Tuesday

June 6th

Hope shifted in her chair. Dr. Brown’s breathing had changed, his heart speeding up. She put down her book and leaned forward. He opened his eyes and blinked several times. He turned his head and she smiled at him.

“Welcome back, Dr. Brown,” she said.

He lifted a hand and seemed surprised to find no monitoring equipment on it. He set it back down. “What day is it?”

“It’s Tuesday. You arrived here on Sunday. I’m Dr. Hope. Do you remember me?”

“Yes, Hope, pretty name, almost like your maman destined you to be a doctor.”

Hope half smiled. “My mother wanted five girls—Hope, Mercy, Grace, Joy, and Charity,” she said. The other side of her mouth turned up. “Instead, I have four brothers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.”

Dr. Brown laughed.

She reached over and took his hand.

He patted her hand. “They must take especial care of you.”

“They try when they are in town.” Hopes eyes crinkled and showed signs of smile lines around her eyes.

“How bad is it?” Dr. Brown asked. “That you are giving me this bit of sweet before telling me the news.” He wrapped his fingers around hers.

She squeezed his hand. “The surgeries were successful. If you persevere and allow the bones the time to heal, and follow your doctor’s advice on therapy, you should be able to walk again in time.”

Dr. Brown stared at her and tears welled up in his eyes. “Walk?”

Hope nodded. “Walk, on your own.”

“They’ll never be as strong as they were,” he said, as tears rolled down his cheeks.

“No. And you’ll have hellish weather bones.” Hope smiled sadly. She leaned back and grabbed a tissue. She reached over and patted his face before handing it to him. “Here you are,” she said gently.

“Truly you are a miracle worker,” he said and squeezed her hands back.

“I’m simply an instrument of God,” Hope said and looked up.

Brand stood in the doorway. “A talented instrument of God,” he said with a smile. He walked into the room and came over to stand by Hope. He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. She looked up at him and smiled. “Introduce me, Doc,” he said.

Hope nodded. “Dr. Brown, this is Brand. He is the owner of the company that rescued you.”

Dr. Brown let Hope’s hand go and raised his to Brand. “I am in your debt.”

Brand took it. “It is what we do, and we have been compensated most generously. I don’t want you to be worried about it. Now Doc says that you are going to be on your back for a while. I want to extend the hospitality of my city to you. If you need anything, you have merely to ask.”

Dr. Brown’s throat closed up and he swallowed hard to get the lump down. “Thank you,” he said.

Brand turned to Hope. “Now, young lady, you need to rest,” he said.

Dr. Brown swallowed back a smile.

Hope nodded. “Of course, Brand,” she said.

Brand leaned down and kissed her forehead.

She stood up. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Dr. Brown,” she said. “Rest well.”

Brand watched her go and sighed. “The younger generation has no sense when it comes to taking care of themselves,” he said and turned back to Dr. Brown.

Dr. Brown coughed and laughed. “Can’t that be said of the old timers too?”

“They don’t have the monopoly on that trait, no,” Brand said with a smile. “I will leave you to your rest, Dr. Brown. No one will hurt you here.”

Dr. Brown’s eyes narrowed. “Now, here is the thing. I don’t know where ‘here’ is.”

Brand tilted his head. “St. Nicholas Hospital, Jasper, Colorado.”

“Colorado.” Brown blinked. He folded his hands on his stomach. “Huh.” He closed his eyes.

Brand left him to his rest, nodding to the guard outside the door on his way out.

---

Savannah wiped her hands off with a rag and looked at Gideon. “You might want to get dinner early tonight,” she said.

Gideon furrowed his brow. Tonight, it wasn’t like he had any plans, but if there were plans being made for him. He’d like to know. “Why?”

Savannah shifted her weight to one leg. “Tonight is Church, the Club officer’s meeting and you are guarding the door,” she said.

Gideon blinked. “Guarding the door?”

Savannah nodded and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “Church is open to anyone in the Club who wants to attend. Right now, as a prospect, you stop at the door. You are allowed to listen in while doing so, but you can’t speak and you don’t have a vote.

“This week you’ll be guarding the door, next week you might be tending bar or opening and closing the gate. You’ll probably want to eat early since the meeting goes through dinner and one of the members usually provides the meeting with a small meal.”

She eyed him. His fate was going to be decided tonight. Sure, he’d been accepted to the Club, but being accepted was the first step of the process of actually becoming a member. She thought it would be better if he stayed at the door and overheard who his sponsor was going to be for himself.

