“What happened?” she asked.
“I ended up sleeping with some of the couples within the club.” He started laughing. “God, I was a fucking mess. They’d allow me into their bed just to help me sleep.”
“Why are you smiling?” She found herself smiling along with him.
“Since you’ve been in my life the nightmares are few and far between. The past couple of nights, I’ve not dreamt about anything but you.”
She stared at their joined hands.
“You make me forget what happened. Do you still have nightmares?”
Lacey shook her head. “Not anymore. They stopped when I was around twenty-five, twenty-six. I don’t know what happened or why they stopped. I guess I kind of just grew out of it or got over it.” She shrugged. “It’s still new and raw for you. I’ve had the time to move on. You’re still fighting.”
“The nightmares are the worst.”
She shook her head. “They’re not the worst. You can always wake up from a dream. Living, that’s the worst. When you’re living and you’re gripped by fear it stops you from living, from connecting with other people.” She tucked some hair behind her ear. “You’re asleep for five to seven hours a day. The rest you’re spent awake, aware of everything around you. For me, that was the worst. I stared at everyone wondering what they were thinking, planning. You can’t get away from that kind of fear. At night, I was alone, and I could handle the dreams. I’d get a glass of water, sit and remember those men were not in my life. Sometime, Dalton would be there, and we’d talk. During the day, everyone was awake. You can never get away from the living.”
“I never saw it like that.”
“You had a family of your own who loved and cared about you.”
“So did you.”
Lacey shook her head. “They were not my real family. Until Gonzalez took out our parents I didn’t spend a lot of time at the club. Dalton wasn’t my friend. I don’t even think he liked me. We were thrust together like a bunch of orphans. We made do with each other.” That’s where they were different. Whizz had his family in The Skulls. She’d had to make do with the Savage Brothers. “It’s why I wanted to help Butch. I was with the club because I felt a duty to see it through. The revenge. Butch, he was part of the club, but he grew up and away from it all. Butch had some illogical need to help his past. In the end, he tried to stop us, though. He did give us the wrong information. I truly believe he was going to tell you the truth.”
“I’m working on getting Butch back within the club. I can’t guarantee that he’ll get the same kind of position he held, but he might still get his cut.”
“I’d really like to help with that. I would hate to think that I and the rest of the Savage Brothers took away his family.” She finished her breakfast. “I heard him arguing with Danny and Dalton, telling them revenge was pointless. I wished they’d listened to him.”
Butch had waited too long to get shit done with the club. He should have come to them when the Savage Brothers made their presence known. Lacey wished she’d talked to him away from Danny and Dalton. She might have been able to talk some sense to him. Lacey had seen Danny shoot him without any remorse. Whoever Danny’s contact had been in town had given him the true location of Gonzalez. She didn’t know who it was. Whizz took some notes out of his wallet and placed them on the counter. Together they made their way out toward his bike. She liked being beside him, facing the world together as a team.
“You could adopt,” Whizz said, handing her a helmet.
“Huh?”
“Children, you could adopt.”
Lacey started laughing. “I couldn’t adopt.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve got no home, no money, no background. I’ve got no career, or life to offer them. No one in their right mind would let me adopt a baby.” She made light of her situation. The truth, she was so damn hurt that it made her sick to her stomach. When Dalton offered, she turned him down, but she’d also done her research to see if it was an option. It wasn’t. It was hard to go through life craving something you could never have. Every option that had once been open to her over twenty years ago was shut down to her. When she left high school and went along with the Savage Brothers, she’d sealed her own fate in not being able to have what she wanted. The kids were lost to her.
“I could give you the home and the money. I’d stand by you, Lacey.”
Before putting the helmet on, she stared at Whizz. “Have you lost your mind?”
He held his hands out in a shrug. “I don’t know what I’ve lost, but I know what I’ve gained. There is no woman out there for me but you. You’re the only woman I want in my life, Lacey. I’d die for you, kill for you. The club knows I’m going to claim you and that’ll make you my old lady. If you want kids, a home, a family, say the word, and I’ll go out and get them for you.”
His words were bringing tears to her eyes. “You don’t mean that.” No one had ever done anything so selfless for her in her life.
“I do.” He reached out to cup her cheek. Before she could protest his lips brushed hers. The kiss wasn’t possessive or hard, yet it was filled with so much passion. “For you, Lacey, I will move heaven and earth to get what you want. Tell me what you want, and I’ll get it to you. You’re my woman. I’m not letting you go.”
Lacey gasped, looking around them as Whizz got on one knee before her. Her heart was racing. After everything they’d been through, this was the last thing she thought he’d do for her. He took hold of her hand.
“Lacey, you’re a crazy woman with blue hair, but you’re my woman.” He pressed a hand to his heart. “You’re in here. I didn’t think I was capable of love, that it had been torn out of me. I was wrong. I love you. I want to live the rest of my life with you.” Tears filled her eyes. This was something out of a fairytale, a biker fairytale. This was not what happened to people like her. “Will you do me the greatest honor of becoming my wife?”
She was shocked still as he removed his cut, his symbol of the club he was part of. “I don’t have an engagement ring, but I have this. I want to marry you more than anything.”
For several seconds she simply stared at him in shock. “Yes.” The words came out of her mouth as if they were spoken by someone else. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”