Shade(227)

The women came back in the room and Lily came to his side, slipping an arm around his waist.

“What’s going on?” she asked worriedly.

Shade smiled, taking a beer from Nickel. “Viper just made Lucky his vice president.” Shade purposefully left out the issues with the Freedom Riders.

“Oh.”

Shade had thought she would be relieved the meeting was over; instead, her troubled gaze went to Lucky who was being congratulated by the other brothers.

“I take it you don’t agree with Viper’s choice.”

“I guess I was hoping Lucky would eventually realize he missed the church.” Lily shrugged sadly. “I miss having him as my pastor; a lot of the church members do.”

“Angel, the only reason he remained a pastor so long was for his investigation.”

“Perhaps, but I think it was an excuse, too.”

“For what?”

“For what he was called to do,” Lily answered softly.

“Yeah? Well, he’s getting called to do something else now, and he looks a lot happier doing it.” Shade motioned to Lucky, who was opening his beer and kissing Raci on the mouth as she congratulated him.

“Does he?” Lily said.

* * *

Shade and Curt Dawkins looked around the heavily wooded property in Jamestown that Friday. It would be useless to The Last Riders.

Shade didn’t like the thought of forcing the man not to sell, but he really didn’t want The Last Riders to spend half a million dollars on a property which would take years to resell.

“What do you think?” Curt asked.

“I think you need to reconsider putting it up for sale,” Shade told him.

“Why would I do that? I have an offer for the asking price—”

“From a buyer who belongs to an anti-government organization. Think you’ll be able to keep coaching if the school board finds out?”

“If I sell this land, I won’t need to work,” Curt boasted, but Shade didn’t miss the glint of worry in his eyes.

“You get to keep the money all to yourself, or do you have to split it?” Shade asked.

“I have to split it. My mom gets the biggest chunk then my brothers and me.”

“How much is your part?” Shade questioned.

“Sixty thousand.”

Shade stared back at him. Sixty sounded a hell of a lot better than five hundred thousand.

“The Last Riders will give you seventy-five for your part.” He shrugged. “That way, we get what we want, and you get some extra cash and keep coaching.”

“What will I tell my family?” Curt frowned.

“That’s up to you. We have a lawyer who can draw the papers up. You can sign and have the money in your hands by tomorrow. Of course, the stipulation will be that the rest of the property can’t be sold for five years.”

“Make it three, and we have a deal.”

“Fine.” Shade would have gone down to a year. He didn’t think the Freedom Riders were going to hang around that long and wait for the property to become available again. They would either move on or try to find another piece of land. This was going to get expensive if they did the latter.

The men shook hands, and then Shade, Lucky, Rider, and Cash walked back to their bikes.

“That was easier than I expected.” Cash nodded his head as Curt drove away.

“I’m just grateful we didn’t have to drop that kind of cash on this place.” Shade started his bike. “Lucky, when we get back to town, call Knox and tell him to have Diamond draw up the papers. Make sure she puts in there that we have access to hunting up here.”#p#分页标题#e#

“Damn, this might have a bright side after all,” Rider said. “I saw a couple of deer trails while I was looking around.”

“Not only that, but we can take it as a tax deduction.” Shade grinned. “We can have survival workshops out here.”

“Damn, Shade, I like the way you think,” Lucky laughed.

“Let’s head back to town. Since I saved the business so much money today, you can buy my lunch.”

They were still joking around when they went inside the diner. Shade had turned to say something to Cash when his expression went cold. He was staring at a table by the window where Rachel and Willa were sitting with a group of bikers Shade recognized from Cash’s files.

They took a table themselves. Unfortunately, it wasn’t close enough to hear what was being said, although Rachel was smiling and talking and Willa seemed her usual nervous and shy self, uncomfortable with the attention the men were showing her.

The waitress came and took their order. Shade and Rider both ordered sandwiches and fries, while Lucky and Cash only ordered coffee.