Falling For Crazy (Moroad Motorcycle Club)(10)

Christina stepped over to Cam and put her arm around his waist. "We'll be over to the motel later today with the truck. I've gathered more supplies to make Amy and you more comfortable."

Jacko glanced at Amy, catching her eavesdropping. "Sounds good."

"Do you want more men at the motel?" Cam asked.

Jacko shook his head. "Nah, Johnson and Bear is enough. I've got it covered."

The others looked at Amy. She walked over and joined them. Coming to Cam's house only caused more questions she had no answers for.

She wanted to know how Jacko fit into the club. What was his job, besides providing cheap entertainment for them all? Did the women approve of the activities the men participated in? Was it true every single member of Moroad was a felon?

She walked beside Jacko through the lush grass to his motorcycle. She sat behind him without knowing where they were going to next. At almost noon, she wasn't ready to go back to the motel and sit in the dank room to waste away the day. Though the visit to Cam's house overwhelmed her emotionally, she rather go anywhere else but around other people or back to the motel.

Jacko rode away from the house. The dust from the gravel road tickled her nose and underneath the dry dirt scent, she inhaled the rich, almost cinnamon like musk scent she'd come to recognize as Jacko. Warmth filled her insides while the sun heated her shoulders. For once, her bones stopped shaking and strength filled her body.

Tired of the actions of others forcing her to hide, to lose everything familiar, she wanted to capture a moment to call her own. She tapped Jacko on the stomach and caught his gaze in the side view mirror.

He slowed down, pulled off the road, and coasted to a stop under the viaduct. She leaned against him fully. "Can you take me for a ride?"

"Where to?"

"My old house." She continued before she lost her nerve. "You only have to ride by, and then we can leave. I haven't seen it since I left."

His jaw ticked and he stared at her. Bolstered to see her family home again, she gazed at him not backing down from wanting to go somewhere familiar. Finally, he pulled his Harley back on the road. Instead of going through town, he took the other road leading away from Federal. She laid her head against the back of his shoulder in thanks.

The last time she'd seen the house, she'd thought her whole world had slipped away. After hoping, praying, and waiting for six months for Sarah to return, Jacko informed her Sarah had been killed and she needed to leave immediately, go far away and tell no one what happened.

She'd started life over alone without any family. Now she found herself thrust back into a world where men controlled the outcome and her wounds were still tender over losing her sister. She no longer wanted every guilty person to pay. She wanted a life where she could get up every morning and not worry about who was standing outside her door and at night, she could sleep without fear of burning.

Jacko pulled down the private road leading to the house. She peered through trees that'd grown twice as tall in her absence and caught a glimpse of the green single story home she grew up in. The bad memories of losing her mom and her sister fogged her recollections of the good things like running barefoot in the yard through the sprinkler and staying out after dark to catch the crickets that chirped loud enough to keep her awake at night.

She took her time studying the faded paint on the front of the house and the weeds in the overgrown yard. The beige curtains her mom bought in Federal on sale still hung open in the windows. Jacko shut off the engine of the motorcycle and she slid off before he could stop her.

A need to peek through the windows at the inside and find a part of her that was missing drove her forward. At the front bay window, she cupped her hands against the glass and squinted inside. Everything remained exactly as it was left. A pair of her white sneakers sat beside the couch. Sarah's black and periwinkle colored ski jacket hung on the back of a chair. She shifted farther along the window, peering back into the kitchen. The dirty dishes from the night Sarah was taken still sat in the sink.

Chicken strips.

That's what they had for dinner the night Sarah was kidnaped. Both of them had fought over the crispiest piece, until she'd let Sarah win and received six extra fries in return. Six. Sarah had counted.

Tears blurred her vision, and she pressed her hand against the filthy glass. Personal loss held her prisoner, looking in from the outside. Locked out of her past. She expected someone else to live in the house, maybe a new color of paint on the siding or a garage built on the property, and strangers living her life. A life she wished she could get back.

"Have you seen enough?" Jacko asked beside her.

