Prodigal Son (5 page)

“Holy shit, there’s more?” Krystal asked.

“Yeah. Believe it or not, that’s only half of it.”

I walked her through the sitting area and opened the room to the master bedroom.

“So we’re finally going to end up in the bedroom,” Krystal said with a knowing, backward glance at me as she walked through the door.

Jesus, did she turn me on. I couldn’t tell whether she meant the sexy, flirtatious things she was saying, but I knew I wanted her. She walked past the bed, trailing her hand along it, and I thought about what she’d look like, naked on the bed. My mouth felt dry, and I followed her into the bathroom, where she stood, staring at the huge tub.

“Wanna get naked?” I asked, mostly joking, but also hoping that she’d just strip down.

She looked at me as if she was sizing me up. “I don’t think you could handle it, sugar,” she said as she turned around and walked back into the living room.

I was insulted and turned on all at the same time. I wondered if the sway of her hips was deliberate, or if she just couldn’t help oozing sex. When I got back into the living room, Krystal polished off her glass of wine, set it on the bar and turned to look at me.

“I really do have an early day. Thanks again for the drinks.”

I was puzzled. She acted like she was interested but then she was ready to walk out. I couldn’t figure the girl out, but I certainly hoped that I’d have the chance to give it another shot.

“I’ll call or text you tomorrow,” I said as she headed for the door.

“And I’ll check my calendar,” she said with a smile as she walked out.

I resolved to finish my ginger ale and check the baseball schedule first thing in the morning. I had to see Krystal again, one way or another.

A
s soon as I got into the elevator, I could feel my phone vibrating again, and I decided that I’d wait until I got back to my car before I called Bug back. He was probably already going to be pissed, and I wasn’t going to have an embarrassing conversation in the lobby of a fancy hotel. He’d never been exactly pleasant, but since the Savage Sons had completely stopped selling meth, money had been tight for all of the guys, and that made his temper even shorter. I figured that if Bug knew that I’d been drinking wine in some guy’s fancy hotel suite, he’d probably kill me.

I walked the couple of blocks to my car and dialed Bug’s number without listening to any of the four messages he’d left me.

“Where the fuck have you been?” he asked.

“Wow,” I answered. “I’m fine. How’re you?”

“Don’t fuckin’ play games with me. Where are you?”

“I’m leaving work. On my way home.”

“Bullshit, you lying fucking whore. I called the bar, and that pussy manager of yours said you’d left early.”

Goddamn it. I hadn’t thought to ask Mark to cover up for my absence. It hadn’t occurred to me that Bug would call my work to track me down. He really was unbalanced, and he just seemed to be getting worse.

“I went out for a drink.”

“Where did you go? Knowing you, you probably went to some shitty motel with some dumb fuckin’ college kid.”

I had to smother a laugh when I thought about the contrast between the hotel room that Bug had in mind and where I’d actually spent the evening.

“Bug, that’s just stupid. I went out for a drink. That’s all.”

“Don’t you call me stupid, you fuckin’ whore. If you think I’m so stupid, you can just go back to being a club whore. You’ve already fucked practically all the Sons anyway.”

Jesus. I wanted nothing more than to tell Bug to go fuck himself, but he was right. I had slept with practically everyone in the MC, and I couldn’t expect to do much better than to become the VP’s old lady. That was probably too good for me. Bug always knew how to make me feel small and shitty about myself.

“Can we just talk about this tomorrow? I’m tired, and I have homework due early tomorrow.”

“Maybe there’s nothing to talk about. I can’t have my old lady slutting all over town.”

“Bug, I wasn’t slutting around. I had a drink. That’s all, I promise.”

“Whatever. Maybe I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Maybe you should let me make it up to you, sugar.”

I knew Bug liked it when I used sex to try to get my way.

“Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t.”

