Broken Ride (Men of Valor MC)

He read about the mustard seed parable then, the symbolism of hope for the future and the faith that things would get better. He carried it in his pocket for years, always with a seed inside to remind him to have faith. The locket became a good luck charm to him and served as his credo, he’d do what he could to stop what happened to Joanna from happening to anyone else. He told himself that despite his broken past, someday, he’d transform the pain into something miraculous, that from humble beginnings, he’d move mountains, and he’d right the wrongs that had befallen them. When he met me, he wanted to pass the token onto me.

“I knew you felt broken, but all I could see was what was still intact. Your beauty, your grace, your generosity—you blew me away with your poise and strength.”

I buried my face into Dex’s arm and fell asleep with eyes swollen from tears and a heart so full I was adrift in the love I felt for him.

In the morning, Trudy and Isla placed two newborns in my arms as I sat on the couch and Claire rested upstairs. Dex and Miller spoke swiftly and seriously in the kitchen. I knew Patriot was going to kill that man, and I knew Miller was trying to talk him out of it—to let the legal system take care of him and spare Dex from any possible charges. But I knew that although Dex could read his lips, he wasn’t listening to what Rough said. That man was already as good as a skeleton in one of Dex’s sketch books.

I kissed Alex and Ava’s warm little heads and breathed in the baby scent of them. I smiled through tears knowing full well that Patriot would take that man’s life without flinching and without ever looking back. It was who he was. It was what he did. The most surprising part was that I was okay with it.

Epilogue One- 5 years later

Patriot

Her schedule at the hospital was always the worst, overnights and weekends, every single holiday—in other words, the life of a medical resident. We knew it wouldn’t last forever. I kept close track of her calendar so I could try to synchronize our schedules. It didn’t always work and sometimes I was driving to the hospital at 11pm with a large coffee so I could make it through her shifts. I insisted on picking her up and dropping her off every time she worked. Maybe it was obsessive or over protective, but we understood one another and our method worked.

I was in art school, a life-long dream that had finally come true. Sky helped me every step of the way figuring out the application and admissions processes like she was an old pro.

Rough and Claire had helped us with a down payment on a house in their same complex. Sometimes I felt like the only man in the world who liked—hell, who loved living next door to his in-laws.

Sky doted on the twins and talked non-stop about the future children we’d have. Even though raising kids was something I’d sworn never to do for years, raising a family with Skylar was now exactly what I wanted out of life.

One day in June, I drove my Harley to the emergency room entrance, garnering a million stares sailing down the highway in a tux, my cut, and leather riding boots. Sky was fifteen minutes late and when she came out of the automatic doors, two nurses followed her in scrubs, one holding her veil and the other carrying her train.

She was a vision in white and when she stopped to gather her dress, I signed “I love you,” to my bride to be.

“Somehow, Dex, I’d imagined the jeep,” she said. She blew air up in frustration moving the tendrils of hair around her beautiful face.

“Really, Sky? The jeep? Where’d we meet?” I asked her.

“In a motorcycle club,” she admitted.

She gave me a smirk and lifted her dress up from the bottom as I revved the bike. She hopped onto the back and put one hand on top of her head to hold onto her veil.

“My hair is going to be screwed,” she lamented.

I signed, “I don’t care,” right before we took off.

Two week earlier we’d been married in a civil service down at the courthouse which was witnessed by the District Attorney himself. But this ceremony we’d been planning for months. Claire and Rough had shown us a perfect spot, an emerald patch of heaven overlooking some stunning cliffs. It was where I’d proposed to Sky and where she’d told me yes. Mountains framed the background and a canopy of pine trees made a perfect chapel. Malcolm had secured permits, so there was no limit on guests, or booze, or music that could last through the night.