New Honey in Town

by Cathryn Cade

  “First,” Shelle said quietly. “I’ve been maintaining for nearly three years—except for one lapse. For me, kleptomania means that I have be real careful out in public shopping places. Stores, grocery stores, that kind of thing. I’ve never stolen anything big, just…stupid stuff like pens, makeup, junk jewelry…that kind of thing. And I don’t steal from anyone in, uh, private. That’s not how it works for me.”

  “And you put it back,” Moke added.

  She nodded. “Yeah. I got real good at that.”

  She looked Sara in the eye, and then Stick. “So…I know you have to decide if you want someone like me around. And I respect that. You can, uh, let Moke know what you decided. And I can stay away from here if need be.”

  There was another silence, as they all waited for Stick to speak. He took his time, then tapped his fingers on the table.

  “All right. Shelle, thank you for sharing this up front. Here is what I know—my brother Moke thinks enough of you to bring you here. And we think a lot of Moke. We trust him. So we’ll assume we can trust you too, da?”

  Shelle nodded, her shoulders sagging with relief. Moke leaned in and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Proud of you, tita.”

  Sara smiled at the couple. All the Flyer old ladies had been waiting for the right woman to come along for their big, quiet Hawaiian. “And Shelle, you think you’re the only one with junk in your trunk, think again.”

  “True that,” Billie said to Shelle with a warm look “Ask Lesa and me about our dad sometime.”

  But Rocker was giving Sara a quizzical look. “’Junk in her trunk’? Sara, I don’t think that means what you think it means.”

  “Yeah, I do,” she retorted. “Skeletons in your closet, ghosts in your attic, yada yada.”

  He opened his mouth, and then closed it, his eyes twinkling like mad. “Well, my old lady has some serious junk in her trunk, an’ I like her like that, all I’m sayin’.”

  Billie blushed. The other guys roared with laughter—except for Shelle and Moke, who were smooching.

  Sara frowned at Stick, who was chuckling too. “Okay, what?”

  He winked at her. “You’ve got plenty, that’s all you need to know, blazhinka.”

  “Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll Google it.”

  “Already did.” Manda waved her phone at Sara, eyes twinkling in her pretty, freckled face. “Uh…it means you have a nice, uh, round ass.”

  Sara’s expression must have conveyed her disgust, because everyone at the table laughed again, even harder.

  She rolled her eyes at them all, and rose with dignity. “I am going to find a bottle of wine and open it. Ladies?”

  She swept away from the snickering Flyers, knowing that her old ladies would follow her. She rarely invoked her authority, but when she did, she expected to be heard.

  Wine, opener and glasses in hand, Sara, Lesa, Billie, Manda and Shelle met on the back patio, which was very pleasant with the September sun slanting in across the meadow.

  Sara had also had some sturdy evergreens brought in, along with a few big cement tubs, now full of fall grasses and a few gold and orange mums.

  Stick didn’t mind as long as she didn’t try to make it too feminine, and while some of the men snickered, she’d noted she wasn’t the only old lady who now liked to sit back here.

  Wine opened and poured, the women relaxed, and soon were chatting happily.

  Sara took a few sips and set hers aside. It didn’t taste good, for some reason.

  “So, you’re a waitress,” Lesa said to Shelle. “Where have you worked?”

  Billie giggled. “She means, can you handle rowdy bikers, cowboys and local rednecks without spilling a pitcher of beer.”

  Lesa shrugged good-naturedly. “So? We can always use good help at The Hangar.”

  “I’ve been a barmaid, bar-tended and waitressed at a big truck stop in SeaTac,” Shelle said. “And I do need a job while I finish my degree. The hours would have to work around whatever class schedule I end up with, though.”

  “We can do that,” Lesa said. “Just get me your references, okay?”

  Sara watched Shelle’s shoulders sag. “I…don’t exactly have references from my last job. See, there was this wallet.” She bit her lip. “I guess I can share now, because the guy who got me fired, and tried to kill me, is in jail now.”

  Sara’s brows went up. She’d heard an abbreviated version of the story from Stick, but this was the inside scoop, from the woman who’d gone through it. “Do tell.”

