Integrity Has No Bounds (18 page)

*****

John was in the hospital for four days and
Stevie stayed with him, talking to him, because he was in a
drug-induced sleep to keep his pain levels down enough for them to
drain the liquid from his eyelid and fluid that had gathered under
his scalp from where the bone of his skull had cracked. Whatever
they’d been giving him didn’t remove all of the pain he was feeling
because he moaned in his sleep. There were times his hands raised
to clutch his skull, and Stevie had to pull his hands down to keep
him from hurting himself even more.

The nurse aid that came in each day to give
him a bed bath was much too pretty for her peace of mind, and
Stevie didn’t know that the offender noted with amusement the scowl
she gave the woman.

Her mother had brought her a change of
clothes each morning and stood guard while Stevie showered in the
patient bathroom.

June Bug admired the man lying in the
hospital bed. He was handsome without being a pretty boy, and he
was certainly built well. The tats were beautifully done, her only
concern were the marks for the dead. There were five very small
skulls on his right shoulder and two on the left. She would ask
Rolf, but she hoped this John Handy was not a killer. “You better
listen up, tough guy, if you hurt Stevie, this little stay in the
hospital will seem like a vacation compared to the place I’ll put
you.”

On the third morning, they stopped giving him
the pain meds and he began waking up slowly, as the medication wore
off. He had to shield his eyes from the afternoon sunlight pouring
into the room, because the light made the throbbing inside of his
head become worse.

Stevie saw his reaction and rushed to pull
the curtains around his bed to block the light.

She took his hand in hers and squeezed his
fingers with her own. “Hey, big guy, I’m glad to see you’re awake.”
She reached over for the Styrofoam cup of water and held the straw
to his lips. “I think you’re probably thirsty, and I’ll ring for
the nurse to let them know you are awake.”

He was released on day four, feeling as weak
as the day he’d been evac’t from the Middle East with an almost
identical skull fracture on the opposite side of his head, and
three busted up ribs. The nurses back then weren’t nearly as pretty
as the ones here, and there had been no Stevie to hover over him at
the time either.

Rolf was waiting at the house when June bug
and Stevie took him home with them and he was grateful for the
man’s strength, even if he was the reason John was in this
situation to begin with.

After being almost carried into the house by
the big man, all John wanted to do was lay his head down and quiet
the throbbing to a more acceptable level, but Stevie insisted on
him being put into comfortable sweat pants and Rolf assisted her
with that too.

After tucking the sheets around him and
leaning over him to give his lips a quick peck, Stevie felt tears
begin to flood her eyes, and she almost ran from the room. She
walked past her parents where they sat at the kitchen table and
kept going until she was in the carport where John’s chopper sat.
Sitting on the seat, she cried until she felt a man gathering her
into his strong arms.

Rolf couldn’t stand hearing his girl crying
like this, he knew that she needed to let off the stress, but this
was tearing him a new asshole for being such an enraged beast. Fuck
this, there was only one thing he knew that would blow the sadness
away, even for the short time they would be gone.

“Come on, Stevie, let’s mount up, time for a
blow-it-off ride.” He reached over for June Bug’s helmet and
plopped it over his daughter’s head and picked her up, only to set
her on the bagger. He awkwardly hiked his long leg over the seat
and started the bike. “I think we both need this, nothing like wind
therapy to get your head straight.”

June Bug heard the powerful growl of the
scoot start up and leave, she saw that Rolf had taken Stevie for a
ride and had to smile. It was almost like old times when the two of
them would disappear for hours at a time when one or the other was
in a snit over just about any reason, half of which she knew was
manufactured just for the excuse to ride.

She took chicken from the freezer for dinner,
checked her phone for messages, and went in to check on their
houseguest.

John was sitting on the side of the bed
gripping the mattress, and she didn’t want to startle him but she
knew he would fall down if he tried to stand too quickly.

