Homecoming (Dartmoor Book 8) Read online

  “Tell your parents they can drink coffee for free forever,” she said, gratefully, massaging the tension from her lower back.

  Ava sat cross-legged on the floor, pulling wrapped items out of boxes, and chuckled. “Pretty sure they already do.”

  “I’ll have to bake them cookies, then. Seriously, I can’t believe this place. I was ready to live in Mom and Dad’s garage, and now I’ve got two bedrooms, and my own washer/dryer.”

  “Don’t mind us,” Aidan said as he and Tango toted in the sofa, a secondhand leather monstrosity she didn’t really want to know the origins of. “Stay right in the way, that’s fine. We’re only giving ourselves hernias over here.”

  “Oh my God,” Ava deadpanned, “it’s finally happened. Your full transformation into Dad.”

  He halted, spluttered out a clumsy, “Hey, fuck you,” and nearly dropped the end of the sofa on his foot.

  Leah bit back a laugh. “Thanks, boys, it goes over against that wall,” she said, sweetly, and a little bit of laughter slipped out.

  Tango caught her eye and grinned as he passed.

  “…Dad wishes…” Aidan was saying.

  Ava shot him a wicked smile and said, “What was that, Kenny? Something about kids these days, and back when you were young? Time for your afternoon cigarette and Raisin Bran?”

  Aidan set his end of the sofa in place with a huff of annoyance, all drawn up and ready to lob another easily-dodged jab at his sister.

  Mercy trooped in the door, said, “Think fast, bro,” and chucked a sofa pillow at him.

  He turned too late, and it hit him square in the face.

  Tango died laughing, doubled over and everything.

  Leah couldn’t contain her own giggles anymore, clapping a hand over her mouth to smother them.

  Aidan squawked indignantly. “Why the fuck was that big monster carrying pillows while I’m throwing my back out?”

  Mercy grinned. “Just admit you suck at rock-paper-scissors and get over yourself.”

  Verbal jabs turned to physical ones, and then the two brothers-in-law were tussling right there on her freshly-unrolled rug.

  Ava stood up and rolled her eyes. “Don’t break anything,” she admonished them, and picked up the box marked “Sheets.” Tipped her head toward the hall. “Let’s make up the bed while they get it out of their system. Otherwise they’ll never settled down.”

  “Aw, babe,” Mercy complained, as they left the room.

  “Don’t break my brother,” she called back over her shoulder. “Or else you’ll have to apologize to Sam.”

  “Ow,” Aidan exclaimed. “Dude, help.”

  “Not a chance,” Tango chuckled.

  “I feel kinda bad,” Leah said, as they left the melee behind and stepped into the master suite. It was her favorite room in the apartment, with its own en-suite and a large window that overlooked a walking trail and bit of green space behind the building. The bed was already there, the frame and mattress; she had a desk, and a tall wardrobe cabinet – that one Mercy had helped carry in. “I should have hired movers.”

  “No, you definitely shouldn’t.” Ava set the box down on the floor at the foot of the bed. “What else have those goobers got to do?”

  Leah laughed. “Remember when you were pine-city over Mercy? And now he’s just a goober.” She sighed theatrically. “How fast young love fades. Replaced by gooberness.”

  Ava chuckled. “Mom used to say that all men were basically little boys in grown-up clothes, and honestly, she was right.”

  “Isn’t she right about everything?”

  “Tell her you said that and you don’t have to bake her cookies.”

  They pulled out the fitted sheet, spread it between them, and moved to opposite sides of the bed to tuck it into place.

  It was a little bit amazing how they slid right back into their old friendship. It had never ended, not really, but when Leah had followed Jason to Chicago, they’d fallen out of the habit of daily communication. Texts, and emails, and photos still happened; but they hadn’t helped co-host a bake sale, or studied together, or spent an aimless afternoon in front of the TV with popcorn and nail polish. They hadn’t had proper girl time, and she’d worried, a little, if things would go back to the way they had been – a dumb worry, it turned out, because they fell right back together like always, their friendship a familiar groove into they which they slipped, well-oiled, productive, comfortable.

