Tig rode into the yard the next morning and first, as always, looked around for Roxanne.
Although it had been a rather subconscious thing at first, by now it had become a habit.
However, neither was her pickup truck parked to the side of the garage doors, nor was she scurrying around somewhere or lying under a car.
Gemma was already in the office cleaning up some older file folders, and Tig headed for the open door.
"Hey Gemma, isn't Roxy here yet?"
"Hey, no she's not." Gemma unceremoniously dropped the three folders she had just retrieved from a shelf onto the chair. "She called in sick today. Bad migraine, I guess."
"Oh!" Tig grimaced sympathetically. "I'll write to her later, then. Thanks."
With a smile, Gemma watched him go.
The headache subsided through the day, yet Roxanne still felt sick as a dog. Even the bright sunlight did nothing to change that; she had literally barricaded herself in both the bedroom and the living room with the shutters down, and it was almost completely dark in the house. The display of her cell phone suddenly brightly lit up, almost like a beam, and she squinted her eyes to read the incoming message.
Hey sweetie, hope you feel better soon! Tig
Sweetie. He'd never called her this before and if the entire issue hadn't happened the day before, or at least if she didn't know, she'd probably be happy about it but now ...?
She swiped the message away and put the phone back on the table before she rolled over again on the sofa and buried herself a little deeper into her woollen blanket.
Sleep. Just continue to sleep and forget about all this for at least a while!
The next morning she was almost fine again, at least physically, but just the thought of having to go back to the garage and face the guys, especially Tig...
She reached for her cell phone to call Gemma.
"Hey, so how are you doing? Better, I hope?" she answered after seeing Roxanne's name on the display.
"Not really," she mumbled, "I'd love to crawl into a hole and sleep for weeks on end."
"Oh, that's bad," Gemma said sympathetically. "Do you need anything? Want me to come by this afternoon?"
Roxanne considered it for a moment. It would certainly be best if she talked to Gemma about the whole thing, she of all people probably knew the guys and their club politics best.
"Yeah, you can do that. But you needn't bring anything."
"Okay, see you later then!" Gemma hung up the moment Tig arrived.
"Good timing, she just called. Still not feeling well."
"I figured as much, she hasn't responded to my message yet. I'll give her one more day before I begin to worry," he added jokingly.
Roxanne raised the blinds, aired out, and cleaned up before taking a shower and getting herself presentable again. Gemma wasn't just anybody, after all.
Still, she was startled to see Roxanne's face when she opened the front door for her.
Her blue eyes, she didn't put the contact lenses in, were red-rimmed and her entire face pale and puffy, any makeup would probably have been a waste of time, and in her black hoodie, which she wore over leggings of the same color, she looked as vulnerable as a little ruffled crow that had fallen out of its nest. A stupid comparison, to be sure, but still fitting.
"Hi Gemma."
"Whoa, hey, come here!" Gemma hugged her, and when she pulled free, tears welled up in Roxanne's eyes again. "That bad?"
"It's not the headache," she replied, stepping aside to let Gemma in. "Not anymore, anyway. It's Tig."
"Tig?" She spun around, puzzled. He'd been joking that morning, and she hadn't gotten the impression anything was the matter between them. "Why, what's up with him?"
Roxanne gestured to one of the two kitchen chairs and grabbed two mugs from the cabinet while Gemma sat down.
"You'll have coffee with me, won't you?"
"Yeah, sure." She waited until Roxanne filled both mugs and set the pot on the table. "Now tell me. What's going on?"
Roxanne reached for her coffee mug, sipped it and set it back down.
"How well do you know the guys?" she asked then straightforwardly. "They're not just a bunch of innocent Harley fans, are they? What's all that about?"
Gemma took a deep breath before answering. Though they'd all wanted to avoid it Roxanne was already in too deep by now, so at least some of the cards had to be put on the table.
"You're right. They ain't. The garage is basically just a facade, alongside which some more or less illegal business going on. I can't and won't tell you what exactly, but there are tough situations from time to time."
Tough situations, yes this definitely hit the spot!
"And are there any dead people sometimes? Do you think the guys are capable of killing someone?" Roxanne struggled to phrase the next question. "Do you think Tig is capable of that?"
Gemma gave her a forceful look. "Yes. Yes. And yes. I do. What did you witness?"
Roxanne shook her head before it all burst out of her.
"...And then he just shot them. Cold as ice, without even blinking an eye!" She wiped from her eyes the tears that had begun to run again while she was telling her story. "I never thought something like that was possible! It was, or it is, as if ... as if he were two people. On the one hand, the passionate and also tender lover, I never heard a bad word from him, and on the other hand, the criminal and ice-cold killer!"
"Welcome to the reality of a bikers old lady," Gemma said dryly, not quite able to stifle a smirk. "It's exactly like that!"
"I'm not his old lady."
"You could be, though. And if you were, you'd be sitting here exactly the same now!"
"How do you all cope with it?" Roxanne wanted to know. "I can't leave or get out now, I also don't want to but I'm already involved anyway. Meanwhile, I'm convinced I wasn't hauling car parts or garage parts into Mexico the other day. Maybe it was guns, ammunition, drugs, explosives ... whatever!"
Gemma poured herself another cup of coffee. This would take longer now, for sure.
"Okay, let me explain to you how the whole shebang works here."
Roxanne shook her head in bewilderment more than once as Gemma narrated. Nowhere near everything but enough to give her a sense of the whole scene.
"And how do we cope with it," she added at the end, shrugging. "Accept it. Ignore it. Block it out. That's how. Pick and chose. Clay once said it quite aptly: with women, it's like they either don't need to know anything or they need to know everything. Any half-knowledge is dangerous. I mean, I have a somewhat special position as his wife but otherwise that's the way it is."
"I don't wanna know any more about any of this," Roxanne said emphatically. "Nothing at all. But I just can't get that image out of my head! I was completely horrified and shocked, I basically still am. How am I supposed to ..." She broke off, however, to Gemma it was obvious to what she was getting at.
"I can't answer that for you, nor can I make that decision for you. But no matter what is or was going on between you and Tig, you gotta have to tell him something!"