Page 102 of Beware of Dog

Shep blew out a harsh breath and made another lap around the bike. He caught a glimpse of a face in the storefront window, an employee watching him with a frown. He put his back to the building, attempted to massage the tension from his left temple, and decided not to be coy about this.

“How did you propose to your wife?”

Mercy made a soft, surprised sound. Shep expected to be told to go to hell, or that he was weird, and he deserved to hearboth. But after a beat of thought, Mercy said, “It was in the courthouse parking lot, the day we had to flee Knoxville.”

The story of Mercy and his old lady, Ava, had passed into MC legend. Everyone knew that she’d been a teenager, once, the first time they’d come together, and then fresh out of college the second. Everyone knew that Ghost had tried to keep them apart, ultimately failed, and that the man now saw his son-in-law as an indispensable part of the club, an unswerving and wholly trusted ally. The way the story had passed from mouth to mouth, Shep had always thought it must have been this grand and sweeping tale, their marriage.

He said, “What?”

Mercy chuckled. “I got Ratchet to accelerate the license process, and I pulled over at the courthouse on our way out of town, and I said, ‘What do you say, baby?’ And we went in and got married on the spot, so I could take my wife to New Orleans, instead of my girlfriend.”

“That’s…kinda lame.”

Mercy chuckled again. “It is, isn’t it? But she was happy. That’s all that mattered.”

Shep swallowed, with difficulty, his throat dry. “Yeah.”

In a very kind voice, Mercy said, “Why’d you want to talk to me, Shep?”

His lungs tightened. It felt like swimming, holding his breath, when he said, “I’m getting married.” And…oh. It was stupid, but saying it released some internal pressure valve. He was getting married. And it wasn’t scary, and it wasn’t shackling, but he still, so desperately it left him dizzy, wanted to do it in a way that pleased Cass.

“And you don’t want to?” Mercy guessed.

“No! No, man, I really want to. Like,really.”

“But you’re nervous.”

“I didn’t even get to ask!” he burst out, frustration bubbling over. “I was gonna, I was working on it, thinking about it, and then the A.D.A., and the cops, and fucking Raven are all like, ‘you gotta get married to she can’t testify against you,’ and I didn’t get the chance to ask her myself!”

“Ah.”

“It’s Cassandra, by the way.” He rubbed at his eyes again; it felt like there was a piece of grit lodged in the right one. “Cassandra Green.”

“Uh-huh. Okay.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“That’s ‘cause I’m not. I’ve been where you are.” He laughed again, low and easy. “Thankfully Ava only had one brother, and he liked me. But. She had a dad.”

“Yeah.” Privately, Shep was thinking that Ava’s dad was an asshole, but he’d likely never dropped through an elevator’s trapdoor to assassinate a foreign dignitary.

“Not that it’s any of my business,” Mercy said, tone going conspiratorial, “but the lovely Mrs. Walsh saw us burying a dead body before she was Walsh’s old lady, and he took her down to the courthouse to fix that.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah, real romantic. And when Aidan got married, he already had a baby with another woman, and Samantha became an instant mom. She’s great at it, everything worked out. But you see where I’m going with this, right?”

Shep felt stupid in the sort of sudden, drop-kicked way that made a man’s knees weak. He perched back on the seat of his bike and said, grimly, “Yeah.”

“You’ll be fine,” Mercy said. “I’ve got two pieces of advice, if you want ‘em.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“One: don’t buy a ring so expensive you can’t afford to eat for a month. She won’t care.”

“You don’t know that. You met her once, three years ago.”

“Yeah.” The smile was back in his voice, “But I know her brothers pretty damn well. And her old man. She’s not superficial.” When Shep didn’t say anything, he said, “What, am I wrong?”

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