CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Website where all photos of all outfits mentioned is on my profile. Sorry for the later than usual update, I left my USB drive at home.

I leave my truck parked in the corner of the lot away from the mechanics bustling round doing their jobs, the Sons coming and going and the ever present women who seem to have nowhere else to go, I vaguely wonder what it is they do for a living, but decide that I don't want to know.

Jax walks past his bike and spends a couple of minutes talking to Clay before turning back around and striding across the lot to where I'm still standing by the bike.

I hand him his helmet and do my own up "Just told Clay he owes you a set of tyres. For some reason he just nodded and said he'd get on them. He also told me where Simon would be today."

I nod, I'm not surprised that Clay knows where most of the business owners are, and if he hadn't known then I would have rung Elliot, who being on the town council has addresses and contact numbers for almost every business owner in town.

We head out of the lot and I'm surprised when we turn towards the gardens, Jax parks across the road and walks towards the black and white arch that leads through to the main part of the gardens "Clay said Simon regularly plays chess here with a couple of guys."

I follow Jax down the gravel paths, passing the rose garden which SAMCRO pretty much funded entirely, not that the town really knows that. We end up in the centre of the gardens which is a huge circle, there's picnic tables along one quarter of the curve, the second quarter has a small play area with swings and a slide, the third section of the circle is empty, but the concrete slabs in the ground give the rough idea that there are more picnic tables to be installed there soon. The fourth quarter of the circle is the area we head for, it's lined with stone chess sets set up; each of the seats is occupied.

Jax makes a beeline for a pair of older man sitting leaning over a chess set looking deep in concentration. His wallet chain jingles as he steps closer and their heads both shoot up. Simon locks eyes on me and stands slowly "Sarah? Little Sarah Hale?"

I nod and step past Jax "Nice to see you again Mr Salt." The irony is still not lost on me that the man who owned the ice cream shop in town had such a tart surname.

"Come now, Simon. I've told you that before. In fact I remember spending several years telling you to call me Simon when you worked for me." Simon's face breaks into a huge smile and he leans down and hugs me tightly. "I'd heard you were back in town. Hope you don't want your old job back, the shops gone out of business."

"Well Mr…Simon. That's why I'm here. Can we talk?" I ask.

"Sure thing. Let's take a walk. Jackson you watch my board. George here, he cheats." Simon holds out his arm and I loop mine through him. We walk slowly down the path through the exotic flower part of the garden. Surrounded by brightly coloured flowers I take a second to put my thoughts into words.

"I'd like to buy your shop." I end up blurting out, as we take a slight bend in the path and find ourselves in front of a pond that wasn't there when I left.

"Why?" Simon sounds stunned.

"This town needs as many businesses as it can keep afloat. I'd like to actually buy your place and the one next door and turn them into one big shop. But that all depends on zoning and stuff like that." We're still slowly walking, circumnavigating the pond and ending up on the other side.

"Zoning will be easy for you. The shops used to be one, till I had it split into two, I only wanted one half. It's still on one title. Do you want to get a lawyer involved to talk amounts?" I blink slowly and Simon chuckles "I'd give it to you if I could get away with it."

I shake my head furiously. "No, I'll get Elliot to do the valuations for it and I will pay you market value for both sites, I promise."

Simon grins "So what are you planning on doing with it."

I shrug "I'd like to reopen the ice cream part, but when we stopped there I noticed it needs a lot of modernising. I guess it depends on how much work is actually needed."

Simon nods again "Well, you get Oswald to do the valuations, get your lawyer to draw up the paperwork and I'll sign whatever needs to be signed."

I squeal and wrap my arms around his neck, hugging him tightly "Thank you."

He blushes slightly and starts walking again, we've looped almost back to the starting point of our walk and when Jax meets my eyes he smiles widely mimicking the expression on my face.

We reach the table again and Simon sits back down on his seat "I'll hear from you in a few weeks?"

Jax snorts "More like days, when she gets something into her mind she doesn't stop till it's done."

I poke my tongue out at him and he chuckles "Patrick will be in touch. Do you have a contact number?"

Simon rattles off a number and I pull my phone from my back pocket and save it in there before giving him another hug and following Jax out of the gardens.

"I take it that went well?" Jax asks as we reach the footpath.

I nod "He was willing to give them to me if he could have gotten away with it. But I told him I'd pay market value. Which round here won't be much unfortunately. I might get Elliot to over-estimate the plant value."

Jax raises an eyebrow "Why?"

