by Penny Dee
Ruger was Bull’s brother-in-law and was patching over from the Kings of Mayhem’s Louisiana chapter.
Bull had been married to his sister Wendy years ago. Crazy in love, their union had been cut short by a drunk driver after only three months of marriage. Back then, my father was president and Bull was vice-president. Almost losing his mind with grief, Bull had skipped town for Canada and spent the next few years riding across the provinces.
In Bull’s absence, Ruger joined the Louisiana chapter of the Kings of Mayhem and rose through the ranks to vice-president. Now he was patching over to the original Kings of Mayhem because he was ready for a change of scenery.
Ruger was a handsome son of a bitch. The club girls fell all over themselves when he arrived. Caleb’s wife, Honey, called him a silver fox. Whatever the fuck that meant. Ruger took things in his stride. He was a big man. Powerful. But he was a thinker. He listened. Strategized. And then slayed with lethal force. He was a good addition to the club.
Caleb threw his phone on the table.
“Bet this shit never happens to Mrs. Stephens,” he moaned.
Caleb had somehow become the clubs unofficial event coordinator while the club’s housekeeper, Mrs. Stephens, was on a three-week vacation in the Bahamas.
“What about Talk Show?” Cade suggested. They were another band we sometimes used.
“I’ll see, but it’s going to be hard to find someone with such short notice,” Caleb replied, picking up his phone again.
I glanced at Bull. His face was still cast in my direction, his jaw tight, probably trying to work out what to do with me.
But there was nothing he could do.
There was nothing anyone could do.
It was as simple as that.
Later in life, I would remember this moment as the before.
The moment right before I heard her.
Because that’s how it happened. I heard her before I saw her. Her voice reached out across the town square to where we were sitting outside the bar and hit me in the chest like a fucking bolt of lightning.
I looked up and there she was, perched on a wall near the statue of Colonel James Dylan, one of our town’s founding fathers, strumming her guitar and singing a song about feeling like a misfit, about being dark and twisted inside, and not fitting in.
I knew the song. It was vaguely familiar. A pop song. Probably something I’d heard on the radio when I was half-dead, lying in a hospital bed, burned to a crisp with a massive head injury.
She sang about feeling like a misfit.
Lady, you don’t know the half of it.
About being dark and twisted.
These words from a woman who looked like she’d fallen from Heaven.
About not fitting into the format.
Darlin’, I’m so far out of format not even Google could find me.
I took a drag off my smoke, trying to distract myself, but she was impossible not to notice. I studied her from behind my dark glasses. She was pure California, with a voice like sunshine and skin the color of whiskey. Her blonde hair was long and thick and tumbled over smooth brown shoulders in golden waves. Even from this distance, I could see that her eyes were as bright as sapphires. And as she strummed her guitar, the silver rings on her fingers glinted in the sunlight.
She was fucking mesmerizing.
My uncle and brothers thought so too because the conversation had stopped.
“Her voice is amazing,” Cade finally said. He looked at Caleb. “There’s your answer to finding someone to play at Ruger’s patchover tonight.”
Caleb raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you kidding? There is no way she is playing at the clubhouse. Imagine trying to keep Vader and Joker’s hands off her. Not to mention Yale. I don’t know him well enough yet, but something tells me he’s a deviant motherfucker.”
Yale was new to the club. A seven-foot Scandinavian who didn’t say a hell of a lot.
“She looks like a fucking angel. You bring her into the clubhouse and it’d be like dangling a carrot in front of their eyes,” Caleb added.
My brother wasn’t wrong. She did look like an angel.
An angel that was awakening something inside of me.
I looked away from her, my eyes shifting to the scruffy looking kid in dirty jeans and a hoodie acting shady as he leaned up against a brick wall, watching her.
It was second nature for me to observe what others missed. It was my job in the Navy; our marine patrols relied on my experience to spot things out of the ordinary. And this kid, he was definitely out of the ordinary. I watched him push off the wall and slowly walk past her.
She finished her song, and the small crowd in the coffee shop and bars surrounding the town square clapped politely. People walked past and dropped money in the top hat she had sitting on the ground in front of her. She smiled broadly and started singing a song about California. Which was fitting, considering she looked like she’d stepped right off the bus from the golden state.
My eyes shifted back to the kid in the hoodie. He was smoking and eyeing the top hat. He was up to no good, and if I was right, he was going to make a grab for it. I waited, watching him take a final drag from his cigarette and flicking the butt to the ground. Then just as I anticipated, he suddenly lurched forward, grabbed the top hat, and took off running through the town square, almost knocking an old lady over in the process.
I was out of my chair and chasing him down before Bull, Cade, or Caleb had a chance to react. I leaped over a small fence and sprinted after the kid, my mind focused on one thing and one thing only. Get the target. As he disappeared down an alleyway, determination roared through me, and I ran faster, ignoring the burning in my lungs as they screamed for oxygen. The kid was a fast runner, I’d give him that, but I was faster. Months of rehab and grueling post-hospital gym sessions helped. When he jumped onto the chain wire fence to escape the alley, I grabbed him and threw him down on the concrete.
