Page 25 of Everlasting

Lucy

Once seated in my favorite chair, I pulled the last letter out. It was the only one of the bunch that I hadn’t read yet. Before I tucked in, I reached over and patted the small stack of my own letters. I’d written out to each of my loves, including Toby. Not sure why I felt compelled to do it. I’m guessing going through more of CJ’s letters as he was once again following the cold trail, looking for our son-in-law, made it settle in that our days aren’t promised. His letters were a comfort to me while he was gone on those runs. I figured, if anything ever happened to me, mine might be a comfort to my loves as well.

I’m not sure why I saved this specific letter for last, but it just felt right. From the date on it, CJ had written it just before we left on our retirement trip in the RV to tour the country. Thinking on it made me realize I’d left it for good reason. It was one of the only ones he had ever written me when we were together. All the others had been penned during times when we were apart from one another. That made the last letter special.

My Dearest Lucy,

We’re leaving tomorrow. That trip we fantasized about taking for all of those years, we’re finally doing it, baby! Just you and me, no drama, and lots of love. Is it weird that while I’m excited about it, I’m so damned nervous? I don’t know why either. We’ve been through it all, my love. Births, deaths, being apart too many damn times, and trying to put it all back together again after. There isn’t a damn minute of our lives that we haven’t been fighting to get back to one another.

I guess that’s the thing though, our relationship has been a battle from the beginning. A fucking worthy one, of that there’s no doubt. It just seems odd that we’re rolling out tomorrow without any struggles going on. I know, I know, you’re going to miss the grand babies something fierce and drive me crazy about it, but if that’s the worst we have to handle, I guess we should just sit back and thank our lucky stars. It’s our time. You’re going to be all mine for a year.

What if you hate me? What if it’s just the two of us on the open road and you decide that I was definitely not worth all the fuss for all these years? Now, I know what you’re thinking in that pretty little head of yours, my lovely Lucy, but it’s not true. I could never feel that way about you. You were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. I knew it from the moment we met that the stars had just aligned and sent me my own personal angel. I will never be done with you. Never stop loving you and wanting you by my side…

A jolt of hot, electric pain shot through my head before I could finish reading. I dropped the second page to the letter, and it fluttered out of my reach before I could even think to lean forward and catch it. Instead, I clawed tightly to the other page, the one I had still been reading, as I leaned back and waited for the pain to subside. The light from the bulb in the desktop lamp beside me felt like it was a million watts as I sat there, praying that the good Lord would just do me a solid and end this pain.

Damn, but I hated the fact that sometimes the Lord answered those prayers in ways we never really thought about. My only regret was not getting to finish CJ’s letter.

Chapter 19

Unthinkable

Double-D

I knew the other men were headed to the clubhouse to regroup and brief everyone else on what we’d found, and more importantly, what we hadn’t found. I was fucking beat. The ride home had been a long and hard haul with a stopover in West Virginia and Georgia. Yeah, it was out of the way, but we wanted to make contact with the other chapters of the club as we rode so that we could stress how important it was to keep looking for Deck. Ghost was on board, but I could tell some of the younger men assumed he was dead by now.

I didn’t have the luxury of assuming that. I promised my baby girl I would bring her man home, and I couldn’t let her down. I’d already done enough of that in her lifetime. Merc and Trunk both assured me that they would pass along the information we had and the whole lot of nothing we’d discovered while gone out on the road searching for clues again. It had been months since our last lead panned out with any information at all. I knew our own men were beginning to give up hope too. Hell, I saw it in Merc’s eyes as I left him at the clubhouse. He didn’t believe we’d be bringing home a live man, if we got to bring him home at all.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for me to get back to the house. Then again, I had Lucy on my mind the whole way. I missed her so damn much when I was out on these runs trying to track down any fucking leads about where Deck might be. It made me miss the time we were able to spend together alone on our cross-country RV trip we took roughly five years earlier. I had been begging Lucy to go on another with me, and just when I was sure she would relent, Ever had told us the news about the new baby on the way. She and Deck had been trying to expand their little family since not too long after the twins were born and it just wasn’t happening, so there was no way we could go away when I knew Luce would want to be a part of that with our daughter. Hell, I wanted to be a part of it too. I had still been very much on the outside of things with Ever back when the girls were first born. Plus, we had to split the celebration between her and Anna who had their children weeks apart.

