Page 54 of Gunner
Sadie
Five o’clock came tooearly the next morning, and I felt the soreness in my back as I rolled over and silenced my alarm clock. Kade was asleep on his side of the bed, his arm thrown over his head and the covers lowered to his waist, showing off his muscular tattooed chest. The Death Hounds crest was over his left pec, showing his loyalty to the club. I watched him sleep for a minute, admiring his trimmed beard and long blond hair, a stark contrast to his tanned skin from working with the construction crew the last few months.
He let out a snore before rolling to the side away from me, and I stifled a chuckle as I slipped from the bed. I didn’t want to disturb him since he could sleep for another hour, so I grabbed my clothes from the top of my dresser and quietly shut my bedroom door behind me. Bear lifted his head from in front of the dying fire, and I walked to the back door to let him out while I started a pot of coffee.
While it was perking, I slipped into the bathroom to do my morning routine and get dressed. I wasn’t working the front counter today, but I still liked to wear a small amount of makeup in case I met with a customer about a custom order. Being the manager meant I was the face of the bakery, so I did one final inspection of my ponytail and simple makeup before walking into the living room.
As I walked past the couch, something caught my eye, and I leaned over to pick it up. A small red notebook I didn’t recognize was under the corner of the couch. I leafed through it quickly, but Bear scratching to be let in broke my attention. I shoved it into my purse, thinking it was Jacob’s, and let the dog in. After making a cup of coffee, I sat at the dining room table and watched Bear enjoy his breakfast before he settled back on the blanket.
“Lucky dog,” I muttered before I went to pour my travel mug of coffee for the drive over.
Kade appeared in the doorway as I was adding creamer to the cup, and he blinked into the bright lights as he approached me for his morning kiss.
“I was going to kiss you goodbye,” I said against his lips, and he tugged me closer to him, rubbing his erection against my stomach.
“Can I convince you to be late?” he purred, but I shook my head with a smile.
“I already took a week off. I need to give my team some time off since they covered all my shifts.”
He pretended to pout, and I ran my hands up his bare chest, linking my arms behind his neck. “Why don’t you meet me here at three and we can have some alone time before Jacob comes back from Reba and Hatchet’s?”
“I don’t know if I can wait that long,” he groaned, and I stepped back from him with a smile.
“I promise I’ll make your wait worth it,” I replied with a needy husk in my voice, and he tugged me closer to him and slammed his lips to mine.
My phone chimed, alerting me it was time to leave, and he reluctantly let me go, placing his forehead to mine. “Be careful.”
“I will. Tell Dalton I’m making his favorite for dinner and I expect to see him at six-thirty.”
“I’ll relay the message,” he responded and helped me into my winter coat.
I smiled and opened the front door to a chill blast of air. The snow stopped last night, and there was less than an inch covering everything. I carefully traversed the three steps to the sidewalk and cranked my car, letting it warm up while I cleared the windows of snow. Kade yelled from the front porch, “Let me help.”
“You stay inside where it’s warm. You have a long day in the cold.”
He shook his head with a smile, and I climbed into the car and reversed out of the driveway. The last week had been chaotic and the familiarity of the drive gave me peace as I pulled into my space behind the bakery. I missed my job and my regular customers, so when I walked in and was engulfed with a hug from Racheal, it felt like coming home.
For the next three hours, customers came and went as I made batch after batch of cupcakes and scones. The cookies were baking in the oven after the last tray, and I started slicing pound cake for a catering event we had this afternoon at Portstill Bank & Trust. The catering side of the bakery was slowly growing, and I was happy to see everything was in order while I was away. Promoting Racheal to assistant manager was the best move I’d made since taking over daily operations, and with her hard work, we were close to needing another employee to help with the increase.
I was lost in making the trays when a new recipe started swirling in my brain. I wiped my hands off and looked for my recipe notebook, but it wasn’t in the drawer where I left it. Needing to get the list of ingredients written down, I reached into my purse and pulled out the little red notebook I found this morning. Ripping a page out of the back, I jotted down my idea and posted it to the bulletin board. I slid the notebook into my apron and finished the order.
“You need to take it easy. We have two hours before they’ll be here to get the order,” Racheal joked, and I placed the lid over the tray and placed the tray on top of the other two I finished already.
“I wanted to get this done before we start on the pies for tomorrow’s order,” I remarked and washed my hands in the sink. “I’m going to my office to go over the orders for next week to make sure we don’t need to increase our delivery on Monday.”
“I’ve got the oven, and Margie is on the counter, so take your time,” she replied, and I left her to remove the last two trays of cookies.
Closing the door, I sat down and started looking over the orders we had pending and matched them up to what we had in stock, realizing we would be short on a few items. I pulled the red notebook out, and as I flipped past the used pages, something caught my eye, forcing me to stop. Carefully, I turned the pages back and when I saw what was written down, I leaned over and threw up into the trash can.
My hands were shaking and tears flowed unchecked as I flipped through the pages, reading my worst nightmare come back to life.
Why would anyone write all this down?
April 17, 1999
Dalton called last night to tell me something was wrong with Sadie, and when I got there, I had to push her to tell me she was hurt. If my sister wasn’t so busy being a whore instead of a mother, Sadie wouldn’t have been in the situation she was in to get hurt. Alone on the streets of the Flats, forced to defend herself. I do what I can, but there’s no way the system would let an old biker take custody of three kids, so I give them money and try to keep them safe.
But I failed Sadie in the worst way imaginable.