He looked down. “All right.”

Savannah bit the inside of her lip. She’d tried to not phrase the dinner thing as an order. Him guarding the door however was and there was no sugarcoating it. “I know this is difficult, Prospect, and that you might want an evening to yourself to get settled in more. The meeting should be done by seven, and you’ll be on your own.”

His head jerked up. Settled in more? He was probably as settled as he was going to get. Beda had been nice enough to let the guys in with his furniture, used and comfortable, not new, while he wasn’t there. He’d shoved it around until he liked the look of it and that was it. Beda had put his towels and things in that little cupboard in the bathroom. At least now he knew what it was for.

“No. It’s fine,” he said. Savannah had been ordering him about for several days and he wasn’t sure why. At least, she hadn’t walked in on him this morning.

“Ted says that all your paperwork went through. You should have a phone number and permanent port at the post office in a couple days,” she said. “I called Josiah and he says because your driving record came back clean, your new plates should be in tomorrow, and the Chief approved your permit on his recommendation.”

“Permit?”

“Motorcycle permit? Or have you forgotten that you’ll be needing one of those?” Savannah’s voice turned wry.

Gideon flushed. “Maybe a bit.” Motorcycle, right, he was going to need one of those too. No wonder Beda wouldn’t let him pay the rent. He didn’t know how much a motorcycle cost.

Damn it, he needed to get his head out of his ass and start remembering that thing. Just because Ted liked his auto, didn’t mean that the auto was the approved primary source of transportation around here. He’d joined a motorcycle club, not a normal pack.

Unaware of Gideon scolding himself, Savannah continued to talk. “It’s been a rough few days.” Savannah sighed and raked her hand through her short hair. “And the Clarks really need the roof and weather says we’ve got a clear two weeks to do it. We need to get it done now. Or else, I’d be giving you an easier breaking in.” For the most part. “And right now, you’re one of the few sets of hands that doesn’t have a full time or a part time job.” Which would change after the Clarks’ roof was fixed.

Gideon blinked. He hadn’t thought about it that way. Maybe he should thank her for providing him with an excuse if anyone asked. Though the uneasy, unsettled circling feeling inside him was still there. He would feel better if he did have a job. Something stood out to him. “Who is Josiah?”

“Deputy Chief, he’s one of ours.” Savannah shifted her weight again and stretched.

Gideon blinked. Was the Deputy Chief being a MC member strictly legal? He got distracted by Savannah’s stretching and struggled not to stare at her belly and the thin chain wrapped around it, it seemingly connected to a pair of chains around her neck but he couldn’t precisely be sure since the connecting chain went under her shirt.

And when her pants shifted, he could see the edge of yet another faint tattoo. If he was a betting man, and he wasn’t usually, he’d bet that it was another flower like the one on her left arm. He wondered how many of the flower tattoos she had.

She collapsed in on herself. “You’ll have plenty of mail coming to you.”

Gideon blinked. “Yay?”

Savannah raised an eyebrow. That depended on if he liked mail or not. “You’ll want to be at the club about four,” she said. “You can bring your dinner with you.” She turned around walked away, stopping to talk to another Club member.

He stared after her. “Club at four, right,” he muttered. He didn’t understand her giving him orders and then up and leaving. Did she expect him to argue with her? She was Vice President. He didn’t know if he could argue with her. He wasn’t getting a chance to ask questions.

Unless her leaving had something to do with not wanting to answer questions. She hadn’t asked him if he had any questions. And right there had been the most information he’d gotten out of her yet. Right now, he felt like he was back in the beginning stages of being in the military, everyone was barking orders at him, or at least Savannah was, and no one was providing the reasoning why behind the orders.

“Prospect!” someone called out.

Gideon turned and went back to helping with the roof.

---

To be at the club at four, Gideon had to get off the roof at three. He took a shower, got a change of clothes, picked up dinner from one of the ethnic food stores, and got to the club with a few minutes to spare.

Savannah had beaten him there. She looked up from leaning against the bar and gestured him over. “Prospect,” she said in a genial tone that Gideon couldn’t decipher what it meant. “This is another one of your ilk.” She nodded at the girl, clearly still a teenager behind the bar.

“Ilk?” the bartender asked.

“It’s a good word,” Savannah said. “Whitney. She’s one of our Club babies.”

“At nineteen, I reserve the right not to be a baby anymore,” Whitney said and pushed her long black hair back. Her skin was as pale as Savannah’s.

