6

Chapter 574 Hit and Miss

"

Tara's hands trembled on the steering wheel as she and Steve headed out of Charming. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Whether it was a woman's intuition or paranoia, she would find out over the next few days.

Steve was wearing a lightweight beige wind breaker to conceal his shoulder holster. He was carrying concealed legally. He had the required permit and completed the mandatory firearms training. He and the Sons had just gone to the Charming Gun Range and Shooting Club a few days ago for target practice.

"It's going to be OK," Steve reassured her.

"I know logically that I'm probably making more out of this than I need to."

"My instincts have kept me alive. It's better to follow them and be wrong than dead. I hope if someone tries to kill you, they do it on the way back to town and not on the way to the conference."

Tara turned and looked at him, startled and then she saw him smile and she laughed. It was better to make light of this than descend completely into craziness.

"That would really suck," she agreed. "I'm looking forward to the wine tasting. My conference schedule is pretty light, so we'll have lots of time to see the area."

As each mile put her further away from Charming, she began to relax. Steve was a calming and reassuring presence. He was a really good guy and she was lucky to have him in her life. She was trying to convince herself that she should fall in love with him, but she was stuck at the likes him a lot stage.

Tara had gotten sandwiches from Sandwich A Lot yesterday along with some pasta salad so they could have a little picnic at Mountain View Park that was about three hours outside of town. She'd filled a cooler with bottles of tea and Coke for their trip. She was trying to make this trip fun despite her misgivings.

Steve talked about the Sons of Anarchy. Jax was encouraging him to become a prospect, but Steve had his doubts.

"I'm not sure I have the commitment to go through all the nonsense that prospects have to take to join," Steve said.

"It's about love for the club. That's why they are so hard on prospects," Tara explained, slipping back into the mindset from back when she was with Jax and he explained the MC way of thinking.

"Yeah, I get that," Steve sighed. "I just don't know if I want to go through all that. Jax wants to sponsor me and he says he'll make sure the guys go easy on me, but he can't guarantee that. And then there's Clay."

"Yeah, Jax can't control Clay and I can see Clay giving you a hard time just because Jax wants to give you an easy prospect period. I do know that they have changed the availability. Back in the early days, prospects were expected to be available 24/7 but a few months after Jax finished prospecting, a couple of prospects who had been awake for almost thirty-six hours straight were killed on a run. I don't remember the SOA chapter, but since that happened, things got better.

"Now, the prospects only have to be available during certain hours so they can hold a job. Scarlett hired Sack to work for her. You could still work for Oswald."

Steve smiled.

"I heard the same thing from Jax. The prospect period isn't as abusive as it was back in his day. I don't have to make a decision any time soon. For now, I like hanging out with the guys and I'm going on a run with them in a few weeks."

"It is a big step," Tara conceded. "It's not like joining a regular club. It's a way of life. Jax was born into it, so he doesn't know any other kind of life. I think it's harder if you are a complete outsider coming into the MC."

"I don't think I can ever put the MC ahead of my family. I get a lot of the guys don't have a family and the MC takes on that role, but I have parents, a brother and a sister. They are always going to come first."

"I get that," Tara said. "When I was with Jax, I didn't like that the MC always came first, but I don't have any family left now, so I get the appeal of being part of an organization that becomes a family substitute. I wish there was something like that for me to join."

"I'm suddenly seeing this with more clarity," Steve said. "I like hanging around with the club, but I don't want to be a part of it. I'm not looking for a family substitute and I will never put them ahead of my real family. I don't believe the MC should come first before family. I'm going to stay a friend of the club and nothing more."

"I think when Jax becomes president, the whole putting the club ahead of your family may change, but Clay isn't going to step down until his hands freeze up and he can't ride anymore. He enjoys the power and status too much."

All the talk of the MC had distracted Tara. By the time they reached the park, she was feeling calm and optimistic about the conference. While they were eating their sandwiches at a picnic table at the park, Tara had a revelation as she was half listening to Steve telling her about a fishing trip he took with his father when he was six; Steve was boring as hell.

He liked to hike, camp and fish. She liked none of those things and didn't care to hear about them. She didn't find him interesting. Nice could only go so far and that's why she couldn't fall in love with Steve. She'd been naïve believing that Jax had asked him to watch over her and was also playing matchmaker when Jax simply wanted Steve to protect her.

She may not love Jax anymore, but that didn't mean she wasn't still attracted to men who reminded her of Jax. Kohn had been a less dangerous version. She thought Steve was going to join SAMCRO and she thought that would make him interesting. And the ugly truth was if she hadn't been so worried about her safety, she would have ended things with Steve. She really was using him for protection. This sudden realization made her feel bad for using a perfectly nice man who had done nothing wrong other than being uninteresting to her. She would give it a few weeks after they returned to Charming and end things with him. There was a woman out there for him and she wasn't it.

She thought about Jax and how she'd always felt like a misfit until they got together. She was the shy nerdy girl who was too smart for her own good until that magical day when she met Jax. For the first time since her mother died, she felt like she belonged somewhere—at Jax's side. She fit into Jax's world and loved her place in it. She went from misfit to popular in the space of a few days.

When she returned to Charming, she was hoping she'd find her place in the world again. It hadn't happened. She'd gone back to nerdy, misfit Tara only instead of high school it was St. Thomas. There was one difference, the nurses and hospital administrators kissed her ass because she was going to bring in more than a million dollars in revenue to the hospital this year. She wasn't popular and she was still a misfit, but she had power.

And now that was all going to go away. When she exposed Namid and Margaret, hell would break loose at the hospital and no one was going to thank her for it. The neonatal department would have to shut down, she would be out of a job and pretty much all the hospital staff would hate her for exposing the hospital's dirty secrets. That's the way these things played out. And she would be an outcast at the hospital and maybe even in the town itself. She wished she'd just ignored all the warning signs and looked the other way. It would make life easier, but there was something inside her that drove her to speak up and babies were dying and being killed. It was right to expose that.

After they finished eating, they prepared to leave. She was walking back from the trash can while Steve was loading the cooler back into her car. As she crossed the street, she heard a car come up behind her.

"Tara," Steve shouted.

She turned her head looking over her shoulder and seeing a brown van speeding up heading straight for her. She froze for a split second believing the car would stop. It didn't. She dodged to the left desperately trying to get out of the way. Everything became a blur after that.

The van caught the right side of her body knocking her to the ground. She lifted her head and saw the van turn around with a screech of brakes and head straight for her determined to run over her again. Unable to stand, she desperately tried to crawl out of the way and then everything went black.