Leave a Trail (21 page)

Lilli walked up to the booth, leading her own son, Bo, by the hand; Gia followed behind, looking both curious and bored. Lilli put her other hand on Cory’s back. “I’m sorry to intrude, but a crowd is drawing up. If you want, I can take you someplace where you’ll have some privacy?”

Cory turned to her friend. “No.”

At almost the same time, Mrs. Mariano said, “No, I can’t. But thank you, honey. For letting me hold him for a minute. He’s beautiful. So like his daddy.” Sniffling, she handed him over. “Bye, Luke. Be a good boy.”

“Loki. He’s called Loki.” With that, Cory turned and walked away. Lilli cast Badger a reassuring look and followed.

The crowd dispersed. Havoc’s mother turned and was swallowed up by a ring of hugging church ladies. Adrienne pulled on Badger’s arm.

“I feel gross that we stood and watched that. Like all those vultures. Why didn’t we go?”

“I’ll tell you as much as I can later. The reason we stayed is to diffuse it if it got too hot. The Horde doesn’t need a scene like that.”

“Is that because Havoc died?”

“It’s because of the way his parents acted afterward. Here’s not the place, babe. But tonight. I promise.”

“I don’t mean to be nosy. I hate that we saw that. But everything in town seems to be tangled up with the Horde in some way, and I feel like I need to understand better.”

“Tonight. For sure. Right now, let’s just eat, okay?”

She nodded, and he pulled her under his arm and led her to lunch.

~oOo~

He was just standing up to throw away their trash when two shots rang out nearby. Without bothering to think, he shoved Adrienne under the picnic table. “Stay down! Stay there!”

She didn’t fight him at all, not until he didn’t join her. When he stood, pulling his piece from under his kutte, she cried, “Badge, no!”

“Stay there, babe. Do not move. I gotta go.” He trotted in the direction of the shots, trying to see in three-hundred-sixty degrees.

When he cleared a row of booths and ended up in the fairway, he stopped short and backed up to cover. The sight that had greeted him needed time before it would make sense. He looked around the corner of the booth he’d taken cover at. Yeah, he’d seen what he’d thought.

At the Horde booth was Havoc’s father, holding a revolver. Isaac, holding his arm, blood oozing through his fingers. Lilli, holding a 9mm, aimed at Mr. Mariano’s head. And the whole scene circled by Horde, all of them aiming at Mr. Mariano. Shannon and Cory corralling the kids, both women hunched over the little ones. And Cory was also holding fast to Nolan, refusing to let him go.

So much for the goodwill campaign.

He did a head count. Len wasn’t there—he hoped that meant he was elsewhere and not lying on the ground in the booth. There had been two shots.

“Lilli, stand down.” Isaac’s voice was strained but strong. It looked like he’d only been shot in the arm, but he was bleeding heavily. Badger thought the bullet might have hit an artery or something.

“Fuck you, Isaac. I have had it with people shooting you.” She stepped between her husband and Havoc’s father, her gun still raised. “You put the fucking gun down now, old man. Or I absolutely will put a bullet in your head.”

Instead, Mr. Mariano straightened his arms, shifting his aim purposefully to Lilli. But his hands shook; Badger could see that from where he stood. That might account for Isaac not being dead right now.

“Lilli! Fuck!” Isaac reached for her, but she shook him off easily, her eyes not leaving Mr. Mariano. Too easily. Yeah, he was losing too much blood. As if to confirm Badger’s conjecture, Isaac dropped to his knees.

Intent on Mr. Mariano, Lilli reacted to Isaac’s fall but didn’t turn. Badger realized that the whole scene was frozen. As long as Havoc’s crazy old man wouldn’t back down, nobody could do anything. But he was outside the scene. With no sign of Len, and Isaac maybe bleeding out in front of the whole town, Badger made a call.

Trust, right? It was all about trust. Trust in himself first of all. So Badger put his gun away, and stepped out into the fairway.

“Mr. Mariano!” Badger yelled it, keeping his voice as friendly as he could, as though he were hailing a friend across the street. He spread his arms out, to show he was not a threat.

The only person of note who turned to his voice was the person he’d called to. In that second of Don’s inattention, Lilli did one of her fancy Bruce Lee moves. She spun and put her boot—a heavy, black Doc Martens—in Havoc’s father’s face. He went down, the gun falling from his suddenly drooping hands.

