looking back, deciding that I’ll never stop there again.
Once we’re on the road, heading toward New York and we’re far away from the clubhouse, only then does Eagle decide to speak to me. I wish he wouldn’t, but he’s in a mood and has been since we started on this trip back in Eagar.
“Thought you were all concerned with your woman being gone?” he asks.
I grip the steering wheel tightly, my knuckles turning white and the plastic cracks under the pressure. I grunt, closing my eyes for a second, then reopen them and focus my attention back on the road.
“I am.”
He snorts. I think about telling him to shove his opinion up his ass, but I don’t. He doesn’t matter, nobody matters right now, but Leighton. I fucked up with her, big time. I didn’t want to think about missing her, about what that meant. So, I ignored my gut’s twisting feeling and tried to keep busy on the trip.
I did what every dumbfuck does, because that’s what I am, that’s what I’ve always been. This is why I wanted to keep her far away from the clubhouse. I do dumb shit, and it would be a lot fucking better if I could do my dumb shit, have my space, then go home to her none the wiser.
“Mountain,” he says, the word coming out like a warning.
Grinding my teeth together, I press on the gas pedal harder and drive straight ahead. “What?” I shout when he doesn’t say anything else.
“You gotta know what you want, brother, and you can take it, but this ain’t the way.”
Pressing my lips together, I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to keep from pulling over and knocking him the fuck out. Narrowing my eyes on the windshield, I grunt, refusing to even respond to his words.
“Mind your business,” I murmur.
He doesn’t say anything right away. He stays eerily quiet. I don’t say anything either. Honestly, I don’t want to hear him say a fucking thing and I don’t want to admit that I fucked up, at least not aloud. I’ve already admitted it to my damn self.
“Pull over,” Eagle demands.
Pulling the truck over to the side, I curse at the fact that whatever this is, it’s just going to slow us down even more. I need to get to New York, get this shit dropped off and then head the fuck home.
“What?” I bark, shifting in my seat to face him.
His eyes find mine and he watches me for longer than I would normally feel comfortable with. He’s searching for something, but he’s not going to find it, not in me. Eagle chuckles, leaning back and looks up at the ceiling of the truck.
“Don’t let your fears, your own demons get in the way of what could be your happiness.”
“And this stranger, this woman that you don’t even know. You think she could be my happiness?” I say with a snort.
Eagle shrugs a shoulder. “I wasn’t in love with Della when we started. But I knew that I was what she needed and deep down, she was what I needed too.”
His words strike a chord. Leighton is what I need. And without a doubt, I am what she needs, too.
“Let’s get the fuck to New York.”
“You got your shit together?” Eagle asks.
“Not really,” I murmur.
He chuckles. “Sounds about right. Let’s go and get your girl.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
LEIGHTON
I roll over to my side. Two weeks. It’s been two weeks since I’ve been here. Ana has been amazing. She’s the nicest person I’ve ever met and not only that, we have some of the same background. Except she was kept a virgin, her brother made sure of that so that it would be a better trade when he found the person he wanted to give her to.
“Leighton?” Ana calls out.
Sitting up, I tell her to come in. I’m thankful that this small modular home has two bedrooms. We each have our privacy, something that I wasn’t sure I’d ever have again, something that I missed, but something that I don’t want anymore.
I’m hopelessly and ridiculously missing Mountain, and I know it’s wrong. I should hate him. I know he did something with that woman in the background, I can feel it in my bones. I know that he ignored me too, for a reason, and that reason isn’t because he was simply just busy.
“I was thinking, I could really use your help today. They had a huge party last night and the clubhouse is a mess.