“I’ll be happy to help you to the bathroom if
that’s where you plan to go, but I can’t pick your big ass up from
the floor. So if you plan on being stubborn about it, you’ll be on
the floor for an hour or two. Rolf and Stevie are taking a ride,
and you’re the lucky man that has me as his only option.”

John couldn’t believe his bad luck, ever
since he’d laid eyes on this family, his luck had been for shit.
First his own stupidity for turning his back on Rolf in full battle
mode, and now being forced to lean on a woman to use the damn
toilet. Not just any woman, oh hell no, this one had to be Stevie’s
mother. He looked up at her standing next to where he sat and
nodded, resigned to receiving help from the pretty woman.

June Bug laughed before bending down to give
him her braced arm to help him balance. “You men aren’t much
different, you have no idea of how many times Rolf has been in your
position. He’s been shot too damn many times, one time he was
smashed between a big rig and a minivan.” She stayed with him until
he could grab the sink to leverage himself up and down on the
stool, and left him to his privacy for the next ten minutes while
she straightened the bed sheets.

She heard the water running in the sink and
waited close enough to the door for him not to feel crowded, but
close enough to steady him.

She just held out her arm for him to place
his hand on for balance as they made their way back to the bed.

“So, tell me about John Handy, I got your
stats from your ID, and Rolf called Baron from your cellphone. He
said you are one of the good guys, and let me tell you that went a
long way toward setting out minds at ease about you and
Stevie.”

John didn’t want to talk to the woman about
himself, but if he hoped to leave with Stevie, he really had no
choice. Telling her to mind her own damn business wasn’t going to
cut it with this family. His head was beginning to pound but it
wasn’t because of his injury.

“I want to thank you for the hospitality.” He
pushed himself up in a sitting position while she pulled the
pillows up behind him for his back to rest against. He tried a
smile and she smiled back. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
Yeah
right
.

“Anything in particular you want to know?
Let’s see, I am thirty, a Taurus, my family is not close, and I own
a garage in Juanita, Missouri. I’ve been a member of the Breed for
almost three years now, before that I was a State Trooper out East,
and before that I was a Ranger in the U.S. Army.” He kept eye
contact with June Bug while he spoke, and could read the
appreciation for his candor in her expression.

“I met Stevie a while ago, and was impressed
with Viking’s little sister, but didn’t make a move on her for
obvious reasons. She’s close to seven years younger than me and she
was off limits to the brothers from the club. When Viking did his
disappearing act, she was allowed to take over the bar, and she did
a better job than he did.”

He shifted his ass to change positions and
hoped she would ask a question or something. She was giving him
that “go on” look and it made him uncomfortable. For once he was
happy his mom was such a distant, cold woman. If anything was in
the way or had no purpose in her life , she tossed it. Knickknacks
made by her kids for Christmas or Easter was included in that list
of unnecessary things she tossed out after a day or two.

“We’ve been attracted to one another almost
since we met, she gave me those small smiles and I couldn’t resist,
I talked to your son, and was told to leave her the hell alone, he
wanted her to have a better life than a biker’s ol’ lady would be.
He was right, I didn’t know what might develop between us and
couldn’t make any promises of undying love and devotion, hell,
exchanging flirty looks and smiles don’t mean shit.

“A couple of weeks ago, I did a favor for the
brother that normally picks up the payment and she told me about
being targeted for extortion by those scum sucking fuckers, the
Swamp Kings.”

He heard a slight noise at the doorway to the
room and saw Stevie and Rolf standing there and knew they must have
been there for a while. Fuck. Stevie looked pissed and her father
just looked thoughtful. There was a touch on his hand and a slight
nod from June Bug with a small smile. Fuck it, they wanted full
disclosure, they would get it.

“She showed me the bruises that a filthy
son-of-a-bitch put on her when he broke into her home and killed
her cat and raped her.” He looked directly at Stevie, and she was
staring at him when he said with more feeling than he knew. “That
was the minute I didn’t give a shit what her brother wanted, if he
hadn’t left her alone and vulnerable like that, she wouldn’t have
been hurt to begin with.

