“I could tell,” I reply against his lips.
His lips graze my forehead as he falls back into the pillows and nestles me into his warm embrace with a sigh.
An hour later, I’m putting on one of Jack’s flannel shirts when someone knocks on the door. After Jack tells them to enter, it opens, and Shooter walks in with Ares close behind.
By the look on their faces, something’s up.
“This looks serious,” Jack says, his face a blank expression.
“We need to talk.” Shooter’s eyes slide to mine, then back to Jack. “We’ve had some developments we need to discuss.”
“What are they?”
Shooter looks at me again. “We should probably talk alone.”
Club business.
I get it.
I shove my feet into my boots. “Sure thing, I was about to get coffee, anyway.”
“No, she stays,” Jack says.
We all look at him.
Shooter knows better than to argue, but that doesn’t stop him from looking unimpressed. I have a feeling he doesn’t like what is unfolding between Jack and me. That perhaps I’m a distraction, or some kind of threat to Jack’s healing.
Both body and soul.
Regardless, he forges ahead and places three large photographs on the bed.
“Ares, Paw, and I spent the last week inspecting the stretch of road where you were shot.” He fans the photographs out like a hand of cards. One is of a road sign full of buckshot. The other is a row of broken bottles and jars lined up on a weather-beaten fence. The final one, is an aerial view of the area.
Shooter uses a pen to point at the different locations on the aerial shot.
“The road sign is here, the fence is here, and you were shot here.” The different locations form an invisible triangle. Shooter points to another area on the map, only a few inches from where Jack was shot. “This is the Creekmore Farm.”
“Jimmy Creekmore…” Jack says. “Has a bunch of kids.”
“Yeah, a bunch of kids who like using this stretch of road for target practice.”
The connotation in his voice is unmistakable.
Jack’s brows draw in. “Kids did this?”
“I’m afraid so, Jack. I spoke to Jimmy Creekmore myself. When he learned how sick you were, he wanted to make sure it wasn’t his kids who were involved. Said you helped save his farm a few years back when the floods hit. Gave me his kids’ guns to be sure it wasn’t them. Paw spoke to his friend over in the Federal lab in Nashville, and they ran the ballistics as a favor. The bullet Doc pulled out of you came from one of the Creekmore’s Remingtons.”
“You mean, this was an accident?” I ask.
Shooter nods. “A one in a ten million chance shot, according to Banks.”
Banks is a master mathematician.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I whisper.
I don’t know if I should be relieved because it isn’t anything sinister, or cry because Jack almost died due to a bunch of careless kids letting off a stray shot.
“You’re absolutely certain?” Jack asks.
“We’ve been working on this since it happened.” Shooter gathers up the pictures. “I’d bet my life on it.”
“As would I,” Ares adds, speaking for the first time since entering the room. Not unusual for Ares. He doesn’t speak a lot. His towering height and commanding presence usually speak enough for him.
“Does Jimmy know?” Jack asks Shooter.
“Not yet. We only got word from Paw’s contact in the last hour. How do you want this to play out?”
He’s asking about payback.
“They’re kids,” Jack says.
If they weren’t, it would be a different story.
“A better outcome than we thought,” Shooter replies.
He’s right. At least this wasn’t the Appalachian Inferno, or worse, Ghost.
“Call the committee. We’ll meet in the chapel in an hour,” Jack says.
The committee is the founders and the high-ranking members of the Tennessee Chapter. They make the decisions for the club.
“You got it.” Shooter pauses and again his eyes slide to me, then back to Jack. He turns away, a small movement but one that tells me he doesn’t want me hearing what he’s going to say next. “We had a word about TomTom. Paw, Venom, and Dakota Joe have gone to check it out. Looks like the case against him collapsed.”
Jack’s eyes close then open, and his nostrils flare, but he says nothing. He doesn’t have to. His hard eyes speak for him. Whoever TomTom is, he’s sent a storm through Jack’s expression.
“I’ll keep you updated.” Shooter walks to the door. “See you in the chapel.”
When he and Ares leave, I sit on the bed next to Jack.
“You okay?” I ask.
He nods but then shakes his head in disbelief. “Fucking kids.”
I want to ask him who TomTom is but let it go. It’s obviously club business, so he won’t tell me anyway.
“Why didn’t you let Shooter kick me out when he came in to tell you about the kids?”
In the soft light of the room, his eyes soften as they find mine. “I’ve just had you in my arms, wildflower, and you’ve been sleeping beside me since this happened. And this afternoon…” His eyes are sharp. “You weren’t going anywhere.”