Highway Don't Care (Freebirds) (17 page)

  Thirty minutes later, we were parked three houses down in
one of the nicer subdivisions in Longview.  The Moran household looked like
one of the nicer ones on the block.

  According to the background check, Elliott ran, and the
information from Luke, Sidney was now Mrs. Logan Moran.  They’d married
about a year ago, and had a one and a half year old daughter.  Mr. Moran
was an engineer at LeTourneau industries.  Sidney was a stay at home mom,
and didn’t have any record.

  We watched the house for over an hour before we got our
first break.  Sidney pulled up in her Audi and parked outside the
garage.  She went to the back door and started unbuckling the child that
was in the back seat.

  Using this excellent opportunity, I leapt out of the car
with my camera ready, and started snapping photos of Sidney and the little
girl.  Sidney set the girl down and walked up to the house, calling out
behind her for the girl to follow, and getting upset when the girl stopped to
grab a flower that was growing in a flowerbed on the side of the driveway.

  I stayed out of sight, but zoomed in as far as I could go,
getting some excellent shots of the little girl with the flower up to her face.
 I took picture after picture, only stopping when Sidney was fed up with
the little girl.  She hauled her into the house by her arm, slamming the
door behind her.

  My heart was pounding.  That was Gabe’s little girl. 
I just knew it.

  Getting back into the Suburban, I clicked my seatbelt into
place, and waited patiently for Sam and Max to get over their shock.

  “How could a person do that to a man?”  Max asked.

  Nobody answered.  We didn’t know.

  The ride back to the compound was a silent one. 
Arriving at Free, we all headed into the office where everyone else was still
residing.  Checks were being run on the Moran family.  Cheyenne was
on the phone with the hospital setting up a DNA test.  Blaine was on the
phone with a judge.  Elliott was on the phone with a lawyer explaining
what was going on.  All of these people loved Gabe, and this proved it.

  A thundering roar pulled up outside of the shop, and I knew
that Jack finally convinced Gabe to come home.  I sat and waited, camera
still in hand, for him to come through the door.  He didn’t
disappoint. 

  He looked ravaged. 

Ω

Gabe

  “I need to get in contact with a lawyer.”  I said to
no one in particular.

  “We’ve already gotten the ball rolling.  All we are waiting
on now is paperwork, which can’t be filed until tomorrow morning.  Your
lawyer will be filing a custody suit at eight AM.  She’ll be served with
papers shortly after.  Blaine here called in some favors and the Judge
moved the case to the front of the list, so as soon as they’re served, a trial
date will be set.  The lawyer recommends not having any contact with the
Moran’s until you have him present.  He doesn’t want to leave anything to
chance.”  Elliott said to me.

  I was dumbstruck.  All this had been done in the two
hours since leaving the barbeque joint.  A little bit of hope took life in
my chest.

  Finally making eye contact with Ember, I noticed the camera
she had clutched in her fingers.

  “What’s going on?”  I asked her.

  She didn’t answer, but instead showed me.

  Picture after picture was of a beautiful black haired,
olive skinned girl.  The girl was wearing a yellow top with flowered
shorts.  The shoes she was wearing were bright yellow.  Her hair was
in pig tales, ringlets flying in the wind.  One picture was of Sidney
herself taking the little girl out of the car seat.  Another was of the
little girl bent over picking a flower.  Another of her smelling the
flower.  The final one was of a mean faced Sidney dragging her by the
arm. 

  The last one set my gut back to churning. 

  “Jesus Christ.  What’ve I done?”  I said roughly.

  “Gabriel, you didn’t do anything.  You did what anyone
would have done when presented with that situation.  Why would you think
she would lie about something like that?  That’s just not something a good
person lies about.  Take this in, and then let it go, because you’re about
to be in the fight of your life.”  Ember said.

  She always knew just what to say to get my mind in the
right place.  She knew if I needed a laugh, if I needed some love, and
when I needed it to be real.  She just knew me, and I was never more
grateful for her presence than now.

  “Alright, tell me what I can do.  I just can’t sit
here.  This is driving me fucking nuts.”

  “Actually I finished my part of the bike.  It’s all
yours.  You have a week to get it painted.”  Jack said to me.

  Nodding my head, I contemplated what to do.  My head
wasn’t in the right place to do anything that had to do with Sidney, I didn’t
want anything to go wrong, so painting the bike was probably the best option I
had right now.  I also knew that the intricacies of painting the bike in
memorial of Dougie would put everything in perspective for me.  This was
when I thought my best, made my best decisions.

  I left the room without another word and went to work.

  I buffed, primed, taped, and painted for hours.  I
didn’t stop until my vision started to get blurry from lack of sleep.  The
clock on the wall told me it was a quarter after three in the morning, and told
me I’d been doing this for way too long.  I was surprised that Ember let
me be on my own for this long, but since she knew me so well, she probably also
knew that I needed to think.  Being the woman that she was, she knew that
if she interrupted me, then I wouldn’t be able to think as I needed to.

  I’d worked it all out in my mind, how I wanted tomorrow’s
meeting with Sidney to go.  I knew what I was going to say to her, I knew
what I was going to offer her, and I knew I was about to be in one hell of a fight. 
That woman didn’t have one reasonable bone in her body when I was with her, and
I was sure she hadn’t changed much in the year and a half since I’d last seen
her.

  Putting all my tools and equipment away, I quietly made my
way around the shop and to my front door.  No noise came from inside, and
so I knew Ember was sleeping already. 

  I unlocked the door as quietly as I could and was bombarded
with the smell of baked goods.  Following the scent into the kitchen, I
found a pan of brownies and a note.

 
Everything always looks brighter when you have something
sweet to eat.  I love you.

