She fell silent, and the moment spun into a lovely quiet, punctuated by her soft reproach.
“Where are you?” she finally asked.
“The clubhouse.”
A beat. “Can I come see you?”
He considered it for a second. Thought of her climbing up to sit on the table, taking his head in her lap; imagined he felt her small fingers sifting through his hair.
But he said, “No, you should be with your family.” And more importantly, he didn’t need to bother her anymore.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m…” Unsure, terrified, in desperate need to feel human arms around him. “I’m sure.”
“Okay.” How depressed she sounded. “Well don’t drink anymore. Okay?”
“Okay.”
She wasn’t ready to hang up, he could tell, but she said, “Good night.”
“Night.”
He disconnected the call, took firm hold of his dizziness, rolled off the table and went inside in search of whiskey.
Forty-One
Sam didn’t care about the ring. Not in a technical sense. Carats, cut, clarity, retail value – none of that meant a thing to her. The ring on her left hand was the most precious and beautiful thing she’d seen because Aidan had given it to her, and with it, his promise of forever. And with that, the slippery thread she’d been grabbing for, not even sure what it was. The night he proposed, she curled up beside him and slept deeply, so deeply, filled to the tips of her fingers and toes with a peace she thought must radiate through her skin.
She had a feeling the women around her now didn’t care about the ring either, but they all asked to see it and oohed and ahhed appropriately.
“So when’s the big day?” Mina asked as she untangled knotted strings of Christmas lights.
The Lean Dogs women were gathered in the clubhouse common room, ranged around the massive tree Mercy had toted in from Home Depot a few hours ago. The men had wisely decided to leave them to the decorating and had been put in charge of watching the kids.
“Oh, um…” Sam plucked another ornament – a tear-drop-shaped crystal piece that glittered when she spun it on its hanger – and frowned. “We haven’t really talked about it much. We were thinking, once we get the license, of heading up to the–”
“Please don’t say courthouse,” Maggie interrupted. She stood by the tree, untangled lights in-hand, carefully stringing them onto the branches. “Has one woman in this room had a wedding that wasn’t at that damn courthouse?”
“No,” Mina said.
“That’s where we got hitched,” Nell said.
“And us,” Ava chimed in.
Emmie nodded. “Us too.”
“And me,” Maggie said, rolling her eyes. “Seventeen and pregnant.”
“We got married in a church,” Holly said, shyly.
“Oh, that’s right. I was a witness.” Ava raised her hand. “It was really pretty.”
Holly smiled, pleased, a little embarrassed. That was her way, Sam had learned. “It wasn’t much. But it was…it was sweet.”
Sam caught Maggie’s wry expression, an echo of what they were all thinking but would never say: Only Holly could think there was anything sweet about Michael McCall.
“Except for Holly,” Maggie said, “we all got married in that Knoxville courthouse. So.” Her eyes came to Sam, bright with something like mischief. “I say it’s time we had a real biker wedding. Really do it up right.”