  They got the bed made, and by the time they returned to the living room, the guys had gone back down to the U-Haul for the next load. There wasn’t much left: she didn’t have a kitchen table, or chairs, or dishes, or glasses, or…anything for the kitchen, really. Maggie had said she was on it, and though Leah had protested, and hated the idea of accepting charity, there was no stopping Maggie Teague once she’d latched onto a cause.

  “Pizza?” Ava asked, already pulling out her phone. “I’m starving.”

  “Oh. Well.” The sky was darkening beyond the windows, a dusky purple-pink. “I’m sure the kids…”

  Ava waved her off. “Mom’s fine with them ‘til later, she said. You still like pepperoni and mushroom?”

  “Yeah.”

  Tango and Aidan brought up the last boxes and then said they had to get home to their wives. Leah thanked them, surprised to get hugs from both of them – until she was pressed quick and close to their cuts, smelling the leather, and smoke, and asphalt scent that had heralded all her childhood slumber parties over at the Teague house.

  Aidan tugged on her ponytail as he pulled back. “What happened to the pink?”

  “It went blue, and then green, and then I had to get a grown-up job.”

  “Aw, damn, that’s a shame.” He gave her one of his ladykiller grins and winked as he headed for the door.

  “You stop that, asshole,” Ava called after him, without heat. “You’re married.”

  “And the women of Knoxville can’t stop crying about it,” he called in parting.

  Leah chuckled. Yep, she was home alright, no mistaking.

  ~*~

  Ava had brought paper plates, Solo cups, and a cooler full of drinks. They poured cold Coke into Jack, and settled cross-legged on the rug in the living room with steaming, greasy pizza. Mercy had stayed behind, and that didn’t feel as strange as she might have once thought. For a lot of years, he’d been the hulking, scary, much-too-old enigma that had fascinated Ava, and terrified the teenage boys who Ava in turn fascinated. But, despite the tats, and the cut, and the long hair, and the wildly-violent club reputation, Mercy was, at heart, a man. A kind one. Who loved his wife, and who liked a good joke, and he didn’t feel like a third wheel.

  “Have your parents seen the place yet?” Ava asked.

  Leah nodded and swallowed. “Mom came by yesterday and dropped off a bunch of toilet paper and paper towels and stuff. They’re coming by tonight after they close up the shop.”

  “You gonna be working there?” Mercy asked.

  Ava shot him a look.

  He made a face. “Wrong question?”

  “No, it’s a good one,” Leah said, trying not to frown; she failed. Felt her nose wrinkling up. She dropped her pizza back onto her plate with a sigh. “They’ll let me pull shifts there, for sure. But I don’t want them to have to cut back hours for the students they’ve got working for them now. I need to find something more permanent – and find it quick.” She glanced around her bare new apartment. “I’m gonna blow through my savings fast.”

  Ava and Mercy traded another look. “Well,” Ava said, setting her own slice down. “If we can–”

  “Oh, no, no, no, absolutely not.”

  “It could be a loan.”

  “You guys have three kids! No. No, I’ll be fine. I just hate job-hunting.”

  “What did you do before?” Mercy asked. “Ava said you had, and I quote, a ‘legit degree.’”

  Leah snorted. “Accounting. And, yeah, it’s legitimately boring. I was working for a CPA in Chicago. I guess I’
ll look at H&R Block or something down here.”

  Ava made a considering face. “Dad’s trying to get a whole bunch of new businesses up and running in town. He might have something.”

  “Be careful: that sounds like more charity.”

  “No, it wouldn’t be. He’s got Bell Bar they’re remodeling, and Albie’s furniture place. What’s it called?”

  “Maude’s,” Mercy supplied.

  “And then Mom’s restaurant – oops, that’s a surprise for her for Mother’s Day, so don’t say anything.”

  She mimed zipping her lips.

  “But there’s a space he hasn’t figured out yet.”

  “Your dad didn’t figure something out?” Leah asked with – mostly – mock alarm.

  Mercy chuckled.

  Ava said, “Whatever it is, he’ll need a manager.” She waggled her eyebrows in invitation.

  Leah laughed – but only a little. She wanted to sigh instead. “That’s really sweet.”

  “But?”

