The Bare Bones (The Bare Bones MC) (22 page)

“Around wood…?”

“Never mind. I’m glad you don’t know. Anyway, I’m glad you called Dominique. She’ll take care of you. She said you’re coming to Speed’s party tomorrow. You’ve never seen my house.”

“I know. I can’t wait.”

However, she sounded as if she could totally wait, and wait a long time. Ford had to accept defeat, that she was just utterly exhausted. “Are you coming down with something? You sound more tired than usual. Did that doctor give you any trouble?”

At this, she became defensive. Ford could hear her sitting up in bed, leaning on her elbow to protest. “No, no! I’m not getting sick. I just…didn’t realize how draining it would be dealing with those sweetbutts and their fucking chlamydia, and then your father…”

“I know, sugar. My dad can be a righteous pain in the ass. But now you’ve done it, and I’ll find another nurse to do it next time, maybe in six months. I know you don’t like interacting with my dad.”

“Yes.” That one word was so thin and reedy. It was as though she were falling asleep as she talked. “Please don’t make me interact with your dad.”

“You won’t have to. He’ll be at the party tomorrow of course, but you don’t even have to talk to him.”

“Good…”

“I’ll let you get some sleep. I love you,
mija
.”

She already seemed asleep. Instead of being the insecure, insistent lover demanding she say “I love you” in return, Ford just quietly hung up.
Let her sleep.

He headed for the shower. The master bath had windows on two walls that looked out over the crimson spires, layered like red velvet cake and cinnamon frosting.
This damned life sometimes. It’s rough, but I guess I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Gollywow and his pack of backup Dynamics were smoothly cooing about being stone in love when Madison arrived.

Ford was on the deck talking to a P&E owner of an electronics franchise. They didn’t tend to invite too many of the local business community to these functions, but there were a few stalwarts. These pillars of the town could be relied on for a good party or to come through for the club in small but important ways, and Bob Jackinsky was one of them.

“We’re not in the business of telling other clubs what to do,” said Ford, “but we do police our territories to make sure our protocol and customs are being followed or at least respected.”

“Exactly,” said Bob. “When I hear of someone trying to do business between here and Prescott, I make sure to let you know.”

“I hear you,” said Cropper. “We’re just overseeing our own backyard, keeping people safe with our muscle.”

“You’re the Dominant club around here,” acknowledged Bob. “And likewise, if I see a fellow Chamber of Commerce member being harassed by some fucking punks, I come straight to you. You’ve got the best muscle in town, willing to go to the mat for us. Now, how is this new guy? Speed?”

Cropper looked skeptical. He made an “ah” after gulping his beer. “Speed’s got to know that putting on a three-piece rocker means he’s ready to die for this club. I doubt that he fully realizes that yet.”

Ford said, “He knows that, Cropper. He knows he’s coming into our world and leaving his world behind.”

Cropper said thoughtfully, “I wonder if he knows how much has been sacrificed for him.”

Bob frowned. “Sacrificed
for
him? Isn’t it more the other way around? I heard something about his experience in the desert. That’s why he’s wearing his arm in a sling tonight.”

Ford didn’t know what Cropper was talking about, either. “What’s he sacrificed? He’s
gained
everything, and lost nothing, as far as I can see.”

“He’s just not old school enough. He didn’t grow up steeped in the club traditions, like you were. He’d better erase any ideas about women wearing a diamond on their rags.”

Ford was confused. Did Speed have an idea that women could join the MC? Cropper must be referring to Madison. “I don’t think Speed harbors any notions like that. He knows Madison will never sit at our table. Is that what you mean?”

“Something like that,” Cropper said distantly, gazing at the far end of the deck where the men spun around and dialed invisible rotary phones in the air. “He needs to know we’re just about brotherhood, bikes, and riding.”

