Tanner
Bash and Matt sat on either side of my bed, their faces grim as they watched me closely. I shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position on the uncomfortable mattress. It was pretty useless, but it was worth a try.
“I’ll take two,” Bash finally said with a grunt.
I passed him two cards, waiting for my little brother to make up his mind. “Two,” he muttered eventually.
I took one for myself and waited patiently for them to show me their cards.
“Two pair,” Matt said, showing his double threes and queens.
Bash dropped his cards on the rolling table. “I got a flush. All diamonds.”
I laughed, placing my four of a kind on the table between them. “Four sixes, bitches.”
“I hate playing poker with you,” Matt complained. “I don’t know how, because I watch you like a hawk, but I know you cheat.”
“I would never cheat you, little bro,” I told him with a grin as I pulled in my jackpot.
“Sure,” he grumbled. “I’m done.”
“You always were a sore loser,” Bash said with an amused twist of his lips.
“And you’re not?” Matt countered. “If he weren’t in a hospital bed, you know you’d be kicking his ass for cheating.”
“Probably,” my cousin admitted.
A knock on the door had all three of us looking up. Doc Robertson walked in dressed in his white coat and green scrub pants. He had his iPad in his hand and a cordial smile on his face as he entered the room.
When he saw me, he shook his head. “You’ve been here for four days, and I still don’t know how you’re able to even sit up considering the condition you were found in. I’m tempted to run tests to make sure you are human.”
“How much longer you plan on keeping me in here, Doc?” I was itching to get out of this place. I felt better, and I’d even had a few physical therapy sessions to help me regain some of the strength in my legs again. I was tired of being cooped up in this small-ass room. I wanted to be home—or at the least, back at the clubhouse—so I could sleep in a decent bed.
Preferably with Jos.
“Your labs look good, and everything else is healing nicely,” Doc commented. “But I would feel better if you stayed another few days.”
“How many is your definition of a ‘few,’ Doc?”
“If you’re still doing this well on Monday, I’ll release you,” he assured me.
Monday. Four more days. Fuck, I was going to start climbing the walls before then.
“Until then, I want to see you up walking throughout the day like you have been. Your muscles were starting to atrophy, which is what I’m the most concerned about at this point. But you’re doing great considering…”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
Considering I’d been tortured for three weeks, kept alive with an IV that pushed fluids into me, and given zero food. My body had been put through the kind of pain that would have easily broken a lesser man in minutes. Fontana was a sadistic bastard. He’d gotten off on making me scream, but he didn’t get what he wanted. Even when he threatened Jos, I’d somehow kept my mouth shut.
I craved his blood.
I wanted to be his Angel of Death. Wanted to watch the life fade from his eyes when I put a bullet in his head.
“After you’re released, I still want you to have regular physical therapy,” Doc continued. “I think twice a week for a month should be good, and then once the cast comes off your arm, your surgeon will want you to have some PT on that as well.”
“Whatever you say, Doc,” I told him, pushing down my hate for Fontana to give the doctor a careless grin.
His expression turned more serious, and he opened the door to glance out before shutting it again and coming closer to the bed. Lowering his voice, he looked at Bash. “Bates has been asking me about Tanner having a skull fracture.”
“What have you told him?”
Doc shrugged. “That I can’t discuss my patient’s condition with him. He asked me if it was possible Tanner has amnesia.”
“And?”
“I told him it was possible. Why the hell is the sheriff asking me about this?”
Bash scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Don’t worry about it, Doc. He’s just being nosy. If he keeps asking, just tell him Tanner has a skull fracture, and you’re unsure when he is likely to regain his memory of the accident.”
The doctor’s gaze went from Bash to Matt and finally settled on me. “Bates has a vested interest in you not remembering?”
“Something like that,” I answered.
“Right. Well, I hope you get him taken care of soon.” He put his iPad in his large coat pocket. “Keep up the good work, Tanner. I’ll stop by again tomorrow to check on your progress.”
