“Would you like coffee with that?” Dawn tried to keep her voice steady and willed everyone to go back to their respective conversations. Anything but watch the drama unfolding in the corner booth of the cheap restaurant where she worked six mornings a week, remarkable only for the fact there was absolutely nothing notable about it. Brown vinyl booths lined the walls across from the curved counter; a plastic palm tree, its leaves heavy with dust, took up an empty corner; and a newspaper stand filled with day-olds perched in the corner. The kitchen was partially open, filling the restaurant with scents of grease and coffee, and the walls were decorated with pictures of cats. Lots of cats.
“What the fuck happened to your face?” Cade stared at her aghast.
“Cream and sugar, sir?”
Conversation resumed around them, slowly rising to a gentle murmur, and Dawn’s tension eased. Hopefully her boss, Stan, had missed Cade’s outburst.
“I had a run-in with a bus shelter.” She kept her voice low and her eyes on her notepad. There seemed little point lying to him. Although she’d done her best to cover up the bruises with makeup, she couldn’t hide the swelling around her eye.
Cade’s lips pressed into a rigid line, a far cry from his warm, affable expression of only moments ago. “It was Mad Dog, wasn’t it? I’m going to fucking kill him.”
She caught a flash of red out of the corner of her eye and saw Stan standing by the door to the kitchen in his Table Tops uniform: black pants, red polo shirt, and white apron. Dawn wore a skirt instead of pants and instead of the word MANAGER stitched across the top left corner of her uniform, her shirt read WAITRESS. As if people wouldn’t know when she took their orders.
“Quiet,” she whispered. “I can’t afford to lose this job.” And then she raised her voice loud enough for Stan to hear. “How would you like your eggs, sir?”
Cade ripped the napkins from the holder and crumpled them in his fist. “Scrambled.”
“Any toast?”
“Yeah,” Cade muttered. “He’ll be fucking toast when I’m done with him.”
Dawn leaned in and tugged the napkins out of his fist. “Bad pun. And get it together. My boss isn’t the most understanding of people.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to get it together when I walk in here and see your face all banged up? I don’t see you for one day and look what happens.”
“Life is what happens. My life. And yeah, it’s fucked up. But I have a plan to get back at him.”
Resolved not to let Jimmy scare her, she’d come up with her plan last night while tending to her cuts and bruises. This was her town. Her safe place. Jimmy had never assaulted her in public before, and she’d never had a friend in the sheriff’s department. Maybe this time, the police could help.
“I’m going to see the sheriff’s deputy after work tomorrow to report the assault.” She tucked her order pad in her apron and gave Cade a cheeky smile, hoping to calm him down. “Want to come?”
“Why the fuck would you go to the police?” Cade attacked the napkins again, grabbing the bundle she had just tucked away and tearing it apart with one fierce yank. “They can’t help you.”
Dawn glanced quickly behind her and saw Stan frown. When he took a step in her direction, she turned back to Cade and cupped his jaw in her hand then bent down to touch her cheek to his, whispering in his ear. “Cade, honey, please calm down. Stan is on his way over and I really, really need this job.”
Cade gave a contented rumble and stroked his thumb over the bruised apple of her cheek. “I shoulda been there. He said he was going to give you an ultimatum. I shoulda realized he wouldn’t do it over the phone.”
“It’s nothing to do with you.” Dawn drew his hand away from her cheek and backed away. “It’s my messed-up life and I have to deal with it.”
“Everything all right here, Dawn?” Stan came up behind her, so close she could smell the bacon on his breath and feel the faintest brush of his belly against her back. Stan never went farther than surreptitious touching, but even that made her skin crawl.
“Yes, just taking this order.”
He rested a clammy hand on her shoulder. “You’re taking a long time and we’ve got other customers waiting to be served.”
Dawn gritted her teeth and shook Stan’s hand away. “I said it’s fine, Stan. I’ll finish here and then I’ll go and check on the other tables.”
Cade tossed a wad of twenties on the table. “Buy ’em some coffee on me. I’m not done deciding what I want.”
Stan frowned. “I’m afraid I can’t allow—”
“Now.” Cade shoved the money to the edge of the table. “Or I call up a bunch of my brothers and invite them all for a free meal.”
“Cade!”
Stan reached for the money, and Cade slammed his hand over the man’s thick wrist. “Before you take that cash, one thing you need to understand. You. Touching her. Not on.” He squeezed Stan’s wrist and Stan paled. “Looking at her. Thinking what we both know you’re thinking. Also not on.”
“Stop it.” Dawn tugged on Cade’s arm but he was in full-on alpha mode and didn’t flinch.
Sweat beaded on Stan’s brow. “I get it.”
“Make sure you do.”
“I cannot believe you did that.” Dawn’s voice shook so hard she could barely get out her words after Stan scurried away. “How am I supposed to work now? Stan’s going to hate me.”
“He didn’t get that boner in his pants ’cause he hates you.” Cade pulled out his phone and stabbed at the screen. “But I agree, you might want to find a different job. I know his type. He’ll keep pushing unless you push back in a way he understands.”
