by Cathryn Cade
“Come on in,” Mac told Rae, holding out his hand to her in front of the open clubhouse doors. “I smell barbecue, and there’ll be Hangar beer on tap. We’ll eat, socialize, have some drinks with friends.”
He gave her hand a squeeze as if he recognized her trepidation. Rae tossed back her hair and smiled at him. “Lead the way, biker man.”
As they walked inside, RaeAnn was doubly glad that she’d met so many of the Flyers and their women already. Because the place was full of people! A few couples were dancing in a cleared area by the pool tables. Others were seated with drinks in their hands.
Two older women walked through the crowd with covered dishes in their hands, headed out open doors to the back where Rae could see grills smoking.
She tugged on Mac’s hand. “I should have brought food,” she told him. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She’d assumed the food was catered or some such.
He shook his head at her, grinning. “There’ll be more food than we can eat, mama. This is your first party, so don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of other chances, believe me.”
Rae still felt they’d broken the unspoken rule—if one came to a potluck, one brought food. But, nothing she could do about it now.
They made their way through the crowd, and RaeAnn kept her smile on her face despite the many gazes trained on her. Mac introduced her to people she didn’t know, and they said hello to those she did.
She received smiles from the men, hugs from the women she knew, and some she didn’t, along with copious compliments on her hair, her necklace, etc.
“Ha! You give that Cooler hell, you hear me?” a thin, middle-aged brunette instructed her. “He needs a tough gal to keep him in hand.”
Rae laughed, and luckily, it seemed that was all that was needed.
“Who was that?” she asked Mac.
He shook his head. “Darlene, Snake’s old lady. Her life with him ain’t been easy.”
They stopped at the bar for glasses of cold, foaming beer, Mac’s light and RaeAnn’s amber. It was delicious, and she drank hers maybe a little faster than usual.
“You like my beer?” a tall, broad-shouldered blond Flyer demanded from behind the bar. Rae blinked, thinking for one crazed moment that one of the Hemsworth brothers had stopped in.
“Uh, your beer? I love it.” He smiled. “Good. Have another. I’m Pete, Lesa’s man.”
Okay. That explained Lesa’s big belly. Rae was fairly certain this man could impregnate women with one smoldering look.
Mac had moved on a little ways, but he turned and held out his arm for her, and she went to him. He gave her a proud smile and introduced her to yet another biker.
“Stick and Sara aren’t here,” he said, looking disappointed. “Wanted to introduce you to them. She must be feeling under the weather. She’s about to pop twins.”
They sat with Moke and Shelle and a large, muscular biker that Moke introduced as Heavy.
Heavy had extremely short brown hair, a tough, square face, and beautiful eyes. And since he wore a sleeveless tank under his cut, RaeAnn had to force her gaze away from his biceps, which were simply amazing.
He nodded to Rae. “Nice to meet you. You and your son settled out here now?”
“Oh,” she said. “You were at my house, when those Boyz showed up.”
“I was.” He grinned, looking much younger as he did so. Good lord, he had a dimple in one taut cheek. The younger women in Airway Heights best watch out with this one. He was like Mac, not the most classically handsome, but hot.
“Heavy just moved over from Seattle area,” Mac told her. “Gonna open a gym, that right?”
The younger biker nodded, a look of determination on his square face. “I am. Working on financing now.”
“Gonna be great,” Moke said in his deep, soft voice. “We don’t have much variety in our weight setup here.”
He and Heavy discussed equipment, and Rae concentrated on her food. They ate barbecued ribs, corn on the cob, and other delicious dishes from a long buffet set up outside on the back patio.
When they were finished eating and their table tidied, Rae went to find the women’s restroom. It was surprisingly nice, with an arrangement of fat gold candles and a bouquet of sunflowers on the vanity between the sinks. It was also very clean.
She used the toilet, fixed her lipstick, and went back out to the party.