"Cause he's a lovely old man who never once threatened to charge you, or Opie, or Donna, or anyone else from the club for that matter, for all the Dine and Dashes you did as teenagers." I say, as we reach the bike again. "Can we go check up on the house?"

Jax nods and waits while I put my helmet on before starting the bike and turning towards the residential area where our houses are.

It doesn't take long to get to the house and the external difference is still little, the only change is the giant digger that I can see through the gap where the fence used to run from the side of the house to the boundary fence to keep the backyard enclosed.

We're barely off the bike before Gary is coming through the gap, brushing his hands off on his overalls and crossing the grass towards us. "Morning." He calls when he's within a few metres of us. "Did you want to come see what we've done?"

I shake my head "Not really, I trust you, and Gem's gave me an update when the 'dirty great big digger' arrived." I giggle.

"Well, the inside wiring is done. Some of your boys are working on the insulation and lining now, but they're due to be done soon." Gary looks at Jax as he says that and Jax nods.

"Miles, Sack, Happy and Tig were here all day yesterday. Happy's not here today cause we needed to see him but the other three are inside." Jax nods his head towards the three bikes I hadn't noticed in the shade of the garage.

I suddenly have a wave of guilt for not having brought anything in LA for my other helpers, yes Chibs got hurt, but the rest of the Sons have been putting their normal duties on hold to make my house habitable as quickly as possible. Jax catches the look and tells Gary that we'll catch up with him in the yard in a few.

Gary nods and walks back down the track that's been worn in the grass before Jax turns to me and wraps his arms around me, pulling me close so I have to look up at him "Darlin' don't be guilty. The guys in there have done what they wanted to. Gem wasn't worried about the work level at the garage. Truth be told it's a bit slow at the moment anyway, she's been glad for them to have something else to do other than bug her for work."

I nod, but the feeling doesn't lessen "I don't know how you know when I'm feeling guilty, but I did know that the working here isn't an issue. Gem told me, but I just realised I'm gonna have to do a hell of a thank you party for all you guys."

Jax shakes his head "Nah, you've been feeding them baking. They need the physical work so they don't all end up unable to walk, let alone ride."

I giggle and lean into Jax's arms "I'm still gonna throw a 'thank you' party. But maybe at the Clubhouse, after all if it was here I'd have to get all the work done again."

Jax laughs as he moves his arms so ones around my waist and the other is hanging loose before pulling me towards the house "Let's go check on the inside then the back?"

We check on the inside, but the guys in the kitchen cutting and stuffing insulation into the wall cavity means I'm quickly convinced to leave, I'm there long enough to realise that they're only one wall away from finishing. Miles was cutting the insulation and placing it in the gaps while Tig and Kip were working on the other wall putting the huge sheets of plasterboard into place.

We head out the back door and I can't stifle the gasp. My backyard has been dug to shreds, there's 4 huge tunnels that have been dug. 2 of them run from the front of the garden go to the back corners, the other two head into the 2 front corners but there's narrower trenches that run between then. Gary catches my look and steps over the dirt and stops at the bottom of the stairs.

"I know it looks bad at the moment, it'll be fine when we're done. We always include the cost of resowing the lawn when we use a digger on a job this big." Gary grins "It's coming along great though, we're thinking that the wiring out here will be done on Wednesday next week, which would work out well cause the speakers you wanted arrive on Tuesday."

I nod but I'm still a little stunned by the huge piles of dirt that used to be my pristinely flat backyard. Shaking my head I clear the cobwebs "How's the account doing?"

"Its fine, you over paid by at least 5 grand, but you said you wanted that put towards the next project. What's that, if I can ask?"

"Do you know Donna and Opie, Winston?" I ask, at Gary's nod I continue "Well, they're getting a new house built and I'd like you guys to do the wiring, including alarm, and sounds a bit like I've got inside. Still waiting for designs though."

Gary nods "Won't be a problem. We're booked through July, August and into the beginning of September, but if you're still waiting designs it'll be September before it's ready to be wired. Who's doing the building?"

"Oswald construction." I reply.

Gary nods again, "No problem. Let them know you've already contracted us for the wiring and they'll take that out of their costs and let us know when we can start." Smiling brightly I nod my head once as Jax grabs hold of my hand.

"Right, time to go on to the next errand for today." Jax says dragging me back into the house and carefully locking the backdoor. A cursory shout at the guys to be careful and we're on the bike again and heading towards the hospital.