Page 36 of Tracked By Sasquatch

“Then same.”

They stood and he opened the door for her. “I already told you I love you, Devin, but I won’t lie to them for you. I won’t call them, but I will spill my guts so fast if anyone asks.”

Devin smiled. His devotion as a friend was unwavering, but that didn’t mean he was blind. He’d always told her he would put her first, even if it cost them their friendship because he would protect her from herself if it came to that.

“Then I have nothing to worry about, because they won’t.” The only person who could or would connect them was Jasper. The bar didn’t open until later and he didn’t know where Scott lived.

“I want hourly reports.”

“Not happening,” she replied as he opened her driver’s side door.

“Okay, every six hours.”

“Twice a day with special dispensation for unforeseen events.”

“Deal.” She rolled down the window and started the car as Scott leaned in and kissed her cheek.

“Be careful.” He leaned back. “For the record, I like you two together. I think you ought to come back here, tell him everything, and beg him to make you his ol’ lady.”

“If I can do this for myself, I’ll be in the right frame of mind to do just that.”

She was pulling away when she heard Scott whoop and holler. “Do it with a blow job. No man can say no when a hot mouth is wrapped around his cock,” he shouted to her car as she was leaving.

A smile crossed her lips. Why not? Why not drop to her knees and beg Jasper to be hers? They could date afterward because God knew, Lucas would demand blood and a shotgun wedding as soon as he found out about them anyway. Why not just jump in feet first to the deep end?

The drive was exhausting, both physically and emotionally. She couldn’t stop her mind from going one hundred miles an hour. Ping ponging back and forth between the past and the future. Digging up events that seemed wholly unrelated but not at the same time.

She didn’t want to think anymore but think she did. About last night, about what she was doing, about how absolutely livid Lucas and Jasper would be. Hell, the club, both Provo and Omaha would feel that way.

It took her months to see how immature she’d been about the whole thing in the beginning, but Devin couldn’t seem to think rationally about it. Then once she had, it was like she was stuck. Trapped in the cycle of secrecy and guilt she’d created herself.

Maybe it was because when her mother had taken fifty dollars, yeah, fifty fucking dollars from Lucas’s best friend for her virginity, it locked her into some emotionally stunted prison. At least that’s what she’d gleaned from therapy. Whenever she’d been faced with trauma since, she reverted to the way she’d processed things then.

Another wave of guilt crashed into her; she’d never told Lucas about what her mother or his friend had done. She still recoiled when she heard him mention Vince’s name in passing. Thank God they were living in two different worlds now, so she never had to see him again. The likes of Vince would never show up in a biker clubhouse.

Being faced with him every time Lucas came to visit from college, the leering, the catching her alone, was almost too much to bear. She couldn’t imagine what she’d have done if he’d followed Lucas into the club. They’d be bound for life.

Devin didn’t blame Lucas for leaving her with their mother to go off to college, he had to live for himself and not for her. He’d been living for her from the moment their father disappeared.

Besides, Lucas didn’t know how bad it was, they’d both hidden it from him for different reasons. Her mother because she didn’t want to lose his support, and Devin because she didn’t want to hurt her brother, her protector.

She’d done the same, left someone in a less-than-ideal situation, and that was the source of her fucked-up bullshit as of late. She’d left a helpless woman with Thom in order to free herself.

Ida had been the reason he’d locked Devin away in his house, to take care of his bedridden mother and what did she do? She’d left.

When the Bastards from Omaha had shown up and kicked the door in, she’d gone willingly. They’d wanted blood, they’d wanted to storm the house and burn it down, but she’d begged them to just take her home. She knew they’d only bowed to her wishes because it would’ve already been in play and decided without her. But she couldn’t let them wait for Thom and end him or Ida would’ve had no one.

She’d witnessed firsthand how much Thom cared for his mother. He’d pursued and taken Devin just to give her the care he couldn’t afford, so she would’ve been safe there without her, right?

That’s what she’d told herself for months.

But a nagging question had plagued her ever since. Was Thom A, an out-and-out bad guy, or B just a morally flexible son caught in an impossible situation?

Life was never all black and white, but one thing about the whole fucked up situation that was, no matter the answer, he had done her wrong. No matter the reason, he needed to pay, somehow. The only question had been how to make him pay and not Ida in the process.

If she’d let the Bastards do what they did best, Ida would’ve been left all alone. If Thom went to jail, Ida would end up in one of those god-awful state care facilities.

Neither outcome was acceptable to Devin. Ida hadn’t committed a crime. She’d just had the misfortune of her only surviving relative being her asshole of a son.