Leave a Trail (6 page)

Now Show grabbed his wife’s head in both his huge hands and forced her face to meet his. “Hon, you need to stop that. You’re not anything like Holly. I know you’re not feeling right. I’m not mad. I love you. Okay? Okay?”

She sniffled and nodded, and he pulled her into his arms and held her close. Adrienne felt weird and guilty, sitting at the kitchen table watching that uncomfortably intimate moment unfold, but she didn’t know how to leave without drawing attention to herself. So she sat and stared at her coffee.

Then Show sat down and Shannon served out bowls of oatmeal. It was pretty good. Not so good Adrienne would want to eat it every day for weeks, but then, she was neither pregnant nor married to someone who was.

CHAPTER TWO

Badger woke up stiff and disoriented, and sick as a dog. Dog. Fuck. Weasel.

He opened his eyes, knowing the truth already. He was still at the clubhouse. He hadn’t been back to the B&B since the previous afternoon.

He hoped Kenny had been there to bring the animals in and do the evening feed and tend. Though Kenny was supposed to have been off at five. Fuck.

Shoving a sleeping Jerri Rae off his lap, Badger stood. The room spun, and he almost fell over, but he kept his feet and started to put his dick away—oh, wait. He was still wearing a condom, now sticky and deflated-looking. The sight turned his stomach.

Really turned his stomach. He hightailed it to the main bathroom, diving to his knees in front of the toilet just in time. He retched forever, his stomach cramping fiercely, his throat burning, and his head shrieking. And his chest felt like it was tearing apart. How could it hurt so much? He had almost no sensation on the surface, the part he could touch, that anybody could touch, but underneath—it got to burn and stretch so much sometimes it was all he could do not to take his blade and cut himself free of the pain.

“Badge? You okay?”

He hadn’t managed to get the door closed, and Jerri Rae was standing in the doorway, looking disheveled and still half-drunk. The sight of her sickened him all over again. She was his friend Billy’s little sister, and he’d spent most of the night with his dick in one of her holes or another. He’d known her since she was just little, and now she was nothing but club pussy.

And oh shit, Adrienne. He’d done that on purpose, too. Why?

Shame and self-revulsion twisted up inside him and turned itself on Jerri Rae. “Get the fuck away from me, bitch.” His words echoed against the porcelain bowl of the toilet.

Jerri Rae jumped back as if he’d struck her. “Geez. Badge. You don’t have to be mean. When did you get mean?” Her pretty face smeared with makeup and hurt feelings, she turned and walked away.

Badger rolled to sit on his ass against the wall. His nose was running freely, and he had the shakes. He was sore all over.

He needed to get level. Like, three hours ago.

But he didn’t keep any in the clubhouse—that would be an express ticket to a bullet in his head, if any of his brothers found his stash.

So he needed to get to the B&B. On his bike. With the shakes.

And fuck, there was a wedding today. The bride wanted to ride in on Toby. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He flushed the toilet, stood up, turned the cold tap on full blast in the sink, and stuck his head under. When he felt marginally more human, he headed carefully out to his bike.

~oOo~

He almost dropped his bike twice—once while he was still in the motherfucking clubhouse lot—but he managed to get himself to the B&B.

And the horses and goats were still loose. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckety fuck.

But Shannon’s car wasn’t around; it was still early, the morning light still heavy and grey. Badger ran to the goats—who weren’t fenced in—and found Weasel, sitting in his customary place on a short stack of hay bales. The dog whined when Badger approached him.

“Hey, Weez. Sorry, bud. Gimme a minute. I’ll get it straightened out.”

If he could. He was losing control of everything, falling into a pit. And he didn’t know the way out.

But he knew one way not to care, so he left Weasel still in charge of the goats and headed for his office. A couple of minutes later, he didn’t care so much. It took him a few minutes more to remember to care about anything, but then he did, and he moved the goats into their enclosed pen, and he brought the horses into the barn for their morning feed and grooming. Weasel, relieved from duty, took a couple of bites from his bowl and then went straight to his sleeping pad in Badger’s office.

He was a great dog. Badger figured he’d stayed awake and alert all night. He knew he should feel guilty about that, and he would. Later. Right now, he felt okay, and he needed to feel okay.

