by Joanna Wylde
News travels fast in Callup and this was the most exciting thing to happen since Regina and Melba had their confrontation in the beauty salon over who stole whose hairstyle.
Fuck, I hated it when people talked about me.
“You okay?” Carlie asked. I nodded, trying not to look at her. Carlie was everything I hated. She was tall, skinny, and gorgeous. Like a model. Exactly the type of woman who belonged with Puck, because they fit each other. Her eyes sparkled and her teeth were bright and straight and white. The only thing less than perfect about her was a tiny gap between her front teeth. Somehow that just made her look more interesting, though.
And she was nice.
Bitch.
“I’m fine,” I replied, feeling my adrenaline fade a little. “Do you think anyone was really hurt?”
“No,” she said. “Coop’s probably got some burns, but nothing serious. It didn’t keep him down for long. I have to give you credit. That took balls.”
I shrugged, because she had no idea about the real me. I’d grown up surrounded by dangerous men—Jake and Coop were innocent babies compared to them. I could teach them all kinds of things about fighting dirty . . . But that part of my life was in the past, and I wanted to keep it that way. Boring was better.
Boring, comfortable, and safe. Words to live by.
Words I wished my mom would learn for herself. So far as I could tell, her favorite word was “drama.”
“Don’t worry,” Darcy said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me close. I think it was supposed to make me feel better but it kind of creeped me out. She was attached to Boonie, and Boonie was president of the MC. Not that I hated the Silver Bastards—they scared Teeny, which meant he wasn’t a threat, and I appreciated that a great deal. I just preferred to appreciate it from a comfortable distance. “My old man will fix it. He always does.”
Sure, he’d fix it for the boys. At the end of the day I’d still be out a job, though. Probably Blake, too.
Puck, Boonie, Deep, and Blake came sauntering out of the restaurant, laughing and slapping each other on the back like it was all a big fucking joke. This frustrated me, because it wasn’t a joke—it was my life. Of course you could make the obvious argument that my whole life was one big fucking joke. But I’d read a book about the power of positive thinking last year, and had decided I wouldn’t let myself wallow like that ever again.
Stop thinking about it, I told my brain, which of course made it worse. You’re a joke, it hissed. Trash. Who the hell do you think you are?
Wait. That was Teeny’s voice in my head.
He could fuck himself right off. So what if things had gone bad here? I’d lived through worse and I’d live through this because I was a winner.
Power. Of. Positive. Thinking.
“All good, baby?” Darcy asked, stepping toward Boonie. He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her in for a deep kiss. “Sure. Eva came right around. Jake and his boys will be heading home soon, where I suggested they practice their manners before showing their faces around town again. Let’s ride down to Kellogg and grab some breakfast there. Sound good?”
I felt Puck’s eyes touch me, although he didn’t say anything.
He never did.
Five years ago, I’d felt him watching me like a physical touch. He’d been the seventh stranger Teeny told me I had to fuck. He’d been different from the others, though. It probably sounds twisted, but I remembered feeling a mixture of fear and excitement when Teeny gave me my marching orders. Puck was actually young and good-looking—in any other world, I might’ve even tried talking to him, or at least stalking him discreetly.
Of course, that was before I got close and realized just how big he was. Tough. Scary. And not just because he had that nasty scar across his face, either. Nope, even in that room full of dangerous, scary men there had been something different about him.
Then he’d started touching me, and I’d forgotten to be afraid.
I’d had no idea up to that point how good sex could feel, or that there might be a reason women let themselves go crazy for a man’s attention. And when we’d sat near the fire and he’d held me, and later when he made me come for the first time ever? For a while I pretended I was a normal girl at a regular party, not just a biker whore’s brat learning to earn her keep.
Yeah, Puck hurt me.
They all hurt me.
At least he didn’t know, and once he figured it out he held me and then we’d slept together in one bed. I was safe for a while. Of course it didn’t last, but nothing good ever lasted around the Longnecks MC. They were like a festering wound that oozed pus and spread infection to whatever they touched.
