Taking The Heat (17 page)

“Let’s just say I’ve had the same concerns. I think you’ll find just about every combat Marine has. I don’t have them any longer, and I’ll leave it at that,” A-Train said.

“I don’t know, I hate to think about going after this chick, getting up to the plate, and I don’t even have a fucking bat to swing,” I groaned as I leaned forward in the chair.

A-Train laughed as he picked up the plate from the table beside me, “Well, I can tell you this for sure. Damned near every man on this earth sooner or later settles down with a woman. It doesn’t make you less of a man to let a woman into your life
or
heart. Your fears are valid, but I’m afraid they’re probably a little inaccurate. If I were to guess, I’d say you’re afraid of
change
. Don’t be. Regardless of what your one percenter brothers tell you, having a woman in your life doesn’t make you a pussy. Two of the meanest, toughest motherfuckers to ever grace this earth are Dekk and Ripp, and they’re both married with kids. And ol’ Ripp here
still
gets in a fist fight damned near every time he swallows a couple beers.”

“True story,” Ripp chuckled.

“Did settling down with Vee change who you are?” I asked.

Ripp stood, shook his head and walked to the kitchen. After grabbing a beer from the refrigerator, he opened it, took a drink, and walked back to his seat.

“Let me ask you a question, Bro,” he said.

“Alright,” I responded as I attempted to get comfortable.

“If you go out in the country and find a wolf, bring it home, and feed it Purina Dog Chow, will it turn into a good pet?” he asked.

“I doubt it,” I responded.

He shook his head and tilted the bottle of beer my direction, “It sure won’t.”

He tipped up the bottle and drank about half the beer in one gulp. As he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand he continued, “I’ll tell you why. Because no matter what you do with that wolf, he’ll always be a wolf; and you can’t ever change that. We are who we are, Bro. You’ll always be you. Adding a woman to your life just means there’s going to be someone there by your side to enjoy watching you be yourself.”

I sat and gazed at Ripp. A matter of weeks before, I had judged him based on his clothing, choice of shoes, and bold in-your-face presence. Hell, until A-Train introduced him, I wasn’t even willing to give him the satisfaction of having me shake his hand. Now that I had taken some time to get to know him, it was apparent he was as solid of a man as any of my brothers in the club. Although he had a different approach than most, the advice he provided seemed to make perfect sense.

I just needed to determine if Sydney was as interested in getting to know the
real
me as I was in having her do so.

SYDNEY

I’ve heard many people say
when you’re at the bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up
. I suppose there’s some truth to that statement, but it isn’t necessarily
always
accurate. Some can simply stay at the bottom and never recover, wallowing in the depression, pity and angst associated with being where they are. Having been at the bottom, and now hovering somewhere near the top, I was able to look down and realize the distance I had traveled was remarkable. Keeping my vision clear enough to continue to accurately see the pit from which I so desperately dug myself from was of the utmost importance. It remained a constant reminder of what
could
be.

I stared into my glass of wine, took a sip, and tilted the glass in my hand as I watched the wine shift from side-to-side, “So why did you sign the name
Cambio
?”

“You know, to my brothers in the club, I’m
Toad
. Hell, half of them probably don’t even know my actual name. I’m good with that. I don’t really care if
anyone
in that little town knows my name, but I have one and I like it; I was named after my grandfather. I guess there comes a point in time when we all need to take a step back and become who we
really
are for just a minute…”

As he paused, his finger pressed against the glass of wine, moving it from in front of my face to the side. My focus immediately shifted from the glass of wine to his face. He grinned, gripped the glass in his fingers, and pushed it down onto the table.

“I think I wanted you to see me as Cambio, at least while you were reading what I wrote,” he said as he released the glass of wine.

I nodded my head lightly and lifted the glass without thinking, glancing at it as I did. His hand immediately pressed against the stem, pushing it back into place. I shifted my gaze toward him and grinned.

“Got it, glass stays on the table,” I said with a grin.

“The glass needs to stay where it doesn’t obstruct your face. I don’t care what you do with it; I’m tired of trying to look
through
it. I want to look at
you,
I waited all week for this,” he said as he leaned forward.

I pushed the glass of wine to the side, pressed my forearms against the edge of the table, and leaned forward, “Well, I liked it. I liked that you signed your actual name, and not
Toad
. I think that was the turning point for me, when I read that. I read it several times, wondering exactly what you meant. We’re a funny breed.”