  They all listened with fascination as Shelle told them her story.

  At the end, it was quiet for a moment. Then Manda hiccupped quietly. “Wow,” she breathed. “Guess every one of us here has been through some bad shit.”

  “True that,” Billie agreed emphatically. She held out a fist to Shelle. “Sisterhood.”

  Shelle tapped her fist, then Lesa’s, and Manda’s, smiling mistily. “Thanks,” she said. “I’d love to hear all your stories, too.”

  “Oh, you’ll have time,” Sara assured her. “Since you’ll be around for a while.”

  “I just wish I coulda run away to Hawaii during my thing,” Manda said wistfully. “Summer’s here are nice, but they’re kinda short.”

  Shelle nodded. “That part was awesome. Moke’s property is so gorgeous.”

  “Too bad he has to sell it,” Lesa sighed. “I could so do with a tropical getaway.”

  Sara tapped a finger against her lips. “Hmm,” she said. “I wonder…”

  But that was a thought for another time. Right now, she heard the twins’ voices coming around the south end of the clubhouse, and Blackie’s deep ‘woof’ with them.

  She sighed. Time to get home and cook supper for her men, big and small.

  The boys burst into view, eyes wide with excitement. “Sara! Sara! Papa says we can eat supper here! He ordered Mexican food! For everyone!”

  “And this is why we love our Papa,” she said. “He has the best ideas.”

  “Wow, that’s really nice,” she heard Shelle ask Manda. “Do you guys do this a lot?”

  Manda shrugged. “Yeah, I guess it is. Around here, you just get used to kind of going with the flow, you know? And we all help out when needed too. When T and I were staying here, I cooked.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  As it turned out, Shelle was needed at The Hangar long before anyone thought she would be.

  She’d handed in her papers in Seattle, and begun the process of transferring to a college here in Spokane. Once that was started, there was nothing to do but wait.

  So, when Sylvie, The Hangar’s best waitress, took a bad fall while skating in a local roller derby, and was told she’d be on crutches for several weeks, off work indefinitely, Shelle hustled in, chose a Hangar tee-shirt and got to work.

  She liked the brewpub-restaurant right away. The place was rustic, comfortable and full of the smells of good food and good beer. Moke and T showed up to ‘support’ her during her first evening shift. Which meant they staked out a high-top in the bar where Moke could watch her work. Then they ate, drank beer, played pool and chatted with the other Flyers who came through, and many of the locals.

  Shelle paused by their table after delivering an order of pizza and beer. “Stop staring at my tits,” she ordered, narrowing her eyes at Moke.

  He set his hands on her hips and pulled her between his brawny legs. “Can’t,” he assured her regretfully. “Your tits in that tight little tee…so ono.”

  She put her hand on his chest, trying to repress a smile—which was impossible when he was looking at her like she was a big ice cream cone he wanted to lick. “You are a big pain in my ass, you know that?”

  T-Bear rumbled a dirty laugh. “Shelle, I’m surprised at you, sharing deets of your sexy times like that.”

  Moke laughed at the look on her face, and she tipped her head forward to bang her forehead on his chin. “Gah! Not what I meant.”

  “Well, when you kids are ready for that step,
you let Uncle T know, ‘cause I know where to buy lube real cheap,” T said.

  “A-and I have to get back to work,” Shelle said, her face flaming.

  “Shut up, T,” Moke ordered, and kissed her. “Later, tita.”

  She smiled at him hazily.

  “Say, Shell, you gonna get back to work or what?” T asked, grinning. “Man, good thing I came along, ‘cause you two need public supervision.”

  Shelle straightened with a snap. “I’m going. Just tell your friend here to stop kissing me.”

  “Moke, stop kissing her,” T ordered. “These people need their beer.”

  Moke winked at her. “Later?”

  She nodded and got back to work.

  It turned out working at the Hangar was on another plane from working at the Travel Center in SeaTac. For one thing, although she and Pete were still keeping a polite distance from one another, Shelle loved working with Lesa. The brunette was bubbly, funny, efficient and worked even harder than her and Pete’s employees.

  And for another, everyone in Airway Heights knew who the Devil’s Flyers were—and thus they treated the staff of the club’s brewpub with respect. Shelle could not get enough of this.