The three of us were silent until the door shut behind the man.
Alone again, Matt released a vicious curse. “We gotta take out Bates soon, man. We can’t just sit back and let that motherfucker run loose. He’s a danger to everyone.”
“We have to play this smart, though,” Bash reminded him. “I’m just as hungry for his blood as you are, but the bastard can’t disappear right now. It would be too obvious we did it. Plus, he could lead us to Fontana. We have eyes on him, so for now, we have to bide our time.”
“Fuck, I hate this shit.” Matt stood, stabbing his fingers into his hair as he walked to the window, glaring out at the darkened sky. “I feel useless as hell right now.”
“Save your energy for when we find Fontana,” Bash said. “And don’t let your guard down for a single second.” His blue eyes landed on me. “You keeping that gun close, right?”
There was a gun in the hidden compartment of my rolling table. I put it under my pillow when I went to sleep every night. Knowing that it was close helped me sleep easier at night. “Don’t worry about me. You just keep Jos and Reid safe.”
“We sent five brothers with her, plus her dad, to get her things from Oakland,” he assured me. “She’s safe, cousin. Don’t worry about her.”
“I’m more worried about the threats closer to home than in Oakland.” If Bates touched her, took her and my son to Fontana, I would crush his skull with my bare hands. “Bates is getting nervous if he’s asking Doc about my condition. I’m a liability to him right now. One he would be all too happy to make disappear for a second time. But there are brothers guarding my door day and night. He knows he can’t get to me in here. Jos is a different story, though. She’s making noise about getting Uncle Chaz’s business commitments taken care of and I’ve been able to hold her off, but that stubborn female isn’t going to listen much longer.”
“I’ll watch over her myself,” Bash promised.
“Me too,” Matt vowed. “Stop worrying about her, brother. We’ve got your woman covered until you’re able to do it yourself.”
That made me relax a little, but I couldn’t stop worrying about her and Reid. Whenever she wasn’t with me, I was on edge.
“It’s getting late. We should let you get some rest.” Bash stood, gathering up all the cards and putting them back in the poker set we’d been playing with since dinner. “Spider is going to be guarding the door tonight. If you need anything, just yell out for him. I’ll bring you breakfast in the morning.”
“Thank fuck. Those eggs they try to make me eat here are nasty as hell. I don’t know how people don’t die from food poisoning when they’re in the hospital.” I leaned my head back into the pillows. They were my own from home, so they were comfortable, unlike the flat ones the hospital used. “Bring Jos with you tomorrow.”
“Get some rest,” Matt instructed, grabbing his things. “The faster you recover, the faster you can get out of here.”
“Yeah, yeah. Stop nagging, Mom.”
He punched me lightly in my good arm. “Don’t make me kick your ass, bro. You know I can take you.”
“You wish, bitch.”
Chuckling, he followed Bash out the door. “Later.”
As the door shut behind them, I caught a glimpse of Spider standing in the doorway. Trying to relax, I picked up the remote to the small TV mounted in the corner of the room. There was nothing on but kid shows and crappy sitcoms. Even the sports channels were boring as hell.
Muting the television, I grabbed my phone.
“Hello?”
The sound of her voice calmed all the noise in my head, and I closed my eyes. “How did the move go? Did you get all your stuff?”
“I didn’t have much, just a few boxes of books, clothes, and all of Reid’s stuff. With all the help, we got it loaded in less than two hours. Grandpa’s house is a mess right now, though, until I can get it all put away. But I’m too tired tonight to do it. It can wait for now.”
My eyes snapped open again. “Why didn’t you take it to my house?”
“Um, because I don’t live there. Grandpa left me his house and the business to run. Reid and I will move in there once this lockdown bullshit is lifted.”
“Jos,” I growled. “I want you to live with me. You and our son are my responsibility now. I want to take care of you both. Please move in with me.”