He leaned into his chair and winced from the apparent pain in his shoulder, “I don’t even know if I’ve known who I actually was until all of this happened. I know who I used to be, but I’m not real sure of just who the fuck I’ve been for the last ten years. That war fucked me up a lot more than I ever thought it did. I’ve been wandering around since I got home feeling guilty for having lived through it. I’ve been running from place to place and person to person trying to make up for something I didn’t need to make up for. I don’t guess it really matters, but I’m not sure if it was finding out Staff Sergeant Jacob was actually alive, or the fact I took that bullet, but one of those two things gave me a huge relief. All of that guilt I’ve been living with is gone.”

As much as I felt sorry for him, or anyone else who was exposed to the violence and death associated with fighting in a war, I was intrigued by the complexities of it all. The human mind’s capacity, or lack thereof, to process events or feelings attached to something as simple and natural as living. Cambio had spent almost a decade feeling guilty for living through the war. Now, after having learned that a fellow Marine who he assumed had died actually had lived, his guilt faded into nothing. I knew one thing if I knew nothing else; the
new
Cambio was a man I had great interest in being with. Although he acted
differently
toward me now, and had officially asked me out on a future date, I wondered what he wanted, expected, and hoped for. No differently than I expect any other woman would be, I wanted more definition to what it was we were doing, and what to expect in the future. For fear of scaring him away, I treaded lightly and hoped he would simply provide the answers as I muddled through our conversations. Well, either that or just kiss me.

He gazed beyond me, and his eyes became distant. After a moment, he began to speak softly, “Back to what we were talking about earlier, I never told you, but I had uhhm. I was riding out by the lake and there was this puppy in the ditch. Crows were all gathered around him, and I slowed down to keep from hitting them. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, and stopped. He’d been shot several times, but he was still alive. He looked like someone had used him for fighting. I loaded him up, hauled ass to Wichita, and took him to the vet. I picked out a collar for the little guy, and waited for them to get him stitched up and ready to come home. When the vet came out and told me he didn’t make it, I lost it. Something in me snapped. I do think there’s a point where death is a necessary evil, and it always will be, but someone killing a puppy was different. When I got out to my bike, I realized my blood covered shirt was still in the vet, and my cut was covered in blood. I didn’t come to your house to get cleaned up, I came there for…well, I came there for…”

A puppy. The blood on his cut was from a puppy.

As my eyes began to well with tears, I leaned forward and reached for the center of the table. He gazed down at the table and raised his hand from his lap. Slowly, his hand moved across the table until it met mine, encompassed my fingers, and provided me with a comfort only he could provide.

“Comfort,” he sighed, “I came there for comfort.”

It seemed odd. Although I had just made the chalkboard about passing judgement, when he arrived on that particular day, I made assumptions about the blood on his cut, and how it probably got there. My suspicions about the origin of the blood were solely based on who he was and what I suspected he was involved in. For even the most caring of souls, not passing judgement is often difficult. Relieved to find out what had
actually
happened, but now feeling sorrow toward him for entirely new reasons, I held his hand and fought not to cry.

“So as soon as I can ride out of here, you’re going to do that? Go out with me?” he asked as he squeezed my hand.

I glanced up from the table and nodded my head like a child who’d been asked if he wanted a second helping of ice cream, “Yes. Yes, I am. Will. Absolutely.”

“How much longer?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said as he released my hand, “My lung is down to a dull steady pain. My shoulder’s a different story. It hurts to lift my arm, shower, cough, damn near any quick movement kills me. I can’t even hold it out in front of me, I damned sure can’t ride home.”

“What about riding home in my car, and maybe taking your bike home on a trailer?” I said under my breath as I reached for my wine.

“Not going to happen. Only time that bike’ll be on a trailer is if it’s broke down. If I can’t ride, I’ll just go down and do a swan dive off of that bridge downtown and end it all. Sorry,” he growled.

“Just a suggestion. So why aren’t you wearing your sling?”

“I don’t fucking like it,” he snapped.

“Might speed things up,” I shrugged.

“I look like a pussy when I wear it,” he said as he positioned his left arm across his chest, mimicking the position of the sling.

I guess I shouldn’t expect a biker, Marine, and the Sergeant at Arms of a Motorcycle Club to act any differently. He was his own person, and he had his pride, whether I agreed with his decisions or not. Being my selfish self, I was ready to start this
going on a date
thing just as soon as we were able. Coming down to Austin on a weekend every other week left me for the time in between doing nothing but counting the minutes until I hopped in my car and held my breath for another ten hour drive. It all seemed too good to be true, and I wanted to take the next step.

“You could stay here,” he said under his breath.