He hung up, and I sighed with relief that the conversation was over. I really needed to decide what to do about Bug. What I wanted to do was to finish school, get my degree, get a good job, and find a man like Luke. I knew that was practically impossible, though, given my past. No decent guy was ever going to want a washed up club whore. If that was the way everyone was going to think of me, I might as well have just fucked Luke, rather than trying to do the right thing. At least he seemed like a decent guy.

I’d been telling the truth in that ridiculously gorgeous bathroom, though. I really wasn’t sure that Luke was the kind of guy who could satisfy me. He seemed a little timid, and timid was not my type. I wanted a man who saw what he wanted and took it. I could tell that he’d wanted to kiss me in front of the window in his room, but I wasn’t about to make it easy for him. I’d wanted to see if he would take charge and go for what he wanted. He hadn’t. I had no time to spare for wishy-washy men.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

I
woke up, and before I even opened my eyes, I knew that I needed ibuprofen. The headache got even worse as I walked into the bathroom to get a glass of water to wash the pills down. I called room service for some coffee and breakfast, and I sat down to make a plan for the day. The first order of business was checking to see when the Rockies played. I saw that they were scheduled for a home game on Friday night, and I picked up my phone, pleased to see that I’d remembered to charge it the night before.

Good morning, gorgeous. Baseball game Friday night?

I figured that Krystal would know who the text was from. I hoped she wasn’t working Friday night, but I figured that if she was, that I was sticking around until she had a free evening. It wasn’t like I had anywhere to be.

The knock on the door startled me, and I let the room service guy inside. He set the breakfast table up for me, and I signed for the tab. I poured myself a cup of black coffee and realized that I couldn’t avoid the issue of my birth parents any longer. Sooner or later, I had to do what I’d come to town for. I rooted through my backpack and pulled the private investigator’s file out.

Sable Bellamy Hall and Daniel Hall. The file showed that they lived out east of the city in a two-story house that looked much nicer than you’d expect based on Daniel’s spotty work history. I was thinking that there was no way that a secretary could afford a house like the one in the photograph when my phone chimed to let me know a text message had arrived.

There’s nothing on my calendar for Friday
.

I grinned like a little kid as I answered Krystal’s text.

It’s a date. I’ll txt you later to work out the details.

I was stoked that I had something to look forward to, and then I realized that I had nearly a whole week to wait before I could see Krystal again. I didn’t know if showing up at the Taphouse would make me look like a stalker and I thought that maybe I’d get in touch with her in a day or so to see if she’d go out to dinner with me.

But first things first. The Halls. I couldn’t bring myself to think of them as Mom and Dad, but biologically, that’s what they were. I’d always known that I was adopted, but had believed that I’d never meet the people who created me and gave me up. I was curious and apprehensive, and even a little bit angry at the people who would desert an infant. Yes, Sable and Daniel had given me up to wonderful parents — people who had supported me and loved me just as if I’d been born to them, but I couldn’t quite get over the little bit of anger that I felt at having been abandoned in the first place.

I pulled up Google Maps on my laptop and put their home address into the computer. With the relatively light Sunday morning traffic, the drive should take about twenty minutes. I thought about heading down to the fitness center to work out, but I decided that my hangover was just a little too intense. Promising myself that I’d get some exercise later that day, I headed for the shower.

It was about an hour later when I pulled into the Hall’s neighborhood. The neighborhood wasn’t new, but it was full of surprisingly big houses. I wondered again how on earth a secretary and someone who was mostly unemployed could afford the huge house on an enormous lot that I studied from the stop sign at the opposite corner. I didn’t want to do anything to attract attention, so I just sat in the car and hoped that anyone who saw me would assume I was lost.

The house was a combination of wood and stone, and there was an oversized two-car garage attached. Judging by the fact that there was a Corvette and a pickup truck in the driveway, I figured that Daniel and Sable must have other children at home. As I was sitting at the stop sign, the garage door opened, and I panicked, afraid that I’d be spotted.

I managed to calm myself down. It wasn’t like the Halls were looking for me. They didn’t know me, didn’t know that I’d be there. I figured I was safe, so I stayed put a while longer. When the door was open all the way, I saw that the garage didn’t hold any cars, but instead held three motorcycles that I could see. The other half of the garage was full of tools and what looked like bike parts.

