Reaper's Property(64)

“I think I’ll stick with the .22,” I said, biting my lip. He set down the gun and then shook his head, smiling at me.
“You’re not boring, you know that?”
“But you like that about me, right?” I asked hopefully.
“Yeah, I like it,” he replied, leaning down to kiss me. “Now practice loading your gun so you can shoot it some more. If you ever need it, I want it to be more than a paperweight.”
“Do you seriously think I’ll need a gun? Is life as an old lady really that rough?”
He shook his head.
“Probably not,” he replied. “No more than life is rough for any woman, depending on her circumstances. It’s an ugly world. But if you know how to use one, and you take it seriously, it’s not going to hurt you. You don’t and you need it? I couldn’t live with that, Marie. Shit, you needed it last night.”
That sobered me.
“What about Max?” I asked. “What happens with him?”
“That’s club business,” he replied. “You don’t ask—you trust me to take care of it. He’ll be punished and he definitely won’t bother you again. If he does, I’ll kill him.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” I whispered. “You’d really kill him?”
“He f*cks with you, he’s dead. That’s the way it is. Enough questions—now show me how you load your gun, babe. We’re gonna practice every day until you’re comfortable with it, can do it without thinking. This gun is part of you now. You got me?”
“I got you.”
“Oh baby, you have no idea,” he replied ruefully, brushing back my hair and tucking it behind my ear. “No idea at all. Now let me watch you shoot. Chicks with guns are hot.”



Chapter Seventeen
December 10—Three months later

I’d love to say that things got easy after that. That every day was a new, perfect adventure and life with Horse was like living in a Disney movie with motorcycles instead of carriages.
That would be a big fat lie.
Horse had been by himself for a long time and he was in need of the occasional attitude adjustment. I’d already lived with one * and I wasn’t in the market for another one. He claimed I could be a raging bitch myself. I can’t say he was wrong about that.
But it was never boring.
For every bad time we had there were ten good ones, and they were very, very good. Horse and I had been working through his list of fantasies and I could attest to the fact that using the pink vibrator with him was a lot more fun than using it on my own. Gary had been a slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of guy. Horse was creative and the only thing he liked more than f*cking me was making me come.
This worked for me.
I didn’t learn what happened to Max. I knew he wasn’t around for all of October and most of November, although he reappeared at the Thanksgiving party, slinking around the armory like a half-drowned cat, all grumpy and defensive. The rest of the club seemed to ignore it, so I did too. It was okay. Not quite as good as castrating him with a dull spoon would have been, but life is all about compromises, right?
Especially life in the Reapers MC.
That was another thing I had to get used to. I hadn’t just moved in with Horse at his house. I’d moved into the club, which was as much a family as he’d said, albeit a really weird family. The heart of the club was the armory, a place I kept hearing about but couldn’t quite wrap my head around until I saw it the first time. Maggs called one morning to let me know we were having an impromptu barbeque. I was supposed to make a “shitload of that f*ckin’ great potato salad” (a direct quote from Picnic) and be ready at four when she’d come and get me.
The armory, as I discovered when we arrived, was an actual National Guard armory that had been purchased by the Reapers fifteen years earlier. It was just outside of town, three stories high and built like a fortress for obvious reasons. It had a large, walled courtyard in the back and by large, I mean big enough to park lots of cars and trucks and bikes. There were several sheds and outbuildings too. Most of it was paved, but it also had a grassy area with picnic tables, a giant fire pit and a swing set complete with children running around screaming and laughing.
Not exactly what I expected. Neither was the party that followed. It was wild and crazy, but not nasty like the one I’d gone to with the Silver Bastards. This was a family gathering, and I saw for the first time just how tight everyone was. We laughed and danced and took stupid pictures and ate way too much food. That night Horse brought me up onto the roof, laid out a blanket and taught me just how much nicer drunken Reaper sex could be when it didn’t end with a shooting. The kids were long gone by then and I could hear other couples in the darkness. It should have felt uncomfortable but it actually kicked ass. Go figure.
Now it was three months later and things were really good between me and Horse. I’d be starting school in January. My divorce was still working its way through the system, but Gary—as predicted—wasn’t causing any trouble. I’d been to see my mom a few times and she seemed happy enough for me, although she wanted to come and check out Horse and the club for herself when she got out.
The only thing missing in my life was Jeff. Apparently he was in touch with the Reapers sporadically and had even paid them some of the money he owed. Not much though. I still hadn’t talked to him, but I’d gotten a couple of emails from an anonymous address. They said to lay low and hold on, that he’d take care of things soon. I broke down and replied, telling him I was fine and to worry about himself, not me. I also set up a new, anonymous secret webmail account and gave him the address. I trusted Horse, but my brother’s life was on the line and to say my man had a conflict of interest was an understatement from hell. I needed to be able to communicate with Jeff privately. He sent me a couple of notes after that, but they didn’t really say much.