Nomads' Fall: Burning Bastards MC (14 page)

“Oh dear, I understand, but you need to be very careful of the company you keep you know, someone might get the wrong idea and lump you with those people. I’m Violet Sanders. I’ve been taking a small break from my volunteer job here at the hospital. I am with the Hospitality Ladies. We’re the ones that roll those carts with the paperback books and things to do to keep a patient from dying of boredom while they’re with us. My ladies group from the church took over the program when the last Hospitality Lady died.”

Violet looked at her watch and stood. “It was nice meeting you, young lady, remember, if you lie down with dogs, you’re going to get their fleas. The Devil himself is said to be handsome, until you meet him in hell. My advice is to go home and forget about this day, and those people.” She waved as she walked away.

Jolly waited a few minutes to gather her composure. The bubbling laughter that tried to escape would not be welcomed in the emergency waiting room. She finally got up and found her way to the car.

Demon and Knight were standing by a large black hog talking when she stopped about five feet from the two men. They certainly looked devilish. She had to smile about the comparison. One so dark featured and the other fiery red-haired with the three-day-old beard to match the coppery color on his head. Both men were built in extraordinary proportions, and not movie star handsome like their friend, Mick, but they held sex appeal, way too much sex appeal for her comfort.

“Are any of you people shorter than six foot tall? I swear, every time I see another of you, it’s like you have a height requirement to be a member. That Beadle guy is the shortest one of you I’ve met.”

They turned to see her and grinned. She held up a hand palm out. “Oh no you don’t, save the sexy smiles for some other woman you sons of Satan. I have it on good authority that even the Devil has a handsome face until I meet him in hell.” She made a show of looking Knight up and down, and twirling her finger for him to turn around. He didn’t immediately comply, so she repeated the gesture, and he finally did her bidding.

“I guess I can’t see them, but my dear friend, Violet Sanders, swears that if I hang with the dogs, I’ll get their fleas on me. I’m not a big fan of fleas, or any bug for that matter. Since you’ve ridden in my car, I wanted to see if I need to have the pest people check it out.” She shook her head sadly as if thinking about the need to fumigate the Mustang.

Knight’s eyes narrowed at her words, and Demon began to laugh. “Are you serious?
That
was Violet Sanders? I’ll be damned, sooner than later if that prune faced bible thumper has her way. She’s been after the Bastards for years. She calls the law anytime she sees one of us on the road, and Crazy Charlie almost got his head taken off with her purse one time when he stopped to help the woman change a flat tire. She called the sheriff and told him the man that changed her tire was rude to her and she wanted to file charges.”

“It took maybe three minutes of talking to her to get the idea that she doesn’t like your group. You’re in the bad category of being “
those people
” and I should watch myself around you.” She shook her head and headed for the Mustang’s drivers side. “Okay, slick, hop in and I’ll drop you off at your choice of locations. First I need to find out where you all have Gladys’s things so they’re home when she gets there.”

Demon followed the blue sports car as they drove to the crib. He thought about the conversation he’d just had with Knight, and knew they would have to continue the talk later. Jolly had interrupted just when he was ready to apologize for running his mouth and betraying a confidence Knight had sworn him to secrecy over. Jealousy was an ugly fucking emotion, but it was riding him that day, and he got his just desserts when Big Dog knocked his ass into the dirt. Nothing between the two best friends had been the same since. He knew it was all his fault, but how to mend the breach eluded him.

Now it looked like they were both attracted to the same woman again. This one could get them killed if they pissed her off enough. It wouldn’t really matter much if William Kelly was mad at one of the Bastards, but the man had a reputation for cutting the head from the snake’s body and burning down his house with his family inside. If they pursued Jolly, they could get every one of them killed, and it wouldn’t be from picking them off one by one like the asshole with the sniper’s rifle.

Crazy Charlie was sitting at the bar when they walked into the clubhouse. He was ripping sugar packets open and scarfing them down like a thirsty man would guzzle a beer. There was a small mountain of little paper wrappers next to him on the bar and Tiny was listening to the greybeard complain about his woman problems.