“So maybe no one but Sable and Daniel lives there after all,” I said out loud. My habit of talking to myself always got more noticeable when I was anxious.

It was a warm day, so my Jeep was open, and I heard a bike start up, loud and rumbling from the garage. I couldn’t get a very good look at the man on the bike, but as he pulled away from the house, I was certain that he was Daniel Hall. I’d just seen my father. He’d been largely concealed behind sunglasses and his helmet, but my first impression was that he looked older than my dad — probably the result of years spent in the sun and hard living.

“And he has no idea,” I said aloud, still sitting at the stop sign. “He’s just going about his business like the son he’s never met isn’t sitting across the street.”

I laughed out loud at myself, sitting in the Jeep and talking to myself. I decided to drive around the neighborhood and take another look at the front of the house before I left. I couldn’t just walk up to the front door. I wouldn’t know what to say.

Driving slowly, I made my way around to the road behind the Hall’s. It looked like there were well-tended gardens that had recently been planted, and I wondered who the gardener in the family was. Based on Daniel’s appearance, I was going to guess it was Sable. Other large houses obscured my view of much else, and I drove along a thick, tall line of trees that screened one side of the Hall’s front yard from view. I stopped at the corner, unable to see the house through the dense hedge.

I felt okay. I’d been worried that I might flip out — get upset or something — but I didn’t really feel much. I was surprised, but not displeased. I decided on one more drive-by, and I rounded the corner and came face to face with my mother — about to put some letters in the mailbox at the curb.

She stood and stared at me, not with any recognition — how could there be? But she stared as if she couldn’t figure out where I’d come from or what I was doing there.

She was beautiful. Not very tall, but clearly fit and healthy. She wore tight indigo jeans and a black leather jacket over her shirt. I couldn’t see much detail, but tattoos on both of her wrists peeked out from beneath the sleeves of her jacket. She had nearly black hair that she wore in a ponytail that made her look younger than she probably was.

I hit the brakes much harder than I’d meant to, and then I realized that the natural-looking thing to do would have been to continue driving. As soon as I came to a full stop, Sable’s expression grew a bit wary — like she suspected that I was up to something. I came to my senses and started to pull away, but as I got closer to the mailbox, she spoke.

“Can I help you with something?” she asked in a tone that indicated that she thought I was up to no good.

“”Um,” I fumbled. “No, I’m fine, thanks.”

“You looking for something?” she asked.

I’m not quite sure what happened to me. I hadn’t planned out a speech to introduce myself, and I hadn’t even known if I’d see Sable and Daniel at all. I could have just apologized for appearing creepy, and I could have driven away. But I didn’t.

“Are you Sable Hall?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

I could see alarm — maybe even fear — flash in her eyes, and she instantly took a couple of steps back from my Jeep.

“Who are you?” she asked. “What do you want?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer.

“My name’s Luke Callaway,” I answered.

“Well, that answers one question,” Sable replied. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain.”

“You can either try, or I’m heading back inside,” she said, staring me square in the eye.

“Do you mind if I pull into your driveway and get out?” I asked, unwilling to have a conversation while I was leaning over the passenger’s seat.

Sable studied me for a moment. “That’s fine. But I want you to know that I’m armed.”

She pulled her leather jacket out so that I could see a holster holding a handgun. I was a little surprised that a woman would wear a gun to get the mail, but given the fact that her husband was a biker, maybe she spent time with a rougher crew than I imagined. I pulled forward and decided that I was going to take a deep breath and tell her that I was her son. In the few seconds that I had to think, I realized that she might not take the news well, and I pulled out one of my business cards from the case I kept in the glove box. If she ordered me off the property, I wanted her to have a way to get in touch with me if she had second thoughts.

I got out of the car and held the card out in front of me. “Here’s my card,” I said, waiting to give her time to read it.