Capturing Dreams : DreamCatcher MC Read online

  A couple of hours later, I force myself to go back to my room. The girl from the day before is behind the counter. “I think I’ll take the job, I’ll bring down my application in the morning and drop it off to you. This town is growing on me,” I smile at her.

  “Yay!” She claps her hands together in excitement, saying, “I can’t wait, I’ll take you out on the town when I have some free time. We’ll have a blast!”

  Her elation is catchy because I find myself getting energized alongside of her. I miss Charlee something fierce. Even though it’s only been a few short days without her, it couldn’t help to make a new friend. Right?

  Gunner

  “I want her found! I want to know where she is, and I want this done yesterday!” I scream out at my brothers. How hard can it be to find one woman, for fuck’s sake? “Get out and do your jobs!” Once everyone is out of my office, I sit back in my chair and sigh in frustration. I can’t believe that I lost Cameron because of that stupid hoe. I should rip her head off and spit down her neck, I’m not sure if it was her intention to start trouble between the two of us purposely or not, but if I find out it was, she’ll regret the day she ever stepped foot inside my clubhouse.

  I pick up the phone and dial my Pops. “Son, what can I do for you today?”

  “How’d you know it was me, Pops?”

  “Since I just got off the phone with your sister, I figured you’d be the next to call.” Sounds rational, but how funny would it have been if someone else had been on the other side of the line other than me?

  “She left, Pops. She just left without giving me the chance to explain what it is she saw.”

  “Well, she’s been let down by all the men in her life, Son. It’s understandable that she jumped the gun some. Have you checked with Jamie or her parents?”

  “I’m scared that if I do, and they don’t even know that she’s missing, they may start searching for her. I can’t let them get their hands on her before I have her safe. I don’t trust either one of those fuckheads.”

  “Have one of your men follow them and see if she’s spotted with them. At least look for signs of things they’re doing that look off-putting, if you know what I mean?”

  “Thought about that, but I’m worried they’ll see us spying on them and figure out for themselves that she’s gone.”

  “Then pick someone who won’t be spotted, you’ve got some good men, use them, and let them do what they’ve been trained for.”

  “Yeah, I’ll ask Kruger, he’s the best man for being inconspicuous.”

  “I’d have Country help him, that boy is sneaky as fuck,” Pops laughs.

  “That he is, I’ll call them in, and give them the assignment. Thanks, Pops, if I need you…”

  “Then call me, I’ve got a couple men I can spare.”

  “Thanks, Pops.”

  “I’m here for you always,” he replies before he disconnects the call.

  “Love you, Pops,” I say to the dead air. I get up, and walk out into the main room, and spot Kruger and Country at the bar.

  “Need you two in my office,” I state, grabbing a beer and walking back out.

  “What’s up, Gun?” Kruger asks as he and Country come in behind me and sit in the chairs in front of my desk.

  “Need the two of you to follow Cameron’s parents, and Jamie, find out if she’s with them.”

  “Saw Jamie the other day,” Country starts, “he was walking out of Cam’s parents’ home.” Why doesn’t it surprise me that even after everything that punk has done to their daughter they’re still supporting him and allowing him into their home?

  “We definitely need to check them out, I’ll take the parents, and Country can take Jamie boy,” Kruger informs me. Kruger hates Cam’s parents ever since Country caught her father rough handling her. He’s a firm believer that a man shouldn’t take his anger out on his woman or children. Unless they’ve crossed the club that is, then all bets are off and he’d be the first one in line to take out a bitch.

  “Sounds like a plan, I want to know what they’re doing at all times, I don’t care if you take notes or have to stop at a payphone and call me every fifteen minutes. I don’t trust them, and if they have her, we need to move on that.” I can’t let them do to her what they’ve threatened to do time and time again. If they think they can force my woman to marry Jamie, they’ve got another thing coming. I will see them sunny side up before that is ever allowed to happen.

  “You got it, Prez.” They walk out of the room, but I have a feeling she’s not with them. However, if they’re up to something shady, I will end them. I just need a really good reason to do so, because they’ll be missed by others and I can’t justify that type of blowback on the club unless I have solid proof.

  Shamus walks into the office and stands there waiting on me to notice him. “What’s up, man?”

  “We’ve got that gun run that still needs to be delivered. We don’t keep this promise, we’re going to have issues, they aren’t an enemy we need to make.” I rub my head because it’s too fucking much.

  “Take Malice, Bull, Bear, and Romeo then hit the road. We can’t let our reputation get flawed because of my personal issues. Get there, drop the goods, and get paid, then come right back. No messing around, no stopping for a beer, come straight home. I need y’all here.”

  “You got it, Gun,” he says walking out of the room.

  It’s times like these that I wish my father hadn’t gone back to his family and stayed the President here instead of passing it down to me. I want to be the one on the streets searching for my woman. I need to set things right with her and make her understand that I didn’t ‘cheat’ on her. We may not have technically been together, but we had a night together, one night, the best night of my life.