Itchy, but okay.

~oOo~

He was still feeling level and back in control about an hour later. The day was warm and sunny, the last Saturday in March, and Badger had the big doors open for the breeze and light. After he’d tended to the horses, he’d put them out in the back pasture, where they’d have room to wander. Spirit especially liked to stretch his legs and get a run in, and the near paddock was too small for him to do more than turn circles.

Though the rest of the horses were loose in the pasture, Badger had Toby tethered in the aisle. The gentle bay had work to do today, so he was getting a full-service wash and groom. Badger had just finished hosing him down, and was shaking out a grooming chamois to wipe him down with, when he heard the crunch-rumble of a car pulling up, and he looked to see Shannon’s SUV parking in her usual spot.

Right at that particular moment, still feeling calm and level, he could appreciate how lucky he was that he’d gotten to work before Shannon and had fixed everything he’d screwed up, and he could appreciate it without the grip of anxiety around his throat. If his brothers caught wind of him fucking up, he was, well, fucked.

Unless Marv, the night manager, noticed that the animals were out…but no, he wouldn’t. Marv never left the main house during his shift. He sat in the office and watched Netflix, mainly. That was why he didn’t know that Badger spent almost every night in the barn. So he’d been lucky, and he was okay. He took a breath and started to turn his attention back to Toby.

Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw something strange, so he turned back. And saw Adrienne getting out of Shannon’s ride with her. Shit. Fuck. Shit.

And she was headed for the barn. Double fuck. Why? Why would she even want to be anywhere around him after what he’d done last night?

He watched her come; he couldn’t help it. No matter that he knew he should turn away, he couldn’t. She was so pretty. Hell, pretty wasn’t nearly good enough a word. Beautiful wasn’t right, either. He didn’t know enough words to know. But the morning light made a golden halo around her curly mane of hair, and she came toward him like some kind of vision, in jeans and boots and a loose, dark purple top. She was little, really slim, and mainly all he wanted to do around her was hold her. He liked her so much. More than liked her.

He knew she liked him, too. Or she thought she did. If she really knew him, if she really saw him, she’d turn tail in a hurry.

At first, he’d stayed in the friend zone because of Show, who’d made it clear, and more than once, that he was not okay with the idea of Shannon’s girl hooking up with Badger or any Horde.

Now, he stayed away because Show was right. He wasn’t in Adrienne’s league. He was a fucked-up pussy with an expiration date. And he was a freakshow to look at.

The thought of Adrienne knowing any of that, of her looking at him with disgust or revulsion or fear—Badger thought that would be the thing that was the real last straw. So he stayed away. The shock and hurt he’d seen on her face last night was better than the disgust he’d see if they got close. If he let her in.

She had come into the barn, slowing as she approached, looking nervous. “Hi, Badge.” Her voice shook a little.

He turned finally away and focused on wiping Toby down. “Hey.”

“Shannon wanted to know if everything was set for the wedding.”

“Yeah.” He might have fucked up this morning, but he was still on top of things otherwise. The fancy sidesaddle and matching tack were polished and ready to go. He thought it was really lame to go through all this trouble for a chick to ride about fifty feet to the damn porch for her wedding
inside
the B&B. But whatever. Not his fucking wedding.

“Um…okay. Good. I’ll tell her.” She took a couple of steps backward and started to turn toward the doors.

He couldn’t be a dick. Not anymore. Not after last night. “Wait.”

She turned back. “What?”

There were no other words queued up in his head. He knew only that he couldn’t be a dick to her. It hurt too much, and he kept flashing on the look on her face last night. And that was the only thing he could think of to say.

“I’m…sorry about last night. It’s just…you surprised me.”

“Yeah. It’s…whatever. No big. I just wanted to say hi. I’ll see you.” She turned again and walked with purposeful strides toward the doors.

Without thinking about it, he went after her and grabbed her arm. “Adrienne.”

Spinning so quickly she shocked him, she jerked her arm out of his grasp. “What?
What
? What is
wrong
with you? What did I do to make you mad? You won’t talk, you’re mean half the time when you do, and I don’t
understand
it. I thought we were friends.”

