Undaunted: Knights in Black Leather

by Ronnie Douglas

  Zion waited. He wanted her to reach out again, to do something to clue him in. Instead, she asked, “Are you sure? About us and—”

  “Yes.”

  She took a deep breath. “Well, I sort of promised your dad that if there were grandkids, we’d name one after him. He wanted two—Echo for a girl and Eddie for a boy—but I only agreed to one,” she said.

  For a moment, Zion was speechless. “We’re having kids?”

  Aubrey ducked her head for a moment. “No. I tried to tell him that we weren’t planning any longer than this month, but he patted my knee and said, ‘Echo is a beautiful name for a girl.’ ” She smiled. “He was really sweet. He apologized, and . . .”

  “Careful there, Red. I might start thinking you’ve got a crush on the old man.”

  She laughed for a moment before taking Zion’s hand in hers. “No, but I think I’m falling in love with his son.”

  He stared at her. “Say that again. I want to be sure I heard it right.”

  “I’m falling,” she whispered. “Maybe I already fell. I just . . . when I saw you there . . . I can’t imagine my life without you. I don’t want to either.”

  Without thinking of the consequences, Zion reached up to pull her down for a kiss. He let out a grunt of pain, and the heart monitor started beeping. He ignored both and said, “Come here.”

  She leaned down, so he could kiss her.

  When she pulled back, he said, “I love you.”

  Aubrey let out a sob, a happy one this time, and kissed him again.

  They were still kissing when they heard “Well, that explains the alarm.”

  “Zion,” Aubrey scolded as she pulled back again. Her face was bright red, and the nurse was shaking her head at them.

  “She loves me,” Zion said.

  “Fabulous,” the nurse replied in a tone that made it quite clear that she didn’t care. “Perhaps she could love you after you’ve recovered.”

  “I will,” Aubrey murmured.

  “Great, then.” The nurse came over to the bed. “Let’s check your vitals, since you’re awake and I’m here.” She glanced at Aubrey and chastised, “You were supposed to tell us when he woke.”

  Zion cut in, “We figured my father had told you on the way out.”

  “Your father?”

  “Eddie Echo,” Aubrey clarified.

  The nurse straightened. “Of course. I thought you were . . .”

  “A Wolf?” Zion finished. “No, I’m just his son.”

  Aubrey squeezed his hand, and he looked at her. “I’m enlisting once I’m recovered. Marine.”

  The nurse gave him a kinder smile, but Zion’s attention was all on Aubrey, who was looking at him proudly.

  Chapter 29

  I WAS AT ZION’S bedside so often the next week that I thought he was going to get tired of me. Instead, we spent a lot of time talking—and I was forced to admit that what we had was inevitable. The break-in sped things up, but that was it. We would’ve ended up together one way or another. Admittedly, it was easier now that he wasn’t off doing jobs for Echo, but even if he had been, I knew I wouldn’t have been able to walk away from him. Zion was it, the man for me, and we were at the start of a forever kind of love.

  By the time he was due to be discharged, I was a little resentful that Echo was insisting Zion stay at his place. I didn’t want to be apart from Zion, and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to cope with the separation. The nurses hadn’t enforced visiting hours, so I’d pretty much lived at the hospital. I still left to go to classes and work, and I slept at home, but that was it. Every free hour was spent right at Zion’s side, even to the point that I did my homework there.

  And now Echo had dropped this bomb on me. It wasn’t something I was going to accept gracefully.

  “I can stay at his apartment and look after him,” I argued. “Or maybe he can stay at the house with me. You’re there every day to see my grandmother. You’d see him plenty.”

  Zion looked vaguely amused as I faced off with the older biker.

  “No,” Echo said.

  “You’re being unreasonable.” I glared at him.

  “I’m not going to have Maureen upset with me because you’re shacking up with my son,” he said, as if admitting to being cowed by a woman was not the least bit shameful.

  I had to give him credit for that. They seemed to have a tentative peace between them, not officially a couple, but Echo was at my house often enough that seeing him walk in for breakfast most mornings was normal now. He didn’t sleep there, but he was at the door bright and early.

