So I picked Tack.
While he was gone I called and left a message with Dad telling him where I was so he wouldn’t worry and telling him I’d explain later. I also told him the dinner Elvira and I sorted out with Hawk, Gus and Maria was off and I’d explain that later too. I didn’t call Meredith because she could take calls at work and I wasn’t ready to go there. I did call Cam and Tracy. Cam ranted about Hawk saying how she knew, she just knew, Hawk was a motherfucking ass**le. Tracy sounded exactly as heartbroken as I felt.
I didn’t call Troy. He wouldn’t gloat, I knew that, he’d be kind. He’d also offer me a place to stay and Troy was a great guy but he didn’t have a bevy of badass bikers at his command and a mountain hideaway. He had a condo and his male friends were mostly bankers.
I was sitting on Tack’s huge, slouchy, comfortable, tan couch that faced the view, my mind filled with unhappy thoughts at the same time considering a nap which I hoped would last around fifty years, when I saw Tack on his bike roaring up the drive. He was alone and his Harley was not laden with suitcases.
Shit.
I got up and met him at the front door.
He looked unhappy.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“No,” he answered, moved to a door off the entry area, opened it and pulled out a leather biker jacket. He turned, tossed it to me and I caught it. “Put that on, peaches. I hate to break this to you but Hawk’s bein’ a dick. He won’t release your shit unless he sees you. My boys are in a standoff with his boys at his warehouse and to get your shit without unnecessary hassle which could mean anything from minor injuries to bloodshed to hospital stays, I need you to show your face.”
My body had locked but my mouth moved to form the word, “What?”
Tack invaded my space and one hand went to my waist, the other hand curled around my neck. “Darlin’, he’s demandin’ to see you. So,” his hands gave me a squeeze, “we gotta let him see you. He’ll see you, I’m at your back, then we take off and my boys go in and get your shit.”
“He’s holding my stuff for ransom until he sees me?” I whispered.
“Yep,” Tack answered.
“Why?” I was still whispering.
“Fuck if I know,” Tack replied.
I stood there, his hands on me, staring into his eyes.
Then I lost my mind.
I stepped back and yanked on his jacket. “That f**king dick!” I shouted. “God! What was I thinking! I must have lost my mind, getting involved with him. Temporarily insane!”
Then I freed my hair from the collar, stomped straight out the door and toward his bike only to be pulled up short with an arm at my belly, my foot just about ready to take the step off the decking at the side of the house and onto the gravel drive.
Tack lifted me clean off my feet, turned and put me down.
I pulled away, whirled on him then he said, “Babe, boots.”
I looked down at my feet in socks. Then I tipped my head back to look at Tack to see his mouth twitching.
Then I stomped into his house to get my boots.
* * * * *
Tack was right.
When we made it to Hawk’s warehouse there was definitely a standoff. A big black van was surrounded by about a dozen bikes and a dozen bikers were facing off against an equal number of commandos. Hawk had pulled in what looked like the entirety of his workforce.
He was amongst them.
Tack drove his Harley between the battle lines, stopped in front of Hawk and put down a foot.
“You see her, now let my boys in,” Tack growled.
Hawk looked at me. Luckily I’d spent the entire ride down the mountain nursing my snit, stoking it up so I was good and freaking angry so seeing him didn’t make me dissolve into tears or anything else equally humiliating.