Hauling him to his feet, I hurled his scrawny body against the wall.
The stench of poor hygiene hit me in the face. This close I could see the grey skin, the mouth full of decay, and the meth-dead eyes. This kid was a tweaker.
“Don’t hurt me, man,” he cried.
Every inch of me wanted to do exactly that. Hurt him. To jam his rotted teeth down his throat. Because thieves were scum and junkie thieves were the worst of the bunch. But then I realized it wasn’t about him at all. I just wanted to hurt something, and that sudden knowledge stopped me. I let him go and he took off.
But it was too late.
The blonde-haired beauty was running down the alley toward us. And she’d see me. Seen the monster. I could see the alarm on her face.
She ran up to me and suddenly I was engulfed in the sweet scent of her. Up close, I could see she was the kind of girl you lost your heart to and never reclaimed it. The flawless skin. The luscious, full lips. Eyes the color of the sky. Blonde curls swirling around a perfect face.
I tried not to notice any of it. But then she smiled up at me, and every cell in my body reacted like they were detonated by a fucking atomic bomb.
She was innocence and beauty.
Light and goodness.
And the last thing I fucking needed.
CASSIDY
Twelve dollars and fifteen cents. The would-be thief got an ass kicking from the hot guy who chased him down for a measly twelve dollars and fifteen cents.
I bent down to pick up the money scattered on the concrete then straightened to look at him.
There was no denying he was attractive. Dark hair. Eyes the color of a tropical ocean. A slight cleft in his chin with the right amount of scruff along his jaw. He had a deep scar running from his forehead, through his eyebrow and down his cheek. His scar looked like the wound would’ve been severe. Painful. Life changing even. Yet somehow it added to his beauty. It made him different. Stronger. Beautiful.
But I saw the look in his eye when he thrust that kid up against the wall. Sure, he had res
trained himself from beating that kid to a pulp, but I’d seen what that gleam turned men into when they could no longer hold back.
Yeah. I had a few scars of my own thanks to that fucking gleam.
“Thanks,” I breathed out.
“You’re welcome. The kid was a tweaker.”
“I don’t think he would’ve gotten far with twelve dollars,” I joked lamely.
He looked at me through a furrowed brow.
“You okay?” he asked.
I smiled awkwardly because damn this guy was hot as fuck. He was tall with massive shoulders and a face I couldn’t stop looking at. He wore a hoodie, dark pants, and a pair of kick-ass motorcycle boots.
I nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”
A strange pause lingered between us before he spoke again.
“You’re a good singer,” he said. “I really liked the one you opened with.”
“Oh, that wasn’t one of mine.” I noticed how bright his eyes were as we talked. “That belongs to Ava Max.”
Like fucking bright blue.
He smiled and I felt my knees slightly weaken. This guy already had a sexy intensity about him but when he smiled it was simply breathtaking.
“Do you play paid gigs?” he asked.
“Well, yeah, sometimes,” I replied, surprised. “Why, you know someone who needs a girl with a guitar?”
“Yeah.” He smiled again and damn. “As a matter of fact I do.”
“I’m listening.”
“I need someone to play at a party we’re throwing tonight. How does two hundred dollars for six songs sound?”
Like a lifeline.
“It sounds pretty amazing—”
I was seconds away from accepting his offer when I noticed the leather vest under his hoodie.
He was a biker.
No. Not just a biker. According to the patch on the front, he was the Seargent at Arms of the Kings of Mayhem motorcycle club.
My heart sank.
I’d heard about the Kings of Mayhem. You didn’t live in Destiny and not know who they were. They were like rock stars in this county and held the real power in this town.
Which meant they were to be avoided at all costs.
Well, for me anyway.
I didn’t care how hot they were, or how powerful and lusted after they were, those vests were a giant red flag.
It was my experience that with status came power. And with power came the misguided ignorance that you were better than other people. Some saw this as a license to abuse. Or worse. Destroy.
Disappointment rushed through me. This guy was something else—from those vivid blue eyes and the muscles for days, right down to that scar running through his eyebrow.
My disappointment sank deeper in my gut.
Two hundred dollars for six songs.
The offer was good, but the vest was a deal breaker.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “It sounds pretty amazing, but …?”
“You’re a biker,” I blurted out.
He frowned. “And?” My sudden change in demeanor was as obvious as a snowstorm. I didn’t want anything to do with bikers, and I was doing a bad job at hiding it.
“Listen, it’s a really decent offer, but I’m going to have to decline.”
His expression didn’t change. Except his eyes darkened a little. He didn’t bother asking why. He could tell I was put off by his vest because I was looking at it like it was a piece of satanic literature and I was a nun.
I held up the money I’d earned for the day. “Thanks again.”
His expression remained unchanged as his eyes locked with mine. “No problem. If you change your mind...”
I wasn’t going to change my mind.
I was good at calculating the risk in most situations—I had to be—and this man and that damn vest, was too high of a risk. Hauling my ass across town to a biker clubhouse to play in front of drunk, sweaty bikers wasn’t in my immediate future. That would be asking for trouble.
And I was already running from a fuck-ton of it.