Case in point? My mom. After five years she and Teeny were still together, still fucked up, and still trying to use me. She’d called me last month with some story about a broken water heater, begging for money. Again.
I didn’t hate her anymore, though. When things got truly bad, she’d done the right thing and sent me with Puck. She’d never defied Teeny like that before—I knew he’d beaten her after I left. Came close to killing her and kicked her out for a week . . . then she went crawling back to him. Unbelievable.
“You coming with?” Puck asked, stepping toward me. I jumped. What the hell? Puck watched me, occasionally said hello. Like, once a year. He never, ever invited me to do anything with him because we had strict boundaries. He prowled around, I pretended he wasn’t there, and I lived life safe and sound where Teeny could never get to me.
Now Puck stared at me, obviously waiting for an answer. I shook my head, unnerved. Then Puck reached out to catch a lock of my hair and tuck it behind my ear.
What. The. Fuck.
Beside me Carlie stiffened, her smile fading. Great. Not only was Batman changing his M.O. without warning, he was doing it in front of his girlfriend. Just what I needed.
(Okay, that wasn’t entirely fair. She obviously had a thing for him and I’d bet a hundred bucks they were sleeping together, but so far as I knew Puck never pretended or lied to get laid. He wasn’t into commitment. This was well known to every woman in Callup foolish enough to crush on him. Essentially all of them who had a pulse and few borderline cases, too. I’d watched Melba checking out his ass once—you can’t unsee something like that, trust me.)
“I really can’t go to breakfast,” I said, my voice shaky. “I need to talk with Eva.”
“Don’t bother,” Blake said with a grin. “You’re fired. Me, too.”
“Did she say that?” I asked, feeling a little sick to my stomach.
“Oh yeah. She said it loud and clear. Repeatedly. I’ll go back with you to pick up your check at the end of the week so you don’t have to face her alone.”
I closed my eyes, wondering why things couldn’t have just stayed the same, even if it was just for another six months. Not that I should be surprised. My reality had never been smooth before, so why should it start now?
Think positive, I reminded myself.
Crap. Now I was bummed and I wanted to bitch-slap my brain for being so annoying.
“What the fuck happened out here?” Danielle asked, her arm suddenly around my shoulders. I immediately felt better. Danielle and I balanced each other out perfectly—she was batshit crazy and insanely optimistic. Make that dangerously, recklessly optimistic. As for me, I spent nearly all my time focused on staying sane and getting ahead. That didn’t leave much time for things like actually living my life.
We’d met each other our senior year of high school, when she’d offered to drive me back and forth to town in her shiny new Jeep Wrangler. This spared me from the horror of sharing a battered school bus with every hormonal teen living in the greater Callup metropolitan area. After a particularly harrowing ride home in her car one night (long story short, it took us six hours to travel thirty miles and by the time we pulled into town, we had matching tattoos of chipmunks wearing scarves) I decided it was my job to keep her from accidentally killing herself.
&nb
sp; In return, she pushed me to do fun things, reminding me at least once a week that I was only twenty-one and perhaps the fate of the universe didn’t literally rest on whether or not I balanced my checkbook to the penny. Along the way, she taught me how to do smoky eye makeup, how not to freak out when a guy asked me to dance, and how to “borrow” music off the Internet. (When I pointed out that “borrowing” music was stealing, she agreed and started using iTunes for her downloads. To finance this, she “borrowed” her dad’s credit card.)
“Well, apparently me and Blake no longer work here,” I said, leaning my head against her. “I don’t know if you’re fired or not.”
“Fuck that,” Danielle declared. “Eva can kiss my ass. If you’re out, I’m out.”
“You weren’t even part of it,” I protested.
“I don’t care. You’re a much better waitress than I am. If she fired you, no way I’d last there anyway. Let’s go get drunk!”
Blake laughed and caught me around the neck, hugging me from the other side. Puck watched us silently, his face grim. Just. Like. Batman.