There was a long pause on her end, one that set my nerves on edge all over again. Finally, she let out a harsh huff. “If you really want to live with me, then you’ll move in to Grandpa’s house with us. There isn’t enough room for your brother and his growing family plus us.”
“Growing family…?”
“Oh please, don’t tell me you didn’t know Rory is pregnant. It’s all everyone is whispering about here at the clubhouse right now.”
“No, I didn’t know. Matt hasn’t said anything.” I was going to beat his ass in the morning for keeping me in the dark about it. I was happy for him, thrilled to be an uncle. He should have told me.
“Well, don’t stress over it. I’m not sure they’ve actually made any announcements, but it’s kind of hard to hide the fact that she’s been losing her breakfast a lot lately when everyone is confined to the same four walls for so long.” I heard her moving around and pictured her sitting in the middle of the bed with her legs tucked up under her.
“What are you doing?” I asked quietly.
“Flipping through the channels in your room. There is nothing good on, but I’m too tired to socialize.”
“What did you usually do in the evenings when you lived in Oakland?” The time she’d been living away from me made me curious about her life.
“I didn’t watch television, if that’s what you’re asking. I was working two jobs just to pay the bills and for childcare, so things that weren’t a necessity weren’t important. Mostly, I read if I had the night off. Or just played with Reid.”
“Sounds like you were pretty busy.” I didn’t like that she’d taken on so much all by herself, but I wasn’t going to lecture or yell at her for not telling me about our son. I’d fucked up spectacularly when I did what I did, but at the time, I thought I was protecting her. “Do you need anything, Jos? What can I do to help take the strain off you with taking care of Reid?”
I heard her swallow loudly before she spoke. “The fact that you’re alive and getting better every day is all I need from you right now, Tanner. We can talk about other things later, once you’re back to normal.”
“You really going to let me move in with you?”
“We can talk about that later too,” she said after another pause. “You might not be ready for that yet.”
“I might not, or you might not?” Because I sure as fuck knew I was ready. I wanted to be with my family, and that was Jos and our kid.
“No comment,” she muttered.
“I don’t want to push you, baby. But fuck, it’s so hard to be away from you even for a few hours,” I told her honestly, needing her to know how it was for me. “The last two years, I was going crazy missing you.”
“Tanner…”
“Don’t say anything. I just wanted you to know. I fucked up, Jos. I seriously thought you were better off without me.”
“How?” she demanded, suddenly pissed. “How could you possibly think I would be better off without you? I was in love with you.”
Goddamn it, I didn’t like that she was saying “was.” I ached for her to still love me.
“When you got to Creswell Springs that last time, your mom called Uncle Chaz. He was in his office, and I overheard her bitching at him,” I said. “She said you were turning down a summer internship in LA to come visit with your dad and grandpa. She said the MC was fucking up your life all over again, and that everyone was being selfish. There was a lot more bitching, and then she said if we cared about you, we would let you have a life away from the trouble that follows the MC around.”
“I can see my mom doing that,” she muttered. “But you should know that it was all bullshit. There wasn’t an internship. I wasn’t even talking about college or anything at that point. I wanted to stay here and help out Grandpa. Not just because I wanted to be closer to you—although that was a huge part of it—but because I love it here. I’ve never really felt like I belonged anywhere but here. My mom couldn’t care less about me being around, Tanner. She just doesn’t want my dad to get my attention.”
The sadness in her voice destroyed me. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have pulled that shit.”
“You crushed me that morning,” she whispered, her voice catching. “The night before was amazing, and I thought you really wanted me.”
“I did. I fucking do!” I half shouted in my need for her to believe me. “Jos, baby, you’re everything I’ve ever wanted. That first night with you was hard to get over, but that last night was so goddamn perfect, it ruined me.”
“Tanner…” My name came out breathy, making my body respond as if she’d physically touched me.
And then the phone went completely silent.