Ridge: Great Wolves Motorcycle Romance

by Blue, Jayne

  The rest of the club followed me.

  The flames caught fast. It would take mere minutes to be destroyed. I suspected this address was also a low priority for the fire department. We were doing them a favor. One less dilapidated house to worry about. I had zero fear that it was going to cause one bit of damage to anything but the guns and drugs and evil history of this club that was stuck in the past.

  The flames rocketed from foundation to roof, and soon they were all you could see.

  “Welcome to the new Great Wolves, Chicago Chapter. Get home now. You didn’t see who started this fire. And be ready to meet tomorrow. We’ve got fucking work to do. Also, don’t sleep too lightly, your old buddy Crank won’t.”

  I walked to my bike and let that sit there.

  I’d come to burn down the Great Wolves. Destruction was the easy part, I knew. The real job was in helping this club rise from the ashes.

  Six

  Frankie

  “They’ve busted my front window three times this year.”

  Bob Novak, who owned the barbershop, explained that he had since decided to stop replacing them with glass and now sported plywood instead.

  “You’re ply-wood looks terrible and it’s keeping people away from our block. They need to get to my laundromat.”

  Joe Jefferson had a point.

  “Yeah, well, they keep breaking the window, and I’m not paying for another one.”

  “I agree with Joe, you have to; it makes us all look bad,” said Anne Zbornak, who owned the local salon.

  “Okay, Anne, why don’t you just shake the money tree and make that happen,” said Bob and he crossed his arms over his chest and angled away from Anne. There were a dozen people here. They’d all been a victim of a crime or several, and none of them were getting along.

  “Did you all hear what happened to my Frankie today?” Dziadzia had a booming voice and it was a done deal that everyone was about to hear about what happened to me.

  “She was mugged!”

  Everyone gasped and turned to see if I was okay. I was okay.

  “I fought him off, and there was a—um—a Good Samaritan so I didn’t lose the deposit. It all worked out.”

  “Good Samaritan, more like Hunk Samaritan.”

  Char was there, representing the bank.

  “Hunk?” Anne asked as I put my head in my hands. This was not the direction I wanted this meeting to go.

  “I’m fine, and yes, a biker from out of town—supposed to be cleaning up the Great Wolves or something—anyway, he helped run off Danny Doyle.

  “That one grew up to be a real shit, didn’t he?” Joe Jefferson added. He’d changed his name to Jefferson after the show, because he figured it would help him advertise his dry-cleaning business. I have no idea if it did or why CBS didn’t sue him, but there it was. I’d heard his actual name was Joe Atkinson, but it had been Jefferson as long as I could remember.

  “Look, so, we need to have a police officer to advise us. I looked it up on the neighbor watch website, so Officer Hayden Parker is here. The precinct sent him to show us what we need to do.”

  Hayden Parker looked straight out of central casting for a 1950s police show. He was blonde, had a crew cut, and not a wrinkle on his uniform or a slouch in his step. He was pressed from head to toe and looked like he’d probably done a few bench presses as well.

  A fact Char decided to pick up on right away.

  “You’re new, we haven’t seen you around here.” She was laying it on thick.

  “I graduated the academy last year and just got assigned to the area,” he said, with no trace of a clue that Char was doing a drive by on his person.

  “Thank you for inviting me, Mrs. Kaminski.”

  “Miss! She’s a miss!” That was my Dziadzia this time, booming my marital status so the police would be all clear.

  “Dziadzia!” I tried to shush him.

  “What, you are a Miss, not a Mrs.”

  “Go on, Officer Parker.” If he was annoyed by the circus tent atmosphere of our meeting, he didn’t let on.

  “The studies show that the larger area you cover, or include in your watch group, the better and safer you’ll be.”

  “Let Back of the Yards fend for themselves,” Bob Novak interrupted.

  “I was thinking we’d cover as much of Stickney Forest as we could?”

  I walked up to Officer Parker and put a map on the table near him.

  “Oh, sure, yes. That will be fine.”

