Page 130 of Stone

“I’m leaving today. Gonna take a slow ride back up through Colorado. I’ll aim to be home next week.”

“Good,” Abe said softly. “Me and Rissy miss the bones of ya.”

“Miss you too,” I said huskily, before hanging up.

My fingers tremored slightly as I read Adele’s note one last time before folding it and putting it in my jeans pocket with a fond smile. She was right in what she said. It didn’t have to be more or less than a beautiful moment in time.

Except what I didn’t know then was that beautiful moments in time were all very well, but sometimes they carried equally beautiful consequences.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Stone ~ Three Months Later

The sounds of sawing and hammering, and the voices of men shouting their banter at each other as they worked, surrounded me, making me grin.

The heat from the sun’s rays touched my bare back as I hammered nails into our new roof, and I gloried in its warmth.

Sunshine, good brothers, and working until I dropped seemed to be doing their part in healing me after my meltdown and subsequent road trip. I’d been back three months and had thrown myself back into club life, well… or at least new club life.

We had two clubhouses now. The one we called the old timers or OT, was Dad’s camp. The warehouse where we worked, ate, and slept was HQ two-point-oh, or HQ for short. The place was coming along well. We’d put up all the drywall inside and got a shit ton of bedrooms mapped out over the ground and first floors. We had a vast, modern kitchen that Iris loved. More bedrooms, offices, and our new Church were built off a warren of corridors leading from the bar and rec room at the front of the place. We had a gym in the basement, along with a room where we could store weapons and cash and conduct beatdowns. And we’d even managed to convert space outside, too.

One of the massive storage buildings was now a ten-car auto shop, all with ramps and the latest equipment. We’d kitted out a garage where we could store our bikes in winter, and we’d even converted another storage unit into a house for the whores to live in.

Club life was good.

My personal life was still gut-wrenching, but it was slightly less gut-wrenching than before.

Nobody had seen Elise for months. A rumor went around that she’d gone away again, but I didn’t know for sure. One thing I did know was that she hadn’t been to see me once. Not a visit, call, or letter.

Nothing.

Abe kept saying something wasn’t right, and he had a gut feeling things weren’t as they seemed, but I couldn’t hold stock in that. The fact was, even now, she could’ve come to me if she was in trouble, and deep down, she knew it. I wasn’t a man who would ever abandon her, but I also wasn’t a man who’d beg, pester, and make a nuisance of myself.

If she wanted Henderson, I had to let her have him, whatever the circumstances. It cut deep, still, but what else could I do? I couldn’t hold on to a woman who didn’t want to hold on to me.

Instead, I threw myself into building something. I wished she was by my side, building it with me, like we’d always planned, but it wasn’t meant to be. God’s plan for me didn’t include her, and it destroyed me to have to face it, but my faith had gone, so it was easy to give up the fight.

I just wanted to do my best, exist, give something back, and leave the Earth a better place than I found it. The family I wanted was wrapped up in Elise Bell nee Henderson, but she had her own now, and it didn’t include me.

Maybe one day I’d meet a woman who loved me enough to understand there was only so much I could give, but I didn’t think it was fair to go looking, especially when I couldn’t love them the way they deserved.

So, I decided to keep on keeping on and, like Adele Whitlock said, find beauty wherever I could. I’d often thought about her over the months—probably more than I should’ve—and alwayswith a smile. I’d gotten over what happened and stopped regretting it.

Like she said, it was a beautiful moment in time, and it didn’t need to be anything more or less than it was. Wise words, indeed.

The main doors to the clubhouse opened, and Iris walked through, carrying a wide tray and holding beers and plates piled high with sandwiches. Abe appeared, holding the door open for her.

“Lunch break, boys,” she called out. “Put your power tools down.”

Laughter rang out, a few of the men bantering about their ‘power tools.’

I shook my head, lips twitching at the schoolboy ridiculousness of it all while I descended the ladder from the roof.

Abe looked up. “How’s it goin’ up there?”

“As well as securing an iron roof can go,” I told him. “It’s well insulated, so it should keep the heat out and the warm in, depending on the time of year.” I sat on one of the folding chairs around a plastic picnic table we used for lunch hours and picked up a sandwich. “What time are the phone lines being installed?”

He checked his watch. “Phone company should be here by one. The guys said they had a repair job, then they’d be straight over. The computers are coming today, too.” He rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Can’t wait to have a go on those beauties.”

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