The Dark Knight was easier to understand, though. Puck had treated me like I had the plague ever since that night five years ago, yet this morning he suddenly wanted to get breakfast? We weren’t friends. I didn’t even know where he lived, for God’s sake. Sometimes he’d just disappear for months at a time and despite full access to Callup’s sophisticated gossip network, I’d never been able to figure out where he was or what he was doing.
Not that I cared.
I didn’t.
Although I had to admit, I slept better when he was in town. He made me feel weirdly safe in a terrified, trapped-deer kind of way. Puck was a wolf, but for the most part he left me alone while scaring away the other wolves. This was a good thing and it worked for us—if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
“I can’t get drunk,” I reminded her. “I have to go home and shower, and then it’s time to head out for school.”
“Okay, tonight then,” Blake said. “We’ll get together and share our misery. I’ll bring my friend, the good Dr. Jack Daniels, and we can make a double date of it—you, me, Danielle, and our bottle. Sound good?”
I shot a quick glance at Puck, wishing he’d go away and stop listening to us. Ignoring my wishes, he studied me and Blake, his face turning thoughtful. Not the “oh, she should go out and have fun” kind of thoughtful. No—he was definitely having dark, broody thoughts. That’s when it hit me. Puck didn’t like the idea of me partying with Blake and Danielle.
That was exactly what I needed to tilt the scale.
“Tonight sounds great,” I announced. “Might as well celebrate the fact that we won’t be getting up at five tomorrow morning.”
Danielle grinned happily, and I smiled back at her, pretending Puck didn’t exist.
Eva stormed out of the restaurant at that moment, all angry and red in the face. Shit. She spotted me and started trucking across the parking lot under full steam, Regina and Melba behind her. Melba seemed to be egging her on, while Regina was trying to catch and hold her arm. Eva ignored both, and the look on her face convinced me that now wasn’t the time to discuss my final paycheck with her. Danielle apparently came to the same conclusion.
“She’s in a real bad mood,” she said, her voice dry. “I think we should leave her alone.”
“Um, yeah . . .” I agreed. “She looks like she’s going to have a heart attack.”
“You’re not getting away with this!” Eva shouted suddenly. Crap. Danielle and I glanced at each other, and Danielle’s eyes started to dance. She loved drama like this, crazy girl.
“Run!” she hissed. We sprinted across the parking lot, and I very sincerely hoped that Danielle had her keys ready to go. I heard a man’s deep laugh behind us—Boonie? Sure as shit wasn’t Puck. Not that it mattered. We’d committed our crime and now it was time to get the hell out of there before Eva tried to kill us.
We reached the back of the lot, where Danielle’s Jeep waited. Thankfully, she’d taken off the doors for the summer, allowing us to jump inside. She stabbed the ignition with her key and suddenly the big tires were spinning as we pulled out of the lot and onto the old highway.
I grabbed the roll bar and turned around in my seat, climbing up onto my knees to see Puck standing next to Blake. He was scowling and Blake was smiling broadly. Eva had started screaming and shaking her fist at him like a cartoon character, which didn’t bother our (former) cook in the slightest. I spun back down and dropped into the seat, looking over at Danielle. She giggled, and then we were both cackling like crazy—as shitty as it was to be out of work, seeing Eva like that was sweet, sweet revenge.
God, that woman was a bitch. Served her right for not protecting her waitresses.
TWO
By the time I got home that night the laughter had faded, leaving behind my cold, unpleasant reality.
School had been okay—I’d actually gotten there early enough to talk to my instructor about losing my job, which was good because I had no idea what my next work schedule would look like. Finding something compatible with classes might be hard . . .
My school advisor had suggested I move out of Callup and into Coeur d’Alene, where I’d have more employment options. Took me all of thirty seconds to rule it out. I didn’t want to be away from Regina and Earl and Danielle and Blake. Not only that, there was the safety issue. Did I live in total fear? No. Did I still wake up some nights screaming? Absolutely.
