Beautiful Outlaw by Emily Minton

Too Damn Good

Bowie

Walking into Nina’s, I see her sitting on the couch reading a book with a half-naked man on the cover.  “Hey, Mamá.”

She smiles when she looks up from her reading. “Hijo, what are you doing here so soon?  The way you left so quick after dropping off Shay, I figured it would be a while before I saw your handsome face.”

I walk over to her and place a quick kiss on her cheek before settling in beside her on the couch.  “I have to ride to Alabama on some club business.  I’ll probably be gone for a week or two, so I figured I better check in on your houseguest.”

She gives me a look, one that says she doesn’t like me doing this shit.  If I’m on the road, she knows I’m always one stop from heading to prison, or even worse, one bullet from being six feet under.  “Shay’s not here.”

“Where’s she at?”

“She started her new job today.”

What the fuck?  She hasn’t even been here more than a week and she’s already got a job? “Where’s she working?”

“She’s a receptionist at one of the salons in the mall,” she says proudly.  “Rachel took her to the mall the morning after you dropped her off.  They went into the salon, and one of the girls said something to her about it being the receptionist’s last day.  Her replacement had backed out at the last minute, and no one else had been hired yet.  Shay applied for the position and got the job the same day.”

“She didn’t need to do that shit,” I grumble out, not liking the idea of her working. 

Her eyes narrow, reminding me that I’m in her home, not the clubhouse.  In other words, watch my mouth.  Trying again, with less profanity, I say, “She didn’t need to get a job.”

“Yes, she did.  That girl’s not one for sitting around letting someone take care of her,” Nina says with a nod. “She begged me to let her give me some money for staying here. I wouldn’t let her, of course.”

“I already got her covered.  Didn’t you tell her?”

Nina throws back her head and laughs, a laugh full of joy.  “Oh, I sure did.  That’s when she marched out the door. She came back over two hours later, both arms full of groceries.”

“How the hell did she get to the store?”

“She walked,” she replies with a shake of her head.

What the fuck is wrong with that woman? “The store is over two miles away.”

“Yes, it is.  She had no idea where she was going either, only passed by it when Rachel took her to the mall.  She ended up getting lost, and it took her even longer than it should have.”

Shit, this is not good.  The woman that got off that bus is not the kind of woman that worked as a receptionist; she definitely wasn’t the kind of woman that carried groceries for two miles.  “I need to get her something to drive.”

“That’s gonna be kind of hard,” Nina mumbles, leaning into the arm of the couch.

“Why is that?  I figured she could just drive my old truck. It’s out back of the house.  I’ll have to have a look at it when I get back.  It hasn’t been driven in a while, so I don’t want her in it until I know it’s safe.”

“The truck would be fine, except she doesn’t know how to drive.”

My chin goes slack at that.  How in the hell does someone her age not know how to drive? “Did she tell you that?”

Nina nods, looking almost sad.  “She said her mom got sick right before she turned sixteen, some sort of kidney disease, so the whole driver’s license thing was put on hold.”

“What about after that?  Why didn’t her husband teach her?”

“I didn’t even know she had a husband.” She looks away, staring toward the window.  “She doesn’t talk much about her past, and when she does, she keeps it basic.  She told me that she respects me too much to lie, but that she couldn’t tell me the truth either.”

Slowly, her eyes move back to me.  “She’s running from something, Bowie, and I know you know what it is.  Just tell me, is her being here putting your hermana in danger?”

The question hits me like a punch to the gut. The fact that she even has to ask that question kills me. “No, Mamá, you know I’d never bring anything dangerous close to you or Priss.  I would never let anything hurt either one of you.”

“Is there anything I need to know about her?  Anything that could cause problems?”

I want to give her the answers she seeks, but I don’t have them myself.  I’ve tried to call Lock over and over since I dropped Shay off, but he isn’t answering me.  A few short texts, saying shit is too hot to talk, were my only responses. 

“You remember, Lock?”

Her eyes brighten at my friend’s name.  “Of course, I remember Jeremy.”

We haven’t seen each other much since we got out of the Army, but he has been down a time or two.  Wearing a badge, the boys at the clubhouse weren’t really welcoming to him, so we spent most of our time at Nina’s.  She grew to love him, just like she does most people. 

“She’s his sister.  I don’t really know what’s going on, other than she’s on the run from her husband.”

Nina merely nods, not asking for more of an explanation. “You can teach her to drive when you get home.  Until then, one of her co-workers is letting her ride with them.   Rachel is looking for any excuse to get behind the wheel, so she’ll take her anywhere else she needs to go.”

“Hopefully, I won’t be gone long.”

She looks into my eyes, reminding me of when I was younger and about to get a talking to.  “While you’re gone, I want you to think about your life- not the club, not your brothers, just you.  I saw the way you looked at Shay, and I also saw the way she looked at you.  She’s a good woman, hijo.”

“Too damn good for me,” I mumble out the words that have been rolling around in my head since the moment she crawled onto my bike and wrapped her arms around me. 

“No, she’s not,” Nina says, with a shake of her head.  “You don’t have to quit being you if you want her.  You don’t have to leave the club. You just have to quit partaking in some of the benefits.”

I fidget in my seat, hating to talk to her about this shit.  Club whores are not a discussion you want to have with the woman you consider your mother.  Granted, I was nearly grown when she took me in, but she was and is still more of a mom that my own ever was. 

Nina met my bastard father when she was only seventeen.  A year later, she gave birth to Tin-Man.  Just like my own mother, Nina was nothing more than a piece on the side to Cash.  The big difference was that she didn’t know it.  Dad set her up in a run-down trailer not far from the clubhouse.  She thought he loved her, thought he was trying to make a life with her, but couldn’t be around a lot because he was busy at the club.  My father, on the other hand, thought of her as nothing more than an easy lay. 

Living at the clubhouse since I was just a kid, I knew all about Nina.  The guys would give Cash shit about his spic whore all the fuckin’ time. He would just laugh it off or make some fucked up comment about her, but he still went back for more.  At the time, their words didn’t mean shit to me. I didn’t know her, so I didn’t care.

Even though I had heard of her, I had never laid eyes on her until I was nearly thirteen.  She stopped by the clubhouse to give Cash an ultimatum- either start coming home at night or don’t come home at all.  By the time she left, he made sure she understood that his only home was the clubhouse, and the only reason he ever stopped by her shitty trailer was to get a piece of ass.

I watched her walk out the door with her head held high as tears streamed down her face.  For some reason, I followed her.  When I did, I saw my younger brother for the first time, a brother I didn’t even know I had. After that, I never let anyone mutter the word spic around me again.  I took a hell of a lot of ass whippings from the members over it, but I gave quite a few too. 

When I was nearly seventeen, one of the club whores gave birth to my sister.  The bitch didn’t want anything to do with her child when she realized that giving the Pres a kid wouldn’t gain her anything. She dumped Priss in my lap and hit the road.  Not knowing what to do, but knowing Dad wouldn’t help, I went to Nina’s, carrying my sister in my arms.  She took the baby, but she also took me in.  I never spent another night in the clubhouse until I got out of the military.

Shaking my head in an attempt to get myself back on the present, I stand up.   “I’ve gotta hit the road.”

She stands up too, pulling me in for a hug.  “Love you, hijo.  Ride safe.”

“Love you too, Mamá.”