^^ Bard above

Chapter 14

Zeke fed me like it was my last meal, then set me to work with a belly almost too full to function. All day I kept myself busy. Cleaning stations, grabbing materials, helping consult any clients that came in looking for work. I loved it. The busy work occupied my mind from every and anything. The only thing that could have made it better would have been actually tattooing. But with a botched hand and no license, that still wouldn't happen for a while.

It was a dream job for more reasons than I'd anticipated. The environment. The clients, Scarlet and Boe, Charlene and of course Zeke. They were a family, and not once had I felt out of place. They included me in all of it. It was easy. Too easy. Something was going to happen. I knew it like I knew the ink on my skin. It was too perfect. At any moment Karma would reign her ugly head and throw a pile of shit to darken it.

Zeke walked up to me just as I was finishing up cleaning Scarlet's area. "I was thinking about giving you a proper welcome."

I grinned. "I don't know what more you could possibly do. I can assure you, I've never felt more welcome in my life." My thoughts drifted to the club, and how it'd been in the beginning, but I quickly shook them away. That hadn't been real.

Maybe this isn't either.

Zeke clasped my shoulder. "Tomorrow's Sunday. Shop's closed. What do you say we have a get together tonight? Grill up the rest of those steaks and have some drinks." He smiled, brows lifted. "You up for it?"

"Sure." It wasn't even a question. He'd done so much for me, more than anyone ever had in my life, and I barely knew the man. If he'd asked me to stand on my head and sing the national anthem, I'd have god blessed America until my nose bled.

His smile widened. "You hear that?" he bellowed out to everyone in the room. "Party night! I expect you all to hang out and show Jessie here how we unwind."

"Oh, I've been waiting for this," Boe said, tone a tad too smooth for my liking.

I narrowed my eyes at him, then looked away as Scarlet punched the air in a move more sarcastic than excited.

"Oh, good. I've been wanting to introduce you to my kids," Charlene added. She heaved a sigh, smiled her warm, motherly smile, and I couldn't help but feel that same warmth fill my chest. "They don't come around as much anymore. They've gone feral."

"They got older, sniffles," Zeke said.

I bit back a smile as Charlene's face warmed to a shade of pink, and she tried and failed to glare at him.

Zeke's grin back at her was wolfish.

"About your living situation..." He turned back to me, tone more cautious. "I've been thinking on it all day, and the best solution is to put you out in the RV. There's a set of bunks out there that no one is using..."

"With Sasquatch?"

Zeke's mouth clamped shut, lips thinned, and he immediately cast an accusing gaze over his shoulder at Scarlet.

She didn't seem to notice, not with her sudden keen interest in the floor.

He shook his head. "My nephew lives in it. He likes to keep to himself. You most likely won't even notice him there."

I thought over the proposition. It was better than the bridge, and if what Zeke said was true, then I had no doubt I'd manage. Sharing a space with one person felt like nothing compared to the mass of strangers I'd been sleeping mere feet from for weeks. Hell, I'd managed prison, and when you got shacked up in a cell block with three other women, privacy was a thing of the past. I tilted my head and shrugged. "As long as he doesn't mind. I mean, I don't want to piss nobody off." I remembered what Scarlet had said, about him roaring whoever dared enter his little fortress right out of it.

"You let me deal with that." He draped an arm across my shoulder and lead the way.

He wants to do it now?

When we exited the back, the motor home seemed much more ominous than it had before. I didn't want any trouble, and considering it always seemed to find me, approaching the one place I'd been warned to steer clear of felt an awful lot like looking for it. 

Zeke opened the door without a moment's hesitation, and I followed him up the three steps that led inside.

"Wait here a minute," he said, voice low. He took off down the length, and I focused my attention on my surroundings.

A driver and passenger seat were swiveled in to act as chairs, and a leather booth with a fold down table top backed into a kitchen counter. Mini fridge, microwave, camper stove... and a small trash can filled to the brim with empty liquor bottles.

"Wake up, boy. I'm moving someone in here with you."

My eyes snapped to the hallway at the sound of Zeke's voice. A groan echoed in reply, like a bear being risen from hibernation.

I held my breath and cast a longing look to the door. I don't want to do this.

But one thing was for sure, it was warm as hell and as close as I could get to my new job. It would only be temporary. I'd get a place. I was making money. Surely, I could last a little while.

A deep murmur too low to distinguish came in response, and whatever it was the man had said, Zeke didn't like it.

"I don't see how it can bother you. You're unconscious half the time, gone the rest."

Another murmur, louder but still too low to hear.

They were both quiet a long moment before Zeke started, "Boy..." It was a warning, spoken too calm for the amount of menace behind it. "You either get up and make this girl feel welcome," his tone lifted with each word, "or I'm going to yank you out of that bed, drag you outside, and knock the manners back into you!"

I took a step back.

"Fine! You want her to feel welcome?"

No. I knew that voice. It was impossible not to recognize it. Deep and smooth and, in that moment, furious.

I'd just started to turn for the door, when he barreled out of the back room and caught sight of me.

He froze, so sudden Zeke almost crashed into his back. I couldn't move either, not with those intense eyes locking me in place. He was shirtless, wearing nothing more than a pair of jeans hung dangerously low on his hips, and for a moment, my brain melted inside my skull. He was glorious. Golden and defined. Entirely too fucking perfect.

Zeke studied the pair of us, his nephew especially, with a look of utter confusion on his face.

"She can stay."

"I can't stay."

We spoke in unison, and Zeke's eyes narrowed on the back of his nephew's head. "Do you know this girl?"

The stranger nodded. "She's been living under the bridge by Paul's place."

My thoughts whipped around inside my head as if a twister was tearing the place apart. Karma. You fucking bitch. I knew it was too good to be true. I knew she'd never let me win. I'd dodged him at the fork in the road so she'd thrown him in the damn middle.

He turned to look at Zeke. "What's her name?"

Zeke studied the younger man's face, eyes just as sharp and probing, and I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed it before. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know these two were related. Both massive. Both hairy. Both seemingly larger than life.

Whatever Zeke found in his nephew's face made his lips curve into a smile unlike any I'd seen from him before. "Bard, this is Jessie." He looked at me. "Jessie, this is my nephew, Bard. As you can see, he has no problem with you staying here."

"Jessie," Bard said, as if testing the name on his tongue, and the sound of it sent an unwanted shiver across my skin.

I ground my teeth. Of course he didn't have a problem with me staying here. He probably already had a place all picked out for me to sit, and I would have bet money it wasn't on a chair.

Fuck this shit. Karma didn't get to do this to me. I crossed my arms and focused on Zeke. "You said there's bunks?"

He motioned to his left, and I stepped forward to get a view. Bard didn't attempt to move, not even an inch. With a clenched jaw, I shoved my way past him, and once his big ass was finally out of the way, I could make out the built in beds. They sunk into the wall, just large enough for one person. Which was okay, because that was all there would ever be in it.

"Where does he sleep?" My tone was harsh, unreasonably so given what Zeke was doing for me, but I was too pissed off to be polite.

He grinned, as if in on some secret joke I had no clue about. "There's a full bed in the back room. I'm sure he'll be out of your way."

I highly fucking doubt it. "Sounds good."

Zeke ruffled my hair like he'd done my first day. "Why don't you get settled. Take a nap, rest up, and I'll give you a holler when the party's starting." When he turned to Bard, his eyes danced. "It gets pretty crazy around here on a party night, and I've got a feeling this one is going to be interesting."

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