ASHES & PAIN
Chapter 23
PARTING
Morning arrived quietly in Huntsville.
The rain had finally stopped.
Lane opened his eyes.
For a long moment…
He didn’t move.
Kait lay on her stomach beside him, one arm tucked beneath the pillow, the blanket pulled halfway up her back.
Her blonde hair spilled across the pillow in a tangled mess from the night before.
A few loose strands rested against her cheek.
He smiled.
She looked so delicate.
So peaceful.
Like she’d finally managed to catch a break.
His eyes drifted over her face.
The curve of her lips.
The slow rise and fall of each breath.
Then lower.
One bare shoulder peeked out from beneath the blanket.
The sheet had slipped just enough to reveal the curve of her waist before disappearing again.
One thigh rested outside the covers, pale against the dark comforter.
He couldn’t help but smile.
For months…
He’d convinced himself this would never happen again.
That she’d always belong to someone else.
That he’d missed his chance.
Yet here she was.
Finally.
In his bed.
In his room…
She was all his again.
The thought settled somewhere deep inside him.
Not possessive.
Certain.
He kissed her shoulder.
She opened her eyes.
“Hey…”
He made an apologetic face.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You’re going somewhere?”
He caressed her face.
“Just outside for a second. Checking on some things.”
“You’re coming back?”
“Yeah…” he whispered. “so stay right here.”
She murmured something unintelligible and snuggled deeper into the pillow.
Lane chuckled under his breath.
After everything…
She’d earned the sleep.
He kissed her forehead and slipped out of bed as quietly as a man his size could manage.
Jeans.
T-shirt.
Boots.
His kutte.
Before leaving, he looked back one more time.
She hadn’t moved.
He eased the bedroom door shut behind him.
The clubhouse had already come to life.
Coffee brewed somewhere nearby.
Someone laughed in the living room.
Pans clinked against the stove.
Lane followed the smell into the kitchen.
Melanie stood at the stove, scrambling eggs in a cast-iron skillet while bacon crackled beside them.
She glanced toward the doorway.
The spatula nearly slipped from her hand.
“Oh…”
She caught it before it hit the floor.
“Kount.”
Lane smiled.
“Mornin’.”
She stared for just a fraction too long.
He looked…
Different.
Relaxed.
The lines that had lived around his eyes for months were gone.
His shoulders weren’t tight anymore.
He was glowing.
Melanie swallowed.
“You… uh…”
She hurried back to the skillet before the eggs burned.
“I was just making breakfast.”
“Smells good.”
“You want your coffee?”
She reached for the pot almost immediately.
“I’ll pour you some.”
She was talking too fast.
Her hands betrayed her.
She nearly missed the mug.
Coffee splashed onto the counter.
“Oh.”
She grabbed a towel.
“Sorry.”
Lane frowned a little.
“It’s alright.”
She wiped the spill with unnecessary urgency before filling the mug almost to the brim.
“There.”
She handed it to him with both hands.
“Thanks.”
He took a sip.
“Sure.”
She searched his face.
“Sleep okay?”
Lane looked toward the door without thinking.
A smile almost escaped his lips but he controlled it.
“Yeah.”
Melanie’s smile faltered.
Only for an instant.
“I’m…”
She cleared her throat.
“I’m glad.”
He nodded once.
The eggs continued to cook.
“Is Kait still asleep?”
“Yeah.”
Melanie nodded.
“Did… something happen with her and Prince?”
Lane looked up.
His entire face changed.
“That’s none of your business.”
“I didn’t know you and her—”
“That is also none of your business… and don’t you dare gossip about this. You understand?”
Melanie nodded fast.
“Of course not. Um… Breakfast will be ready in about ten minutes.”
Lane frowned and opened the pantry.
“Is there strawberry jelly?”
“No.”
She looked inside the refrigerator anyway.
“Just grape.”
Lane sighed.
“Kait hates grape jelly.”
He shut the pantry.
“Shit.”
He took another sip of coffee and headed for the hallway.
Melanie stood motionless at the stove.
The eggs were finished.
She didn’t notice.
She stared at the doorway where he’d just been.
Then quietly reached over…
…and turned the burner off.
Lane stepped into the living room.
Konway occupied one end of the couch, boots crossed on the coffee table.
His girlfriend Janet lay curled against him beneath a blanket, half watching the morning news.
Konway looked up.
Then grinned.
“Well, look who finally crawled outta bed.”
Lane rolled his eyes.
“Mornin’.”
Janet smiled over the rim of her coffee mug.
“Mornin’, Kount.”
Konway looked toward the hallway.
“So…”
Lane already knew.
“Don’t.”
Konway chuckled.
“I wasn’t gonna say nothin’.”