“Selma thinks she can tame this wild horse. I ain’t about to wear a fucking neck tie, it don’t matter how much I care about that old bitch, I ain’t doin’ it. She wants a pretty boy, she’s looking at the wrong man. I told her that too.” More sugar packets were ripped open and the old guy tilted his head back to pour the contents onto his tongue. “Telling me she wants to be a judge, and can’t get elected if she has a live-in lover that looks like a biker. Shit, I told her I am a fuckin’ biker, and she needs to make up her damn mind.” He looked around the room as his fingers were busy shaking down the sugar in the packs and saw the three that were just inside the door.

The last time Demon had seen Charlie, shit, just the thought of his old ass swinging back and forth while he was fucking his woman in the backroom, still made him flinch. That was a memory only time could dim. If he made it to that age, he was going to take every fucking mirror out of the house so he wouldn’t have to see his own saggy ass.

“The fat assed sheriff was here. He wanted us to know his deputy is going to see a psychiatrist tomorrow, and he was all kinds of apologetic. I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I told him I’d pass the message on. He was sure acting pissed when they wouldn’t let him in the gate without a warrant.”

Demon nodded, “Yeah, his deputy got out of hand and he’s going to be lucky if the lady here doesn’t bring a lawsuit on the sheriff’s department for keeping a nutcase like Murphy on the payroll. This is Jolly Baker Kelly, she helped out at the wreck this morning.”

Chapter
Fourteen

Jolly looked around the room and thought it was nice enough, not the rough and rundown kind of place she’d been expecting. This could be a bar at any social club anywhere. Unless you counted the couple in the corner, there was obviously more going on there than talking. A woman was giving a bald headed scary looking man head while he drank his beer. He had a scar from his cheekbone down past the neck of his t-shirt and it wasn’t a handsome or interesting scar. It looked like he’d never gotten medical attention when it happened.

Demon saw what she was looking at and grinned. At least she didn’t flinch or demand to know what kind of place would allow open sexual activities like that. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought she was studying Ham. The brother was fucked up, had a serious case of PTSD, and he'd earned every scar he wore. His blood brother was still over in the Middle East getting his hero on. It was probably a good thing Ham’s cock was currently being serviced by Belle, or she might have walked over and asked to see it, as closely as she was watching the scarred brother. The man was called Ham for two reasons, he came home from his two tours looking like hamburger, and his dick had gotten split at the head down to his shaft. His cock loosely resembled a ball peen hammer, so Ham was his tag.

Demon didn’t like the idea that Jolly was looking at another guy, regardless of why. That was odd, and he shook it off. Knight scowled when he saw what was happening, but he didn’t say anything either.

“Will you try to stay put if we go looking in Georgie’s room for Gladys’s stuff? This is Tiny and he’ll give you whatever you want to drink, we’ll be back in a few.”

She looked at the heavyset man on the other side of the bar and smiled. “Go ahead, I’ll keep him company and give him a break if he needs one. I’ve tended bar before.” She hopped up on a barstool and turned her back on the two men that had such frowns you’d think someone swiped their wallets.

Tiny got her the coke she asked for and smiled. “Did I hear you being called Jolly? I like it. Do you tell jokes or something?”

She had to grin. This man was friendly and seemed like a good guy. So she went with the old joke, “How do you drown a blonde? You glue a mirror to the bottom of the swimming pool.” He grinned and they exchanged blonde jokes for a few minutes. Those dumb jokes led to a discussion on the possibility of zombies and the conversation got a little odd. They’d just about come to a conclusion on the possibility of walking dead people when Ham came to the bar and set the beer bottle down asking for another.

His voice was raspy and deep, it matched his looks. “Man, do you got any painkillers back there? My damn back is giving me hell today. I gotta ride to Downing’s and get my mail, but I don’t think my fuckin' back will hold up.”

Tiny poured the man a double shot of Jack, and shook his head, “I’m out. Supposed to get more tomorrow afternoon when Billy shows. Until then this is it.”

Jolly was hesitant to speak up, but the man looked to be in serious pain, and she could probably help him. “What’s wrong with your back?”

