Halligan To My Axe (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC Book 2) (4 page)

“Kettle,” Trance said as he offered his hand.

Trance was named after his eyes. They were two different colors, one blue and one green; the girls loved them.

Something about the man’s curly blonde hair and weird eyes did it for the women.

When you added the cut and the badge, he was nearly unstoppable.

“Trance,” I shook his hand.

“Well, as nice as this is,” Annalise said as she stood up. “I think I’ll go home. Sorry I even bothered.”

Trance and I watched her go, neither one concerned in the least that she left.

“Are you ready for a ride?” Trance asked.

I nodded. “Just need to go change. I’ll be out in ten. My neighbor needed some help carrying in her groceries.”

Trance nodded and took a seat on the couch as I went to the master bedroom to find a shirt and a pair of pants.

I chose the ones that were less holey than the rest, as I expected it to get a little colder out within the next few hours.

Just as I’d slipped the cut over my shoulders and swiped on some deodorant, pounding came from my front door.

“Kettle!” My neighbor screeched, pounding hard on the door.

I wasn’t aware I was running until I got to the door just after Trance had yanked it open.

She poured inside and rushed towards me, completely bypassing a stupefied Trance.

“Oh, my God. I need your help. Can you help me?” She pleaded, grabbing me by the t-shirt and drawing me closer to her.

“She’s blind and I don’t know where she is. Oh Jesus. Please,” she cried.

I grabbed the flailing Adeline’s arms and held them firmly, looking into her eyes with a calm expression. “Adeline,” I said gently but firmly. “You need to calm down and give me the whole story.”

Trance met my eyes over the top of her head, both brows raised in question.

“Oh, God. Oh, God. Okay,” she said nodding her head. “My sister called me to tell me our brother came to borrow some money from her, since he didn’t find any at my place. When she said she didn’t have any on her, my brother took her to an ATM, and then dropped her off somewhere. She can’t hear any noises, and she doesn’t have any way to move. She can’t see. She’s blind.”

Adeline was frantic again by the time she was done.

I was worried myself. What kind of low life brother would drop his blind sister off knowing she couldn’t fucking see to get herself home?

Trance was on the ball, pulling his phone out and calling the station to put a BOLO (Be on the lookout) out on her.

“Hey, what’s the cell number?” Trance called out.

I looked down at a clearly distraught Adeline. “What’s her number, Adeline?”

“Uhh,” she said, turned around, and rattled off the number

Trance relayed the number, and hung up the phone.

“Okay, once she uses the phone again she’ll be traced. Can you call her?” Trance asked calmly.

She seemed to understand that she needed to get her shit together, because she took a deep breath, and blew it out before explaining. “Her phone died. We were in the middle of speaking and she’d told me that it wouldn’t be long until it would die. I came over here as soon as it did. She said he took her to her bank, and then dropped her off a couple of blocks past it, as far as she could tell.”

Taking her hand, I led her to the door and down the stairs before she finished speaking.

I did glance down to make sure she was properly dressed, at least. If she hadn’t been, I would’ve had to send her to her place to get some something more suitable on. I wouldn’t be able to help the sister if I was worrying about the one that was on the back of my bike. The road didn’t really agree with bare skin, for some reason; I was always leery about what I wore when I was riding.

Trance followed me, closing and locking my door behind me as he went.

I fit my helmet over her head, and then strapped it on tight. “Feel okay?” I asked. At her nod, I patted the side of the helmet lightly and then straddled the bike.

“What’s she look like?” I asked her before she sat.

“Black hair like mine. About my height as well. She looks exactly like me, in fact.” She explained.

“Which bank?” Trance asked from his bike that was parked next my own.

I held up my hand for her to climb on, and she took it without a second glance.

“The one off Fourth. Benton Bank and Trust.” She said, moving as close as she could without actually touching me.

I only had a small pad on the back fender that allowed for just part of an ass, not a total one, so for her to be that far away, she had to be nearly hanging off the pad.

“Scoot up,” I instructed.

She scooted maybe a millimeter at most.

“More,” I urged.

Another millimeter.

Sighing in exasperation, I rounded one of my arms around the obstinate woman’s ass and yanked her forward.