“Bullshit.”
“I wasn’t.”
He paused.
“…How’s the Danish beauty?”
“Resting. Everything good out here?”
“Yeah. We took care of everything. No worries, brother.”
“Appreciate that.”
“Yeah, so go ahead and crawl back in that bed. I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing out here.”
“Oh, trust me, I will.”
Konway laughed loud enough for the whole clubhouse to hear.
Outside, the air still smelled like wet dirt.
The storm had scrubbed the sky clean.
In front of the garage, Diablo, Koa, Trace, and Jackknife were washing mud off a pair of Harleys.
A garden hose snaked across the driveway while buckets of soapy water sat nearby.
Trace looked up first.
“There he is.”
Diablo turned.
A grin spread across his face.
“Holy shit, is that the president?”
He tossed the sponge into the bucket.
“…you finally remembered you have a chapter.”
Jackknife leaned against a bike.
“We was about ready to send in a rescue party.”
Koa deadpanned,
“Mostly for Toast.”
Lane rolled his eyes.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Trace nodded toward the clubhouse.
“She alright, Pres?”
Diablo folded his arms.
“Or’s she bein’ held hostage?”
Jackknife scratched his beard.
“She’s tied to the bed, isn’t she?”
Lane gave him a look.
“Y’all done?”
“Never.”
Diablo grinned wider.
“You finally quit poutin’?”
Lane sighed.
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
Diablo slapped him on the shoulder hard enough to rock him a step.
“‘Bout damn time.”
Even Koa smiled.
“Happy for you.”
Lane nodded once.
“Thanks.”
The teasing stopped there.
No jokes.
No smartass comments.
Just four brothers genuinely happy for their president.
Then Lane sighed.
“But hey, we got a problem.”
Diablo’s expression changed immediately.
“What?”
“We ain’t got strawberry jelly.”
Silence.
Trace blinked.
“…That’s a problem?”
Lane nodded.
“Yeah.”
Diablo’s eyes went wide.
“Yeah, that’s a problem…”
He looked toward the clubhouse.
“We can’t have that.”
He turned toward the back door.
“Alejandra!”
His voice echoed across the yard.
A moment later, Alejandra poked her head out of the bunkhouse kitchen.
“What?”
“We got strawberry jelly in the bunkhouse?”
“No. Oh shit, Kait’s toast.”
Diablo pointed toward the gate.
“Yeah, go to the store right now.”
She started moving.
Trace nodded.
“Toast does sound good right now.”
Koa raised his eyebrows.
“Hey now…”
Lane glared at Trace.
“No! Actual toast. Not Toast, Toast.”
Lane pushed him playfully and chuckled into his coffee.
“Just fuckin’ with you.”
Jackknife shook his head, laughing.
“So she likes her jelly.”
Diablo nodded.
Lane looked at his bedroom window.
“Alright. Y’all need me for anything?”
They all laughed at him.
“What?”
Diablo shook his head.
“Get back in that room with your girl. We got this.”
Lane nodded and began walking back in.
Diablo wasn’t done yet.
“Oh, and Kount…”
Lane turned and jerked his chin up.
“We heard everything…”
Diablo nodded in approval and they all started clapping.
“Bravo.”
Lane shook his head and took a few more steps then, as he reached the clubhouse back door he turned again and gave them a theatrical bow.
Diablo, Trace, Koa and Jackknife exploded laughing.
Kait stirred slowly.
The room felt different.
Quieter.
Warmer.
For the first time in what felt like forever…
Peaceful.
She stretched beneath the blankets, wincing a little as muscles protested the past two nights with Lane.
The other side of the bed was empty.
She smiled to herself remembering that sweet kiss on her forehead before he left earlier.
She sat up, gathering the sheet around herself before reaching for her phone.
Dead.
“Shit…”
She looked around and spotted a charger already plugged into the wall next to the bookshelf.
She connected her phone and set it on the shelf.
The screen lit up.
Battery: 1%
A second later…
Signal returned.
The phone exploded with notifications.
Six missed calls.
One from Marcos, five from Kolton.
Kait sighed quietly.
“…Guess I better.”
She waited until the battery climbed enough to make the call.
It rang once.
Twice.
Kolton answered immediately.
“Baby.”
“Hey.”
“You alright?”
“Yeah.”
She looked toward the rain-speckled window.
“Power finally came back.”
“I figured.” Relief washed through his voice. “News says the roads are open again.”
Her fingers tightened around the phone.
“So… you get to come home.”
She closed her eyes.
Home.
The word didn’t feel nearly as simple as it had three days ago.
“…Yeah.”
A silence settled between them.