It wasn’t hurt on her face now, not like last night. It was sorrow, and it did weird things to his head. He put his hands around her arms again, gently this time. “We
are
friends.”

The sound she made was almost a sigh, almost a laugh, almost a sob. “Then what’s going on? What happened to you?”

There was something in the tone or in the wording itself of her question that set Badger on the defensive. “Nothing.” He dropped her arms and turned back to Toby.

Now she went after him, reaching out and grabbing his arm, yelling, “No! Talk to me! Quit messing with me!”

Upset by all the sudden drama, Toby reared his head back as far as the leads would allow and stomped his hoof, upsetting the bucket of sudsy water Badger had used to wash him. It made a small mess—negligible, really, considering that there was a hose right there on the floor with which he could rinse away the suds. But Badger was high, and though his surface response was to get level, underneath was a bubbling mess. He had a hair trigger, easily agitated and pushed to his limits. Especially after the first hour or so.

He turned on her. “Goddammit! What do you fucking want?”

Her eyes got big, but she stood her ground. “I just want you to talk to me. I want to be close again. I miss you.”

The crazy was in charge of his head. He could feel it, and he could lament it, but he couldn’t stop it. He grabbed her arms again—without any kind of gentleness now—and pushed her backwards until she hit the door of the stall behind her. “You want to be close? Fine.”

He kissed her.

He brought his mouth down hard on hers, his hands clenching around her slender arms, just below her shoulders. At first she was stiff and unyielding, her mouth shut tight, but it still made him hard to have her so close. She smelled so good. She tasted better. And she felt—God, so good. They hadn’t kissed in—shit, years. He shouldn’t be kissing her now, especially not like this. He was hurting her. He should stop. But her smell, her taste, her touch.

And then she relaxed. Her body became supple, and, with a small whimper, she opened her mouth.

“Fuck.” He pulled away and let go of her arms, brushing gently at the wrinkles his hands had pressed into her sleeves.

“Badger, no.” Adrienne caught him before he could step away. Looping her arms around his neck, holding the back of his head in her hands, she tried to bring him close again. He could have pushed her off. He should have. But the crazy was in charge, and shit, she wasn’t mad at the way he’d been treating her. He didn’t understand why she wasn’t mad. Why she was still here. So he didn’t fight the downward pressure of her touch. Instead, he bent down and kissed her again. Their tongues twisted around each other, and they both groaned. He closed her up in his arms, holding her tightly, forgetting everything else—forgetting that this was wrong, that it couldn’t go anywhere, that Show would kill him, that he couldn’t let her know what he had to hide.

It was wrong. It was wrong. He didn’t care.

And then her hands, no longer needing to hold him to her, relaxed and slid slowly down, her fingers combing through his ponytail, dancing over his neck, his shoulders.

His chest.

As if her touch had electrified him—a touch he hadn’t even felt—he jumped away from her, pushing her arms and hands from his body. “God. You need to get out of here.”

She was breathless and bleary-eyed. “What? Wait—what? What did I do? Badge—”

When she reached for him again, coming close again, all he could think of was that she couldn’t touch him. She couldn’t. He backed up but got caught up in Toby’s lead. Adrienne took another step, and he lashed out, pushing her away, pushing her so hard he knocked her off her feet, and she landed hard on her ass.

God! He was such a dick. “Adrienne…” He knew he should help her get up, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t even say he was sorry.

“What is
wrong
with you?” She stood up and brushed her ass off. “You know what? Never mind. I’m sorry I tried.”

She turned and headed for the doors again, and this time he just watched her go.

~oOo~

That evening, he rode back from Springfield with Show and Tommy. Tommy had taken over Havoc’s place as enforcer, his primary task protecting Show. Even though he’d only been in the club not even a year, he was the natural choice for it—big, strong, and just…
hard
in some way Badger couldn’t define. Tommy was a good guy; he just liked to hit things. He was a lot like Havoc in that way, really.

The wedding that afternoon had gone off fine. He’d worn the stupid coat and helped the fancy little prissy chick in a fluffy white dress to mount Toby sidesaddle, and he’d walked her to the porch, where her supposed knight in shining tuxedo helped her down. It was all very romantic, in a total chick flick way. He was growing to really hate weddings—not that his opinion mattered to anybody.