Page 57 of Gunner
He chewed on his bottom lip, and I could see so much of Sadie in him. They all had different fathers, that much was obvious, but they all had their mother’s dark hair. “Do you think we have to worry about him going after her again?”
“If he were a threat to Sadie still, I’m positive Mick would have taken him out by now. For now, we watch him and we wait. He’ll get what’s coming to him, and I promise, I’ll make sure he’s as scared and in pain as she was when she stumbled out of that house.” He nodded, and I asked, “Do you need a ride?”
“James will come get me and take me to Sadie’s to grab my bike later this afternoon.”
“She said to be at the house at six-thirty for dinner. Can you make it?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there.”
His phone rang, and I pulled him into a quick bro hug before leaving. He was pacing the kitchen, running his hand through his hair as he spoke to, whom I’m assuming, was Devlin’s brother, James. He was silent the few times I met him, but the deadly look in his eyes told me he wasn’t a man to be fucked with.
I drove to the gun shop on the other side of Portstill and locked the truck. The door buzzed when I walked in, and Ruger walked out from the back office. When he saw it was me, he smiled and yelled across the empty shop, “You finally decide to give up swinging a hammer and come back?”
“I just stopped by to grab a few things I left the last time I was here to target shoot. Do you mind if I grab them from the storage room?”
I hated to be deceitful to Ruger, but he wouldn’t open the books to let me snoop without a valid reason. I didn’t want Smokey to know what I was doing, in case Skid and I were way off base.
“No problem. I’ll be in my office if you want to poke your head in before you leave.” He turned and limped back to his office.
Ruger was almost as old as Scribe, and he had a noticeable limp from when he dumped his bike on the highway years ago. You could see the years of hard living etched across his wrinkled face, and I threw a hand up to him as I walked out of the shop and into the indoor firing range. The storage room was at the end of the walkway where the individual shooting lanes were, and I walked past the empty booths, the silence of the building causing an uneasy feeling to creep up my spine.
I used my key to unlock the door, pulled it closed behind me, turned the light on, and locked the door. The boxes of records were lined up on the metal shelving along the back wall, and I stood in front of at least twenty boxes, wondering where to start. Deciding to start in the same year Sadie was attacked and work backward, I pulled down the box labeled ‘1999’ and got started.
An hour later, I left the room with three pages ripped out of the ledgers for Dalton to look at. If what I suspect is correct, the only reason Smokey and Bullet made their private deal with the dirty fed, Skeeter, was to cover their own asses. I left the gun shop without saying goodbye to Ruger, and I sent a text to Claw to let him know I wouldn’t be in for a few days.
It was close to three when I pulled up to Sadie’s house, and I glanced at the ledger pages before folding them and tucking them into the glovebox. The sun had melted the snow from yesterday, but the air still had a chill. I picked up the cover, looked at my bike hidden underneath, and sighed before covering it back up. There was another round of snow predicted for tonight and tomorrow, so I had another few days before I could ride.
Standing on the front porch, I unlocked the door and walked inside to a quiet house. Bear didn’t greet me, and I silently walked into the bedroom to see it was empty. Doubling back through the kitchen, I saw Sadie sitting on the back porch with Bear next to her, a smoking joint in one hand and her phone in the other. She was talking to someone, and I knocked softly to let her know I was home. She turned her head and lifted her chin, then turned her gaze back to the yard as she continued her conversation.
Seeing her with weed was a little concerning, but losing Mick had thrown her for a loop, and I wasn’t one to judge what others did to cope with loss. I hung my cut up next to hers and changed into a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt before grabbing a bottle of water. I drank deeply from the bottle, watching her through the window until she hung up the phone and placed it on the small table next to her.
I opened the sliding glass door and walked onto the back porch. Bear lifted his head, and I rubbed his ears before pecking Sadie on the cheek. “Did you have a good first day back?”
“It was busy,” she replied curtly, and I looked at her with confusion.
“Did something happen?”
“Nope,” she responded with a little pop on the end of the word for emphasis.
She inhaled a lungful of smoke and stubbed it out on the banister, never letting her gaze meet mine. I sat next to her on the little couch and asked, “Sadie, what’s wrong?”
“Let me ask you something, Kade.” I nodded, and she turned her hardened gaze to me. “What should a person do when they discover an untruth about another person?”
I quickly ran through anything I could have done to upset her and came up blank. “Have I don’t something to upset you?”
She shook her head and seemed to snap out of whatever mood she was in and replied, “No. I’m just coming to grips with Mick, I think.”
Her answer seemed forced, but when she looked into my eyes, I didn’t see any deceit. I leaned over and kissed her softly, needing her love to keep me from slipping into the darkness that was pushing up around me. She brought her hand to my cheek and moaned into the embrace. A chime from my phone broke our connection, and she stood from her seat, pulling her hoodie up as the sun disappeared behind the clouds, casting the yard into a muted gray shadow.
“I’m going to get dinner started. Dalton said he’ll be here, right?”
I stood and walked behind her, letting Bear inside and closing the door behind us. “He said he’ll be here. What time is Jacob coming home?”
“Reba asked if Jacob could stay another night. Apparently, the kids have taken over the den and turned it into their own little clubhouse.” She chuckled and opened the fridge to pull out the ingredients.
“They’ll be prospecting before you know it,” I replied, and her face fell before she recovered with a smile.
There was something going on, and she was trying hard not to let it show. I had to wonder if something happened at the bakery today or if it really was the reality of losing Mick that was causing her to switch from hot to cold in the blink of an eye. Her question about untruths had my brain spinning.