As Kolton kept talking about flooded roads, Kyle maybe catching a cold from jumping on puddles, and his probation officer visit, Kait’s attention drifted toward a framed photograph resting near the edge on the bookshelf.
Old.
The colors had faded slightly with time.
Five young men stood shoulder to shoulder beside a row of motorcycles.
Don.
Phil.
Klaus.
Randy.
Greg.
The five founding fathers.
Before Krait had grown into what it was now.
Her eyes wandered from one face to the next.
Gregor stood tallest, his long blond hair hanging past his shoulders as he pulled a ridiculous face at the camera.
Beside him, Klaus already wore sunglasses years before the explosion that would leave him permanently sensitive to light.
Randy looked exactly like himself—a cowboy in every sense of the word.
Then there were the Westfall twins.
Don still wore the short military haircut he’d brought home from the Marine Corps, while Phil had gone the opposite direction, growing out his hair and beard like the hippie he was.
Even young, they were strikingly handsome.
It wasn’t hard to see where Lane and Kolton had inherited their looks.
“…Baby?”
Kolton’s voice pulled her back.
“Hm?”
“You still there?”
“Yeah.”
“You gonna head out soon?”
“Yeah, I’ll leave as soon as I can.”
“Good.”
She could hear him grinning through the phone.
“‘Cause I’ve been so fuckin’ horny, baby.”
Kait let out an amused breath through her nose.
“I figured.”
“You have no idea.”
He laughed.
“I’m gonna make up for every damn day you were gone.”
She stared at the photograph.
At five men smiling into a future none of them could possibly have imagined.
“…We’ll see.”
“Oh, you’ll see. You better hurry up.”
“I will. I’ll see you in a few.”
She ended the call before he could keep talking.
The room fell quiet again.
Her gaze remained on the photograph.
Five founders.
One picture.
So much history.
A soft click came from the door behind her.
She turned.
Lane stepped inside carrying a steaming mug.
“Oh, hey.”
He smiled sheepishly.
“I was trying to be quiet.”
He crossed the room and held out the coffee.
“Figured you could use this.”
She accepted it with both hands.
“You read my mind. Thanks.”
His eyes drifted to the framed photograph.
“You found the Bungarus Bunch?”
She laughed softly.
“I’ve never seen this one before.”
“One of my dad’s.”
He stepped beside her, his shoulder brushing hers as they looked at the five young men frozen in time.
Kait glanced at him.
“Don looks a lot like you here.”
Lane smirked.
“Especially with the haircut.”
“Courtesy of the Corps.”
He slipped his arms around her waist from behind.
She leaned into him for a moment before setting the picture back on the shelf.
“I just talked to Kolton.”
Lane rested his chin against her shoulder.
“Yeah? What’d he say?”
“He saw on the news the roads are clear.”
She sighed.
“So… I don’t really have an excuse to stay anymore.”
Lane let out a slow breath.
“Well…”
He shrugged.
“It’d be a shame if the truck ended up with a busted windshield.”
She laughed.
“You know… storm damage and all.”
Still smiling, she turned in his arms and slid a hand behind his neck.
“No.”
She looked into his eyes.
“The sooner I get back… the sooner we can figure this out.”
His hands settled against her sides.
He wanted to tell her.
Three words.
The easiest words in the world.
And somehow…
The hardest.
Instead, he smiled.
“It’ll be sooner than you think. I promise.”
She answered with a kiss.
Slow.
Unhurried.
When they finally pulled apart, Lane grinned.
“You know what we haven’t done?”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t know… feels like we’ve covered most of it.”
He chuckled.
“We haven’t showered together yet.”
“Oh?”
He reached for the edge of the sheet wrapped around her.
“Seems like we need to fix that.”
She laughed.
“I don’t even know why you got dressed.”
Kait helped him take his kutte off.
She set it on the chair next to the bookshelf.
“I was thinking the same thing.”
His T-shirt hit the floor.
She smiled, took his hand, and led him toward the bathroom.
DRYDEN
Loraine waited until Kolton picked Kyle up. Now the house was quiet again.
The storm had finally moved on.
Don was still gone.
Sunlight filtered through the kitchen window, glinting off the puddles scattered across the yard.
Kyle had so much fun jumping on the puddles earlier, until he started sneezing.
She shook her head and reached into the drawer beside the refrigerator and pulled out the faded cardboard box.
The corners had long since softened with age.
She smiled faintly.
The old deck had been with her through almost all other life.
She slid the cards into her hands and began to shuffle.
Slowly.
Methodically.
The familiar whisper of cardstock against cardstock filled the empty kitchen.
She didn’t believe the cards controlled fate.
Never had.
But after decades of reading them…
She’d learned they had a way of making her pay attention.
She closed her eyes.
“What am I missing?”
The cards continued to slide between her fingers.