She gazed up at him, letting the tears fall. Something inside of her ignited, pushing the fear, the pain, the hurt away. "Why hasn't someone bought the house?"

"I paid off the mortgage five years ago before I went to prison." He looked away. "I thought someday..."

"You thought Sarah was coming home," she said, finishing his sentence.

Learning the truth crushed her and at the same time reinforced her feelings for Jacko. She reached out, wanting to ease the pain in Jacko's eyes. He was the one person who understood what she'd lost. What he'd lost. What the world lost.

She wanted to hold him and make him feel better with hugs and kisses. Except, the scars Jacko carried were burned into his soul. How could someone survive what he'd been through?

Somehow, he'd lost hope when Sarah got murdered. His losses were too much, and he'd changed. She couldn't fathom how his mind worked, but she understood pain.

He gave her comfort being near. They shared the same pain and in different ways they each cried for the past they'd never get back.

She squeezed his arm. "Why didn't you sell the house when you found out they'd killed her?"

He gazed toward the window. "I don't know."

She accepted his non-reason. Maybe he truly never wanted to face the fact Sarah was gone or want to come back to the house he'd spent time in getting to know her sister. Maybe the ghosts kept him from taking care of the property and renovating the neglected house. Or, he preferred living in town, even if he slept in a stinky bed with mold on the ceiling.

She inhaled, stopping herself from thinking too hard about something she couldn't change.

Jacko slipped his hand inside hers. "Come on. There's nothing else here for you."

She walked down the driveway. At the edge, where the concrete met the gravel, she stopped and let go of Jacko's hand. She kneeled on the ground and covered her mouth.

Three sets of handprints, side by side, biggest to smallest, permanently etched in time in the concrete. She placed her right hand in the first impression. The fingers were the exact length of her own.

"Mom laughed as hard as we did the day we came out here after the men finished pouring the driveway. I was afraid of getting in trouble for ruining their work because the company was due back the next day to take the boards off the edge." She shook her head in amusement. "Sarah wasn't afraid. She egged mom on until we all kneeled together and counted to three. Even then, both of them put their hand in the wet, cold concrete, and I waited. They squealed and giggled, more like sisters doing something against the rules than mother and daughter."

She lifted her hand and replaced it in the next handprint. "This one is mine. I was thirteen years old. My hands bigger now."

Her scalp tingled and she looked down at Sarah's handprint. Tiny and innocent, her sister had wrinkled her nose at the mess the concrete made on her hand afterward. Their mom made everything better when she painted all their fingernails later that night before bed.

Amy put her hand over Sarah's hand indention. Her fingers curled and her nails scratched along the concrete. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't grasp the hand of her little sister. She sucked in her breath, her chest tightening. What she wouldn't give to hold Sarah's hand, tug her along, and keep her safe.

It was her job to look after Sarah. She should've gone with her sister to Jacko's house. Sarah had gone by herself in the dark, because Amy was too tired after working all day to walk the mile there and the mile back home. All she'd wanted to do was veg out in front of the television and go to bed early.

Jacko lifted Amy to her feet and pulled her to his chest. She leaned against him, thankful for his strength wrapped around her and having him share the moment with her.

She sniffed. "I miss her."

Jacko swayed side to side, and she ignored his habit and took comfort from him. She didn't want to end up kidnapped by Los Li and used by strange men. She only wanted the nightmare to end.

"Yep, yep, yep." Jacko stepped back, holding her hand, and twirled her under his arm.

"What are—?"

He flung her away, until his arm stretched straight out in front of him, and pulled her back. Yoyo'd three times, she dug her heels into the ground and brought his idiocy to an end.

"Jacko?"

He pressed his finger to her lips and whispered. "Do something."

"Like what?"

He grinned. "Something crazy."

She sighed, hating when he deflected what was happening right in front of him and instead chose to do something completely wrong.

"I don't want to," she said.

He crossed his arms. "Try it. You'll like it. Mikey did."

"I don't know who Mikey is."

He laughed. "That's because you're young and I'm old. Good cereal, though and if Mike liked it, I ate it."