  Em.

  Damn.  I love that woman.

  Tomorrow I was going to stop by a ring store and find a
ring that was perfect for her finger, and then I was going to put it there for
the rest of her life.  If anything else, today proved how much she meant
to me.  How well she supported me.  How much she loved me.

  I ate three brownies with a large glass of milk, and then
went to the bedroom and took a shower.  I dried off, and then climbed
naked into the bed behind Ember.  I needed her.

   I made love to her slowly, and when we were finished,
I held her close the rest of the night, feeling her heartbeat against the palm
of my hand.  I was one lucky SOB.

Ω

The next morning

  “Do you still have this letter?”  Martin, my lawyer
asked.

  It took me a minute to decide where I had left it, but
decided I never moved it from its original location.  “Yeah.  It’s in
my rucksack at the bottom of my closet.  I felt damn near homicidal after
reading it and I wanted to be able to read it later with a little calmer state
of mind.  I never touched it again though.  I just stashed it in a
book she’d gotten me and left it there.” 

  “Good.  We need to have that letter on file, and then I
want you to put it in a safe deposit box for safekeeping.  Now, on to the
main event, do you want to have full custody, or do you want to have joint?”

  “Full.”  I said without hesitation. 

  “Alright.  With everything that’s been discussed
today, I will go over it with my associate.  We will get these papers
filed ASAP.  She’ll probably be served with them later this
afternoon.  Most likely, the trial will be held in a month’s time. 
Until then, I can assure you we will work out some sort of visitation schedule
so you can meet your child.  The DNA test will have to be done later this
week, as per court order.  You’ll have to go provide a sample at your
convenience.  I’ll have my secretary give you the information on where it
is located.  I highly advise you to go ahead and start making plans as if
she will be coming to live with you.  The more you show that you want her,
the better it will look in the judge’s eyes.”  Martin said.

  We made our way to the door, and were just shaking hands
when I glanced over and spotted Ember in one of the lobby chairs.  She’d
come, and I didn’t even ask her to.  She smiled when she saw me, and made
her way to me, wrapping her arms around my waist and letting her headrest
against my chest.

  “Ember, this is Martin Barnes, Martin, this is my
girlfriend Ember Tremaine.”  I said.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you Ms. Tremaine.  Gabe here
tells me you are the one who made the connection.”  Martin said.

  Ember nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  Pleasantries were exchanged, and we made our way out of the
building.

  “How’d you get here?”  I asked.

  “Drove.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yep.”

  I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, turning her to
face me.

  “Let me get this straight.  You drove over here with a
hit on you.  By yourself?  At least tell me that someone knows you
came.”

  She looked at me guiltily, and I immediately knew that no
one was privy to her whereabouts.

  “Don’t do that again, Ember.  I can’t lose you. 
Promise me that you won’t go out by yourself until we get this gang situation
figured out.”

  “How long exactly should I have an escort?  It’s been
four fucking months, and I’m tired of this shit.  I want to be able to go
somewhere by myself.  I can’t even take a shit without one of you knowing
it.”  She fumed.

  “Honey, if you want to take a shit in private, all you have
to do is ask, and I’ll leave the house.”

  “This is not a joking matter.  I’m sick and tired of
it.  Figure it out.  Do something, but get it done, because I’m
not
going to deal with this much longer.”

  “You will deal with it as long as it needs to be dealt
with.  This has never been put on the back burner.  We’ve been
working on it for months now.  The police are working a sting operation,
and hopefully, with that in the works, you’ll be taken off the hot seat. 
They might forget about you.  The reason we haven’t used force yet is
because we don’t want to bring you to their attention any more than you already
are.”

  “You’ve got two more months.  That’s it.  I can’t
do this anymore.  Now, let’s go get breakfast, and then I want to go watch
Sidney get served.”

  Laughing, I led her to my motorcycle, handed her her
helmet, strapped mine on, and we rode to the IHop. 

  “I want two sausages, not the breakfast sausage, but the
Eckrich sausage type.  I want three eggs, hash browns, and three
buttermilk pancakes.  Oh, and a Dr. Pepper.”  Ember told the server
before she even had a chance to say hello.

  “Jesus, are you hungry?”  I asked her.

  “Yea, I don’t know what it is, but I have the weirdest
cravings for sausages lately.  What are you getting?”  She asked me.

  “I’ll have the breakfast sampler.  Sausage and
Bacon.  Coffee.”  I said to the server.

  “O-okay.  C-can I get you an appetizer or
anything?”  She said sweetly batting her eyelashes.

  “No.  That’s it.”  Ember said tersely.

  The server turned and sashayed away, but I looked at Ember
with raised eyebrows in silent question.

  “She was flirting with you.  She never even looked at
me.  The entire time she was here she never even acknowledged me.  Now
tell me how it went today.”

  I explained to Ember about the meeting.  What my
expectations were and how he planned to put those plans into effect.

  “He really thinks this will only take a month?”

  “That’s what he said.  Now, whether that will actually
be the case is a completely different story.  Sidney was always a
difficult woman to deal with, and I don’t expect this to be any
different.  In fact, I feel like it will be even more of a fight than she
usually gives.  I still can’t believe that I have a kid out there. 
How could she have lied to me about this?”  I asked her.

  “Not a clue, y’all just better make sure I’m never alone
with her.  I’d seriously kick her ass.”

  Really, she wouldn’t because she didn’t want to jeopardize
my ability in getting my child.  We both knew that, but she was in need of
a vent.  I’m surprised she’s lasted as long as she has.  She had dark
circles under her eyes, and I worried that maybe I shouldn’t have worked my
frustrations out on her for so long the night before.