  2

  Cameron

  It’s been six weeks since I pulled into the motel. I got the job and one of the amenities is to get a free room as part of my pay. Thank goodness I got a job working behind the counter instead of maid services. I’ve always sucked at and hated cleaning, and I know I would’ve been fired by now if that’s what I had been hired for. I get off work in another hour, and Stella and I, the girl I first met here, are heading to the next town over to the honky tonk bar. They’re having karaoke, I don’t have the best of voices, but I love to sing. I could care less about impressing anyone, I’m going to be there with my girl to have a good time. Nothing more, nothing less.

  “I brought my clothes, so I can change in your room,” Stella says, coming up behind me and scaring the shit out of me. I grab my chest with my hand and take a deep breath through my nose and then exhaling.

  “Do not sneak up on me, it’s rude,” I say, with my hand held steadily over my chest. “You could give a girl a heart attack that way.”

  “You were lost in thought, I was not being quiet. As a matter of fact, I stumbled over the chair over there and it scraped against the floor. I hollered out because I stubbed my damn toe.”

  “Well, call out louder next time, because you weren’t loud enough.”

  She rolls her eyes, then continues, “So, is it cool that I get ready with you?”

  “I have no issues with that, as a matter of fact, it sounds like fun,” I reply. Charlee and I used to do that all the time. We’d sit in her room for hours doing hair and makeup before going out. She walks away so that we can finish up the day’s activities and have it ready for the night staff. We switch out nights and days with another two employees, and it’s worked for us so far.

  As I wrap up, Stella comes up to me and is ready to go. We walk to my room and my thoughts stray to my best-friend. I miss her terribly, but I’m still not ready to make that call and let her know where I am. She has a close relationship with Gunner and I’m sure that she wouldn’t keep that information to herself. It takes an hour for us both to get cleaned up and dressed. We hit the town and we take her car, since she knows the area better than I do.

  When we walk in, the smell hits me and mak
es me instantly sick. “Oh, my God, what is that smell?” I ask, clamping my nose shut with my fingers.

  “It’s their grill,” she responds. I place my other hand on my stomach and try to breathe in and out through my mouth.

  “Whatever they’re cooking is messing with me,” I inform her.

  “Didn’t you get sick yesterday?”

  “Yeah, maybe I’m coming down with a stomach virus, just my luck.”

  “Should we leave?”

  “Nah, let’s give it a few minutes and see if my tummy settles some,” I am steadily breathing in and out of my mouth. “I’m going to see if they have some ginger ale, that always seems to help.”

  “I’ll get you some if you wanna grab a table.” She walks away, and I find a table with a couple of chairs that are by the dance floor. I head that way and notice that the further away I get from the kitchen, the more the nausea eases. I turn in my seat and watch everyone up on stage having the time of their lives. My stomach is still turning a little bit, and I pray that it settles down. I am not a nice sick person. I’m needy, I’m a little overdramatic, and I hate worshiping the porcelain toilet more than anything else in the world.

  “Here’s your ginger ale, I also got some dry toast from the kitchen, hopefully these two things combined will help make you feel better.”

  I stare at the toast as if it’s going to get up and crawl away. Dry toast, uck! Sucking it up, I pick up one of the pieces and begin nibbling on it. I sip my ginger ale between bites, but I’m still feeling the same. I keep drinking and eating and breathing deeply in and out of my nose. The smells aren’t as bad as they initially were, but the air is full of body sweat, the odor of liquor is strong, and I swear someone walks past me and reeks of cigarette smoke. Usually the smell doesn’t bother me because most of the club members smoke and I’ve grown up around the smell. For some reason today, it’s more potent and my senses don’t appreciate it.

  “You okay, Cameron? You look a little green there,” she asks, raising her brows in concern.

  “I’ll be fine, just no drinking for this woman,” I say, pointing to myself.

  “Nothing says we can’t have fun without the influence of alcohol. We’ll just chill here for a bit, and if you’re not feeling better soon, we’ll go ahead and head out of here. Since I’m staying with you tonight in your room, we can make an early night of it and watch some movies and chill on the bed.”

  “That sounds like the best plan I’ve heard all evening, I’m so sorry I’ve ruined our girl’s night out,” I profess to her.

  “So,” she counters, shrugging her shoulders, “we’ll just turn it into a girl’s night in, it could be more fun than having to shout over everyone to be able to hear what each other is saying.” She’s not lying, the noise volume has increased extensively since we walked through the doors.

  “Let’s finish our drinks then we’ll go ahead and head on out of here,” I inform her, picking up my glass and taking a big gulp.

  “We’ll pick up some saltines and a pregnancy test from the twenty-four-hour pharmacy on our way back to the motel.” I spit my ginger ale out of my mouth and it lands right in her face.

  “Say what? Why? Are you pregnant?” I ask her. Because honestly, I had no clue she could be expecting. “Why the hell are you drinking if you could be pregnant?” I question her.

  “Not me!” she shouts, and I can hear her above the music clearly, “you,” she points in my direction.

  “Me? Hell no!” I exclaim. The horror of the thought filters through my mind. Couldn’t be, could it? Surely not, I was more careful than that.