  “But – I dunno. I’ll figure something out.”

  Ava looked troubled, and sympathetic, and like she wanted to help. But she picked her pizza back up and said, “Well, since you need a kitchen table and chairs, I totally know a guy…”

  ~*~

  Ava didn’t press for details about Jason in front of Mercy – she wasn’t a gossiper by nature, and she definitely wasn’t going to start becoming one with a man in the room, even if it was her man. She hadn’t pressed on the phone last week either, when Leah first called to tell her that she was headed back for Knoxville.

  In truth, the details were neither dirty, nor even interesting. There’d been no cheating scandal, no raucous confrontation. He hadn’t been leading a double life – hadn’t secretly been the cousin of her high school bully and working undercover for the FBI. That sort of wild shit only ever happened to Ava Teague.

  For Leah, life had been much more straightforward; much less daytime-television-worthy. Sometimes people drifted apart in the same way they’d drifted together. Sometimes leases weren’t renewed, and you were left holding your life in boxes. Sometimes CPA firms went under – the irony wasn’t lost on her there – and you had to admit defeat, put your boxes in the back of a rental truck, and head home.

  It felt like defeat some moments, and like a chance to start fresh in others.

  Like defeat when she waved goodbye to Ava and Mercy and closed her new front door. Turned around and put her back to it, and looked at the scuffed cardboard boxes, and her ugly secondhand sofa, and her empty kitchen counters. She wasn’t a pessimistic person by nature, but there were moments, like now, when it was hard to find the silver lining. When the backs of her eyes stung, and she felt like she’d been wasting time.

  Her mother would have argued. Time isn’t wasted if you learned something.

  She’d learned not to work for someone who was scamming his clients.

  Learned that love wasn’t a guarantee, and sometimes it didn’t last, and sometimes it had been so flimsy to start with that you didn’t even miss it all that much.

  She stood chewing at her lip, twirling her ponytail around her finger, until she heard Mercy’s bike start up in the parking lot. Then a grin touched her lips. There were motorcycles in Chicago, but they hadn’t sounded the same. Not like Knoxville. Here, that sound meant something totally different.

  As she went to put the pizza boxes in the trash, she realized she’d missed it.

  Three

  “Why weren’t you helping us wrestle that couch upstairs last night?” Aidan asked the next morning, jabbing an accusatory finger toward Carter.

  “What couch?” He’d had a quiet night. Jazz had wanted to study, and he’d watched TV in the common room a little while before eventually dragging himself to bed with a bottle of whiskey tucked under one arm. Now he had a headache and a sour stomach; had overslept his alarm and missed his chance for coffee and breakfast.

  “Leah’s couch,” Aidan said, like that was supposed to make some kind of sense.

  “Who’s Leah?”

  “Dude. Leah Cook. Aren’t you friends with her, too?”

  “Leah…oh.”

  Mercy materialized beside him, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand that he held out in offering. “You look like you need this, QB.”

  “Jesus, yes, thanks.” The first sip worked wonders. “Leah’s back in town?”

  “Got in yesterday,” Aidan said. “Didn’t you know that?”

  “Obviously not if I’m asking about it.” He felt snippy – sounded it, too, if Aidan’s raised brows were anything to go by. He shook his head and sipped more coffee. “Sorry. Didn’t sleep well.”

  Mercy took pity on him. “She called Ava last week and said things hadn’t gone the way she wanted in Chicago. We helped her move in last night.”

  Carter nodded. He hadn’t seen Leah in years, since before she moved. He’d gotten busy with the club, prospecting, and patching in, and going on runs, and he didn’t socialize with anyone beyond it, now. He and Leah had been friendly, before, but not friends. In his memory, she was Ava’s tiny, bouncy friend with an excess of energy and hair dye. She’d been the sort of girl who seemed able to see right through whatever bullshit veneer that caused other girls to simper or stutter. Not the sort charmed by blue eyes, and blond hair, and a good football arm. He could easily picture her owning her own Bohemian shop of some sort, married to a tattoo artist with fifteen earrings. Someone who looked like Tango, honestly, who was studying him quietly now, arms folded.

  When Carter made eye contact, he cocked his head and said, “You alright?”