  “I’d be out of your way,” I pointed out. “Maybe she’d let you stay over . . .”

  Zion snorted.

  Echo looked at Zion, who held up his hands. Then the older biker crossed his arms, looked back at me, and said, “You’re not in the way. If I agree to you staying with him, Maureen would be angry and she’d miss you. I’ll give you a key to my place to come and go as you want, but Killer is staying with me. That’s final.”

  Zion laughed and then let out a pained noise.

  “What?” we both asked in tandem.

  “I would’ve gotten shot earlier if I knew it would make both of you want me around so much,” he teased.

  Echo glared at him. “Idiot.”

  “It’s genetic,” I muttered.

  When they both turned to look at me, I realized what I’d said and winced. I had just called the president of the Southern Wolves and his enforcer idiots.

  “It’s true.” I straightened my shoulders. “You”—I pointed at Echo—“are afraid of my grandmother, and you”—I glared at Zion—“ever joke about getting shot again and I’ll . . . I don’t know what I’ll do, but you won’t like it.”

  Echo looked at Zion and said, “And that is why I’m respectful of Maureen.” He glanced at me. “Not afraid, mind you, but well aware that she’s not one to trifle with.”

  Then he leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “Maureen and I will be at my place getting things sorted out for Zion. You’re on your own for dinner.” He nodded at Zion. “We’ll be here tomorrow to pick you up when they discharge you.”

  And then he was gone.

  After he left, I went over and sat on the edge of Zion’s bed. “I was looking forward to being alone with you.”

  At his wicked smile, I added, “Not for that. You’re not up for that yet.”

  “Says who?”

  “The doctor.”

  “What does she know?” Zion muttered.

  I kissed him. More and more, I thought he complained just because it made me kiss him. It had become almost a joke between us over the past week.

  “Come here.” He held out an arm, and I snuggled up against him carefully. I didn’t mean to, but I dozed off like that until the nurse came in to check on him.

  It was late afternoon by then, but I didn’t have work. At some point, I’d need to go to the hospital cafeteria for food, but for now, cuddling with Zion was too perfect to stop. We stayed that way for a while until he asked, “What are you going to do about school? I know you weren’t ready to go back to Oregon, but . . .”

  “I’m not going back to Oregon.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. You aren’t in Oregon.”

  He smiled and lapsed into silence again. He didn’t push me on a lot of things, letting me have space to figure out my thoughts before talking. I realized that part of why I felt so at ease with him was because of that. He let me be me.

  I started to tell him what I’d researched: “If you get stationed at Camp Lejeune, there’s UNC-W about an hour away or North Carolina State about two hours away. If we lived midway, I could commute, or I could live in Raleigh and see you on weekends. It probably depends. I think you have to live in the barracks unless you’re married.”

  “We could—”

  “I’m not ready for that,” I said firmly. “I love you, but going from I-don’t-date to thinking about marriage is already pretty hu
ge and terrifying for me.”

  “You’re thinking about marriage?”

  “I am, but . . . thinking about it, not ready to do more than that.” I kissed him, feeling giddy that I could. He was alive, and he was mine. It was enough that I wanted to say yes yes yes to the idea of marriage, but I wanted to wait to be sure that we weren’t going to move too fast and mess this up. He was changing his entire life, and mine had already been in flux when we’d met.

  “Boot camp is about three months,” Zion said after I stopped kissing him. “Once I’m all healed, I’ll ship out, and then you can finish your semester here.”

  “I know,” I said, feeling a little sheepish still. “I’ve done a lot of reading while you’ve napped.”

  “Yeah?”

  “And I called my parents.” I was proud of that, of standing up to them and letting them know that I was done letting their drama impact my life. It wasn’t easy, but I wanted to get my degree. That meant being able to afford tuition, and that meant they couldn’t claim me as a dependent on taxes this coming year. They shouldn’t anyhow, since I wasn’t their dependent. Grandma Maureen had already said she certainly wasn’t going to. That should mean I could get financial aid for college. I’d already explained how that all worked to Zion, so he understood what it meant when I added, “I will be filing taxes independently this year.”