Gideon looked out the open side door. It was June, right? What was with all the girls running around with pale skin? Frankie had a tan. Spike was born with darker skin. But Skyler, Savannah, and now Whitney were all pale as could be, in June.

Savannah looked down her nose at Whitney or tried. Whitney was taller than she was. “Whit, take it from experience, you’ll be a Club baby until they bury you. Ask Kirby. Born to the club, die to the Club.”

Whitney leaned against the bar and made a face. “Yeah, yeah,” she muttered.

Savannah looked back at Gideon and rolled her eyes. “Whitney is going to be tending bar tonight while you guard the door. The door closes at five sharp, and Whitney is the one let past after that. If anyone gives you a hard time, they know the rules and they should know that the scary people are the ones behind the door.”

She crossed her arms. “In case of emergency, and emergencies are fires, illness, death, and gang or global nuclear war, then they may be let past the door. Otherwise, they can make themselves comfortable on the nearest available flat surface and wait. And perhaps order a fine beverage off of Whitney.”

Whitney snickered.

“You may use force as a last resort, Prospect, but please, please don’t do anything besides bruise anyone.”

Gideon raised an eyebrow.

Savannah raised one back. “I don’t think it will come to that,” she admitted. “They all do know the rules, and Ash is pretty finicky about the rules.”

Whitney rolled her eyes this time. “Is she ever.”

Savannah used her hips to push away from the bar. She wrapped her arm around Gideon’s and led him away. “You know where the chapel is?”

Gideon turned his head and waved at Whitney. So much for introducing himself to her. How was Savannah going to find out his name if she didn’t let him introduce himself to other people in her hearing?

Whitney wiggled her fingers at him and started to giggle.

Gideon’s brow furrowed. He turned back to Savannah. She’d asked him a question. “Maybe?”

Savannah stopped in front of the door that he’d found Brand behind his first day. “Here is your post.”

“Okay. Yes. I do know where the meeting room is,” he amended.

“Then get comfy,” Savannah said and opened the door going inside.

Gideon’s shoulders dropped and he made a face at her back. He turned around, leaned against the doorframe, and set his dinner down. He wasn’t hungry yet, and it was in one of those special plates that kept warm foods warm and cold foods cold. And he was used to the boring tedium of guard duty, usually in places where his feet either sweat to death or froze solid. It occurred to him that this biker club thing was a little more like the military than he thought: officers, guard duty, guns.

A red head with long curly hair walked towards him. He eyed her patch. It read Sergeant-at-Arms. She stopped and looked at him. “If you’re out here, Savannah must be here already.”

Was that a question or not? He didn’t really enjoy answering yes or no to things that might not be yes or no questions. “That is a reasonable conclusion,” Gideon said.

“Can’t let anyone else be first,” the sergeant muttered, opened the door, and walked in.

Gideon looked around the door. She shut it behind her almost on his nose. He blinked. Whitney bounced over. “That’s Ashley. Commonly called Ash or Miss Stick Up Her Butt, depending on who you ask.”

Gideon’s eyebrows rose and he looked at Whitney. “Don’t you think she can hear you?”

“Oh probably.” Whitney tossed her hair again. “Need anything from the bar?”

“Not really.”

“I’ll get you a root beer.” Whitney bounced back to her post.

Gideon eyed her. He’d said no. Had she not heard him? Had he not clearly articulated the two letter word clear enough? Whitney reached underneath it, pulled out a bottle, pulled the cap off with an opener set into the bar and came back. She handed him the brown bottle that Gideon could not see the difference between it and a regular beer bottle. He took it as not to hurt her feelings.

“Thanks, should you be leaving your post?” he asked.

“I can. You shouldn’t,” Whitney said. “I had to do guard duty last week. Rio’s lucky she’s turned twenty-one and become a full member.” She sighed and spun on her toe and once again bounced back to her post.

Gideon raised an eyebrow. Not only were they Goths, they were perky Goths. He took a sip of the root beer. He held the bottle up afterwards and eyed it. That was really smooth root beer with a decent after bite. He turned the bottle around to look at the label. Black Hills Soda Co, Jasper Colorado, a division of Black Hills Beer Co. He blinked. Locally made beverages in glass bottles, interesting.