I glanced around the large concrete deck and down at the swimming pool. As much as I’d love to stay with three overly wealthy and extremely gracious boxer/bikers while I waited for him to recover from his broken collar bone, I couldn’t. I desperately needed to work and earn the money to pay rent and provide what little furnishings I needed for my new home.

I shook my head and laughed lightly, “I can’t, I have to work, you know that.”

He grinned and raised his index finger in the air, “I’m the boss, I’ll give you time off with pay. A vacation.”

I shook my head, “I can’t accept that. It’s a handout, and it wouldn’t be fair to the other girls. Just get better as soon as you can, and we’ll go from there.”

“Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to introduce you to my wife,” a voice said from behind me.

As Cambio stood from his seat, I pushed my chair from the table and stood, turning toward the voice. A very attractive man wearing a hoodie stood with an adorable blonde woman stood to my side. As he brushed the hood from his head, he wrapped his arm over her shoulder and playfully pulled her into his chest. As he did, she pushed against him with her hands, leaned back, and slapped his shoulder with her hand.

“Stop it Shane, quit goofing around. Hi, I’m Kace, Shane’s wife. He’s the idiot wearing the hoodie in this heat,” she laughed as she slapped his back.

“It’s like his security blanket. I got him to quit wearing it for almost a year, and now that all these new people are around, he’s back to his old tricks,” she said as she held her hand out.

I wiped my hand on my shorts and shook her hand. After studying the man in the hoodie, I remembered seeing him at the hospital with the big bald guy. The visit to the hospital had become nothing more than a big blur for me, but I was fairly certain he was the same person.

“Nice to meet you, Kace. You’re adorable, and I love that dress,” I said as I shook her hand.

“Thanks, I like it. Vee and I were shopping, sorry but I didn’t know when you were going to get here, so I didn’t rush home. Vee and I shop a lot to get away from these three oversized children. Don’t ever marry a boxer or a Marine, they’re like big kids. Hi Toad, how’s the shoulder,” she said without taking a breath.

Toad cleared his throat as she finished speaking, “Just a little sore, and what? Did you forget I was a Marine?”

She pressed her hands into her hips, glanced at Shane, and turned toward Toad, “Nope.”

I like this girl, she’s spunky.

She twisted her shoulder my direction and smiled, “Who else came with you?”

I stood admiring Kace’s shoes. As she spoke, I quickly looked up and alternated glances between her and Cambio, “Just me. Otis is going to ride down tomorrow. Oh, and I almost forgot, Otis is bringing your phone.”

Cambio rolled his eyes and nodded his head. I grinned, shrugged, and shifted my gaze to Kace.

She was roughly five feet tall, blonde, and absolutely gorgeous. Outfitted in a tangerine summer dress and sandals with leather straps that tied around her ankles, she was dressed the way I
used
to dress and hoped to one day dress again. One day when I could afford it.

“And I think we met at the hospital when I came down, the day he uhhm. The day he uhhm, the day he woke up,” I muttered as I held my hand toward Shane.

He nodded his head and smiled, revealing very prominent dimples, “We did, nice to see you again, ma’am.”

Ma’am? Must be a proper southern boy.

“Do you mind if we sit?” Kace asked.

“Not at all, hell it’s
your
house,” Toad chuckled as he sat down.

I turned, glanced toward the house, and down at the pool below, “Oh, this is
your
place? I love it. The pool, the deck, the house, it’s beautiful. We just walked over from A-Train’s, I didn’t know which one of you owned this one.”

Simultaneously, Shane and Kace pulled chairs away from the table and sat side-by-side. As Kace sat, she flipped her hair over her shoulder, picked up my glass of wine, sniffed it, and began babbling as she carefully placed it in front of me.

“Thanks. Shane makes a lot of money from beating people up. Isn’t that funny? He punches people in the face and they give him sacks of money for doing it. He bought this after he won the championship. Ripp and A-Train, the other two idiots, live on each side of us, and we’re in the middle. Is that Mascato? I want a glass,” Kace blurted as she waved her hand toward the house.

“It is, I brought it from A-Train’s,” I chuckled, “I can get you one.”

She tilted her head toward Shane, but continued to gaze my direction, “No, you stay here, I like talking to you.”

She turned to face Shane and stared.

Shane stood from his seat and motioned toward Cambio and me, “I’ll get it, Kace. You need anything else?”

We both shook our heads. As Shane pulled the hood over his head and began walking toward A-Trains house, I turned toward Kace and grinned.

“I don’t always treat him like this, but he’s in trouble,” she said flatly.