  “What if I’m not sent to Camp Lejeune?”

  “Camp Pendleton has great options too. That and Miramar are in San Diego. There are plenty of school options. Plus, I’m over halfway done with my degree, so I can finish it wherever we’re stationed.”

  “We?”

  I blushed at my slip. That was how I’d been thinking of it, though. “I might not be ready to get married this week, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not ever going to be ready,” I admitted.

  Zion pulled me closer. “Good.”

  I had thought I’d lost everything by having to move to Tennessee. I’d thought that following The Plan would make me happy. I’d been wrong. Happiness was letting myself feel, finding a way to trust my heart, and still looking to the future. I could get my degree, teach, or even go on to law school or grad school, but I’d be doing it with a man I loved at my side.

  Coming to Williamsville hadn’t been the end of my possibilities; it had been the beginning of a better future and an amazing right now. By losing everything, I’d found a home, friends, and Zion. And because of him, I was undaunted by the challenges still ahead of me.

  Acknowledgments

  AS ALWAYS, THERE is a list of guilty parties to blame/to whom I owe gratitude. In no particular order, I want to thank the following:

  My longtime crit partner, Jeaniene Frost, for years of saying “When are you going to finish one of those romance novels you started?” and for guessing that the first one I pubbed as Ronnie was mine even with a pseudonym on it.

  My mother, who stood in my kitchen and recommended my indie-published book to me, upon which the following was said:

  Me: Does the author’s name seem familiar?

  Her: Well, it’s my last name, but Douglas is a common . . . Hey! Wait a minute.

  Me: What was my confirmation name, Mum?

  Her: You wrote a romance and didn’t tell me? Finally! When will there be more?

  My father, who instilled a love of motorcycles, classic cars, and good whiskey in me—and taught me that hardworking, motorcycle-riding, truck-driving, gun-toting, whiskey-drinking, rock-listening, blue-collar workingmen are often the best sort.

  My agent, Merrilee Heifetz, for never being put off by my random moments, including the ones that led to writing and self-pubbing the Unfiltered series with a bunch of friends.

  The friends (collectively called “Payge Galvin”) who plotted, wrote, published, and promoted twelve short novels with me under pseudonyms in 2014. In particular, C. J. Omolulu (a.k.a. Cynthia, a.k.a. Lynn Jaymes), Jeanette Battista (a.k.a. Jane Lukas), Rachel Vincent (a.k.a. Katy West), and Jenna Black (a.k.a. Abby Lombard), who also “came out” as part of Payge . . . I adore you and the other parts of Payge (who are not coming out, but are still in the shadows with support and drinks). It was not only fun to write together, but it was awesome to have our Secret Identity.

  The men on whose Harleys I’ve ridden, in whose arms I’ve danced, and for whom there aren’t words enough to describe both the fun and the trouble. It was a truth then and is now that no one knows passion like rabble-rousers.

  Excerpt from

  UNRULY

  By Ronnie Douglas

  Chapter 1

  ALAMO STOOD IN the middle of a sea of boxes that filled his new house. He was no stranger to moving. Growing up, he’d been rousted from his bed more times than he could count to move to a new place in the middle of the night. His mother would let the back rent build up as far as she could, and then they’d skip out. Mix in a few turns in foster care over the years when she was arrested, and he’d become something of a pro at quick moves—and a light sleeper. This wasn’t a quick move, though. It was everything he owned and most everything his sister owned, and he had absolutely no desire to put it to rights.

  Truth be told, this new house was the nicest place he’d ever lived. It wasn’t home, though. Home was a modest-size apartment in Durham, North Carolina. Home was having his sister, Zoe, in the house, badly imitating his Spanish cusswords and singing like a cat in a surly mood—and he missed it.