After a startled squeak, I fired up the bike and started walking it out of my spot before giving it gas and heading out of my lot towards the bank.

She wrapped her arms tight around my torso, holding on way too tight for comfort.

I didn’t stop her though. She was scared; if I had to deal with a little bit of discomfort, I’d deal.

Trance followed beside me, but split off once we got to Fourth, going in the opposite direction.

The search took well over twenty minutes of back alleys and side streets with no luck.

Then my phone vibrated in my pocket, making me pull over hastily and rush to answer it. “You find her?” I asked quickly, not bothering with a hello.

“Yeah,” he answered. “She’s off of Old Miller Road. She’s pretty scared, too. Won’t let me come near her without freaking out.”

“Alright,” I said, giving Adeline’s leg a pat. “We’ll be there shortly.”

The ride to Old Miller Road was a quick one. It was only five minutes away, and I dropped it down to only two and a half with no objection from the woman currently plastered to my back.

Adeline’s sister looked so much like her that it made me do a double take. Adeline, however, didn’t waste any time in going to her sister, who was hunkered down beside a building and a picnic table.

The sweater she was wearing was stained and dirty, as if she’d fallen down more than once to get to where she was.

Poor girl. She had to be scared to death.

“Viddy!” Adeline called as she ran towards the cowering woman.

Trance was standing about six feet away, watching the woman with an intense expression on his face.

“Addy?” Viddy called, standing up by bracing her hands on the building behind her.

“Right here,” Adeline said, just before she dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around the woman. “Are you okay? Did anything hurt you?”

The woman shook her head. “No, I’m okay. Trance here pulled up about five minutes ago and scared some guy off, but other than that, nothing. Stupid Jefferson just left me here. Didn’t let me take my cane. God, if I could see him, I’d kick his ass.”

I barely suppressed the urge to laugh; Trance, however, did not. He just let it all out.

So the woman had an attitude similar to Adeline.

Made sense, the two of them were so similar they had to be twins. Both of them had long brownish black hair that curled into waves down their backs. Both had the same body, with just the correct amount of padding that every man liked. And both had nearly the same tan.

The only thing different about the two was that Viddy wore dark glasses to hide her eyes.

“That’s okay, I’ll kick his ass for you. I just can’t fathom why he’s doing this. Stupid piece of shit got $1500 out of me that I was saving to put new tires and brakes on my car. Since when does he ever need that much? Asshole.”

That was news to me.

She must’ve figured that out after I’d left. There was no way she would’ve been able to keep that news from affecting her extremely expressive face.

“He got $500 out of me, too. Luckily, I’d just transferred some money into my savings or he’d have gotten a lot more!”

Looking over at Trance, I saw the same emotion expressed in his eyes as I had in my own.

Outrage.

What kind of piece of shit would do something like that?

I didn’t have to worry about justice, though. I could see with just one glance that Trance didn’t plan on leaving this alone.

He was a police officer, as well as a Dixie Warden.

We didn’t condone hurting women. Even if no physical violence was actually done.

“Are you ladies ready to get out of here?” I asked after another ten minutes of rocking and crying between the two women.

In answer, Adeline stood, and yanked her sister up behind her.

“Viddy, I’d like you to meet Kettle. He’s my neighbor. You’ve already met Trance. He’s Kettle’s uhh, friend?” Adeline finished on a question.

“Yeah, we’re friends. It’s nice to meet you, Viddy.” I said offering my hand.

To the blind woman that couldn’t see the hand.

Jesus Christ.

“Uhh,” I said, face flaming in humiliation.

Adeline whispered something in Viddy’s ear and Viddy’s arm raised, searching blindly for my hand. I reached for her hand, gave it a slight shake, trying my hardest not to crush her tiny hand, and dropped it.

“It’s nice to meet you, too, Kettle. My name’s Vidalia. I’m Addy’s twin sister. I’m older by four minutes. It’s nice to be treated like a normal person. Next time say you’re holding your hand out for me to shake, and I’ll proceed in kind.” Viddy replied.

Trance’s eyes were shining with mirth as he sidled closer to us and offered his own hand. “My name’s Trance and I’m holding my hand out to you.”