Whitney started pulling more bottles, mixing drinks, getting out glasses filling them with ice and making up a tray. She picked it up and came over to Gideon. “Okay, Brand drinks coffee with a shot of Irish Cream liquor. Savannah likes the ginger ale. It’s in the green bottles,” she said. “Ted takes a Ward 8, which is a variation of a whiskey sour and Ashley…” Whitney paused. “Ashley likes wine coolers.” She rolled her eyes and opened the door. She sailed through it, her arm firmly under the tray and her chin up, with large steps.

Gideon coughed. He didn’t know what this was to mean to him, and doubted he’d remember, but apparently Whitney thought it was important. He looked inside. Savannah had her feet crossed on the table. Ashley’s arms were crossed. They looked like they were ignoring each other.

Whitney set the drinks on the table, leaving little napkins with the Club logo on them under them and tucked the tray under her arm and sailed back out without a word exchanged. She shut the door behind her.

“Brrr,” she said and shuddered. “I wish those two would hurry up and fight it out. Maybe they’d like each other after.” She bounced back to the bar.

Gideon didn’t know if that would help matters. When girls fought in his experience, they tended not to speak to each other ever again afterwards. Would it be different if the two were werewolves? Gideon didn’t think so.

Brand entered from a side door, pulling fingerless gloves off. He nodded at Whitney and paused when he saw Gideon by the door. Gideon unconsciously straightened into an approximation of military correctness. Brand smiled and bit his tongue. “Is Savannah treating you all right?” he asked.

Gideon’s brow furrowed. Why would Savannah be treating him badly? “I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Gideon said. In his opinion, Savannah was acting strangely. He wasn’t sure if it would be considered bad treatment for her to put sunscreen on him or wipe him off with towels or, he reached up and scratched at his ear, pierce his ear or whatever that had been about, tagging him? The earring didn’t hurt much anymore.

Brand blinked once and scratched his chin. “Prospect, you’d know if she wasn’t.”

“She’s not a subtle person?”

Brand winced. “Noticed that? Then I guess she isn’t treating you too badly.” She wasn’t harassing, bullying, insulting, berating, beating, or otherwise ordering him about too much or Gideon probably would say something. He hoped Gideon would say something.

Gideon looked confused. “You said she liked me.”

“I said I think she likes you,” Brand corrected. He opened the door and sniffed. “Mmm, coffee. Thank you, Whit!” he shouted and entered the room.

“The difference is noted,” Gideon muttered and slumped against the door.

Brand leaned over the back of Savannah's chair and kissed her cheek. "Are you giving the prospect a hard time?” he asked and moved to his chair at the head of the table.

Savannah looked back at Gideon. She glanced at her grandfather. "Not as much as I could be. Shall I start?” she asked with a mischievous grin.

Gideon looked around the doorframe and narrowed his eyes at her. She looked over her shoulder at him and winked.

"Excuse me," Eberron said.

Gideon got his head out of the way.

“We’ll see,” Brand said.

‘We’ll see?’ Gideon mouthed. What the hell did that mean?

“Look who decided to join us,” Ashley said, her knee going up and down rapidly.

Eberron took a chair at the other end of the table. He looked at Ashley.

Ted walked in. He juggled a cake pan in one hand and got the door with the other. He somehow managed to open the door without dropping the cake and grinned when he saw Gideon. “Prospect,” he said and slapped his arm. “Bentley sent cake,” he muttered. “Maybe I’ll save you a slice.”

“Maybe?”

“Gotta be sure it tastes decent first. Never can quite tell with Bentley. She keeps experimenting in basic chemistry and she don’t have the knack for it like her mother.” Ted sighed and entered the room.

Eberron grinned. “I came for cake.”

Ashley narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t know there was going to be cake until Ted walked in.”

Eberron leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, folding his hands together. “Go on. I’m interested,” he said, meaning he was interested in what Ashley had to think about him being at the meeting.

She shifted in her chair. “Sure, you’re interested.”

“I am, really.” He grinned at her, teeth flashing.

Brand cut them off. “Eberron has as much right to be here as any other member.”

Ashley pursed her lips.

Eberron leaned back into his chair, his grin not fading. He was here to watch the fireworks.

Ted set the cake pan down on the table and found his chair. “Bentley made the cake.”

“Ohh, maybe Prospect should try it first,” Savannah said and poked at the pan.

“Poisoning our new recruits right off the bat is frowned upon,” Brand said.

“It wouldn’t kill him,” Savannah said. They all looked at her. “Okay, it probably wouldn’t kill him.”

“Morgan is making the meal. I think Bentley was feeling her competitive streak,” Ted said and shifted in his chair until he got comfortable. He put his hands on his stomach.