Ash had been tasked with following Maggie his schedule had shifted some. Now he was usually up way before anyone else in the club sulking around Maggie’s neighborhood.
When his vision finally adjusted to the dim lighting inside the bar he walked toward the memorial wall that took up the back half of the bar. The wall was covered from three feet off the ground up to the ceiling with pictures of Steel Breed. Some were just shots from club parties and events but most were the member’s first mug shots.
Ash was on the wall. A frame with his mug shot from the first time he was arrested as a Breed and a shot of him chugging a pint of whisky with some bitch straddling his thighs and sucking on his neck.
These pictures weren’t what he was most interested in though. The frame he zeroed in on was at the dead center of the wall. The largest of all the pictures it was about twenty inches across and showed the ten original Steel Breed MC members. There, third from the left, was mother fucking Seamus Quirke staring out at him from behind a long thick dark beard. He almost didn’t recognize the man he knew as the head librarian except for the eyes. Maggie had those same eyes. He had yet to see them up close but he’d been watching her long enough, he would recognize those eyes anywhere. As a librarian Seamus had kept his face clean-shaven and his hair tight to his head. Ash would have never realized this was the same man if Ben hadn’t pointed him in the right direction, but the name on the plaque below confirmed it. This was indeed Maggie Quirke’s father.
Everything was starting to make sense now. And when he saw Jack next he would definitely have some questions for him. Right now though he needed to head back to the library. Maggie would probably be getting out of work soon, and now that he knew she was the daughter of an original he took this assignment much more seriously.
Chapter 5
Reef
“Oh Maggie, what am I going to do with you?” Reef shook his head as he watched Maggie enter the library. If there was anything Maggie had going for her, Reef thought, it was her tenacity. She wasn’t smart enough to hold down this job for long. It’s why she needed him.
Reef realized now his mistake in not explaining to Maggie exactly why she needed to stay home and let him take care of her. She didn’t know the harsh realities of the world. She didn’t know she wasn’t smart enough to hold down a job, pay the bills, and take care of not only herself but all the day to day struggles the head of the household needed to take care of. She could barely understand the concept of doing what Reef told her to do. How was she going to survive on her own?
As far as Reef was concerned the proof was in the pudding. Her house was a perfect example of Maggie’s inability to manage her own life. When Maggie left for work the day before Reef looked through the windows of her house. The dishtowels were haphazardly strewn about the counter. The pantry door was left open. There were even leaves in the threshold. LEAVES! He would have put money on her bed being unmade if he could have somehow scaled the walls to check the second story windows.
Right now though Reef was making sure to stay far enough away that Maggie wouldn’t see him but close enough that he could get a good look at her with his binoculars. He would watch her when she stood on her front porch looking out at the street. And every time she left the library he would watch as she looked all around while she walked to her car. He was starting to wonder if maybe she was looking for him. Maybe he needed to end this game now. Maybe she’d learned her lesson and was ready to come home. No, not yet. He needed to give her a little more time to wallow before he let her apologize and beg to come home.
Reef picked up his binoculars again after Maggie had gone inside the library and scanned the street. He saw the biker standing against the building that housed the
Jennifer Rivard Yarrington
Delilah Hunt, Erin O'Riordan, Pepper Anthony, Ashlynn Monroe, Melissa Hosack, Angelina Rain