  An innocuous question, and a fair one, given the state of his reflection this morning. He hadn’t shaved, and the hangdog bags under his eyes were reaching failing-used-car-salesman levels of critical mass. A kind question, too; concern from a worried friend.

  But it hit Carter like a spotlight. The coffee he’d just drunk sloshed in his stomach. “Yeah, fine.”

  Tango’s gaze narrowed with doubt. He’d been through too much shit personally to buy it from others.

  “Just slept bad. Too tired. Too much whiskey.” Carter wondered if he sounded as desperate as he felt.

  Tango nodded, and offered a flickering little smile. “Been there.”

  “Hey,” Ghost called, from the open rolltop doors of the shop, and Carter released an internal sigh of relief for the distraction. He knew Mercy had talked with Tango, daily, back when things had gotten really rough. A listening ear, a shoulder to help with the burden he carried. The last thing he wanted was for someone to offer that to him – he was afraid of what might come spilling out if he dared to crack the shell.

  The president had his shades on, hair windblown like he’d just climbed off his bike; probably he had. He rarely seemed to stay in one place for long these days. “Any of you four been by Bell Bar lately? Seen anything fishy? We keep having a graffiti problem.”

  Aidan winced. “All that ‘fuck the Lean Dogs’ shit? Yeah. It’s…lame.”

  Ghost’s jaw tightened. “Lame can still ruin your reputation.”

  “Reputation, boss?” Mercy asked with a grin. “We got a good one I don’t know about?”

  “Good, and getting better,” Ghost said, aiming the end of a cigarette at him before he stuck it in his mouth and reached for his lighter.

  “What happened to quitting?” Mercy asked.

  “Figure out who’s defacing my fucking buildings, and I’ll quit,” he said, and headed off toward the clubhouse.

  “Always an excuse, huh, Daddy?” Mercy called after him.

  Ghost shot them the bird over his shoulder, and everyone laughed.

  Everyone but Carter. He sipped his coffee. When Tango fired him another covert, questioning look, he turned away.

  ~*~

  Sometimes Leah couldn’t get over the fact that Ava had three kids. She loved her best friend, but Ava had never struck her as the maternal type.

  But here she was now, carrying Millie,
while Remy and Cal went streaking across the open expanse of the huge, empty industrial building where she’d brought Leah to buy a kitchen table.

  It was one of the Dartmoor buildings, overflow for the trucking business, Ava had said, and the temporary home of Maude’s Furniture, owned and run by one Albie Cross, formerly of London.

  “Boys,” Ava called, “be careful.” She sighed. “Why do I bother?”

  Someone whistled, sharply, and both boys froze in their tracks. Leah glanced over her shoulder to see a Lean Dog she’d never met before striding toward them, smirking to himself as he pulled his hand from his mouth. He had dark hair, and intensely blue eyes. “Here.” A British accent, and he held his hands out for Millie, who reached for him immediately.

  Ava handed her over. “Someday, you’re gonna have to explain how you of all people have the kid magic, Fox.”

  “Me of all people,” he mused, hiking Millie onto his hip. “I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”

  “You should.”

  “Go shop in peace, ladies.” In a stage whisper, as he turned away, “Try not to stare at Albert. He’s very self-conscious about his whole face situation.” He gave a dramatic wince, and walked toward the boys, already propositioning a round of the Quiet Game.

  “Albie’s brother,” Ava explained when he was gone. “Great babysitter, but don’t trust him as far as you can throw him.”

  “Dunno,” Albie said, “your husband could throw him pretty far.”

  Ava snorted.

  Albie had his brother’s startling blue eyes, and the same dark, glossy hair that was the sort of thick that begged you to run your hands through it, but his face was a little more rugged, a little less precise. He looked approachable and friendly in a way that Fox didn’t.

  He had a corner of the warehouse cordoned off with orange cones and plastic chains, which Leah found amusing. Inside the barricade, he’d set up benches, and saws, and tables, and a whole array of tools. Sawdust and fragrant wood curls littered the ground, and once she got past the idea of an outlaw biker making furniture, she realized that all of it was quite pretty, and nicer than anything she would have been able to afford at one of the big box stores.