Page 21 of Pound

“Don’t look at me like that, Joe. I’ve known it for a long time, probably longer than you did. It was in every breath you took. The only time that haunted look left your eyes was when Meri was around Vegas. I thought I’d wake up a few times and you’d be in the wind.”

“I was close.”

“So, if things don’t pan out with Trip’s sister, are you planning to leave?”

Immediately Pound shook his head. It was the first time in years he didn’t want to run. Things would work out with Meri, he felt it in his soul. He just needed to show her he was exactly what she needed. Which wasn’t going to be easy. She was a hopeless romantic, whether she liked to admit it or not, and Pound didn’t have a romantic bone in his body.

“No. Wes. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll accept it, but I won’t run. You’ll have to peel this off my dead body if you want it.”

Granite’s sigh was one of relief. Pound knew it wasn’t because he couldn’t fill his seat, but it was from the bone-deep worry he carried for every man who trusted him as president. It’s what made him a good leader.

“Can I ask you something?”

Granite gave him a clipped nod. He looked tired.

“You’ve been free with the advice about me and Meri, and I appreciate it, but when are you going to take some of those words to heart with Theresa? With Caleb as a prospect now, she’s around a lot more. And you seem to be avoiding her with even more determination.”

Granite didn’t answer. “You’ve taught me avoidance won’t solve anything, so why won’t you go for it?”

“Because I killed her fucking husband. That’s why I was a guest of the state, remember?”

Pound was puzzled by the proclamation. Granite knew Mitch from the military. Pound had met him and Theresa in passing, but he wasn’t at base long enough to form too many relationships.

“That loser from Baker who was using his wife as a punching bag and molesting his kid? That wasn’t her husband, unless you know something none of us do?”

“I do. And Whiskey does.”

“I’m going to need more than that, Wes. It doesn’t make any sense. Mitch cleaned her out and was found burned to a crisp in a house fire after that mess. The guy from Baker was—”

“The same fucking man.”

Pound was stunned.

“He had a whole other family while she sat back and thought he would come for her one day. She covered for his behavior, until he hit Caleb. She tried to act like shit was steady, but I knew better. I saw the relief in her eyes when he was found dead. I saw that same look in the other wife’s eyes during my hearing.”

Whew. That is a lot to take in.

“He went out and got a new name and new victims. I saw my opportunity and I took it. I ran him off the road, pled guilty to vehicular manslaughter. Whiskey got a body from the tunnels, tossed it in that old house in his name along with all his shit I could get my hands on, and lit it up. She never needed to know he had another life. You know the rest.”

Pound felt a twinge of guilt for pushing to make Caleb a prospect because it seemed Granite himself was having trouble touching his feelings, as Taps would say.

“That doesn’t mean she’s off-limits.”

“The hell it don’t. If I make a play, I’d have to tell her. Can’t have an honest relationship with a secret that big. Then what if she thinks I killed him just to clear a path?”

“First, not gonna lie, I’m hurt you didn’t tell me. What does that make our relationship then, prez? I’m your right hand, but I didn’t know what the fuck the left was doing.”

“Like you told me you were gonna bail on the brotherhood?” Granite’s volley hit the mark. Pound slumped. He deserved being kept out of the loop. He hadn’t earned his prez’s trust in the last few years.

“I didn’t want anyone to have to lie. Secrets are best kept with dead men or with one’s own self. I was gonna tell you all after I got out. But by then, you were growing closer to Caleb, and I didn’t want you to have that secret between the two of you.”

Shit, Granite has layers no one had even begun to peel back.

“Hell, he’ll always be that pimple-faced kid pedaling up to the club like he was a fucking member.” Granite chuckled.

“And now he’s prospecting your club with his first real sled.” Pound remembered how far Caleb had come. From bicycle to scooter to crotch rocket to Sportster. One day, he’d move up to his first bagger and he’d never look back. It was a running joke that had finally run its course now that the kid was a probie.

Pound wanted things right before they headed out. He wanted Granite to know he could count on him like he used to.

---