Charity For Nothing: The Virtues Book III (11 page)

He rained blows into my midsection, but avoided the face for the most part after only one or two blows to it. Probably because my thick skull hurt his hands and he needed his hands for what he did as a bail bondsman. Not only for all of the typing he had to do, but for the take downs and arrests. Hard to manipulate handcuffs with your hand in a cast or fingers in a splint.

“Let him go,” Radar said with some disgust, and Lightning dropped me like a sack of potatoes onto my living room floor.

“Get your shit together, Nothing. Way I see it, that girl is a gift from god when it comes to you. Lightning, let’s go.”

Lightning stepped over me and went out past Radar, a grim look on his face. He hadn’t enjoyed kicking my ass. Neither had Radar, but Radar could shut that part of himself off. Divorce his feelings from anything he did. It’s what made him a good Sgt. at Arms.

“You got an hour to get cleaned up and find the rest of us in town on clean up. I’d get moving if I were you.”

I coughed and pushed myself up into a sitting position. Radar spit on the ground and with a final disgusted noise that hollowed out the pit of my stomach, marched across the debris field in my yard and climbed into the driver’s seat of Charity’s white Wrangler. He leaned across Lightning and called out the passenger window, “For the record, she asked us not to hurt you! Not sure why that girl thinks you deserve mercy after the shit you said, but she does.”

He fired up the Jeep, put it in reverse, and backed out of my driveway. I sat for a few minutes and took stock of myself from a professional standpoint. I was going to be sore as fuck for a day or two, bruised enough to give it a good show, at least in my face, but all told, Radar had gone easy on me.

I got up and got a shower, pushed my bike, with difficulty, back out into the garage and filled her with fluids. Moment of truth, I fired her up, and she fired true. Well at least one thing had gone right.

I had fifteen minutes to get where I was going, which in a town this small? That was easy. I shot a text to Radar and asked where they were at. A second later he pinged back with ‘@ the Capt,’ so I headed there first, a knot of dread in my chest. I didn’t like pulling displays of humility after fucking up. No one did; but I was due one.

I rode carefully around and over debris, and pulled into the Captain’s circular drive. Several of the guys were standing around planning cleanup, briefing on where to start. I kicked palm fronds out of my way until I had a patch of bare paver to lean my kickstand on. Tipping the bike gently, I leaned her over onto her stand and shut her off.

“We get the bikes?” Trike asked frowning.

“No, I just finished rebuilding my engine, she weathered the storm with me.”

“Oh,” he said and Stoker smacked him in the shoulder, talking down to him all the while giving me a harsh glare.

Guess no one would be talking to me until I made that apology. I’ll give my brother’s one thing… they were good at keeping a wayward man in line when he strayed off the path that was right by the club and his brothers. Seemed to me that Charity may have charmed the pants off of more than just me, I just seemed to be the only man here she’d done it to,
literally
rather than figuratively. I went up the steps, straightening my cut over my weathered Red Hot Chili Peppers band tee and with a sigh, stepped over the threshold of my Captain’s open front door.

It took a second for my eyes to adjust, even after raising my wraparounds to the top of my head. I blinked and glanced at Cutter, Marlin, and Pyro who wore triplicate grim expressions set in stone and I nodded.

“Anyone know where Charity is?” I asked.

“Right here,” she said softly and I turned. She was standing practically beside me at the bottom of the staircase.

“Hi,” I said, startled. She was dressed different. A peach, fitted tee replacing the pink tank, but the shorts were the same. She had on socks and what looked like hiking boots, a pair of work gloves sticking out of her back pocket. She’d straightened her hair and had it up in a high ponytail, and her makeup was done, light but there.

I wanted to ask her ‘who does their makeup to clean up a town’ but I didn’t. Instead I did what I came here to do. I got down on one knee and looked up at her and said, “I apologize, I was an ass and there’s no excuse for it. I’m sorry I scared you, I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, and I’m sorry that I made you cry.” I swallowed hard, the seconds ticking by one by one and added, “That’s not me, that’s never been me, and I don’t know what my fucking problem is.”