I’d never have to worry about Teeny again, so long as I stayed in Silver Bastard territory. Throw in the fact that even the shittiest apartments in Coeur d’Alene cost three times what they were in Callup and it was a no-brainer.
I parked my ancient Subaru Impreza in the alley behind my apartment and climbed out across the passenger seat. The driver’s-side door had been broken as long as I’d owned it. Earl’s niece had sold it to me for $400 three years ago, and while it might look like hell, it ran like a top—especially for a car that had nearly 200,000 miles. Earl helped me do most of the maintenance myself out in his shop. The important parts all worked great.
I could handle a broken door.
Popping the hatch, I pulled out my groceries and locked back up. Danielle and Blake were due in an hour. He was bringing booze, she was bringing salad, and I’d be providing the pasta to complete the meal. Danielle had emailed me while I was in school, saying that she had a line on a new gig for us already, God bless her. I couldn’t imagine what it was, but figured so long as it was legal, I’d take it. When I’d checked my bank balance at the ATM there was only $22.63 left in the account.
I needed work, and I needed it fast.
Using my shoulder, I pushed open the door at the back of the building and started up the empty stairwell. The retail space downstairs had been for lease as long as I’d lived in Callup, but there weren’t any takers. Most of the downtown buildings were like that. Callup’s days of glory were long gone.
My front door was at the top of the steps off a little landing. There were two apartments, but one of them was currently uninhabitable because Earl had gotten a wild hair three years ago and torn out all the fixtures and cabinets. He’d decided to turn it into a luxury vacation condo¸ as if that would ever work. Then he got a new rifle and decided to go hunting instead, so now the place sat empty and collected dust like the rest of the town.
At least my apartment was in good shape. It was in the front half of the building, which was located on a corner, so I had lots of windows. There was a small kitchen in the back and a great big bathroom with a claw-foot tub.
I loved it.
The wooden floors were a hundred years old and the ceilings were high and covered in pressed tin. Best of all? The corner overlooking the street had a genuine turret built into it, curved glass window and all. It got bright, glorious sunlight almost all day.
That’s where I put my sewing machine.
Regina had started me sewing right after I moved in, and sometimes I
think it’s what really saved me. I’d always loved fabrics and design, but she’d taught me how to take a shapeless pile of cloth and turn it into something beautiful. The first month I’d been afraid to leave the house, convinced that every motorcycle I heard carried Teeny. I spent my days torn between hating Puck and desperately wishing he was there to protect me. (Of course, when he came to check on me I couldn’t even bring myself to look at him.)
Regina took my crazy in stride, assigning me sewing projects in a no-nonsense voice, offering hints and wisdom along the way. I’d made all new curtains for their house before I’d gotten brave enough to visit downtown Callup. After four sundresses (two for me, one for Regina, and one for Regina’s cat—don’t ask) I was ready to drive to Coeur d’Alene with her to get groceries.
It’d taken a full-on quilt to get me to the point where I could hear the sound of a Harley without panicking.
Through it all, Earl and Regina were as patient as the mountains. Regina homeschooled me until I got bold and registered for the high school when I turned seventeen. For the first time in my life, I belonged somewhere.
Regina had three sewing machines and a serger at that point. This was a good thing because Earl had been laid off at the mine, so she’d started taking in mending to make ends meet. One of the machines had a computer smart enough to pilot a spaceship but I didn’t care for it. I preferred a delicate black Singer that was nearly a hundred years old—it’d belonged to Regina’s mother. Right around the time I’d been born, she’d finally replaced the foot treadle with a tiny electric motor.
The day I graduated from high school, Regina gave it to me.
The best modern sewing machines might be more efficient than my Singer, but she was strong enough to sew leather and delicate enough to repair silk. The engraving and gold leaf gave her an elegance that transcended function, inspiring me and filling my heart with the soft presence of the generations of women who’d used her to clothe their families.
Now I lived in my very own home and it was beautiful. The furniture might not all match, but the curtains and pillows and other little touches I’d created tied my small, private world together into something that was homey, comfortable, and best of all, normal.