“You don’t understand.” She glanced back over her shoulder to make sure Stan couldn’t hear. “This is the only restaurant near the school, and Stan lets me go during our busy time so I can see the girls. I don’t just need the job; I need this job. And I have my own way of handling Stan.” Although Cade was right that Stan kept pushing despite her firm rebukes. But she couldn’t go much farther without risking her job, and for all that he was annoying, Stan was harmless.
“Your way of handling Stan means Stan gets to touch something that doesn’t belong to him.” Cade leaned back in the booth, arms folded, legs spread. “Something I want. That causes a problem.”
Dawn’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “For him or for you?”
“For him, since I always get what I want.”
“Cocky.”
Cade licked his lips. “Maybe you should drop a napkin and bend over and pick it up so I can show you just how cocky I can be.”
“Always about sex.”
He reached for her hand and stroked a thumb across her knuckles, sending a wave of heat through the body. “Always about you. What happened last night won’t happen again. I’m gonna protect you and keep you safe.”
Without thinking, she stroked a hand over his hair. So fierce. So passionate. What would it be like to have someone like Cade in her life? An idea stirred at the back of her mind, but she quickly dismissed it. Yes, she liked Cade, but not enough to embrace the biker life that had caused her so much pain.
Reality kicked in and her hand dropped. It would never happen. Wrong life. Wrong world. Entirely the wrong guy.
SIX
I will avenge all wrongs done to me and my club.
SINNER’S TRIBE CREED
Christ. Cade pulled open the door to the Conundrum Sheriff’s Department and steeled himself for a takedown. Damn cops would just love to toss a one-percenter in jail. If the Sinners still had Sheriff Morton on the payroll, he wouldn’t have been concerned, but the idiot had been caught stealing weapons from the evidence room, and that was the end of what had been a damn fine arrangement with the local police.
“Can I help you?” The receptionist glared through a Plexiglas window, her hand hovering over the conspicuous emergency call button at the side of her desk.
Yeah, he needed help. He needed someone to shake him up, slap him around, and
tell him to get his sorry ass back to the clubhouse instead of panting after the only woman on the planet who didn’t want him.
What the fuck was he doing here? She’d been joking around when she invited him to go with her to the sheriff’s office, and if she had any sense she’d boot his ass out the minute he showed up, if the cops didn’t throw him in jail first. But dammit, she had no one looking out for her, and the cops wouldn’t be able to help. Conundrum was a biker town. The kind of protection she needed was the kind of protection only a biker could provide. Still, showing up here took things to a whole new level. Maybe she’d think he wanted more than another night with her in bed.
Maybe he did.
“Sir? If there’s nothing you need, perhaps you could step out of line.”
And leave Dawn to the inept fumbling of the local police?
“I’m meeting a friend who’s seeing the deputy sheriff. Dawn…” Christ. He didn’t even know her last name. Par for the course. He usually didn’t care about a woman’s last name when he was buried deep inside her. Or her first name, for that matter. But Dawn wasn’t like the others and he silently berated himself for not making the effort.
“Dawn. No last name.” The receptionist lifted a manicured eyebrow in censure, and Cade scowled.
“Just make the call.”
Five minutes later, accompanied by two suspicious police officers, he walked into the intake area of the sheriff’s office. An assortment of drunks, vagrants, and a few high school girls in cuffs were seated in the waiting area. All the desks were in use, and the air was thick with the stench of unwashed bodies, old cigarettes, and pastrami.
The lead member of his entourage gestured to a desk in the corner where Dawn sat across from a cop with brown hair and the chiseled good looks of those losers on the front of men’s magazines. Cade snorted at the frickin’ gigantic shiny badge on the dude’s blue shirt, but his derision faded when the deputy met Cade’s gaze and then reached over the desk to clasp Dawn’s hand.
A growl escaped Cade’s lips. So that was the game. Bastard thought he could put his hands all over Cade’s girl.
Okay. Technically, she wasn’t his girl. But he’d slept with her, wanted to sleep with her again, and he’d had a good time with her and her kids on Sunday afternoon. Hell, he’d even missed joining Gunner and Sparky at a little pool party with Delilah and the girls from Peelers Strip Club. Now, that was something he would never live down.
His gaze still on Cade, the deputy stroked Dawn’s hand.
How fucking pathetic. Was that his idea of a challenge? Seated at his fucking desk in a collared shirt, patting Dawn’s hand? He’d give anything right now to get the deputy outside in the alley. Pansy ass would go down with one punch. Guaranteed. And the guy was an idiot if he thought he’d rile Cade up enough to risk assaulting a police officer. Not that Cade was afraid of doing time, but he had business to take care of first, and item number one was to get the deputy’s paws off his woman.
“Thought you were done with bikers,” the deputy said, loud enough for Cade to hear. Cade snorted and put more effort into thudding his boots across the tiles and rattling the chain hanging from his belt.
Let the fucking games begin.
Dawn looked over her shoulder, her brow wrinkled in confusion. “I am. He’s just a friend.”