I waited with baited breath for her to say something, anything…

Chapter 15

Charity

I came down the stairs, slowing when I saw Nothing standing at the bottom, sunglasses perched on his head, a fresh bruise on his cheek up near his eye. The bottom of my heart dropped out and I felt a swirl of guilt which I tried valiantly to beat back down with my quickly evaporating anger.

I had a problem staying angry at someone when they were hurt. All I wanted to do when I saw hurt was fix it, so that it didn’t hurt anymore. I’m sure some psychologist would have a field day with me and my fucked up family issues and drawing inference on just why I became a nurse in the first place, but I didn’t have time for all of that.

“Anyone know where Charity is?” Nothing asked, and my heart gave a leap for a totally different reason. I swallowed hard, and licked suddenly dry lips even as Cutter raised his eyebrows at me.

“Right here,” I forced out and hated how soft and fragile it sounded. I felt like a rabbit that’d been caught by human arms; its little heart going a mile a minute, trapped in place when all it wanted to do was run.

He turned, those solemn gray eyes taking me in from my feet, all the way to the top of my head as I forced my feet to move down the last couple of steps to stand on the final, cream carpeted riser, before I met him even on the golden hardwood.

He turned and approached me, going down on his knees and looking up; I think my heart froze solid in my chest, skipping a beat, when his eyes met mine. Then he started to speak:

“I apologize, I was an ass and there’s no excuse for it. I’m sorry I scared you, I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, and I’m sorry that I made you cry.” He swallowed and added almost as an afterthought, “That’s not me, that’s never been me, and I don’t know what my fucking problem is.”

I let out the breath I’d been holding and the part of me that wished to remain angry with him snapped that this was all well and good, but it was obvious his club
made
him apologize… still, the softer, more forgiving side of me chimed in with,
yes, but the words were all his.

I touched the side of his face gently, and he let me, palpitating around the bruise and swelling with the pad of my thumb. He winced, and flinched and I sighed.

“Come into the kitchen with me, we’d best get some ice on this before it swells much worse,” I murmured. If he read between the lines, then he would know I’d just accepted his apology, but the part of me that was entirely Hope’s little sister couldn’t let him slide through completely unscathed. Let’s see how he liked having his head fooled with on something important.

He did something entirely unexpected then. He palmed my hand that I’d been about to take back and turned his face, planting gentle lips against my fingertips. Well damn, guess he knew he’d been forgiven and I was a little bit perturbed with myself that I’d let him get away with it that easy.

“Sure, ladies first,” he said and got up onto his booted feet, moving aside for me to go past him. He trailed me into the kitchen and sat down at the large, glass, dining room table. I went to the refrigerator which was still working. Cutter, in addition to state of the art storm shutters, had backup generators to run the house when the power went down.

I put ice into a kitchen towel and brought it to him, he accepted it with a grateful nod, and put it against his face. While he did that, I captured the hand I’d done this for only hours ago and looked at the knuckle. He’d lost a gash of skin and it was bruised, but the swelling had gone down considerably.

“You’ll live,” I said, releasing his hand and he looked up at me, palming my hip and giving it a squeeze, a strangely casual touch given all that’d occurred in such a short amount of time.

“Thanks,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” I murmured and moved away from him and back out to the foyer. Cutter and Marlin looked at me quizzically and I nodded carefully.

“I’d like, very much, to just forget it if we could?”

“Don’t blame you one bit, Trouble,” Cutter said kindly.

“What can I do to help?” I asked.

“Well, we was just talking about that actually,” Marlin said and heaved a big, Husky black and yellow tool box up and over the couch. It was the plastic kind, with something similar to a suitcase’s arm and wheels.

“We was hoping that you could man the first aid kit and station, while we put Nothing to work this time.”

I nodded, “Of course.”

“We get all sorts of minor cuts, scrapes, slivers and thorns. It’s not glamorous, but it keeps everyone working.”

“Sounds good,” I said and smiled.

“Alright then, let’s get out there.”

I was surprised to find that Cutter and the men of The Kraken didn’t start with Cutter’s house or the Plank. Instead, we walked down the street, by about four houses. The men all had various tools. Shovels, rakes, bolt cutters, pruning shears, tree pruning sticks, chainsaws, hand saws, utility belts with hammers and nails… we looked like a leather clad construction crew walking down Sand Dollar Lane.

