Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(53)
“They killed some young guys in town, too. Club hangarounds. And Sophie—Hav’s sister. Her, first.
People are mad. At us. Hav’s dad is sort of leading the charge, I guess. I guess he won’t have anything to do with Cory or her kids now. Or let Hav’s mom have anything to do with them, either. He said some shitty things about Hav standing right in front of his coffin. It sucked so bad.” He paused for a breath. “The shit he said in front of Cory. At Hav’s funeral. If any of us had been carrying in that church, I don’t think he’d have been around to shoot Isaac today.”
“God, Badge. I had no idea.” She knew he carried a gun most days. It was hard to be as close to someone as she was to him and miss something like that. But even so, knowing Badger like she did, the idea that he was dangerous, that he could actually kill somebody, just did not compute. So far out of the realm of her understanding was it, that she realized she looked on his gun as hardly more than a prop. She had totally divorced herself from its reality.
From, now, her reality.
“I know. I don’t want you to know about that stuff. You’re too good to know about that stuff.”
She pushed up from his chest and sat up, turning to face him. “Badger. I think I need to know. Don’t I?
If people are going to be shooting people around me? If you could get hurt again—or worse?” As she spoke, a thought popped up. “What did you do to Hav’s dad?”
Badger sat up, too. “Show had a serious talk with him and then took him and his wife home. That’s it.”
She hadn’t realized how tense she’d been until she relaxed. Now she felt lightheaded. But Badger leaned forward and picked up her hand. “If Isaac had died, though, we would have killed him. We have killed people who hurt us bad enough. And we hurt people who cross us. The club has been the law in Signal Bend since longer than I’ve been breathing. That’s the way things are. If you’re not okay with that, I understand. But you need to let me know. If we go any further, you have to know what it means and be okay with it. Cory’s a widow because of club business. She’s got a son who’ll never know his dad, and another one who’s f*cked up bad over losing him. We get hurt. Ours get hurt. I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe, but what I do and who I am is deadly. Can you live with that? With me?”
Badger—sweet, kind Badger—deadly? That was crazy. She couldn’t think. All of the things she’d heard, all of the things her father had told her—the printouts from the internet he’d shoved in her face—none of that had made an impression, because she knew this town, these people. She loved Shannon, and Show, and Badger. She had friends here. Family, even. And none of what Badger was describing had been part of her experience.
Could she live with that? Could she really? Or was her father right, after all?
She didn’t know. So, with a brittle knot in her throat, she said so. “I don’t know, Badge. It’s so much so fast. I have to think.”
He dropped his head but didn’t let go of her hand. “Okay. I understand.” When he looked up, his eyes were sad and weary. “Do you want me to go, sleep someplace else tonight?”
“No. No. Please stay. Please stay.” She crawled into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his hair. “Please stay.”
With a nod, he rolled and laid them both in the soft safety of their little nest.
oOo
That night, for the first time in weeks, Badger woke from his nightmare, sweaty and shouting.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Badger was awake early the next morning. He’d slept like shit; he hadn’t had a nightmare in a while, but last night’s was a doozie—not only vivid but ensnaring, the kind of nightmare that held on even after he’d realized he was dreaming, adding the panic of not being able to wake to the pain and panic of what was happening in the dream.
Adrienne had been there for him when he’d finally pulled out of it, the way she always was there for him. The way he needed her.
Now, she was sleeping quietly, curled on her side, facing away. Her hair was spread out on the pillow like a fiery halo. Morning light beamed softly from the window over her shoulder, making the dust of freckles there seem to glow. She was the most perfect, the most precious part of his life. She was his light.
He leaned on his elbow and watched her sleep, rubbing his chest absently. He hurt more this morning than he had in days, maybe weeks, as if the pain of the nightmare had seeped into reality and caught hold.
The buzz at the base of his skull was loud and insistent this morning, too. He wanted to wake her, take her again, but he knew he’d been rougher last night than he wanted to be, so he left her alone now. He watched her rest, and he contended with his need.
She had to be okay with who he really was. She had to be. He shouldn’t have waited so long to be straight with her about it, because it was too late for him to lose her now. But he’d had a small, sad hope that maybe he wouldn’t have to tell her so much, that he could keep her innocent of the club. That she could be left to believe he was good. To believe that he wasn’t as ruined on the inside as he was on the outside.
That had been a dream, too. Reality had no room for dreams like that. In Badger’s world, reality had much more room for nightmares.