As she reached the open back doors of the clubhouse, she heard Mac laughing outside. She smiled to herself. He was having a good time here with his friends. And he’d shown his pride in her as he introduced her as Connor’s mama.
Then she heard a woman’s voice, familiar, but she couldn’t place the owner. "Got to hand it to you, Cooler. You are going all out. Your baby mama won't know what hit her until it's too late."
"Don't know what you're talking about," Cooler returned, his voice smooth as honey.
The woman snorted. "Ri-ight. You are so full of shit. You're going all out, after her. She may not notice it, but I sure have."
Cooler laughed. "Hell, yeah, I'm going all out. Objective in sight, and I'm going full bore." He made one of those sound effects that males are born able to do, that sounded like a big shell screaming through the air and then exploding on impact.
"I have no doubt you'll get her. You being you, and her in your house, she doesn't have a chance." The woman said.
The two of them laughed again.
Something inside RaeAnn cracked, with such pain that she gasped and pressed a hand to her chest.
That's all she was to him? A challenge to be overcome. Just to prove that he could have her if he wanted to?
Fists clenched at her side, she turned and marched back into the clubhouse.
Oh no, he did not.
If Mac Carson thought she was going to be another pair of trophy panties on his bedpost, he could just think again.
Ignoring the surprised looks of the other old ladies, and more than one of the brothers, she headed straight to the front door and out of the clubhouse.
The parking lot was, thankfully, deserted.
She pulled her phone out of her purse and clicked on the app for a popular ride-share service. Her call was answered almost immediately, and the driver assured her he would be there in minutes.
The faster the better, as far as she was concerned.
CHAPTER FIFTY
"Hey, Cooler?" Rav stepped out of the clubhouse onto the patio, where Cooler stood with Rav's old lady Della.
The tall Southerner slung his arm around his woman. "Hey baby. Cooler, brother, what the hell’d you do now?”
“Huh?” Cooler shook his head quizzically.
“RaeAnn just took off out of the clubhouse,” Rav said. “Like she was running from a swarm of mad hornets."
"What?" Cooler stiffened and stepped into the open doorway where he could see the clubhouse main room and its occupants. He scanned it but did not see RaeAnn's familiar blonde head of long waves amongst the rowdy occupants. "Where the hell did she get to?"
"I don't know," Rav said. "But if I was you, I'd waste no time getting after her."
"Go!" Della urged him. "Oh, shit. What if she heard us and..."
Cooler did not hear the rest of what she might have to say. He was already on the move, jogging through the main clubroom, ignoring the jeers and comments that followed him about chasing his woman already.
He slammed open the front doors and outside, scanned the parking lot.
He was just in time to see Rae climbing into an all-too-familiar white utility van.
Fuck him, that was Creepy Dave.
Cooler ran for his pickup, parked in the middle of the lot, leapt inside, turned the key in the engine, and was accelerating out of the parking lot almost before he had his door closed.
He followed the white van from the parking lot and along the road, not bothering to keep his distance, but letting the driver know that someone from the Flyers' compound was on him.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Rae regretted, almost instantly, climbing into the white van without carefully looking over the driver.
Yes, she was upset, but that was no excuse for being stupid. And now that she got a good look at him, her intuition was pinging—hard.
Her driver was a man in his 40s or so, she surmised. He had an old-fashioned 70s haircut with big sideburns and looked as if he never washed it. He was pale and doughy, as if neither sunlight nor exercise ever factored into his life. Which was fine, that was his life choice, but his whole manner, his body language, was just... off.
Also, not to be critical. Maybe the poor guy just didn't know how to interact.
She could give him the benefit of the doubt, right? This was a small town, bound to have its share of eccentrics.
She was just extremely sorry she'd gotten into a vehicle with one of them.
"Hi," she said, her voice too loud. She moderated it. "Uh, just a few blocks from here. 330 Elm Street."
The guy didn't look at her, just flicked his gaze sideways without turning his head and then looked forward to the road.