  If not for some jerk hurting Zoe’s best friend, Alamo would still have his sister in his home. He’d lost that right when he’d lost his temper. He knew it, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating. He’d done the right thing, and there wasn’t a minute of it that he regretted. The man deserved every punch, but that was neither here nor there. Truth didn’t change facts, and the facts were that Alamo was a big man, and his long-gone father wasn’t as white as his mama had been. Race shouldn’t matter, but sometimes, having darker skin still did, especially in a city where drug traffic was as common as it was in Durham. The police tended to blame it on one segment of the population: those with darker skin. To them, it didn’t matter whether he was Latino or black. To add to that, once the police saw the motorcycle club patches on his jacket, Alamo had far too much of a likelihood of ending up in jail because he’d put that pendejo in the hospital—despite the fact that the white boy in his expensive clothes and fussy car had hurt a defenseless girl. Men like him could afford the sort of lawyers who twisted the truth until it looked nothing like reality. Alamo knew it, had known it before he’d taken the first swing. Sometimes, though, a man had to stand up for a woman regardless of the cost. Zoe’s friend had no one else to stand up for her, so Alamo did what needed doing. It was that simple.

  “You can’t just do that!” Zoe snapped at him when he’d walked into the little apartment they shared. “I might not be a kid, but I still don’t need my brother in the lockup.”

  “He hurt Ana.”

  “You are not the law, Alejandro. You wear that jacket”—she pointed at the vest with the Southern Wolves patches prominently displayed—“and you forget that you’re not above the law.”

  “Lobita,” he started.

  “Don’t you ‘little wolf’ me, mister!” His sister’s hands landed on their customary position on her hips. She was a tiny little thing, but she had the attitude of a dozen girls. “If you end up in jail, I’ll . . . I’ll find someone big enough to kick your ass. Then where will you be, eh?”

  Alamo bowed his head, as much to hide his smile as to let her know he was listening to her chastisement.

  “You call Nicky, you hear me? You find out where you can move because you’re not staying here. That boy . . . he has friends. I don’t want this to get worse.”

  “Lobita . . .”

  “No! You call your Wolves, and you move. We talked about it for next year anyhow. Clean start.” Zoe took a shaky breath, let it out, and looked at him. “Ana says thank you and that she’s okay. She’s . . . sorry.”

  “Don�
�t need to be sorry. She did nothing wrong, Zoe. You make sure she gets that.” His hands fisted despite his intention to keep calm, and the already bloodied knuckles smarted.

  Alamo might not have had a father most of his life, but he knew what a man was supposed to be like just the same. Growing up, he’d just studied what his mother’s long list of lovers did. Whatever they did, he did the opposite. That was all the guidance he’d needed. That was why Alamo went after the buttoned-up man-boy who’d gotten Ana drunk and taken what wasn’t his right to take.

  “Call Nicky,” Zoe said, and then she turned away. “And put ointment on those cuts.”

  She was right. Being the stand-in parent with Zoe had always been hard because she was right more often than not. Her excesses of common sense made her awfully hard to handle. Of course, it also meant that she was less worrisome to leave behind with Ana. She’d be okay; he knew that. Both of the Díaz siblings were survivors.

  So far there hadn’t been any charges filed, and the jackass who hurt Ana claimed never to have seen Alamo’s face. He did see Alamo’s jacket, though, and it was best for everyone if there was no reason for the police to be looking too close at the Wolves. The local chapter president, Nicky, agreed with Zoe, so he’d made a call to another chapter. Within forty-eight hours, Alamo’s things had been packed, and he was in Tennessee. With his life in a pile of boxes. Between a move and a stay in jail, moving was a better choice—but that still didn’t mean Alamo was happy with it.

  He looked around the cluttered house. Boxes and furniture sat in a jumble, but he needed to get out. Being here, being alone with his thoughts, wasn’t going to do anything but make him think about the mess he’d gotten mixed up in. He didn’t regret it. He didn’t think he was wrong to defend Ana. That didn’t mean the consequences were easy to take.

  He walked outside, pulled the door shut behind him, and headed to the bar that the Tennessee chapter frequented. Getting to know his new brothers was the best thing he could do now. The Southern Wolves were the only family he had other than Zoe, and while Zoe would visit, she was still in North Carolina while she finished up her college degree.