Adeline snorted, but a smile the size of Texas lit Viddy’s face as she held out her hand for him to take. “It’s nice to meet you, too. Thank you for saving me.”

Trance didn’t let go of Viddy’s arms for a long while, as he watched the play of emotions run across the woman’s face.

“So, I guess, that means you’re riding with me, since none of us were really thinking ahead. Can you ride on a bike?” Trance asked Viddy.

I hadn’t really thought about that part of the plan, either. But it worked out as long as she would ride on the back of Trance’s bike. It wasn’t as if they were asking her to drive.

Adeline and Viddy snorted. “That’s how we got into this mess.” Adeline laughed, leading Viddy to Trance and then straddled my bike.

“You can’t just throw that out there and not expect us to be curious.” I observed dryly, as I followed in her wake.

“Feed us and we’ll tell you.” Adeline smiled widely from her perch on my bike.

Twenty minutes later, I found himself sitting at Longhorn Steakhouse with Adeline at my side, Trance, and Viddy across from me.

It wasn’t how I’d planned to spend my night, but I sure as fuck wasn’t going to complain.

Trance didn’t look like he was complaining either.

“Okay, you’ve got your food on the way. Time to tell us.” Trance said, eyeing the woman sitting next to him.

“It was my fault,” Viddy began. “We were fifteen when I dared her to ride my father’s motorcycle. We hadn’t the first clue what it took to ride one. She was just going to ride it in the driveway, but she lost control and we wrecked.”

“My dad had just gotten a new motorcycle.” Continued Adeline. “It was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen, and he wouldn’t let us anywhere near it. Said it was too much for the either one of us, and refused to take us riding on it. We’d heard him and my brother talking about it a few days after he’d gotten it, and it was supposed to be some beast of a Harley that could take a crotch rocket...whatever that is... and I really wanted to ride it. So, one day after my dad had gone to work on his daily rider, Viddy and I went for a little spin. Literally.”

I hadn’t realized how horrifying it would be to hear about a teenage girl wrecking a big, muscle bike like a Harley V-rod. I’d seen quite a bit in my fifteen years of being in the emergency services, but just picturing what she was about to explain hurt to think about.

“Anyway, daddy had this old five speed motor under the front porch covered in a tarp. It was hoisted up off the ground by a cherry picker by about two or three inches, but the angle of the shifter was pointed out instead of up.” She said swallowing a drink of her coke that the waiter had just set down. “Well, I spun out in the middle of the driveway. I wasn’t really sure how to drive a bike, but I’d done pretty good until it kicked up and started shooting the both of us forward. Things get a little fuzzy after that, and I only remember what I’ve been told.”

I winced, seeing where this was going before she’d even recounted the eye witness accounts.

“Yeah, I was thrown across the carport and my head struck the outside brick wall. I don’t remember anything past that terrifying moment when the bike sped forward and we hit.” Viddy explained.

“So Viddy hit the wall and got a concussion, while I was thrown into the old 5-speed motor under the carport.” She grimaced.

Trance groaned, and I had to swallow the bile that was threatening the back of my throat. “You were impaled.”

It wasn’t a question, but a statement. I was waiting for confirmation.

“Right. I woke up in the hospital lying on my side with the arm of the shifter sticking out of my lower chest.” Adeline confirmed.

“Fuck,” Trance and I said at the same time.

“Yeah, daddy was frantic. He wanted to yell and scream at us, but we were both so hurt that he couldn’t. The yelling didn’t come till later when we were released from the hospital. He’d gotten rid of the bikes, the motor, and anything else hazardous in the house after that day. We didn’t even drive until we were eighteen and moved out of the house because he refused to teach us.”

“And what about you, Viddy?” Trance asked.

“Viddy was diagnosed with a severe form of Cortical Visual Impairment after our accident. The doctor’s and specialists she saw had high hopes that Viddy would gain some of her vision back, like most do, and she did gain some back, but not enough to make anything easier on her. She can make out the difference between bright and dark. She can see a very narrow field through her peripheral vision, but only such a minimal amount that it only does her more harm than good.” Adeline explained.