The Last Riders: Winter's Touch Part 7

As they walked, several nurses stopped to talk with him. Some appeared disgruntled when he didn't stay and chat.

When they finally went inside the elevator, he said, "Sorry. I didn't think it would take so long just to get in the elevator."

"You're new... and single?" she asked. When he nodded, Winter laughed. "Get used to it. There aren't many eligible bachelors in town."

He smiled back. "I've noticed. They're going to be disappointed, though. I'm gay."

Winter was still laughing when she got off the elevator, coming face-to-face with her husband. Her smiled disappeared when he circled his arm around her waist. She wanted to jerk away from his touch, but she didn't want to make a scene in front of the doctor.

"Nice to see you again, Dr. Price." Viper extended his hand.

Dr. Price shook it. "Nice to see you, Mr. James." He turned toward her. "I'll go on to Mrs. Langley's room. I'm going to leave her prescriptions with her nurse. Thanks for keeping me company at breakfast." He nodded at Winter before he turned the corner that led to her aunt's room.

Viper watched until he turned the corner, then said, "You look tired."

"I didn't get much sleep last night," she responded bleakly, giving up on trying to break Viper's hold. "Let me go."

"I see you're not in a better mood this morning." He released her, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"I'm sorry that seeing you with another woman puts me in a bad mood."

Viper sighed. "When is Aunt Shay getting released?"

"Soon. The doctor is signing her release papers." While her emotions were raw and bruised, her husband's sigh had shown he was becoming impatient with her for wanting to keep her distance.

"I don't have the time to argue with you right now, nor is this the place. I dropped your suitcase off at Aunt Shay's house. Beth is already in the room. She's going with you to Shay's house to help you get her settled, and she is going to stay a few hours so you can get some sleep." When Winter went to protest, he gave her an uncompromising look. "I planned to eat breakfast with you. I didn't expect you not to be in her room. I have a meeting in fifteen minutes, so we can talk about this tonight."

"Is Sasha at the clubhouse?"

"Yes." Viper scowled viciously as he punched the elevator b.u.t.ton.

"Then we have nothing to talk about."

"I guess not." He turned his back on her and went into the elevator. Turning to face forward after he had entered, his gaze locked on hers as the door closed.

Tearfully, she escaped into a restroom beside the nurses' station. She washed her face before putting on a brave expression. Then she returned to her aunt's room, seeing the doctor had already left after giving instructions for her care.

Beth found an orderly, who wheeled Aunt Shay to her car.

"I was hoping Viper would have brought me my car," Winter told Beth, after they put Aunt Shay in.

Beth walked around the car. "Rider wanted to do some maintenance on it. He said it's been a while. He was changing the oil when we left."

"That was nice of him," Winter said sincerely. He had asked her several times before, but she had put him off, always busy with committees or scheduled conferences when he had mentioned it needing maintenance.

"Be prepared." Beth buckled her seatbelt after she got behind the wheel. "It took me a week to get my car back."

Rider might have been a goofball where food was concerned, but when it came to maintaining vehicles, he took it seriously.

"Mine shouldn't be that bad. It only has forty thousand miles on it. It really didn't even need an oil change."

Beth nodded at her before looking in the rearview mirror. "Mrs. Langley, a friend of mine offered to do your hair when you feel better," Beth proposed, as she drove the short distance from the hospital to her home.

"I wouldn't want to trouble her."

Beth laughed. "She'll enjoy it. Just don't blame me if you end up with purple hair."

"As long as it's not blue or cut too short." Aunt Shay pressed her hand over the bun at the nape of her neck. Since Winter had been a little girl, her aunt had always worn it the same way.

"I'll hide her scissors," Winter promised, giving Beth an amused gaze.

At Aunt Shay's house, the women helped her to bed. As soon as they left her to rest, they went into the kitchen to make some lunch.

"I can handle this. Why don't you get some sleep?" Beth told her.

"Are you sure? I know you have other patients. I don't want to keep you."

"You sound just like your aunt." Beth smiled. "I'm free for the rest of the afternoon. Evie offered to take my one other patient for the day, and Lily is babysitting, so it's all taken care of."

"Then I'll take you up on your offer. I'm exhausted."

"I'll wake you up when I need to leave."

Winter smiled wearily. "Thanks, Beth."

She went upstairs to the room she slept in whenever she visited her aunt. She was too tired to shower, so slipping her shoes off, she lay on the coverlet and fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

She tossed and turned, calling Viper's name out in her sleep as visions of him and Sasha tormented her dreams. Her damp pillow was a testament to the tears she shed, even in her nightmares.

"Shh... Go to sleep, pretty girl. I'm here. I'll always be here."

8.

A knock on her bedroom door woke her. Winter sat up, looking around the empty room. She guessed the feeling that Viper had been there had only been a dream.

Tiredly, she got out of bed to open the door, finding Beth standing on the other side.

"I hated to wake you, but Cash will be coming to follow me home."

"I'm glad you woke me. I would have been awake all night if I slept much longer." Going to the suitcase, she pulled out a pair of shorts and a sleeveless tank top. Her aunt hated to use the air conditioner, and it was easier to put on fewer clothes than to see her aunt bundled up in a thick housecoat. "What's Aunt Shay doing?"