  “The adjacent neighborhoods have watches. I called them and got info on how they do it.”

  “That’s smart,” Parker said, and he smiled. He was a handsome one when he smiled, no doubt.

  “Thank you.” I swear, today was my day to blush like I was twelve.

  “So, communication is key. If you patrol, we need to be made aware.”

  “Are we going to get guns? I think we need guns,” Anne suggested.

  “Ma’am, neighborhood watch groups are not vigilantes. We don’t want you to do anything to put your person at risk. That’s also why members need a clear schedule of patrol times.”

  “Living here puts my person at risk,” Anne said.

  “Your goal should be open eyes and open communication.”

  “What about that boarded up eye soar of his?” Joe chimed back in to bring up his pet peeve.

  “You can make a complaint to the city on that,” Officer Parker said, trying to keep up with the rapid-fire random requests flying through the meeting.

  “Look, let’s focus okay?” I stood up and got the sheet I’d prepared out and held it up.

  “I’ve got a schedule here of nights so we can all take turns. It’s a whole month. And you only have to do it once a month, if we split it up. I signed up for two already, so we can all just pitch in when it works for us.”

  “And statistics show that, if you keep weeds pulled—and yes, windows repaired—and generally keep the area tidy, criminals are deterred.”

  “Great, tell that to the rage gang that’s steeling our shit! Tell them, ‘No, we’re tidy now, so move along.’” Bob Novak wasn’t going to drink the neighborhood watch Kool Aid.

  “That is going to go back to communication. You report what you see, and we’ll get out here as fast as we can.”

  “Right, sure. Sounds like it’s going to work like a charm. Great idea, Frankie.”

  “Shut up, Bob. Oh, and Frankie, do you think we could talk about you catering my Sofie’s reception next month? Your kolaczki are so good!” Anne was eating up the cookies that Lamont had suggested. Boom! Maye a future customer had been born!

  “Sure, we’ll talk later this week.”

  I gave a sheepish look to Officer Parker.

  “Any questions?” he said, and a million hands went up with a million neighborhood issues.

  An hour later, I had several people signed up to patrol, some to help me weed, and the date of Anne Zbornak’s daughter’s nuptials. We’d also had a chat about plans for the Polish Festival. If we could keep the crime down in the run up to the festival, maybe, just maybe, people would show up. Officer Parker answered requests for increased patrols that day too, but I knew, by the way he begged off, that he wasn’t the one who decided how many cops covered a neighborhood. He was here because he’d drawn the short straw no doubt.

  I had to practically drag Officer Parker from the claws of the neighborhood, or he’d never have got out of there.

  “I’m sure Officer Parker has to get back to the station. Now that we know him, we can call and stuff, when we have issues, right?” I said and Parker looked a bit green.

  I ushered him from Kaminski’s Banquet Hall and toward the door. I practically had to slam the door on Bob Novak as he continued to outline his personal list of grievances.

  “Thank you for that, Miss Kaminski. I am not sure I can help with all the issues, but I’ve got a good list here to try.”

  “It’s Frankie, and you did fine. It’s a rough crowd.”

  �
��Take my card. I didn’t give it to the rest of the group, but since you’re the Watch Captain, you should have it. It has my cell.”

  He handed me card. I didn’t realize I’d been appointed Watch Captain. Ugh, okay sure, I was Watch Captain.

  “I promise not to abuse the privilege,” I said, and it was true. I swear Anne would call him to help her take the garbage out.

  “No, you should call me whenever you want. Day or night.”

  My face got a little hot at that.

  “Thank you again.”

  “And be careful, you’re very pretty, I mean tiny, and someone might try to take advantage of that.”

  “I’m tougher than I look. I’ve been wrangling Dziadzia since I was five.”

  He laughed and we said our goodbyes.

  All in all, it was a good, if chaotic, first step in taking back our neighborhood. I felt good that I’d organized it. And I was filled with hope that we could come together. I wasn’t the only one who gave their all to Stickney Forest. So many people did, and yet we were being bullied by the few.

