Page 100 of Thug

“Do you truly believe that?”

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

He stood and peered at the horizon for some time.

“Are we done talking?” I asked.

“Suppose not.”

“What are you thinking about?”

He shifted his gaze from the mountains to me. “Just wondering what life’s going to be like with you, twenty years from now.”

Proud of the man he was and the man I expected he be in twenty years, I kissed him on the cheek. “There’s only one way to find out.”

He wrapped his arm around me. Side by side with his arm draped over my shoulder, we gazed at the beautiful landscape.

“What are we doing now?” I asked.

“Getting started on the next twenty years.”

Price might not have been much of a romantic in a storybook sense, but for an outlaw biker, he did pretty damned good.

26

Price

I’d searched from one end of the house to the other, and I couldn’t find Gray. Starting at my bedroom, I began my second round of scouring the home, looking for her. The bathroom, bedroom and closet were empty. I pulled the door closed on my way out.

She wasn’t in the spare bedroom or closet. I slammed the door. The kitchen was empty. The living room was bare. Hall bath, empty. Shower, empty. Growing more pissed off with each step I took, I stomped down the hallway to the den where my father kept his guns.

Empty.

Frustrated, I opened the garage door. Short of my parent’s car and my aunt’s old Chevy Blazer, the garage was empty.

I pressed the button on the wall and opened the garage door. Gray’s Pathfinder was parked in the drive. I walked to it and peered inside. Nothing was out of place, and no one was inside. I checked the door.

Locked.

I stomped through the garage and stepped inside the house. With my hands on my hips and my temper promptly rising, I reduced myself to the unthinkable.

“Gray!” I shouted. “Where the fuck are you?”

“Gray!”

“God damn it, Gray!” I bellowed. “We’re supposed to be there in fifteen minutes. Stop fucking around!”

I realized I hadn’t checked the laundry room. I stomped down the hallway and yanked open the door.

Gray was in front of the dryer, propped against the corner wall, asleep. On her lap, both cats were curled into a ball. One looked up. Apparently too exhausted to care, it lowered its head into her lap.

Since hiring the new waitress, Gray had been running on fumes. As far as I was concerned, the new chick was fantastic. She had a great personality and was attractive. In addition to being an experienced waitress, everyone seemed to like her.

Nevertheless, Gray spent her mornings training her, her evenings watching her work, and her nights being critical of what few deficiencies she felt the woman had.

I rapped my knuckles on the doorframe. “Gray?”

She opened her eyes, blinked a few times, and looked up. The larger of the two cats did the same.