“You did your best, Savage, one hour at a time, like we all did,” Czar said. “I wish I’d known what you were doing. You already carried a heavy enough burden. Crawling through the vents with Reaper, our appointed assassin, when we knew they were going to kill one of us. Those bastards forcing you to use those whips. It was bad enough what they did to all of us, but . . .” He trailed off. “No matter what I did, I couldn’t protect any of you.”
“We were all kids, you included. It’s all good now, Czar.” But Savage knew it wasn’t. Unless he was able to convince Seychelle to give him another chance, nothing in his life was ever going to be right again. He wouldn’t give up. When he wanted something, he kept going until he got it. Her life was too important. If she absolutely refused to take him back even as a friend, he had to find a way to get her in touch with Libby.
* * *
For the next three weeks, Savage found it impossible to stay away from Seychelle. He couldn’t sleep more than a few minutes at a time. The nightmares were worse than ever. He spent as long as he could pacing in his room at the clubhouse and then he rode to her cottage. He would sit on his bike for several minutes, listening to the sound of the ocean as the waves battered the rocks and cliffs. The frogs would start up. The crickets would call to one another. That was his signal to get off his bike and walk over to the side of her house.
He sat under her bedroom window. That wasn’t violating the code. He didn’t go inside. He just sat there. The first night, the bedroom window was closed. He knew she heard and recognized his Harley. She couldn’t fail to recognize it. After the first night, her window was open, and he swore she was awake, and he could breathe her scent into his lungs. He imagined her sitting just on the other side of the wall, breathing him in at the same time. Hurting like he was. Those were the best and the worst nights. He was hurting. But he knew she was hurting because she stayed to herself, according to his brothers watching over her. She didn’t eat much, and she walked alone along the headlands. She cried herself to sleep.
Each morning, after he’d been there, she went outside and looked at the tracks where his motorcycle had been. She always picked up his offering to her—a perfect red rose with a long stem and no thorns. That long stem was intertwined with the stem of a dark rose that did have many thorns. She couldn’t fail to understand what he was trying to tell her. She put all twenty-one pairs into a vase.
Nearly a month had gone by, and she’d stayed alone in her cottage, just walking the headlands, playing her guitar and crying. During that time, the club members reported to Savage daily. He didn’t like their reports.
The first week, Joseph Arnold walked along the headlands with a camera every few days, mostly aiming the camera away from the ocean and toward Seychelle’s cottage. He didn’t go near the place or Seychelle. Had he done so, the club members would have stopped him. Eventually, he disappeared.
The third week, Brandon Campbell drove Doris to the cottage to see Seychelle. She had the good sense to sit outside in the chairs by the two grills Savage had left behind. He had no way of knowing if she knew Transporter and Mechanic were close, but she didn’t let the visitors inside her home. Mechanic was close enough to record every word and send it to Savage. The video was very clear, and Savage reviewed it over and over, looking at Seychelle’s face, listening to her voice, and then studying Brandon’s expressions and voice.
“I’ve been so worried about you, Seychelle,” Doris said. “I called and left you messages. You didn’t pick up. I asked Brandon to drop by just to make certain you were okay, and he did twice. He said you didn’t answer the door.”
Seychelle turned her head to look at Brandon, her blue eyes lifeless. She was looking directly into the camera. “How strange. I never heard you knock.”
Mechanic interjected his own commentary. “That’s because the son of a bitch is lying his ass off. He didn’t stop by. He did watch the house from up the street three days in a row. Then he parked just across from her house two nights in a row and made out with some girl with his eyes open, watching the house. He never went near it.”
Savage wondered what his game was. Seychelle’s voice sounded as if she wasn’t the least bit interested in the conversation. Ordinarily, that would have made him happy, but he wanted her alert. Just having Brandon show up with Doris should have raised red flags, but Seychelle barely gave the man a glance.