Okay, hell no. Rae didn't care if he was just a local eccentric. He was weird.
She reached instinctively for the door handle on her side. She could always open it at the first stop sign and jump out. Of course, that was when she noticed the inside handle did not move when she grasped it. She peered at the lock tab on the windowsill, and saw it was in the locked position—and in this case, it had retreated all the way down into the door, which left her with nothing to grasp.
She cleared her throat. "Um, have you noticed your lock over here is broken?" she asked, again in that overly loud voice, but she no longer cared.
Her driver turned his head sideways and slid his gaze past her, like a turtle peering out of its shell. "It's fine," he said in a monotone.
No, it was not fine. And she was not fine. She wanted out of this vehicle right now.
There was a truck following close behind them. She'd roll down her window and wave at them, flag them down.
However, the old-fashioned window crank did not turn, not even when she threw her weight onto it.
Her heart in her throat and sweat breaking out all over her body, Rae slid her purse to the right side of her body, away from the van driver.
She worked her phone out of her purse and holding it, tipped toward the window where he could not see it. She tapped the phone app and hit the quick dial for Mac's phone.
It purred quietly, once... twice... three times. 'Oh, God, please answer,' she begged silently.
Mac's voice sounded in her ear. "RaeAnn," he growled, sounding irritated.
She nearly wept with relief. "Hi, honey," she said loudly, her voice as maniacally cheerful as a TV sales channel announcer. "I'm so glad I caught you! I'm just getting a ride home from the clubhouse with a rideshare."
She turned to the driver and smiled, showing her teeth. "What did you say your name was?" she called, loud enough the guy could have heard her from three cars away.
He didn't answer, instead hunching lower in his seat and working his pudgy hands on the steering wheel.
RaeAnn quelled the urge to give up her charade and just scream for Mac to find her and rescue her.
"Well, you sure have a nice white van!" she said. "Oh! And here's your license right on the dash. So, your name is Dave? Dave Dick?" What kind of a name was that? No, not helpful right now. "Dave Dick! Well, it's real nice to meet you. So, turn here and our house is the fourth one down on the left."
"RaeAnn, I'm right behind you," Mac roared in the tone of a soldier riding into battle and yelling 'Charge!' "And I'll be there to meet you. By the way, tell Dave that you're Flyer family, okay?"
The driver flinched visibly.
"I think he got it," RaeAnn said. "I have you on speaker."
Dave turned slowly to look, not at her, but at her phone, his eyes wide in horror like a cartoon character.
"Watch the road!" she shrieked, clutching at her seat, because she'd forgotten to put on the seatbelt and wasn't sure there was one anyhow.
Dave hit the brakes and the big van screeched to a stop, the front bumper barely missing the mailbox at the end of Mac's driveway.
With a cry of fear, Rae threw up her hands to avoid being smashed against the dashboard. Her palms hit it with a smack that hurt.
A big truck skidded to a stop behind them.
Something hit the driver's side of the van with a solid thud, and then Mac was there, outside the driver side door, his face livid.
"Open her goddamn door!" he bellowed. "Or next, I start smashing windows—and then I'll smash you, you bent fucker!"
He brandished a length of iron rebar outside the van window.
The lock clicked on her side. "Get out," Dave said, shaking in his seat, his pale face sweaty. "Get out, get out, get out."
Rae wasted no time doing that. She jumped out onto the pavement of Mac's driveway.
She stumbled back away from the van, dimly surprised to realize she was shaking.
Mac was still yelling at Dave. "Your days as rideshare driver are over, you get me? You try picking up anyone else, and I will know. The Flyers will come down on you so hard and fast they won't even find the pieces."
Through the windshield of the van Rae could see Dave nodding now, like a pudgy, bobble head doll.
"All right," Mac growled. "Good we understand each other. Now git!"
The white van immediately jerked backward and veered around Mac's truck, not stopping until it was in the middle of the street. Then the vehicle jerked forward and raced away down the street, only pausing as a big semi roared by on the main road, before disappearing into the night.
