Through A Glass, Darkly (The Assassins of Youth MC #1)(71)
Yosemite shot, “I thought fundies don’t drink coffee.”
“These ones do,” I said. “They do a lot of things regular fundies don’t. Mahalia is sort of going back to her mainstream church roots, but she’s sure as hell going to keep drinking coffee. I think the coffee shop sounds great. All in favor?”
Although it was Yosemite Sam’s livelihood at stake here, it was a club matter. Everything in town would be a club matter from now on in. We were literally rebuilding Avalanche from the ground up, infusing the town with our money, ill-gotten though it may have been. It was voted that Yosemite Sam would run a coffee shop, and Maximus, who’d retired from his soils engineering job, would reopen the musty, crumbling barber shop complete with barber shop pole out front. Dust Bunny and I would of course run the mine. Dingo would continue to be our IT guy. He’d work closely with Slushy on banking operations.
One last agenda item remained. I said, “According to Dingo there’s supposed to be an encampment of his Lost Boys up in Bountiful. Once Dingo’s patched in, I aim to take a ride up there, see if any want to join up. We need more manpower if we aim to turn this town around.”
Of course that was agreed to, and I was finally able to adjourn the meeting. Once out in the bar area, I headed for Dingo, giving Skippy a break tending bar. But Mahalia waylaid me, an urgent look on her face.
She took my lapels in her hands, the only person on earth who dared touch my colors—my “Prez” patch. Her years-long ordeal with Chiles was wearing off, and she bloomed with sensuous curves. She was experimenting, too, with fashion, many tips coming from Vonda. As a result, some of her experimental choices were distinctly teenaged, like her current flirty cheerleader’s skirt paired with a short-sleeved sweats decorated with puffy knit balls. Well. She was learning. It was all an improvement over the nun’s clothes of Cornucopia. “Gideon. I can’t wait any longer. I need you now.”
Whatever Mahalia meant by “need,” I was there to serve. We’d even cleaned out a back store room to serve as a sort of hotel room for members who didn’t have a place to live yet. Yosemite Sam was living there now until we could repair a two-bedroom cottage he’d bought near my house. He wouldn’t mind if we found comfort there.
She practically dragged me to the little room. The window looked out on the spires and mesas of Zion, the cinnamon and caramel layers of sandstone formed by eons of erosion. Not a bad little view for a tiny cramped bachelor’s pad.
Slamming the door, Mahalia pressed me to the wall. “You were gone when I woke up. Vonda said you all came here for a meeting.”
“Chapel,” I gasped, taking her tiny chin in my palm. “We approved your safe house. Only, the name’s changed. Sledgehammer came up with Save Our Baby—”
Mahalia shut me up with a kiss.
She’d been like this lately, and it was fine with me. Being liberated from her prison camp seemed to enliven her, give her freedom to act like a modern woman.
I was glad to believe in her ideas about life after—and before—death. How could something immortal just suddenly begin in time with our birth? I liked the idea I’d be reunited with her in our blissful afterlife. It wasn’t a static, bland reality in that realm, but an ever-changing, vibrant place where we’d keep learning and growing.
And I’d be with her. Forever.
MAHALIA
I was an insatiable libertine. I was still having nightmares of Allred Chiles’ last moments. What could have happened versus what did happen. If things had gone slightly different at any given moment, my sleeping brain spun that out into frightful tales of violence and mayhem. I wasn’t used to seeing blood spurt so freely, and I’d just witnessed two men being shot to death.
But my waking self was finally free of the influence of Allred’s perverted, corrupt soul. The freedom steeped me in joy. On a primal level, I was probably reacting to Gideon as being my savior. And I wanted to repay him for his kindness.
So I cut him off when he tried to tell me about my new building. I knew that whatever it was, it would be something beneficial for me and the business. I kissed my man deeply, feasting on the warm sensuality of his mouth. Gideon was a thoroughly passionate man—not that I had experience with many of them—and he brought out all the inner sensuality in me I’d never known existed.
Sure, Field was a competent lover. I’d loved him more on an intellectual, sensible level than a sexual one. With Gideon, sex was one of the most important angles of our relationship. I showed him that now as I ignored his business talk and weaved my fingers through his silken auburn hair, massaging his scalp in tiny circles. I bit his upper lip, drawing it toward me, while slipping my tongue against his upper palate. My other hand lifted the flimsy shirt from his abs so I could feel naked flesh, rotating my thumb against his six-pack, feeling the gunshot scar over his liver. Gideon was back in fighting shape after his heroic efforts to change the face of marriage in Cornucopia.
I knew they’d killed Field. The OSHA report had concluded it was an act of God that had taken the parking brake off that day. The trajectory the behemoth piece of equipment had followed was impossible to duplicate. Field standing in just the right spot with his back to that incline was strictly coincidence, putting rocks into gabion baskets to build a wall. I knew better. The foreman, seeing Field squished like an insect specimen, had run the opposite direction, taking off in his pickup truck, not stopping until he reached a bar. He’d already known Field was dead.