I only allowed my mind to drift to the past so often. Living in the past had cost me a great deal in life and I refused to do it. Instead, I had to think about how the hell we were going to bring Deck home, and how much I couldn’t wait to get my woman in my arms. I knew it was selfish to think that when my daughter couldn’t do the same with her man, but I wouldn’t lie to myself either. I missed Lucy while I was out on the road.

“Luce?” I called out into the empty house. It was strange because I saw her car in the driveaway and I could hear the soft sound of music playing upstairs, but it felt cold and unoccupied inside. I checked the rooms downstairs, just to be sure and she wasn’t around. I took the stairs almost two at a time thinking maybe I’d catch her in a bath. “Lucy, love? Where are you?”

The door to our bedroom was cracked and I realized quickly that the music I’d heard playing had actually been her ringtone. It cut off while I was still in the hallway and then started once more. That was odd. Lucy was almost never without her phone when I was out of town, but especially now that Ever had the baby. “Lucy, babe, your phone is ringing,” I called out as I rounded the corner and pushed the door open. She was there, in her cozy reading chair, gripping onto a piece of paper. I smiled at the sight. She had obviously fallen asleep reading something. When I glanced down, I noticed a very familiar box and groaned out loud. She had one of my boxes. The old letters I’d written her every single time we were apart. There was one in each of those boxes for each day we’d spent separated, plus two more for good measure. The one I wrote to her before I went out on the road in search of Deck and the other that I wrote her the day before we left on our RV trip I’d reminisced about earlier.

I moved across the room quietly, so as not to wake her, and bent down to retrieve the piece of paper that had fallen to the floor. I glanced down at the writing there. Well, she definitely had the one I wrote to her prior to our trip. I grinned as I remembered how nervous I had been to be with just her. From the moment we truly got together, we had a family to care for, and never really got that all-encompassing alone time most couples get before they start a family together. I had honestly thought she’d end up hating me and having divorce papers ready before our trip was done. That hadn’t happened though. Instead, we ended up closer than ever and even after Merc and Tiger Lily had joined us, we still managed to grow even closer.

“Aw, babe,” I cooed as I leaned in to take the other page from her fingers. That’s when it hit me. Something wasn’t right. I looked up from the page and stared, waited, counted the seconds, and nothing. She wasn’t moving. Not in the sleepy stillness kind of way, in the way that signified something far more final. Her chest didn’t move with each breath. There was no noise, no sound of her breathing, just quiet until her cell phone rang from over on the table beside her. I glanced over and saw that it was Ever calling and Lucy had more than a few missed messages.

The door downstairs banged open. “Dad!” Anna shouted.

“No,” I whimpered. I took Lucy’s hand in between my own and knew immediately that it held no warmth there. “No, baby, no!”

“Dad, where are you?” Anna again, closer this time.

“Please,” I begged. I didn’t know who the hell I was begging here. Lucy to come back, God not to do this to my family again, Anna not to see her mother like this. Me to leave and come back to a different scenario. I didn’t know. “No! No! No!” I moaned as I dropped my head into Lucy’s lap while still holding her hand in my own. “Baby, no. You can’t go. You can’t leave yet,” I cried.

“Daddy?” Anna called out, so close that time I knew she had to be in the room with me now. With us. “Oh God!” Her gasp of surprise forced my head up and I turned to see my daughter standing there with her hand hovering over her mouth as she took in the room around her. “Daddy? Momma?”

“Anna, did you find her?” It was Joker’s voice, and came from downstairs.

“Don’t bring the kids up,” Anna shouted quickly.

“What? Why?” I could hear the change in his voice. My son-on-law was all business then. I heard him say something to his children before his fast-paced footsteps made their way up and the stairs and down the hall to where we were. “Anna, what’s going on?” Joker asked just before he turned the corner and entered our bedroom. My bedroom. No, that didn’t sound right. Why had I thought that?

I ignored him as he came into the room and took my youngest daughter into his arms. “She’s gone,” Anna informed him just before she collapsed against his chest and cried. I turned back to my love and took hold of her hand once more.

“Please, come back,” I begged. I knew it couldn’t happen. Hell, I’d begged and bartered with every deity I could think of when Toby died. None of it ever worked.

---