“She’s mine now, and she will never want for
anything I can provide for her. He doesn’t want her around the
club, fine, she can stay away from the clubhouse. The choice will
be hers, not his, he lost his privilege of dictating her future
actions when he chose to pretend to be dead and not telling her
about it.”

John shifted his gaze to Rolf, “She won’t
need to worry about that fucker coming back to hurt her again
regardless of what she decides to do about us. He’s no longer a
threat to anyone.”

He got a nod of acknowledgement from the
older man and he watched as the giant left the room, leaving Stevie
standing in the doorway.

June Bug patted his hand and leaned closer to
him to place a kiss on his uninjured cheek. “Get some rest for
now.”

Stevie hugged her mother when she got close
to the door, and June Bug didn’t even try to draw her daughter’s
attention from the man on the bed.

John watched Stevie walk slowly toward him,
and she stood over his bedside with her hands balled into fists at
her waist. He could see that she was so pissed she was actively
trembling in her rage, and he wondered what her damage was.

“My brother told you to leave me alone and
you let him keep us apart? Being one of the brothers was more
important to you than seeing if we could have made a good pair? I
sat in that damned bar night after night hoping you would come in
and ask me out, ask me for a cup of coffee, ask me the time of
fucking day
. I spent days wondering what was wrong with me
that you wouldn’t step up and ask me to go out with you. And all of
this time, all of this
fucking time
, you’ve been using some
stupid biker bullshit code to keep us apart.”

She stomped her foot and when that didn’t
make her feel better, she doubled up her fist and slammed it into
his stomach. She stared down at him while he was rubbing the spot
where she’d hit him, and actually growled at him, turned around and
slammed out of the room.

The look on her face made him smile, maybe
now that she knew just about everything she would forgive him for
keeping his word to her brother.

He sank down in the bed and fell asleep with
a small glimmer of hope on his mind.

After two days of being confined to the room
and his bed, John was thoroughly sick of the nurse/patient
treatment from Stevie. She seemed to take particular pleasure in
wearing shirts that showed her tits off, especially in the mornings
when his cock was full-on-ready to fuck her sassy little ass.

She would bend down to straighten his
blankets and brush her breasts on his arm or like this morning,
she’d just bent from his waist to reach the foot end of the bed,
and her tit had brushed down the length of his semi erect cock,
bringing it to full attention. She acted like nothing happened but
when she straightened up, he saw the tiny smile on her lips and the
devious look in her eyes.

He snagged her wrist when she turned to go
and pulled her down onto the bed, with her upper torso landing
across his chest. He ignored her gasp of surprise, mainly because
of the look of triumph in her expressive eyes before she narrowed
them at him.

“Let me go.” She tried to lever herself up on
her arm, but John had her and wasn’t letting her go. It was about
time to her way of thinking, but she needed some payback for the
way he’d wasted so much time when they could have been together
already for almost three damned years. “Let me up, John, my parents
will be back soon, they only went to the store, and if they find us
in bed together you won’t stand a chance of going back to the way
things were before all of this happened.’

He shook his head no. “Stevie, you don’t
understand it, I realize that now, but men live by rules, we call
them codes. You don’t fuck with a man’s bike, his club or his
family, and
you do not fuck a brother’s sister
. Especially
one that is so much younger than I am.” He could see that she
wasn’t buying the truth, but he was finished protecting Viking,
fuck him. Right now she was more important than a long ago made
promise to a man who left her vulnerable.

“Your brother was only slated to be dead for
a few months when this whole damn thing started. He had setbacks
and got sidelined for a few months, so he had to start over chasing
down the drugs dumping grounds. That short fucker in the video is
the same son-of-a-bitch who put your parents in prison, his brother
was the foster father that was in the home they sent you to, and he
planned to kill your brother. He’s still out there somewhere, and
Leon is still hiding under his rock.