’d wished they had met earlier too. He would be a wonderful father.

From all physical indications, she was going into menopause, but mother nature was dragging her feet on that. She never had children either, but that didn’t mean she never wanted them. There had been a time when she actually had made an appointment with a fertility clinic to look into invitro with a donor’s sperm. She’d chickened out at the last minute and canceled that appointment.

Maybe Future would allow her and Charlie to be honorary grandparents to the new baby. Not having a child was the one thing she regretted in her life, but a baby to love would help keep those regrets at bay. Even a borrowed one might help fill the void.

She shook her head at the brief fantasy that flashed through her mind. At forty–eight years old, she was too old to get pregnant and Charlie might have a few things to say about spending their retirement years raising a child. She wrote a note for herself to remember to ask Future if they knew the sex of the baby yet. Grandmothers were allowed to buy baby things, and she loved shopping for gifts. The thought made her smile and she opened her computer to see what there was in the line of baby needs nowadays.

By the time she looked at the clock it was already eight o’clock. So she stretched her arms above her head and moved the muscles around in a more comfortable position before reaching for her Rolodex and the landline that she kept for making private calls. She punched the numbers into the dial pad and waited for the line to be connected.

One of the perks of being a long term attorney and then a judge was having made contacts over the years, and she was taking advantage of her ability to call in favors now. The phone was answered on the fourth ring.

“This is Dean Plyer, what can I do for you, Selma?” The idea that he had her number startled her for a moment, but she remembered that they had gotten along well before, and the State’s Attorney General would have Caller ID.

“Well hello to you too. I am calling about a case that came across my bench today, if you have time I’d like to discuss it with you?” She proceeded to tell him everything she knew and was gratified to hear his disgust at the shoddy way the sheriff and Buel had conducted themselves. “Also, you should know that I have recused myself from the case, the man I am with is good friends with the suspect, and it would be a conflict of interest if I tried to force the issue of the young man’s treatment at the sheriff’s hands. I know there is more to this than they are telling me, but again, if I get involved, the case will be a circus.”

By the time she’d hung up the phone and hooked up her fax line, there was an order releasing Pressley from custody. Now all she had to do was talk to Big Dog and hopefully Charlie would call so she could give him the news.

He’d been so enraged when he saw Pressley lying in that hospital bed with his face a mangled mess, and the tubes sticking out of the kid’s nose and mouth, that it was a good thing Show had been with him at the time to pull him back away from the room and the cop with a gun.

The Bastards knew what this was about, but no one thought for a minute that the sheriff would try to pull something so underhanded, or Pressley wouldn’t have been sent to the fucker’s place by himself. Now the kid was as close to dying as he could be without actually kicking heels up and dropping into a hole. Charlie was too pissed and concerned about the boy to wait to talk to Big Dog, and he and Show were on their way to Washington State. The proof exonerating Pressley was there, and if they didn’t co-operate willingly, they damn sure would unwillingly. They should have dealt with that fucker, Houser, a couple of years ago when he came to them to find his runaway wife and daughter.

Houser had pulled Big Dog over to make his deal. The chicken shit fucker didn’t have the balls to approach the Burning Bastards directly, no he had to make a production to cover his possibly being seen talking to one of the bikers.

He acted the part of the broken-hearted husband whose wife had taken his only child and ran away for some unknown reason. He agreed to the price, then had left the brotherhood alone for over the space of time it took the club to locate the runaways.

Once Demon and Knight had found the woman and teenager, and found out the reason for their leaving, the deal was off. They had spent weeks looking for the women and by the time the truth was brought out, Big Dog was not feeling charitable toward the sheriff, or the prosecuting attorney for that matter.

Marlene Houser and her daughter, Stephanie, were located in a travel trailer park outside of Corpus Christi in the gulf coast of Texas. The woman was working at cleaning and taking care of the elderly, and the daughter was waiting the counter at the local fast food restaurant. They had dyed their blond hair to dark brunette, and had some of the worst fake identification cards that either of the hunters had ever seen. It was obvious to the men that the two had been on the run for quite some time. The trailer they lived in was as simple as it got, and the few items of comfort that they could see were nothing compared to most females.