Ford followed his gaze. Madison had finally arrived. She stood in the open sliding door looking around tentatively. Ford knew it was overwhelming at first, coming to one of their parties. Ford was glad his house sat on five acres. The farther from neighbors, the better. Madison might be afraid of a repeat of the rally events, but Ford had specified that no Baal’s Minions were ever to be invited to club events again. Whatever gun running Cropper did with them he could do on his own time.

“Excuse me,” Ford said to Bob, and headed over.

He heard Cropper mutter, “Man, these guys,” meaning the Dynamics. “They’ve got as many costume changes as Cher.” Cropper had never approved of Russ’ musical hobby. He thought it looked sissy.

They’d only been apart six days but it felt like a lifetime, and Ford found himself squeezing the daylights out of Madison, lifting her feet off the floor, carrying her to the kitchen island.

“Ford,” she whispered close to his ear as he set her on the island—right on a crudité tray, as it turned out.

He kissed her lightly over and over, on her lips, her cheek, the tip of her nose. Gollywow crooned about owning the first house on the moon. It was as though he cast romantic moon dust over Ford’s love. He held Madison’s skull between his palms to prevent her from avoiding him. At last he rested his forehead against hers, panting with what suddenly seemed like a massive exertion.

He was literally dizzy with love.

“
Mija
. You’re coming to my bedroom.”

“No!” Stiffening, Maddy gripped Ford’s forearm to hold him away from her. Her wide eyes seemed frightened for some reason.

Ford tried to chuckle casually, lifting the curtain of hair that obscured her face. “Come on,
mija
. I want to make love to you with my mouth.”

“No!” Her protest was more strident this time, definitely tinged with fear.

“I get it. You’re nervous about the party. Don’t be. It’s just an average party. None of those other clubs are here, just a few civilians from town.” He stroked her face with the back of his hand, overjoyed just to see her wide button eyes like a doll’s, her little pointed nose, her fur-lined collar.

“That’s it,” she said. “I’m nervous about Speed’s patching in. I mean, after all he’s done to earn it, I’m so worried it’ll be taken away from him. I saw Faux Pas out front rubbing red dirt on Speed’s new patch. At first I thought he was insulting him.”

Ford laughed. Everyone thought that. “Nope. We’re just welcoming him to the club, helping break in his brand spanking new patch. Don’t worry. No more tricks like the vision quest thing. He’s done with that. He’s a full-fledged Bare Bone now, Maddy. The only way he’s getting out is to have the ink burned off his back. Listen. Let me at least give you a tour of the house.”

So Madison allowed Ford to show her a couple of the suites. In one of them, though, Riker was banging some hoebag up against the wall while a maid stood idly by with towels draped over her arm, waiting to get into the bathroom. Worse, Riker was wearing nothing but his cut with the eight ball patch that told people he’d performed certain sex acts in front of witnesses.

Ford’s automatic reaction was to laugh—although the New Ford who had an old lady named Maddy was sort of inclined to view such activity with disdain.

Madison’s reaction was extreme. She squeaked a high-pitched sound of anxiety and ran off down the hall. Literally ran.

Ford caught her by the stairs that led up to the main level. “
Mija
, what’s wrong? Don’t worry—the master suite isn’t even
on
this level. You’ll never have to stumble on
that
sight, that’s for sure. I know Riker’s hairy ass is enough to make you break out the eye bleach.”

Madison chuckled too, but it sounded forced. “Yeah, that’s it. My eyes, my eyes! I can never unsee that.”

Ford lovingly backed her up against the wall and kissed her forehead. He may have even angled his full crotch against her hip. “I’m sorry,
mija
. I know there are lots of things to get adjusted to. I never guaranteed I’d be anything like your doctor asshole.”

She held her body stiffly against the wall. She even seemed to hold her breath. “I love how you can’t say ‘doctor’ without adding ‘asshole.’”

There was some of the old humor he knew and loved. Ford speared his fingers through her silky hair and pinned her to the wall. He could not wipe the smile that seemed permanently glued to his face. “That’s what he is. I call ‘em as I see ‘em. I hope he didn’t give you a very hard time. No, wait. I don’t want to know. You belong to me.”