After another moment, she cut the deck into three piles.
Then drew the first card.
Loraine frowned.
“You again…”
Secrets.
Things hidden beneath the surface.
Illusions…
She set it on the table.
The second card.
A knot formed in her stomach.
The past.
Old decisions.
Things buried refusing to stay buried.
She drew another.
Upside down.
Loraine stared at it.
Tradition broken.
Authority corrupted.
The very foundation she’d spent most of her life protecting…
No longer standing on solid ground.
“Jesus…”
She reached for the next card.
Her shoulders sagged.
Collapse.
Not a crack.
Not a warning.
A collapse.
Something else was coming…
And there will be no stopping it.
“I thought this happen already.”
She swallowed and turned over the next card.
Loraine didn’t react.
Not immediately.
Too many people feared that card for the wrong reasons.
Most of the time…
It meant endings.
Transformation.
The close of one chapter before another could begin.
She reached back into the deck.
“Clarify…”
One more card.
She turned it over.
The color drained from her face.
“…No… no… who?”
Not transformation.
Not this time.
This was devastation.
A brutal ending.
The kind that left nothing standing.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she drew one final card.
Grief.
Mourning.
A loss that could never be undone.
Loraine leaned back in her chair.
She looked over the spread again.
Secrets.
The past.
A corrupted foundation.
Collapse.
A tragedy.
Grief.
None of it pointed toward one person.
It pointed toward…
Everything.
Her eyes drifted toward the family pictures in the hallway.
For years, she’d convinced herself the worst was behind them.
That enough time had passed.
That some secrets could stay buried forever.
She wasn’t so sure anymore.
Slowly, she gathered the cards into a single stack and slid them back into their worn cardboard box.
The storm outside had passed.
But somewhere deep inside…
She knew another one had already begun.
HUNTSVILLE
Kait pulled the zipper closed on her backpack.
“Okay…”
Lane leaned against the dresser, arms folded, watching her.
He’d barely taken his eyes off her all morning.
She smiled.
“What?”
“Nothin’.”
“You’re staring.”
“You blame me?”
She laughed softly.
She slipped the backpack over one shoulder.
Lane pushed himself off the dresser.
“I don’t wanna do this part.”
“Me neither.”
He stopped in front of her.
His hands settled around her waist.
“I’ll be in Dryden soon.”
She looked into his eyes and nodded.
His voice wasn’t hopeful.
It was certain.
“I’ll talk to Don and we’ll go from there.”
“And if he opposes?”
Lane smiled faintly.
“Then he better have a damn good explanation. Why would he?”
“Oh, come on, not only is Kolton his son, but he’s the club’s VP right now. We all know this will cause internal problems.”
“Don is not emotional like that. And Kolton is only interim VP, so once Klaus comes back, he goes back to Fang. We all know that.”
Kait rested a hand against his cheek.
He leaned into her touch.
“Promise me something.”
“What?”
“The first chance you get…”
“…call me. Doesn’t matter what time.”
She nodded.
“Even if you have to sneak out to the lakehouse at three in the morning to make a fucking phone call.”
She smiled.
“That is probably what I’m gonna end up doing.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“No matter what time.”
He kissed her.
Slow.
Gentle.
Just long enough to make leaving that much harder.
When they pulled apart, they stayed close for another moment.
Then Lane picked up her backpack before she could.
“Okay. Let’s do this, I guess.”
Together they walked out.
The clubhouse got busier now.
Brothers getting ready for a recovery run.
Last pots of coffee brewing before they started prepping for lunch.
Laughter drifting in from the garage.
Life had gone back to normal.
They already said their goodbyes during breakfast.
Outside, the pickup sat exactly where she’d parked it two days earlier.
Still covered in dried rain and road grime.
Lane tossed her backpack into the passenger seat before opening the driver’s door for her.
She climbed inside.
Lane rested an arm against the open window.
Neither of them spoke.
There wasn’t anything left to say.
He reached in and squeezed her hand.
“Just a little longer.”
Kait swallowed. She felt her throat closing up.
Her voice broke.
“Lane…”
He closed his eyes and squeezed her hand.
“You have to go now.”
She bit her lower lip and nodded.
“Just a little longer…”
She said as her eyes filled with tears.
He nodded and let go.
She started the engine and Lane stepped back.
The old pickup rumbled to life.
She put on the reverse.
One last look.
“Kait.”
She stopped.
Lane reached in and gave her one last kiss.
“Drive safe. Please.”
“I will.”
As the truck rolled toward the gate, she glanced into the mirror.
He was still standing there.
Watching.
She lifted two fingers from the steering wheel.
He answered with a sad smile and put his hand up.
Then she turned onto the highway.
“I love you.”