Demon insisted on making the interview a video call with Big Dog and Charlie was in the office at the time too, so he knew exactly what the deal was.

Marlene was embarrassed as she related the reasons for her leaving, “My husband, Sheriff Houser, is not an easy man to live with, he has appetites that no one sees but his family, and I put up with his abuse for years.” She looked at Knight’s kind eyes and continued her story after taking a drink of water, and reaching for her daughter’s hand.

“Vince started bringing Howard Buel to our house, and into our bed.” She saw Demon looking from her to her daughter and laughed bitterly. “I was a prisoner in my own home for the last six months we were there. My daughter didn’t go to school. He told the school that we were teaching her at home. She patched me up when they were finished with me, often they left me bleeding and still tied up.

“The week before we left, the bastards had videoed themselves both having me at the same time, they left their faces out of the video, but told me if I left, they would plaster it over the internet with my face filled with a man’s, well, you know.” She had her daughter’s hand cradled in both of her own when she looked back. “The morning after I saw Buel watching Stephanie taking a shower. I knew we had to leave before he hurt her, it was just a matter of time and what he could offer Vince in return.

“I stole the neighbor’s license plate and switched it out for mine, and waited until they left. I grabbed Stephanie and the video, and hit Vince’s cash drawer. He has a drawer in the bedroom that has all kinds of valuables in it, well he did have one, he’s probably moved it since we left. I took five thousand dollars and we headed east first, just in case he found someone that saw us leave town, and I drove a circle around to go west. The car is in Indiana at a rest stop, and we got a ride with a trucker to Texas. He could see that we were on the run. I guess the black eye and the fact than I was having a hard time moving told him everything he needed to know. He’s the man that gave us the trailer, and I bought the truck for two thousand from a guy who was selling it on the way outside of Houston.”

She let her tone change from embarrassed hesitancy to something close to fierceness. “We won’t go back to him, I will kill him if I am forced to go back, I will kill both of them. No one touches my child. No one.”

Big Dog had paid a visit to the sheriff and the man had of course denied the allegations at the time. The biker didn’t turn a hair when he set the new rules for the sheriff, he would stop searching for his wife and daughter, and he would pay them a thousand a month to help with expenses, or the story would go to the press and both of the men could kiss their careers and asses good-bye. One of the Bastards would pick up the money each month and the club would make certain the women received the payments.

It had been almost a year since Vince Houser had paid his monthly stipend, and Pressley had been sent to deliver a message from Big Dog. Charlie wanted to be the one to deal with Houser, but Big Dog had shaken his head and reminded him that he was no longer an active member of the club, and gave him the choice of getting a signed affidavit from Mrs. Houser as to the nature of their disappearance and the timeline of their leaving. Or he could go home and wait for the brothers to deal with the problem. Show was assigned to keep him on course and out of trouble. It was a good thing they got along or trouble would have happened as soon as Charlie had heard what happened to Pressley.

The Indian ate up the miles to Washington State and he kept thinking about his lady and the rest of his life. He came to the same crossroads in his way of thinking, he was going to have to stop straddling the lives he was tippy-toeing between for the past month and a half. Either the club, or Selma, and the life they were building together. Choices fuckin’ sucked.

Big Dog was asked to go to Selma’s office, saying she had paperwork regarding Pressley, so when he arrived the next morning, he found her office and knocked on the door.

She gestured him into the room, asking him to have a seat. “Look, you are probably the tallest man I have ever seen in person, not including my college days. It hurts my neck to bend so far back to look at your face, and if I don’t look at your face I am just about even with your waist.” She smiled and watched as he sat hastily in the padded chair, but couldn’t resist adding, “And we don’t want me to have to stare at your zipper, now do we?”

Big Dog was still cautious around Selma Pearson. When they’d first met, she had been his nephew, Steven’s, guardian ad litem. It was a fancy title for a child’s attorney. She had fought against him being granted permission to keep custody and adopt Steven, all due to the fact he was the leader of the local MC club. The kid meant the world to him, since his mother who was Big Dog’s sister, and her latest fuck buddy had died, Steven was his only living relative. Ms. Pearson had no idea how close she’d came to changing her mind.