"Watching Family Feud. If you want to take a shower, she'll be fine until you come downstairs."

"Good." She tugged at her T-s.h.i.+rt, smelling it. "She'd beg me to go home if she smelled me right now."

Beth didn't laugh at her joke.

"Winter, it's none of my business, but if you want, I could let Razer watch the children so you and Viper can talk."

"I'm not ready to go back to the clubhouse."

"Because of Sasha?" Beth probed, coming farther into the bedroom.

"Yes, I saw her in the gazebo with Viper last night."

"Maybe it wasn't them, or-"

"It was them." Winter was sure of that.

"Oh... Then maybe it wasn't what you think."

Winter gave her a wry smile. "How often have you seen anyone go in there other than to f.u.c.k?"

"None," Beth admitted. "What does Viper say they were doing in there?"

"I've been too angry to listen."

She admitted to herself that she was too terrified to have her worst fear confirmed or that Viper would give her a lie she would be desperate enough to believe, not wanting to lose him.

"Talk to him," Beth urged. "The h.e.l.l you're going through now can't be any worse than knowing, can it?"

"I'm too afraid of what he'll tell me," she said huskily, before clearing her throat. "I know I'm being a coward." She gave a bitter laugh. "I'm always telling the women to take up for themselves. I had no problem when I believed Jackal was cheating on Penni. I even thought Viper was cheating then. That's why I egged her on, thinking I would catch both of them in the act."

"And he wasn't doing anything when you showed up," Beth reminded her, moving behind her to untangle her hair from the rubber band she was trying to take out.

"He's been acting weird. He doesn't ask me to help him anymore."

"You've been busy with school lately. Maybe that's why."

"It's not only that. He used to always ask my aunt to live nearer to us if he built her a small house. Every time I bring it up now, he changes the subject."

"He could be waiting until she is ready."

"Whose side are you on?" She took the rubber band Beth handed her.

Beth shrugged. "Both. I don't want to see you wash a good marriage down the drain because of something you can't prove."

"Sasha sent Viper a selfie of her giving Moon a b.l.o.w.j.o.b," Winter blurted out.

"She sent one to Razer, too. It was in a group text." Beth's usual good-natured demeanor was missing.

Winter gave her a sardonic look. "I bet his didn't mention getting rid of his wife."

"No, it definitely didn't say that. If it had, I would have pulled a Crazy b.i.t.c.h and taken a bat to her." Beth's eyes flashed sparks. "I'd had already warned Razer he better not give her a marker to vote her in, because of how she looks at the married men. The text confirmed my opinion of her."

"What did he say?" Winter asked, wide-eyed. Beth never intervened between the men and women. She had learned that lesson from Shade when Lily and he had been fighting. Shade had told her to stay out of his marriage after one argument, and as far as she knew, she had.

"He said he wouldn't." Beth looked down when her cell phone beeped with a message. "I need to go. Cash is outside."

Beth went to the door, but Winter stopped her, sensing there was something she wasn't saying.

"What is it?"

Beth seemed as if she didn't want to answer, giving her a sympathetic look.

"Tell me," Winter begged.

"Viper gave her the last vote she needed the night she left with Moon."

Winter showered after Beth left. She washed her hair that she had painstakingly grown out after she and Viper had married.

She was too heartbroken to cry. It seemed every dream of her and Viper's marriage was as intangible as smoke. She had dreamed of their home one day being filled with children. Dreamed they would grow old together, surrounded by the Last Riders and their families. Now it was one of the Last Riders who was tearing them apart.

Dressing in her shorts and tank top, she went downstairs to find that Beth had left dinner warming in the oven. She recognized the scent of lasagna, her stomach growling at the smell.

She made her and her aunt both a plate then set the table in the dining room with large gla.s.ses of ice water. Everything ready, she peeked into her aunt's bedroom to see she was working on one of her crossword puzzles.

"Dinner's ready," Winter told her, as she went to her side to help her out of bed. She held on to her aunt's arm as they walked to her dining room.

"It smells delicious," Aunt Shay said, looking at the bubbling lasagna.

"It is." Beth was an excellent cook. She and Lily both loved Italian food. Winter teased them every Pasta Monday, when it was Beth's turn to make dinner, and Lily's Pizza Thursday.

Winter gave each of them heaping plates of lasagna, and a large slice of bread that she had broiled and b.u.t.tered. Surprisingly, Aunt Shay ate most of her plate, while Winter struggled to finish hers.

"If I keep eating like this, Dr. Price will put me on a diet." Her aunt took another piece of the bread.

"Me, too." Winter sat back, patting her full belly that couldn't hold more than half a plate. It had been too long since she had eaten much. "Beth made a chocolate pie. Do you want me to get you a slice, or do you want to save it for later?"

"Later. We can eat some after the new zombie movie Beth brought me... if you're not too tired. I don't want you too worn out to go to work in the morning."

"I took the next two weeks off," Winter told her, as she gathered the dishes before carrying them to the sink. "What movie did Beth bring?"

"Zombie Doomsday."

Winter had to smile at that.

After she rinsed the dishes and loaded them in the dishwasher, they moved to her aunt's bedroom, where Aunt Shay lay down on the bed as Winter started the movie.

"Turn off the lights," Aunt Shay requested, eagerly stacking her pillow against the headboard to lean back on.