  Also, the place had an atmosphere of easy friendliness. She guessed it was a small town thing. Whatever, she liked it.

  Until it all went to hell in a hurry.

  Shelle was made aware by the other old ladies that while they—and she by virtue of being with Moke—were the elite of the women who hung around the Flyers’ clubhouse, there was another strata of women there.

  The club whores, as Sara bluntly called them. Women who liked hanging around bikers and traded sex for the privilege of doing so. Many of them, Sara explained, just came to party, then went happily on their way. But some wanted more and were willing to do whatever it took to claim one of the brothers as her own.

  Shelle found out just how true this was, in the most painful of ways.

  Saturday night was party night at the clubhouse. On a warm, sunny evening in September, this meant barbecue night.

  Thus, after her day shift at The Hangar, Moke picked her up on his bike and brought her back to the clubhouse to experience, as he put it, ‘the full Flyer monte’.

  Shelle had a blast. The back patio of the clubhouse was ringed with barbecues emitting delicious smells, and tables groaned with other foods. People talked, laughed, ate and drank while class rock spilled out into the evening air.

  She met more of Moke’s brethren, including Rav, a long, lean, broad-shouldered guy with a gleam in his eyes that made her glad she was with Moke. She also had the pleasure of meeting a couple of the prospects, Streak and Drew. She met some of the older members, Webb and Velvet, who she instantly adored, and Snake and Darlene, who looked her over with rudely open curiosity. Bouncer looked her over as well, did not bother to smile, merely grunted and went on his way. Fine with her.

  There were many strangers there that evening, including some families with little kids racing around. And the club ‘hos’ Sara had warned her about.

  One of them, a lithe brunette with breasts that could not possibly be real and nails out to there, glared at Shelle from her place at a table with Bouncer, Snake and other guys.

  “Moke,” Shelle asked, tipping her face up to his. “Is there a reason that chick is trying to use her death-ray vision on me?”

  He looked over her head and scowled. “Nope. Misti means nothing to me. And she keeps it up, her and me will have words.”

  She smiled up at him. “How about you just kiss me instead?”

  He did, with the result that Shelle forgot all about the bitchy Misti, and everyone else around them for a while.

  By eight o’clock, Shelle was a bit tipsy, as she had drunk two of Pete’s fabulous beers and done shots with Manda and Kit, a gorgeous funny old lady who was present with not one but two guys.

  Shelle wanted some alone time with her own guy. Who was plenty big enough for two guys, she thought with a snicker.

  She wound her way through the tables to Moke, and leaned over his shoulder, nipping at his ear with her lips. “You ready to take me home, kanaka?”

  He reached up and claimed her hands with one of his. “Yup. Got your purse?”

  She did not. She looked around and spied it hanging over a chair. “Got it,” she said happily.

  Moke rose, arm over her shoulders, and turned her toward the door. “’Night, everyone.”

  They were nearly to the front doors when a shriek of feminine outrage rang out. Moke turned, Shelle with him. “What the hell? Trouble this early?” he muttered.

  Snake’s woman Darlene stood in the middle of the room, shaking her right hand in mid-air. “My ring!” she shrieked, the big room going quieter as people turned to look her way. “My ring is gone—my big turquoise Snake got me in Arizona.”

  “Calm down,” someone hollered. “Everyone look around.”

  There was a general hustle, accompanied by much laughter and one drunken scuffle when two bikers knocked heads.

  “Maybe she left it in the bathroom,” Shelle said. “I could go look there.”

  “Yeah, the bathroom,” sneered a voice. Shelle turned sharply to see Misti sneering at her. Hands on hips, the shook her head. “Maybe they should look in your shit.”

  Moke stiffened. “What the fuck? Bitch, shut your filthy mouth.”

  “Yeah,” T rumbled, rising to his full height like an unhappy bear. “You don’t badmouth an old lady.”

  Darlene shoved her way through to them. She was swaying on her feet, her eyes glassy. “Lemme see her purse!” she demanded.

  “No way in hell,” Moke thundered.

  Shelle cringed under the weight of all the other people’s stares. “Moke, it’s okay.”