They went up the drive of a smaller home and Cutter knocked on the door. An elderly man and woman, stooped with age answered it after what felt like forever.

“Mr. and Mrs. Pilchuck, we’re here to clean up your yard and we’ve brought a nurse with us to check y’all’s health. You two do okay?” he asked.

“Oh my, yes!” the woman called and the man nodded, the couple was all smiles and before Cutter had even finished talking, the men had scattered throughout the yard and had begun dragging fallen limbs and detritus off of the spongy grass and into the drive.

“Charity is a nurse and she’s going to check y’all over make sure everything is running great, okay?”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that, Anders!” the man cried.

“I know, Mitch, but better safe than sorry, yeah? Charity, why don’t you follow Mr. and Mrs. Pilchuk into their kitchen and give ‘em a once over.”

“Yes of course,” I said smiling and hefted the first aid kid from hell up the two steps of their front wrap around porch. They led me carefully back to their kitchen and Mr. Pilchuck sat at the table while I took stock of what was what in the big rolling kit, smiling at the stethoscope, oxygen meter, and blood pressure cuff.

“Can I see your finger?” I asked Mr. Pilchuck and he chuckled and held out his left hand. “You gonna put a ring on it? ‘Cause I’m already married!” I blushed and laughed and clipped the O2 meter to his ring finger.

“Just relax and breathe normally,” I assured him. “Are you taking any medications?” I asked and so began the basic health rundown that every nurse was trained to do.

Mr. and Mrs. Pilchuck, for both being in their early eighties, were in remarkable health. Mr. Pilchuck’s blood pressure was a little high, but considering his prescription for it and all the excitement, it was within normal parameters. Even so, I relegated him and Mrs. Pilchuck to the front porch swing to merely watch the goings on around their home versus any actual participation. Well, aside from Mrs. Pilchuck and me making lemonade and sandwiches for the boys and my sisters.

Hope was wrestling tree limbs and hacking at things alongside Cutter, just like one of the boys while Faith was doing more fetch and carry. I treated Trike for a deep, nasty sliver, digging it out carefully with more of the plethora of supplies in the kit, handing him my work gloves and sending him back into the fray at one point.

I was surprised the clean up only took around two hours at the Pilchucks before Cutter gave a shout, and all was packed in to move to the next stop. I bid the elderly couple a goodbye and hefted my kit back down to the street and followed along to the next house, which, surprisingly, wasn’t anywhere near the first.

“How do you pick them?” I asked, walking alongside Cutter and Hope, my eyes on Nothing’s back.

It seemed I wasn’t the only one to forgive him, the rest of the club had gone back to literally acting like, well; nothing had ever happened… no pun intended.

“We go by age, disability, and need. Same way we do it buttoning up houses,” he said.

“For a rough bunch, you do a lot of good then?” I asked.

Cutter grinned, “You don’t see the town’s boys in blue out here do you?” he asked and Hope shot him a dirty look.

I laughed, “No, why?”

“When I first got here, I accused Cutter and his men of having the town in their pocket from fear,” she explained. “It’s how a lot of MC’s work. Protection rackets and the like,” she said.

“Why use fear when kindness goes a lot further?” Cutter asked.

“So the town’s businesses don’t pay you guys to keep order then?” I asked.

“That’s club business, Trouble,” he said with a wink.

“Uh huh, that’s what I thought. So Hope, you were half right,” I said.

“I didn’t say that, now did I?” Cutter asked.

“No you did not,” I conceded, “But sometimes it isn’t what you say.”

“Smart girl,” he mused and we amassed in another front yard.

Again, I checked on the woman inside. She was disabled, a diabetic on oxygen, and her sugars had climbed dangerously high. I treated her with some of her own insulin and we got her comfortable and back down to manageable levels.

The men worked hard and tirelessly, and when it grew dark, they put lights on their heads attached to headbands and kept working. When it started to rain, Cutter called it a day and we went back to the house for much needed showers. We’d done five houses today and tomorrow he was hoping to do even more. Hossler’s being the first on the list. Power had yet to be restored to the town, and at one point Cutter approached me with Nothing.