  Maybe this would work?

  I locked up the banquet hall and then checked in on the bar. We weren’t some sort of two a.m. club: by ten we were wrapping things up. By eleven it was lights out. This wasn’t always the way, but it had to be these days.

  “We good?”

  Kevin was cashing out, Lamont was breaking down the kitchen, and Terry was just about ready to clock out.

  “Lunch tomorrow?” I asked her.

  “Yeah, yeah. You better hire someone else, especially if that busboy keeps skipping out.”

  “Yep, I’m on it.”

  Kevin handed me the deposit bag.

  “How’d the meeting go?”

  “Good, I think.”

  “See you tomorrow, Frankie.”

  Closing duties completed, everyone filed out, and headed home. I was home.

  I was alone in the bar. It was quiet, the first quiet of my long day.

  I looked over the receipts. it was abysmal.

  “Ugh.” I walked over to the door to lock up and was blasted backward to the ground. Before I could even process what had happened, a man was on top of me. Dammit, I should have locked up the second Kevin walked out instead waiting.

  “Give me the fucking bag!” Crank, formerly Erin Grabowski, was on top of me, straddling me. I didn’t know him, but I knew of him, and I knew he was a complete and total shit. I struggled on the floor and he loomed over me.

  “Crank, you’ll put us out of business.”

  “I like you like this, right underneath me.”

  Crank was my older sister Connie’s age. I knew he’d not always been so mean. But he’d done a stint in County, and came out like this, ready to walk all over us, steal from us.

  “In your dreams.”

  “Yeah, seems pretty real to me.” He leaned down and breathed into my neck with his cigarette breath. “Now, give me what you should have given Danny. And maybe a little more, honey.”

  I turned my head to try to get away from his lips.

  And then I heard a crack, and he wasn’t on top of me anymore. He was sliding across the bar floor.

  “Don’t you fucking touch her.”

  Shit, it was Ridge. How’d he get in here? Then I remembered, Dzia had given him a key. He lived here.

  “You’re the Prez now so you want this piece of ass as part of the benefits package? Good luck she’s—”

  And Ridge was across the room faster than I would have guessed a big man could move. He landed another punch, and then another.

  Part of me wanted him to kill Crank, but then I realized I did not want a man beat to death in my bar.

  “Hey, hey!” Ridge was beyond hearing me, or anything, I suspected.

  “You stay the fuck away from her, and this bar, and this neighborhood!” Ridge said as he unleashed his rage on Crank.

  “Stop! Ridge! I’m okay.”

  Ridge heard me, thank God, and looked up.

  “I’m okay, let him up,” I said, and Ridge looked down to Crank’s bloody face.

  “You’re a fucking animal, and they sent YOU to clean up? What a fucking joke.”

  Crank got his bearings somehow and I helped him up. He shrugged me off. The guy could take a punch; I was surprised he wasn’t dead.

  “Go,” I said to Crank and because he was obviously the stupidest asshole on the planet, he flipped his middle finger at Ridge as he walked by. When he was safely at the door he yelled, “This ain’t over!”

  Ridge ignored both provocations and seemed to be doing some sort of breathing exercise.

  “Jesus, let me get you something for your hands.”

  “Why? What?”

  “You split your knuckles open, I think.”

  “That’s his blood,” Ridge said. I would say most men acted tough. This was no act.

  “So, I’ll get a towel.”

  I walked to the door, bolted it this time, and then headed back to the bar.

  “Take a seat,” I ordered. Ridge was still in a different world, a scary world, a world where he could—or already had—killed people with his bare hands.

  I should have feared him, after what had happened, but I didn’t. I knew, without a doubt, that he’d charged in for me. Somehow, I’d acquired the protection of a pit bull in leather.

  We always kept a stack of clean bar towels on a shelf. Kevin better have put new ones in there, because I needed them. Boom, yes, I grabbed one. I put some soap and water on the towel and came back around to Ridge.

