“Will you need shoes besides the boots?” Maggie asked.
“No.” Fatigue was beginning to get the best of her, but there was no time to rest. Ronnie was gone; Rottie was burying him up at the cattle property as they stood here, and his handlers would come looking for him.
No time.
No time.
Tick, tick, tick…
She selected three tank tops, two long-sleeved tees, a sweater, a sweatshirt, one pair of cutoffs, one extra pair of jeans, a nightshirt, socks, and her tiny toiletry kit that pulled double duty as a wallet. All of it she folded neatly in the backpack and zipped up, checking it off her mental list.
“Where’s Mercy?”
“Here.” He appeared in the doorway of her bedroom, leather jacket on beneath his cut, hair slicked and tied back, sunglasses hooked in the collar of his flannel shirt. Whatever he was taking he’d already packed in saddlebags, attached to the bike. She’d seen the bedroll bungeed on behind the bitch seat. They were ready for whatever the road threw at them.
“Merc,” Maggie said, “when was the last time your shoulder was cleaned? Let me look at it before you go.”
Guilt spiked hard in Ava’s stomach; in the flurry of the last few days, she hadn’t been forcing her ministrations on him like she should have. They’d let the wound slip, and that was something they couldn’t afford to do.
“Nah, it’s fine,” he said, rolling his shoulder reflexively.
“No, let me see,” Maggie insisted. She shooed him from the room. “Come on, it won’t take a second. I’ll dress it real quick.”
Ava took a moment, as they left, to glance around her room, make sure she’d remembered her cell phone charging cord and a hair elastic and her chapstick. She should have been afraid, she reflected, scared to death that she had to run away like this. But all she could find was excitement, a thrilling anticipation. She wasn’t running away alone. Mercy wasn’t leaving her behind. She didn’t want to risk losing her place at school, but it was just school, after all, and this was her future, with her man. This was safety in the form of the two of them together, just them and the pavement and a sunset somewhere along the Gulf.
When she joined them in the kitchen, Mercy was shirtless and straddling a kitchen chair, arms folded over the back of it while Maggie applied a fresh bandage. Her brows were puckered together as she smoothed the edges of the tape.
“What?” Ava asked, fear stirring.
“I’m sending you with supplies,” Maggie said, gesturing toward the brown paper bag on the counter. “Y’all have got to keep this clean, twice a day, no exceptions.”
Ava swallowed. “I won’t forget.”
Mercy stood and reached for his shirt, tossing her a smile. “I’m fine, baby. Don’t worry about it.”
Ghost came in the back door, his cellphone in his hand. “I talked to Stack,” he told Mercy as the big Cajun buttoned up his shirt. “And he’s working something out for you two for tonight. The feds will think to check at clubhouses within riding distance. When you hit the Georgia line, call Sly Hammond.”
Mercy nodded, grinning. “Why that man isn’t one of us, I’ll never understand.”
“For tonight, be glad he’s not,” Ghost said. “And don’t embarrass me,” he added, a stern, fatherly slant to his brows thrown in for effect.
Mercy made a pretend offended sound in his throat and shrugged into his jacket and cut.
Then Ghost looked at her. “Alright. Time to go.”
There wasn’t time to call Leah, or Carter, say goodbye to her brother, email her professors and advisor, stop for one last breakfast as Stella’s, or even make that visit to her grandmother she’d been putting off since she arrived home. She felt the threat of discovery pushing them out the door, down the driveway, to Mercy’s waiting bike. She didn’t even have time to marvel at the cataclysmic changes of a week’s time.
Maggie pulled her into a tight hug, tears slipping silently down her face. “My precious girl,” she whispered. “Be careful. Be so, so careful. Don’t step away from Mercy for a second.” She pushed her back, caught her face in her hands. “I love you more than anything in the world. Come home safe.”
“I love you, Mom.”
Then Maggie hugged Mercy around the waist, her grip fierce. “Love you, too, you big monster. I don’t have to tell you to take good care of her, but I’m going to anyway.”
Mercy cupped the back of her head, briefly. “It’ll be fine, Mags.”
Ghost and Mercy hugged, a back-slapping man-hug that said a dozen different things.
And then Ava faced her father, and she had no idea what to expect.