  She moved back to their table, and up-ended her purse. “Here, have a look.”

  Out tumbled her wallet, lipgloss, phone…and a heavy silver ring, laden with turquoise.

  “My ring!” Darlene shrieked. She dove for it, grabbing it off the table. “You thieving cunt—you took my ring.”

  She went for Shelle, but Moke moved faster, pulling Shelle behind him and blocking Darlene with a huge hand on her chest.

  “Snake!” he thundered. “Handle your woman.”

  “Fuck, it’s true,” a woman said. “Heard she was a thief. It’s true.”

  Shelle shoved clear of Moke, and faced her, her head buzzing, heart racing. “It’s true, but not this,” she called, sweeping out a hand toward Darlene. “I wouldn’t steal from one of you—I wouldn’t.”

  “Ain’t what we heard,” a man muttered. “Heard you’re one of them kleptos, takes shit every chance you get.”

  Moke moved. He stepped forward, arm around Shelle, and faced them all.

  "No,” he growled, in a deep hard voice that could be heard in every corner of the room. “Shelle's addiction doesn't work that way. She never steals from friends, and all of you here are her friends."

  He emphasized the last word in a way that several people's gazes fell, and others looked ashamed. Some others still scowled suspiciously though.

  "How do we know she didn't do it?

  “’Cause I said so,” Moke shot back. “An’ I’ll say that I happen to know a fuck’ve a lot about all of you. Know how many of you’ve done time for theft, how many for other shit. How many of you are battling addictions. And do I judge you for it? Do I?”

  Eyes fell, and heads were shaken.

  “I don’t care,” Darlene called, tossing her head. “She took my ring. An’ I don’t want her lying face around here no more.”

  “All right, that’s enough, Darlene,” called a new voice. “Shelle didn’t take the ring, and she didn’t put it in her purse. Someone else did.”

  Sara Vanko stalked through the room to them. With her were Stick's twins. “Tell everyone what you saw, boys.'

  "What could they know?" Snake demanded.

  Sara gave him, Shelle and Moke a wry look. "The boys have been practicing to
be spies. And they've heard some interesting things. Such as..." she gave both boys a gentle shove.

  "We know who took the ring," Dash said, his gruff little voice carrying through the quiet room.

  Kick nodded, and he and his brother both pointed past Shelle. "It was her."

  Everyone turned and looked to Misti, who stood frozen, like a deer in the headlights. Or a weasel, Shelle thought bitterly.

  “We saw her,” Dash added. “She took it off da floor where Dahwene dropped it. An’ then she putted it in Shewwy’s purse.”

  “Good job, boys, T-Bear boomed. “Shoulda known. Bitch has been tryin’ to get Moke for months. Couldn’t get him with blow jobs, decided to try this.”

  He leaned over and spat on the floor, an inch from Misti’s stiletto clad feet. “You’re done here, Misti. Ain’t no brother’s gonna wanna touch you with a hazmat suit—not after this.”

  “That’s for damn sure,” another man said. There was a rumble of assent.

  “Women don’t want you around either!” called Kit, hands on her hips. “So get gone.”

  “Fine, then.” The brunette tossed her head and gave them all a red-faced, hate-filled glare. “I’m leavin’. But after I’m gone—to guys who’ll appreciate me—some of you bitches better get tested. ‘Cause we all know your men can’t keep it zipped when a real woman offers to make ‘em feel good. An’ I got the herp.”

  Darlene shot a look at Snake, who avoided her gaze, scowling.

  “Euww!” Sara made a noise of revulsion. “Would someone please get her out of here? The kids do not need to hear this.”

  T-Bear made a shooing motion, and the brunette took off for the front doors. No one looked sorry to see her go, even the other club hos.

  Moke bent his head to Shelle, giving her a searching look. “You okay, tita?”

  She gave him a crooked smile, her eyes damp. “I will be. Can’t say that was much fun, though. You have any other old hookups I should watch out for?”

  He wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her close, his forehead tipped down to hers. “Not a one, tita. ‘Sides, between you, Sara and the twins, I’d say any bitches are the ones who should be watchin’ out, not you.”