Demon and Knight came into the room and saw Jolly sitting her ass on Ham’s hips while she worked on the muscles and scars with her hands. She was telling him everything that she was doing, what muscles and tendons, she was manipulating each time her hands moved to a different spot. Tiny was handing her a wet towel that was steaming and she told Ham to expect heat. “The moist heat will release the muscle so I can get these knots to relax. They should have told you to find a hot tub when this happens. A whirlpool would be ideal for this if you don’t have anyone to help you at home. In a pinch you can use deep vibration to make the muscles loosen up, but you would need something more powerful than your girlfriend’s vibrator, you can get the good ones through mail order or on the internet.”

The groans coming from Ham were weird but no one had seen the man without his back protected by a wall when inside a building before. He was almost always covered by a shirt or his cut to cover his scars too. Yet here he was, allowing someone not only behind his back, she was moving at will all over the scarred landscape and he hadn’t thrown her off or killed her yet.

His hands were gripping the table near his head, and the knuckles were no longer white from straining to hold on. He allowed her to cause a small amount of pain to bring relief from the unrelenting clawing feeling he normally felt when his back tightened up like it had today. “I swear to God, lady, you’ve got magic hands. I can feel it letting go for the first time in over a year. Marry me.” By the time she worked her way to the back of his neck and scalp, he wanted to cry, the pain had lessened so much. It was still there, but not like it was before she took pity on him and offered to help. He was going to buy a damned Jacuzzi like she said, and wallow in the fucker like a pig in mud.

She worked on the scarred warrior for over an hour. He hadn’t been given instructions on how to relieve the pain from his muscles contracting. If he got massage therapy for a while, and did as she suggested, he’d learn to keep those muscles fluid and lighten his pain level immensely. He wouldn’t need to live on pain meds and booze to function all of the time.

By the time she climbed down from her perch, her legs were wobbly, but she smiled at the look of gratitude from Ham. He started to roll off the table and she shook her head at him. “You need to plan your moves, you have to remember that your muscles will contract again, so keep them stretched as often as you can. I know big bad biker boys would rather someone slit your throats than admit to doing yoga, but in the privacy of your room or wherever, do some of the stretches I told you about. I promise you it will help a lot.”

Demon would have pulled her off Ham when he came into the room, but Knight held him back. His quiet words stopped him mid-stride. “Look at him, he’s been in pain too fuckin’ long, I don’t like it either, but he needs what she’s doing.” It made him really look at Ham, the poor bastard was clenching his teeth, but the liquid pooling in the corner of Ham’s eye told him to relax. He didn’t need to go apeshit over something as innocent as this. He still didn’t like to see her touching another man, but there had been times he wished for a miracle cure for the man. His back would bow, or he’d be sitting with his torso twisted to the side, drinking himself into oblivion.

He stepped up and offered his hand and arm for Ham to pull himself up like Jolly was trying to show him to do. She smiled at him and he felt like she might actually like him for once. She’d been studying him since he’d laid eyes on her, this smile of hers was one he could get used to.

Jolly picked up the cold wet towels she’d used on Ham’s back and walked over to the bar where Tiny was standing. “Thanks for helping me with these. I couldn’t have done all of that by myself.”

He grinned and nodded at her, “What’s brown and red?”

She shook her head that was one she hadn’t heard, or had forgotten. “A brunette that told one too many blonde jokes.” She groaned and laughed.

“Okay, funny boy, you win that round. I have to get a move on. I still need to get to town and buy some groceries and get back to the campground to get clean clothing for Gladys in the morning.” She picked up her purse and started for the door.

Knight caught up with her at the door. “We went through Georgie’s place and couldn’t find a gun belt or extra guns anywhere. If he’s still got them we can’t find them. Tell Gladys if she needs firepower she can come choose what she wants anytime.” When she turned back to the door he grabbed her arm, “I almost forgot something.” He kissed her and she was needy enough to let him, encouraged him even by opening her lips and dueling with the tongue that invaded her moist mouth. He drew back and steadied her with his hands on her shoulders, before stepping away. He smiled and walked toward Ham.