In the chaos that followed, Show and Tommy jumped onto Mr. Mariano, keeping him subdued. Zeke, Dom, the Prospects, Double A and Thumper (Davey’s new road name) worked on crowd control. Knowing Adrienne was safe and away, Badger ran over to check on the women and children. Once he was sure they were okay, too, he went to the focus of the crisis: Isaac.

Lilli had pulled off her shirt, leaving herself in no top but a tight white beater, and was winding the shirt around Isaac’s arm. The blood soaked the fabric as fast as she could wrap it around his arm. Isaac was conscious and coherent, but going pale. They needed Tasha.

“Where’s Tasha? Where’s Len?”

Show looked up from where he’d bound Havoc’s father’s hands with a bungee cord. “She went back to the clinic. She got a call about a sick kid. Len took the van to pick up more ice.”

“We don’t have the van?”

Show shook his head.

“Fuck the van!” Lilli yelled. She tossed Double A her keys. “Just drive mine up the fairway. Now!” Double A ran off.

Isaac was fading, leaning on Lilli. Show squatted down in front of him. “Hang in there, boss. What do you want to do with Don?”

“Let him go.” Show’s head swiveled sharply at Badger’s words, and Badger couldn’t believe he’d said them out loud—said those words, out loud, while Isaac might be dying. Again.

“You shut up, asshole. Didn’t ask you.”

“No, Show. Talk, little brother. Why?” Though his voice had weakened, Isaac’s eyes were clear.

He trusted himself to say what he was thinking. “Because he lost both his kids. He’s an asshole, but he lost them and he blames us, and he’s right to. Because he’s a broken, bitter old man. Because we lost sight of being the good guys and we need to find it again. Because it’s mercy.” His heart was beating so hard his ribs felt bruised, but the words came smoothly out, with the ease of rightness. Maybe even righteousness.

“Fuck that.” That was Lilli. She had a death grip with both hands around Isaac’s wounded arm, but she was paying keen attention to their discussion.

Isaac gave her leg a flaccid pat with his good arm. “Not your call, Sport.”

Though she gave her old man the kind of look that should be registered as a deadly weapon, she shut up.

“Show?” Isaac looked at his VP.

Show regarded Badger with narrowed eyes, then sighed. “Yeah. He’s right. I’ll talk to him—warn the fuck out of him—and we’ll take him home.”

“Okay. Wise man, Badge. This gettin’ shot business sucks ass.” Isaac closed his eyes just as Dom drove up with Lilli’s SUV.

They got Isaac in the truck with Lilli, Dom, and Double A. The rest of the Horde watched them hurry down the fairway, the crowd making way. Badger turned then, on his way to Adrienne, but Show blocked his path, towering over him. Badger looked up and said nothing. Show virtually never talked to him or acknowledged him at all anymore, even at the table. This interaction between them in the past fifteen minutes or so was more talking than they’d done since Show had thrown a table across the Hall to get to him.

“If Isaac dies, Mariano dies, too. Your ‘mercy’ ends there.”

Badger nodded.

Show continued to stare, and Badger continued to hold himself steady.

Then, with a single, abrupt nod, Show muttered, “Okay,” and turned in the direction of the women and children, where his pregnant old lady was waiting.

Not sure what was ‘okay,’ Badger turned in the other direction and went to Adrienne.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Adrienne had crawled out from under the picnic table when the people around her had stopped hiding and begun to relax. But then she didn’t know what to do. She wanted to find Badger, but she was still afraid.

“Adrienne? Sweetheart?” She turned at the sound of Badger’s mother’s voice and ended up being swallowed in a hug. After a good, hard squeeze, Badger’s mom set her back and looked her over with a concerned mother’s eye.

Darlene Ness was tall and thin like Badger. Adrienne guessed her to be in her mid-fifties or so. A little older than Show, but not much. She had very wrinkled, leathery skin, as if she’d spent all her life in the sun—which she probably had—but even so, she didn’t look much older than what was probably her real age. Her eyes—the same fantastical shade of green as Badge’s—were bright and lively, vivid with sweetness, and that was probably why she didn’t look older.

“Are you okay, sweetie? We saw you under the table. I know that was scary.”

“Yeah—scary. I’m okay. I’d like to find Badge, though.”

Badger’s dad stepped up. “Did he tell you to wait here?” She nodded. “Then best do so. We’ll wait with you. Looks like the excitement is over, at least.”