CHANCE
I couldn’t shake her from my mind as I left the bar. It had been hard to miss the frown on that pretty face of hers and the way her nose screwed up when she noticed my cut. That was new. The cut usually earned me a wink or a suggestive bite on the bottom lip—and quite often an invitation of some sort. But disgust? Not until ten minutes ago.
It annoyed me more than it should have.
I should be happy she pushed me away.
So why couldn’t I get that angelic face and those big blue eyes out of my head.
And why the fuck did just the thought of those luscious lips and flawless, honey-colored skin make me want to kiss her?
This morning I had sworn off women.
Now I was getting hard over one.
I broke away from my brothers and took my bike for a ride on the highway where I could really open her up and let her fly. It was good therapy. The sun on my face. The wind whipping against my skin. The freedom I felt as I pushed my bike to her limits. Sometimes it was the smallest things that took the biggest steps toward healing.
After half an hour of roaring through the empty highway, I turned back toward town and headed for the clubhouse.
Needing a pack of smokes, I pulled up outside a convenience store and parked my bike at the curb. It was a small store jam-packed with overpriced groceries and souvenirs for the tourists that flocked to Destiny for fishing and watersports on the river. The bell dinged when I walked in, and Kimmy, the young cashier with the tight blue smock and big dangly earrings, looked up from her magazine and gave me an appreciative smile.
“Hi, Chance,” she said, her eyes sparkling and roving up and down the length of me as I approached the counter.
“Hey there, Kimmy, how you been?”
“Good. Got you in those Hot Tamales candies you like,” she said proudly.
“You did?”
I got hooked on the cinnamon candy overseas. Another sniper named Pennsylvania Pete used to eat them like they were a staple to his diet. His mom used to send him over boxes of them, and pretty soon she was sending them to me too. I hadn’t had any since returning stateside and must’ve mentioned it to Kimmy at some point.
“I convinced Merle to get them in special.”
“Well, I appreciate that. Thanks, sweetheart.” I gave her a wink and a pink flush crept up her neck and across her cheeks. “Give me a pack of Marlboros and two of the Hot Tamales. Thanks, darlin’.”
Thrilled because I was buying the Hot Tamales she run up the sale and took my money. But she only charged me for the smokes.
“They’re on the house today,” she said, batting her long lashes.
I was about to insist on paying for them when I heard raised voices behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Merle, the store manager, arguing with someone hidden by a stand of Doritos.
Shoving the smokes and Hot Tamales into my cut, I stepped closer and to my surprise saw the blonde angel from earlier arguing right back at him.
He was accusing her of shoplifting.
“Everything alright?” I asked.
Both of them looked at me. Merle’s face was bright with anger while she rolled her eyes.
“I caught her trying to steal from me,” Merle said.
“And I told you I wasn’t!” she exclaimed.
“Then explain the cans of soup I saw you put in your guitar case,” he demanded.
He went to yank her guitar case from her, but she jerked it away from him. “Get your hands of it.”
“Listen, I think I know what happened here,” I said stepping in.
“You know this girl, Chance?” Merle asked.
She looked at me. My eyes never left hers as I replied, “I do. She’s playing at the clubhouse tonight, Merle.”
“Is that true, little lady?”
She could barely hide her annoyance, and I didn’t even try to hide my smugness.
Eyes still on me, she replied through gritted teeth,
“Yes.”
I couldn’t help but grin because her mouth said yes but the look on her face said no. And her eyes spelled murder as she glared across at me.
I smiled and looked at Merle. “Listen, what we’ve got here is a misunderstanding. She’s simply put those cans in there and then forgot about them. I’m pretty sure this is just a big mistake.” I pulled out my wallet and handed a fifty-dollar bill to the grumpy store owner. “Here’s some money for the cans. Keep the change.”
“That’s fifty-dollars,” Merle exclaimed, distracted by the gross overpayment.
I winked. Crisis averted. Even if it did cost me fifty fucking dollars.
“Consider it a tip for the inconvenience,” I said, taking the girl by the elbow and heading for the door. “Have a good day.”
Outside, she yanked her arm away.
“You didn’t need to do that!” she snapped, stepping away from me. “I had it under control.”
“Yeah, you really had it under control. Merle was two heartbeats away from calling the sheriff on your ass.”
“So you decided to play the hero?”
“No. I’m just a normal guy who stepped in to help someone who clearly needed it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And now I suppose I owe you something.”
I thought for a moment. We still needed someone to play at the clubhouse tonight. And if the stolen cans of soup were anything to go by, this girl obviously could use the cash.
“That’s usually how these things go,” I replied.
Those fucking amazing blue eyes of hers traveled over my cut. “And I suppose that means I have to put out or something equally as gross.”
I admit I was taken back by her comment. Just because I wore a biker’s cut I was suddenly an asshole who took advantage of young girls who were busted shoplifting, and then expected a sexual favor in return.
But no one fucked me out of obligation.
And no one would.
Ever.
“Whoa there, California,” I said, taking a step back and raising my hands in surrender. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Cassidy,” she said, irritated by the nickname. “My name is Cassidy.”