The mourners poured in behind them until the majority of the pews had been filled. Only when the last person was seated did her father and the other members bring Dean to the front and set the casket on the trestles in front of the altar. Ashleigh found that space in her head that was filled with white noise and stayed there for the ceremony. She made the appropriate responses, mouthed the appropriate words to the hymns, but she wasn’t truly there. She roused only enough to drive safely as they escorted the coffin back to Green Pastures. Dean had always said that he wanted to be cremated and for his ashes to be scattered along the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, one of his favorite rides. She retreated into her head again for the short service at the funeral parlor. They would collect Dean’s ashes and take them on their final ride in a day or so. For this day they would all return to the clubhouse.
Once all the mourners had arrived at the clubhouse, there was a respectful silence as all the patches in the room threw back a shot of Jack Daniels to toast Dean. The rest of the day passed in a blur of sympathetic faces and muttered condolences. After the toast had been made, Paul had returned to her side and hadn’t left it. She knew he was concerned that she didn’t eat any of the food that had been prepared by friends of the club; but she felt that if she opened her mouth to eat, that the sorrow would come flooding out and that she wouldn’t be able to rein it back in.
She felt a subtle shift in him during the wake. Although Paul hardly left her side, Ashleigh was convinced that she could feel him pulling back from her, withdrawing a little. It was nothing that she could define, but by the end of the night there was distance that there hadn’t been in the morning. Ashleigh was too heartsick and too exhausted to question him about it. Instead she filed it away to worry about if it was still there in the morning. She let him escort her home, to his house. She let him undress her and was glad when he didn’t try to make a move, she was empty, spent and used up by the day. They climbed into what she now thought of as their bed, rather than his bed, and she fell asleep cradled against his chest, listening to the beat of his heart. She hoped that Dean had found such peace, wherever he was.
Chapter Nineteen
Paul slipped from the bed in the early hours of the morning. He couldn’t take it anymore. The weight of the guilt he carried was making it hard to breathe. He could feel it corroding everything he touched. Every trusting look that Ashleigh gave him, every unconscious gesture of acceptance and comradeship from his brothers added to the burden.
Ashleigh was deeply asleep. He was glad for her sake. He knew the day had been hard on her, as had many days before that. He was worried about her. She wasn’t eating properly and her spark had dimmed. He very much wanted to take care of her, to be able to nurture that spark back into the blaze it had been, but he couldn’t stay. There was only one way to solve the conundrum that had been presented to him.
She didn’t wake as he dressed. He paused before he slipped his kutte on. What had once been a balm, as much a piece of him as his own skin, now felt like acid being dripped across his back. He wasn’t worthy of it. He had earned the ‘Redeemer’ patch which now graced it. He had tortured and killed for his club, and the patch was a message to others of what he had done, but he didn’t deserve it.
The ride to the clubhouse only strengthened his resolve to do what he felt was right, but it did nothing to assuage his regret at what could have been. He would have given much to be able to relax into life with his brothers, to make a life with Ashleigh. He was giving everything because he couldn’t do any of that with a clear conscience.
During the day he’d wanted to scream a thousand times that he shouldn’t be there, that he didn’t deserve their sympathy or their friendship. He’d made sure to keep Ashleigh close. He didn’t want Jimmy anywhere near her. He wanted to be the one to protect her, he wanted that so badly he could taste it, and this was the only way to do that. He was glad that they’d had the time that they’d had together. Those memories would sustain him, and he would need all the strength that he could gather.
The clubhouse was silent and mostly dark by the time he got there. The main room was empty, only the lights behind the bar were still glowing and a faint light came from the kitchen. It was all illumination for a brother in need of food, water or alcohol in the early hours.
One of the Chapel doors was slightly ajar. Paul headed in that direction, certain for no reason that he could say that what he sought was in that room. Sure enough, he found Sam slumped in his chair at the head of the table, nursing what had probably been a glass full of whisky. It was now only half full. There was no bottle in sight. Paul hoped that was a good sign, that his president hadn’t drowned his grief in alcohol. Sam appeared to be staring into space and did not stir when Paul stepped through the doors.