Honor Road Jason Ross (any book recommendations .TXT) 📖

ass packed off to the Olympic Peninsula to cool his jets with his grandma and grandpa. That’s when Black Autumn put the smackdown on America and ruined it all.

Sage had long ago forgiven his dad for overreacting to the weed. He’d learned a lot about how the world really worked while surviving the mobs and the weather. Those days of being a rich prick with a pimped-out truck were ancient history. He missed his mom and dad so bad it made his bones ache.

Sitting on the couch with Aimee Butterton brought back the feel of home—those carefree high school years at the top of his game. She wasn’t the hottest girl he’d been with, but her green, cheerful eyes made up for a lot.

“Where’d you get this beer?” Sage asked just to make conversation. He held up his bottle of Bud.

“The Captain had them brought by yesterday.” She smiled. “Membership has its privileges.” She waved her hand at the living room, but Sage didn’t know what she meant. It seemed like an average living room in an average, rural home. Then he noticed: The Five had all disappeared.

They had been hobnobbing with Mrs. Butterton and the older daughters, but now the house had gone quiet. He heard a titter of laughter somewhere in the back of the sprawling ranch house.

They were all married men—The Five. They’d invited Sage, saying they were “dropping by the Buttertons’” to get an end-of-the-week drink. Rolling back the tape in his mind, each man had gravitated to his own young lady, almost like assigned seating. Captain Chambers drifted off with Mrs. Butterton. She’d met them at the door wearing the hell out of a pair of Levi’s and it hadn’t been long before she and the captain took their leave.

Men in power enjoyed the fruits. It’d probably been that way since mankind built a circle of huts and then asked the biggest man to stand guard. Undoubtedly, the big guy got a bigger share of lovin’.

The Five worked hard and took personal risks to keep Union County from flying off the rails. Sage had seen every one of them in physical confrontations, and he’d seen them kill men in the line of duty. It was a violent world, with dire consequences, and captain’s men were the hard line between order and chaos. They deserved the chance to cut loose every now and again.

Aimee slid over on the couch, took Sage’s beer out of his hand and set it on the glass-topped coffee table. Mr. Butterton, may he rest in peace, must’ve been a fly fisherman, because under the glass a wood-carved brook trout snapped up a blue-winged olive fly in a pretty, little diorama. Sage wondered if Mr. Butterton had carved it himself.

Aimee put her hand on his cheek and kissed him. Combined with the tang of the beer, her mouth tasted like a coconut chocolate bar. Her skin smelled like honeysuckle.

Sage’s head swam. He put his hand on her waist and gripped her soft hip. She deepened the kiss and moaned. Her tongue reached in and traced the top of his mouth, hunting farther, tasting him.

She pulled away and smiled. She had perfect teeth—still some baby fat, even in her early twenties. He reeled a bit, imagining her naked.

She leaned back and tugged his hand, drawing him on top of her on the couch. Sage resisted, and looked around. None of The Five were in the living room or kitchen. He didn’t want to cause problems. His gig with the police department was literally life-or-death for him, and Sage had flirted with death enough. The girl must’ve sensed his apprehension.

“They’re with my sisters. I’m here for you. It’s okay.”

What was the deal here? Sage almost asked her, but thought better of it.

She eased him past the silence. “We’re friends of the police department. We party a little at the end of the week. It’s okay.” Aimee pulled his hand down and set it on her ample breast. Sage let himself go but stopped in the middle of the kiss.

“Is there someplace we can go that’s not so...open?” he asked.

She laughed again, stood up, straightened her blouse over her jeans, and led him by the hand out of the living room and down a hall.

An hour later, Captain Chambers rapped on the door of the bedroom. Sage had already dressed. He and Aimee were chatting about his job with the department. She seemed fascinated with local gossip; who was being robbed, who was making trouble for the department, who was beating their wife. In a county barely over twenty-five thousand people, everyone eventually knew everyone.

“Time to get back to work,” the captain spoke through the door.

“Yes, sir.” Sage wondered if he’d done something wrong.

The Five plus Sage had driven in the same unmarked Chevy Suburban to the Buttertons. Now, Sage understood why they’d left their cruisers and personal cars at the office in La Grande. They couldn’t park five squad cars in front of the Butterton ranch house on Sunday night without generating buzz among the locals.

On the road back to La Grande, the men laughed and joked about the Butterton girls.

The night was black as asphalt. The moon wouldn’t be up for another two hours.

“I gotta tell you,” Bill Raff bragged, “That Terra—she’s a damned wildcat. Nothing like a young girl to get an old soldier like me upright and standing at attention. I mean, she gets turned on faster than a light switch. She’s slicker too, right from the first. Zero foreplay. Right to business. More time for more that way, she says.”

The men in the Suburban laughed and Sage laughed with them. Truth was, he’d felt awkward with Aimee. It was far from his first time. He’d lost count of how many by sixteen, but the setup at the Buttertons made him jumpy.

Other than laughing along with their stories of sexual conquest, Sage remained silent. He’d never been in the military, or even worked in a crew of rough men.