Greatest Height (New Adult Biker Gang Romance) (Night Horses MC Book 6) (5 page)

I couldn’t think of a good reason not to. Besides, if my mother had it, so would he, and I couldn’t bear to break her heart again.

It had just started to mend.

I heard the louder roar of a motorcycle coming down the quiet street.

“That’ll be Merle,” I said, still awkward.

They nodded.

“I should head down,” I said.

“Come back tomorrow?” my mother asked.

“I… I have work. Dinner on Monday?” I asked.

“Your mother wasn’t asking a question,” my father rumbled. “You need to obey her.”

“No,” my mother said, her voice calm, “She does not. Did you not just hear me? Did you not hear what I’ve been saying for weeks? Our daughter is an adult and she does not have to obey us.”

“Under our roof-” he began.

“She doesn’t live under our roof any more,” my mother said. The sadness was creeping back. The light was Fading from her eyes. “She has her own place and her own life and if you make her not want to come back to see us, so help me God I will leave you.”

It was still calm, very matter-of-fact.

My mother was always straightforward and practical.

I almost couldn’t believe that she would say something like that to my father. She adored my father.

But… this new version of my mother, this broken version, maybe she was different.

Maybe I had to get to know my parents all over again.

It was a weird thought. Looking around the house, I realized that it felt different, too.

Only Bear was the same.

The silence was broken by a knock at the door.

“At least let us give you a ride back, instead of getting on that motorcycle,” my father said.

I almost said yes. Merle loved riding on his bike, but I still wasn’t a big fan.

Something, though, made me pause.

If it was my father who did all that, did I really want him to know where I lived now?

No.

I didn’t.

Merle knocked on the front door again, a little more loudly.

“Okay, okay,” I called down to him.

I turned back to the frozen tableau of my parents.

“I’ll come by soon, okay?” I asked, a small smile on my face.

I didn’t know how they’d react. Apparently everything that had happened in the past few months had changed my parents so much that they were swinging back and forth between acting like my old parents and acting like strangers.

I held my breath, hoping for my parents.

My mother stood up and smiled back, with tears in her eyes.

“I love you,” she said, simply. “Please come back soon.”

She held out her arms to me and I went to them, giving her a quick tight hug.

My father and I exchanged a long look and a wordless hug.

I wish I knew what that look was supposed to mean.

Merle knocked a third time, louder yet, and poor Bear finally realized someone was at the door and barked.

He was getting a lot older. Maybe someone could have been in the house without him noticing. Maybe it wasn’t my father.

I made my way downstairs, my shoes clicking on the hard wood of the stairs. That, at least, was familiar, unchanged.

I opened the door to find Merle and Jackson. Jackson grinned at me, but Merle was wide-eyed and angry-looking.

When he saw me, he relaxed, a little.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come to the door,” I explained. “I had to say goodbye.”

Jackson nodded. “Not a problem.”

Merle, too, nodded, in a more distracted way.

I looked out over their shoulders.

One motorcycle and one car were parked out front. I hadn’t heard the car over the noise from Merle’s bike, I’d thought it was just a little louder than normal.

“I met Merle here so you wouldn’t have to ride a hog,” Jackson said. He elbowed Merle. “Give me the keys, asshole.”

Merle reached into the pocket of his jeans and handed a key to Jackson, but his eyes were on me.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded. I almost burst into tears, but I nodded.

“Very convincing,” Jackson said. “Try practicing in the mirror.”

After a few more awkward moments, we left. I followed Merle to the car and we headed out.

We didn’t speak until we got a few blocks away. Merle pulled over by a city park, the playground deserted.

He looked at me, and I felt a rush of love and protection.

I smiled at him, a real, relieved, heartfelt smile, with none of the fear or worry or doubt that I felt around my parents.

“Are you okay?” he asked, taking my hand.

“No,” I said. I was still smiling, but my eyes burned with unshed tears. “I’m really not.”

“What happened?” he asked.

“Okay, first of all, I am so, so, so sorry for yelling at you,” I said.

He frowned. “I should have been paying more attention,” he said. “I realized that something was wrong, but I was… distracted.”

I nodded.

“We both were,” I said. “No harm done, right?”