  “Let me see,” I said, and he put his hands out. They were huge, tanned, rough, and twice the size of mine.

  I dabbed the blood and found that he was right; he wasn’t cut, not even a scrape. He’d done this before, if I needed any more proof.

  I wiped away the blood as he sat for a moment. It felt like he was wrestling with something. I didn’t ask what. Maybe this was his process to go from rage to Ridge.

  I was quiet. I focused on getting Crank’s blood from his fists. He let me.

  I put his hand in mine and turned it over, slowly, to be sure. Ridge was sitting on the stool and I was standing. It was the only way I could accomplish eye to eye with this man.

  Finally, he slowly lifted his head and his eyes locked on mine. He scanned my face. I swallowed hard; I could almost feel his gaze.

  I let go of his hand. It felt so intimate between us all of a sudden.

  Ridge was back, in the present, with me. And the energy between us was charged with something new. He was pulling me toward him without touching me. Something in him made me want to be closer. And then he was touching me.

  Our lips met and there was another change between us. Like we were shifting into new gears with every touch. Some new chemical in my body fizzed to life. It had needed this man’s exact cells to catalyze.

  Ridge was still sitting, and he pulled me forward, into his strong arms. The feel of my body against his put me out of my head.

  My lips parted and I felt his tongue flick against mine. I responded. His hands roamed up and down my back. There was no awkwardness or feeling I shouldn’t be doing this. It was the opposite; it was the only thing I should be doing, the only thing I wanted to do.

  I wrapped my hands around his neck. He slid closer to me, and then got off the stool and stood up. I was lifted off the ground, like it was nothing, like I was air. His hands were under my ass, holding me up, pulling me close.

  I wasn’t thinking. Only feeling. I was powerfully attracted to Ridge. I wanted this biker to strip me naked, take me here, now, on the bar.

  I was about to have my way with a man I’d met just this morning, a biker, a stranger really.

  Something in my head started to pull the breaks, maybe the remnants of the Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, wagging their fingers, or maybe it was the fact he was a gang banger, no different than the two that had attacked me today. Two bikers literally accosted me today and here I was making out with a third? No,
this was insane.

  What was I even doing? They all had the same Great Wolves jacket and I was about to throw caution to the wind with the one I’d decided was handsome? No, this was not rational.

  I had more sense than this. At least I thought I did. I pulled back and wriggled from him. I steadied myself at the bar.

  “Ridge, you, uh…I—this is not the kind of person I am.”

  “What kind of person?” he said, and his gaze was wolf like.

  I wondered how disheveled I was. I looked down: pretty damn disheveled. The blouse I’d worn to look more professional at the neighborhood watch meeting had popped the top button. The tops of my breasts were exposed and looking very sex kitten and not at all professional businesswoman. Jesus, this was seconds away from being a big mistake. I took another step back.

  “I’m not the kind of person who makes out with strangers, or near strangers.”

  “You started it,” he said, and I was about ready to charge toward him and slap him. Except, he was kind of right. I’d acted all Florence Nightingale and then it turned sideways into the hottest kiss of my life.

  “No need to be rude,” I said and worked on buttoning the top button, my hands shaking. Could he see that my hands were shaking?

  “It was a fucking great kiss, you’re good at it,” Ridge said.

  Where I was flustered, he was like the wolf on his jacket. He was hungry and focused on me. And it made the non-rational parts of my body want to run back into his arms for more.

  But no, no. This was all wrong. He was a gang banger, sure, a handsome one who helped me today, but he was a Great Wolf and they were nothing but trouble around here.

  “You’re great at it.”

  Shit, did I just say that?

  “You need to go,” I said right after my stupid blurt.

  “Sure, I’ll be next door I think it is, or is it across the hall, if you need me.”

  Ridge walked over to the bar door and I thought he was leaving. Maybe I was getting a break, but why did he say he’d be next door?

  Damn, he was just over there to test the lock. Was I locked in with a man who I should have locked out?

  He turned and walked back into the bar, past me, to the stairs that led upstairs to the two apartments.