Rae let out a huge sigh of relief and wrapped her arms around her middle. She gazed at Mac, searching for words.
"He touch you?" Mac snarled, standing where he was, hands fisted at his side, the chunk of rebar still in one hand. "Or say things to you?"
Rae shook her head. "No, no. He was just... so creepy. How did you—how did you know?"
"Because," he said, as if he were speaking to someone who was very hard of hearing or learning disabled, "This is my town. I pay attention, and I know the people. And that was Creepy Dave!"
His voice rose until he was yelling at her as he had Dave. "And if you'd bothered to ask anyone in the goddamn clubhouse, they would've told you not to go near him or his fuckin' van!"
Rae flinched. She had never seen Mac this angry, certainly not at her.
Her mind flashed to an old romance novel cover she'd seen in the used section of her favorite bookstore, where the heroine knelt before the hero, one hand reaching up to him in supplication as he towered over her, fists clenched, glaring picturesquely out at the viewer.
In this moment, she understood why a woman might placate her man.
Not that she was afraid Mac would hurt her, but she felt extremely wary right now.
Then she remembered why she had left his clubhouse in such a hurry, and her urge to placate him disappeared in a flash.
Lifting her chin, she glared back at him. "Well, okay then, next time I'll know. Thank you. Now I'm going in the house and to my room."
She turned and rushed to the front door, then had to pause and fumble around in her purse for the key. Finding it, she unlocked the door and got herself into the house. She slammed the door behind her and ran for the stairs, not pausing to see if Mac followed.
In her bedroom, she took off her jacket and tossed it and her purse onto the chair. Then she stood in the middle of the room, arms wrapped around her middle, wondering how everything had gone so horribly wrong.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Heavy footsteps thudded up the stairs along the hallway.
RaeAnn waited for Mac to knock on the bedroom door and demand she let him in.
Instead, she was shocked to hear the sound of the key in the lock. He flung open the bedroom door and walked in, his stance stiff, his face like thunder.
"Now that you're home safe, you mind te
lling me," he said, his voice cutting like a whip, "Why one minute we're at the clubhouse having a good time with our friends, and the next you're flying out of there like your ass is on fire and jumping into a vehicle with the town deviant?"
He wanted to know? Oh, she’d tell him, all right.
"Sure, since you asked so nicely, I'll tell you," she bit out. "Because one minute, yeah, I was there having a nice time with all your friends, Mac... And then—then I walked out onto the back patio." Her lip trembled and she bit it, scowling at him. "And I heard you joking about how you've been p-playing me."
Her eyes blurred with tears and she blinked them away furiously. "I should have known," she hissed at him." I should have known this was all just an ego trip for you. You don't really want me, you just wanted me here for Con, and—and..." Here her logic broke down, so she stopped talking and swiped at her wet cheeks, furious with him for making her cry.
Which was when she realized that Mac was staring at her as if she'd grown another head.
"What the fuck?" he asked slowly. "You mind running that by me again?"
"Oh don't bother acting all innocent," she cried, disgusted with him, and with herself for believing him. "It's your scheme, I don't have to explain it to you."
Mac shook his head and approached her slowly, as he would a wild animal.
His gaze searched her face. "No, I'm serious, mama. Explain, ‘cause I don't have a single clue what you're talking about."
Rae shook her head. "Fine. I heard you, talking to some woman on the back porch at the clubhouse. She congratulated you on how well you were playing me, and you — you said she was right—that you were, I mean you are."
She watched comprehension dawn on Mac 's face.
But then, instead of having the grace to look embarrassed, he actually smiled at her, his hard face crinkling with pure amusement.
As Rae sucked in a breath at his utter lack of shame, he shook his head slowly.
"Oh, mama," he said, his voice rich with what sounded like tenderness. "I said that, yeah. I did. Because it's true—I have been playing you."