He reached out and took my hand.

“I hope not,” he said.

“What’s been going on with you?” I asked. “Why have you been avoiding me?”

He ran his fingers through his hair.

“I haven’t been avoiding you. I’ve been busy. Really busy. I didn’t think you’d wanna hear about it, but there’s been some problems with a gang,” he said.

“I want to hear,” I said, squeezing his hand gently.

“Someone’s been messing with our supply,” he said. “There’s always been a source of dope in the area that we haven’t been able to track, because these guys moved so quickly and weirdly. And - they killed one of my sellers. Man, he may have been a low-life scumbag, but he was our low-life scumbag, you know?”

I nodded. There was territory, pride, and ownership in everything I’d learned about the Night Horses.

“It’s gotta be a small operation, but they move a lot of shit,” he went on. “That’s one thing. Competition is okay, it’s good, it can be healthy - but killing one of my guys for no goddamn reason? Shit’s fucked up.”

“I can’t even imagine,” I said.

He gave me a small smile. “I hope not,” he said. “I want you to steer clear of men like that.”

He sighed.

“So, that’s why I’ve been so out of touch lately. I’ve been putting out fires and trying to keep my men under control,” he said.

“I can believe it,” I said.

He asked me what was wrong then, what had happened, and I almost told him, but the words froze in my throat.

“I want to go home,” I finally said.

I didn’t expect him to look that hurt. He started up the car and drove - back towards where we came from.

“No,” I said. I put my hand on his leg. “I want to go home. To your place. Or to my apartment. Whichever.”

Relief broke across his face.

We passed a quiet drive back to the Night Horses compound, but, although I was nervous about how to handle telling him about Chad and William, it wasn’t a bad silence.

It wasn’t as awkward as the silence I’d shared with my parents, and that almost broke my heart.

I was such a bad daughter.

Wasn’t I supposed to love them best, to want to be with them, to do what they wanted me to?

I didn’t even know any more.

Merle thought I should be my own person and do what I wanted, but he didn’t really know what it was like to have parents who loved you and were involved in your life, and he admitted it.

My father clearly wanted me to obey like I always had.

My mother… my mother said I was an adult now.

Fuck me, but I didn’t feel like an adult.

I said as much to Merle, who laughed.

“No one does, sweetheart,” he said, his black eyes crinkled at the corners with amusement. “Haven’t you heard that before? Not one person I know thinks they’re really cut out to be an adult, even the ones with grey goddamn hair.”

He paused.

“Well, Alex probably does, actually, and maybe Jackson, but those assholes are weird,” he said.

“They’re your best friends,” I objected.

“They are, and I’m probably weird for spending so much time with those weird sons of bitches,” he said, with as much cheer as I’d ever seen him.

We got back to Merle’s place. Walked between the old cabins and weird-ass buildings that you can make if you don’t give a damn about codes.

We nodded and smiled to the people we walked past.

It wasn’t until we got to Merle’s place, Merle’s room, and shut the door that I could really calm down enough to tell him what happened.

We sat on the bed together, like my mother and I had done, and I told him.

I didn’t look at his face.

I told him what Chad and ied to do.

I told him what I did. How I had gotten away.

He didn’t say anything for a long few minutes.

I chanced a look at his face and he was almost white with rage.

“Are you angry at me?” I asked.

He looked up, shocked.

“You did an amazing job,” he said. “You got away from them. You did everything right. I’m so proud of you.”

I cried, then.

He held me in his arms and stroked my hair and murmured to me that I was wonderful and he was so proud of me and he was going to kill those fucking preppy cocksuckers.

The usual sweet nothings.

“Don’t kill them,” I said, pulling away to look him in the eyes when I was a little calmer.

His eyes were hard.

I repeated myself. “Don’t you fucking dare kill them, you hear me?”

“Why not?” he asked.

“If you kill them, fuck, if you even beat them up, and you get caught, and you go to jail, how the fuck do you think I’d feel?” I demanded. “They’re gonna have shitty lives and get what’s coming to them, okay? Don’t you dare give it to them. It’s not your job.”

“It is,” he insisted. “It’s my job to take care of you.”

I met his gaze.