“I know,” she whispered, clutching the edges of his cut.

“I don’t want that asshole, or any other asshole, ever coming between you and me again. Do you feel me, sugar?”

She nodded mechanically, like a little child pretending to agree. What was wrong with her today? “I feel you, Ford. I just want to take it a little…ah, slowly. Can you feel that? I don’t like jumping directly from one man to another. It seems kind of…I don’t know. Dirty.”

Ford had to guffaw as he looked up at the ceiling. His entire torso now pressed her into the wall, and his dick throbbed against her. “Oh, no, we’re
never
dirty around here! Come on, sugar. Give me some sugar. It’s been a
long
fucking time.”

But Madison was stiff as a drink. If anything, she became stiffer as he spoke. “I, ah…I’ve got my period. I don’t want to. It’s messy. Give me some time. Look, your guests are going to miss you.” Squirming out from under him, Madison yanked Ford by the hand.

He had no choice but to follow her upstairs, back to the party, but he wondered.

She had just given him about eight different excuses not to make love to him. What had happened while he was fucking around in Nogales? Ford fixed on Cropper as the logical suspect, and out on the deck he took him aside.

“What went on while I was gone? Maddy was working in the hangar doctoring sweetbutts. What happened?” As if he expected an honest answer. Cropper rarely gave that, unless the answer was something harmless, like “bubble gum.”

As expected, Cropper shrugged innocently. “Maybe Riker scared her.”

“That just happened five minutes ago. I can imagine how many times it happened if she worked in the hangar for two days.”

“Exactly. See my point? Hey, when’re the appetizers going to be set out? People are drinking on empty stomachs here.”

Since when did Cropper care about drinking on an empty stomach? Ford went into the kitchen anyway to consult with the chef. While they were discussing cream cheese and mushrooms, Faux Pas wandered into Ford’s line of sight. Faux Pas was younger, more of Ford’s generation than Cropper’s crowd of Duji, Riker, and Tuzigoot. He had been around the Citadel last week. Ford accosted him in the great room.

“Listen.” Ford cut right to the chase. “Maddy is acting strangely. If anything went down last week while I was gone, you’d tell me, right?”

“Oh, indubitably.” English being Faux Pas’ second language, sometimes he chose odd words. “If it was within my rights to tell.”

That didn’t set right with Ford. “So something
did
happen, but you have no right to talk about it?”

“You could interpret it that way.”

“Who
might
have the right to discuss it? Cropper?”

“Yes. That sounds about right. Cropper.”

“And Riker, no doubt.”

“And Riker.”

If Faux Pas was under the ban of silence, there was nothing Ford could do about it other than beat it out of him. Since he didn’t know the nature of the offense, he wasn’t sure how to proceed.

Just as he spied Madison popping a mushroom into her mouth and was about to head over, his dilemma was solved for him.

Solved for the end of time. In a way, he reflected later, he’d rather have been in the dark. Ignorance was bliss, most of the time.

He had a guard at the front door, but why would he keep out Tonya, Cropper’s citizen wife? She rarely, if ever, came to Ford’s house, preferring to keep to her country club set. Her bleached white hair with the dark roots was unmistakable, and she was the only woman wearing high heels and stockings.

Cropper was just stepping in the sliding glass door from the deck when his wife spotted him. She whipped off her round bug-like shades and fully looked about to cry, “Aha!”

Normally it would’ve been funny the way Cropper froze solid like a fatal error screen when he saw Tonya. Narrowing her eyes, she stalked right up to Cropper. Ford had no idea of the nature of their relationship. He’d rarely seen them talk together. The few functions Tonya attended, well, she didn’t attend any Ford could recall. At straight citizen’s functions she seemed to chat mostly with other society wives.

Now she shrieked, “You fucking lowlife!”

Pretty much everyone in the room froze now, too. Out on the deck, Gollywow’s group continued to warble about that spark of magic being in someone’s eye, but inside the great room it was all about Tonya and whatever she was about to scream.