Broad, with a barrel chest over a beer belly, his grey crew-cut covered by a dirty cap, Hank Ness looked like ninety-percent of the men in Signal Bend. An aging farmer. But the Ness family had lost most of their land, Badge had told her, and now Hank worked another man’s farm. Darlene did housekeeping at the Millview Motor Inn to help make ends meet. They could not have been more different from her maximally-educated, cultured, world-traveling parents if they had been born on another planet. And yet, though she’d only spent a few hours altogether with them so far, they felt so much like a family, like her family, the way it had been when her mom was alive, that it made her ache all the way to her marrow with homesickness.

But she was trying not to think about her family these days. No point in being homesick for a place that wasn’t home anymore.

She looked up at Hank and met his eyes—which were just garden-variety brown, but crinkly and kind. “Would it be wrong to ask what happened?”

“Not sure. Not much of a gawker, myself. Justin will tell us what he can, don’t you worry.” He nodded past her shoulder and smiled. “Here he comes now—and he picked up a tail.”

Adrienne turned and saw Badger walking quickly toward her, with a much broader, slightly taller man with short blond hair. Too happy to see Badger in one piece to be interested in the stranger, she ran forward, into her man’s arms. Her man.

“I’m okay, babe. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

“What happened?”

“Isaac’s hurt, but I think he’ll be okay. I’ll tell you what I can later.”

They had a lot of talking to do later, it seemed, what with the drama at the church quilts and now this. But she wouldn’t push for more now. “Okay.”

The man who’d followed Badger was still standing there, and now he was grinning like an idiot. Adrienne gave him a look to let him know he was being creepy, but then she noticed his eyes. Like Badger’s and Darlene’s. So the next thing Badger said didn’t surprise her at all.

“Adrienne, this is my brother, Jason. Jason, this is Adrienne.”

Jason smiled and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, beautiful. I’ve been hearing about you for years.” He winked. He was blond and handsome, and probably flirted with women by default, accustomed to their interest.

Still creepy, as far as she was concerned. “Interesting. I think he’s mentioned a brother once or twice.”

When his smile broadened and morphed into a look that said
touché
, she decided maybe he wasn’t a total knob, so she smiled.

His arms still around her, Badger looked over her head. “Dad, I got club stuff. Can you take Adrienne back to the B&B for me?”

“Sure, son. You do what you need to do.”

Badger put his hands around her face. “Sorry, babe. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, and I’ll explain what I can, okay?”

“Okay.” He took her hand, and Adrienne and the entire Ness family walked through the Spring Fest grounds toward the parking lot.

Darlene drove an ancient Suburban, and they were headed to it when Badger pulled up to a hard stop, yanking on Adrienne’s hand to get her to do the same. She’d let her mind wander a little, running over the tension of the day, and his sudden, forceful movements startled her.

“Fuck.”

She looked up and saw him staring across the lot, so she followed his eyes and saw a police car—or, she guessed, it would be the Sheriff out here, not the police—pulling into the field that was a makeshift parking lot.

Again, Badger said, “Fuck.” Then he turned to his dad. “You guys get moving.” With a quick kiss to Adrienne’s head, he headed back, walking quickly, toward to heart of the fair, and, she assumed, the Horde.

~oOo~

Badger wasn’t home for hours. When he finally came in, he came right to her, and she knew what he needed. He wrapped her up tight and lifted her off the floor, his face buried in her hair where it lay on her shoulder. For a moment, he simply held her, and she him. She knew not to question him. He would talk when he was ready. In the meantime, she could feel the tension in his muscles, the way they vibrated under his skin, and she hooked her legs around his hips, giving him permission.

When she did, he relaxed a little and carried her to their nest. Since she’d already been dressed in what passed for her pajamas—a pair of Badger’s boxers and a plain cotton camisole—he had her undressed in seconds. She lay and watched him take his clothes off, too. He had a little ritual, even when he was hot and horny like this. He folded his kutte and laid it on the back of the loveseat. He pulled off his boots and set them neatly next to the love seat, their toes tucked underneath. He took his socks off, then his jeans and his boxers. His t-shirt he always left for last. She’d never asked why, but she didn’t think she had to. It was his chest. Even now, after weeks—months—of being together, even though she’d caressed and kissed it, had rubbed into it the special cream Tasha gave him to keep the scar as supple as possible, even though she’d lain sleeping on it, her cheek on the uneven flesh, even so, he had a small, lingering shyness about it, and his shirt was always the last thing he took off.