  “Uh, yeah think about it.” She places up her finger and begins ticking things off, “smells get to you, you’re nauseous all the time, pee every five minutes.” When she goes to hold up a fourth finger, I reach over and stop her.

  “I get it, pharmacy it is.”

  “Good, we need saltines and ginger ale, it helped my cousin when she was preggers.”

  Is this what my life is going to boil down to? Oh Lordy, I’m gonna be a single mom, because there’s no way in fuck I can go crawling back to Gunner. Not now, no way.

  “I can’t look, what’s it saying?” I demand, pushing the plastic stick I just peed on in her face.

  She scrunches up her nose then grabs the toilet paper from the roller and grabs it from me. “It says,” she stalls.

  “Spit it out already!”

  “Okay, okay, chill,” Stella grouches my way. “You’re a mean pregnant woman I see, good to know now.”

  “It says yes!” I all but screech out.

  “Umm, yes?” she hesitates.

  “Fucking hell, my life is over,” I moan in dread. How could I have been so stupid? Lost in lust for the man I’ve wanted all of my life. I let my lady bits be in control. I should’ve known he’d never change his ways. Promises are bullshit excuses men make to get into your pants. This is a very expensive lesson learned. One I can’t take back, but need to learn to live with. “What am I going to do, Stella?” I break down into sobs. “I can’t afford this baby; how can I give it everything it deserves when I live out of a motel?”

  “You give that baby all the love you hold in your heart. Material things don’t matter at the end of the day, Cameron. I never had the newest inventions or the up-to-date clothes, but I lived in a house full of love. We had movie nights once a week, and I always knew at the end of each day, I’d be sitting across from my family to eat dinner. It may not have been much, but it’s all I needed and the fondness I look back at those times with, is one money could never replace.”

  “Love?” it’s a foreign concept to me. Yes, I’ve loved someone…twice, but they didn’t return that gift. And Charlee is the only other one that I could use that particular word with. But even she found her knight and never looked back. Charlee and Country are amazing and always made me feel like part of the family, but the reality was…I wasn’t. Facts are facts, I was the third wheel in that scenario. Now, I’m going to have my own family to worry about. Can you teach someone about something you’ve never really known?

  Gunner

  “Boss, we’ve got a problem,” Kruger says as he and Country walk into my office.

  “What’s up?” I ask them. They give each other a look of ‘who’s gonna tell him’ that has my hackles rising. “Speak now!” I all but command.

  Country lets out a sigh and leans forward in his seat. “There’s no easy way to say this. There’s been a bounty put out on Cameron’s head.”

  “What!” I snarl, standing up and throwing the first thing I see on my desk. The glass tumbler hits the wall and shatters into a million small fragments, reminding me of my heart. “Explain.”

  “One mil if she’s brought in alive.”

  “And if not…” I let hang in the air.

  “Three mil dead.”

  “Who? Who the fuck do I kill to end this contract?”

  “It’s non-wavering,” Country mumbles.

  “Meaning?”

  “Even if the holdee dies, the contract still pays out.”

  “So, she’ll never be safe?”

  “No, boss, regardless of the circumstances, she’ll always have a price on her head.”

  “Motherfucker,” I fall back into my seat. Stunned, who would wanna hurt her? She doesn’t have any enemies to my knowledge.

  “Boss?”

  “What?” I quip.

  “It’s her father and Jamie. They’re both on the contract.”

  “Then they’re both dead,” I declare.

  “That’s what we thought you’d say. I have to tell Charlee,” Country declares. “If Cameron contacts her, she needs to know how much danger she’s in. She has to come home.”

  “Oh, she’s coming home. Even if I have to bring her back kicking and screaming and lock her ass to my bed. She’ll be home.”

  “Put five mil up on each one of them.”

  “Club finances?” Kruger asks.

  “No, this is personal. I’ll fron
t the money. Put it out today. Dead or alive, same price.” Now, to call my pops, he needs to release my inheritance a tad bit early.

  I pick up the phone once my office empties and dial the number one on my speedial list. “Pops,” I say as soon as I hear the phone connect.

  “Son? What is it? You don’t sound like yourself.”

  “I’m not, it’s bad. I need a favor.”

  “Anything, Son, name it.”

  “I need you to release my money. Please, it’s crucial this is done quickly.”

  “How quickly and why?” I dread telling him this, because Cameron is like a daughter to him and he’s going to pop his top and want to oversee everything personally.

  “It’s Cam. Her father and Jamie have put a price on her head.”

  “What! How much and I want all the details, Gunner.” Gunner, not Son, that tells me he’s pissed. Beyond pissed if he’s pulling out names. I run my hand through my hair as I lay everything out in the open that I know of. I also inform him that I’ve put a price on their heads.

  “Killing them won’t make her safe.”

  “I know, Pops, but justice needs to be served. I want them dead so that maybe I have a chance of fixing this. With them alive and breathing, that’s next to impossible.”

  “I’ll wire transfer the five mil to your account, Gunner. The rest you’ll receive next year on your birthday as planned. If you can’t get this resolved, I will.”

  “Understood, Pops. But how can we get rid of this hanging over us? It still gets paid out regardless.”