Friend? Ha. He didn’t fuck his female friends. He didn’t give free rein to all the kinky, twisted shit in his brain and have them demanding more. And he certainly didn’t come so many damn times in one night that the sight of blond hair the next day made him instantly hard.
“A biker friend. Same poison. Different color.” The deputy’s face soured when Cade bent down and brushed his lips over Dawn’s unbruised cheek, a direct response to the challenge in the deputy’s eyes.
“Babe.” He stroked her hair for good measure and then sprawled on the empty chair beside her, ignoring the salivating police officers behind him. They knew who he was. And they also knew they had nothing on him. The Sinners kept their illegal activities under the radar, and if someone did get caught, they had a big-shot criminal attorney on retainer.
“Um … this is Cade.” She gave the deputy a weak smile, and then her cheeks flushed and she pulled her hand away. “Cade, this is Deputy Sheriff Doug Benson.”
“Cade.”
“Benson.” He deliberately used the deputy’s last name, not his first name or his title, letting him know with that one small gesture where Benson stood in the hierarchy of things. But just to make sure, Cade lifted his arm and placed it over the back of Dawn’s chair, his hand dangling with deliberate casualness over her shoulder, fingers brushing her bare skin.
Benson’s jaw clenched, and they locked gazes, trying to stare each other down.
“Enough,” Dawn snapped. “Both of you.”
Didn’t see that one coming. His girl had backbone. No doubt about that.
Benson’s eyes glittered, and then his gaze dropped. Cade puffed out his chest and gave a satisfied grunt. Challenge met. Dominance established. Woman claimed.
“What are you doing here, Cade?” Dawn looked up at him and his fingers took advantage of her exposed neck, tickling their way to her ear.
“You invited me the other morning. In the restaurant.”
Dawn’s eyes widened. “It was a joke. I would never, in a million years, have expected you to show up.”
“Shows how little you know me.” He rubbed his knuckles over her cheek, the gesture at once intimate and possessive. “You want me to go, just say the word. But I don’t trust the cops, and Benson here is gonna be able to do dick-all about Mad Dog. I can.”
Benson bristled. “Actually…”
“Am I wrong?” Cade leaned forward and tilted his head to the side. “You suddenly got the balls to take on the Devil’s Brethren?”
“Yes, you are wrong,” Benson said, his expression smug. “The town recently installed CCTV cameras in high-traffic areas. Dawn says she was assaulted in a public place. We may be able to pull some footage and get enough evidence to charge Jimmy … Mad Dog with assault.”
Cade chuckled and leaned back in his seat. “That kind of evidence will disappear so fast you’ll wonder if you even had it in the first place. Evidence rooms aren’t as secure as you think. And even if the evidence doesn’t disappear, strings will be pulled and he’ll be walking out the other door as soon as you hand in the paperwork.”
“Doesn’t mean we stop trying. Justice needs to be served. And I promised Dawn I’d do my best to get her justice.”
Cade toyed with Dawn’s curls, his fingers brushing over the back of her neck. Damn she was soft—soft skin, soft hair, and a soft heart. But he was learning she had a core of steel inside.
“There’s the big difference between us,” Cade said. “I serve justice hot. You serve it cold.”
Benson tipped his chin, a tacit acknowledgment of the truth of Cade’s words. There was no due process in biker culture. No rules or laws or procedures that had to be followed. Biker justice was swift, and often brutal, but it was always effective. Just as it had been the other night.
One down. Five to go.
“Dawn, you want to give that statement now, or after your friend leaves?” Benson picked up his legal pad, but Cade didn’t heed his dismissive tone. He wanted to hear the details of the assault as much as Benson did, but unlike Benson he would do something about it.
Dawn studied Cade intently, her eyes boring into him as if she could see into his soul. Well, there wasn’t much to see except a black hole that he’d spent a lifetime trying to fill with countless women in countless beds, and enough whiskey to ensure his remains would be well preserved when he finally passed.
“You can stay.”
Score! He caught Benson’s gaze and made no effort to hide his triumphant grin. Take that, bastard. She wants me.
Benson’s hand tightened around his pen, but to his credit he remained professional. “That’s fine. You can give me the details, and after you’re don
e, you can talk to someone in our Victim Services—”
“I’m not a victim,” she said abruptly. “I’m a fighter. That’s why I’m here.”
“Damn right,” Cade said. “Of course, coming here is the equivalent of trying to fight Mad Dog with a feather, but as a civilian you’re doing the best with what you’ve got.”
Benson put down his pad. “I take offense at that statement.”
“Good. It was meant to be offensive.” Cade stared at the scowling deputy. “Admit it, Benson. This is a biker town, and in a biker town the police have no power. You get Dawn’s girls back yet? You got Mad Dog jail? And Victim Services? How’s that gonna stop him?”
“I didn’t choose the name and the unit is there to help people who have suffered as the result of a crime.” Benson shifted in his seat. “Looking at Dawn’s face, I would say she suffered. And as for being a feather…”
“You’re not going to win that one, Benson.” Cade gave him a grin. “Don’t even try. Plus, I got a plan to keep Dawn safe.”
“What plan?” Dawn turned to him and frowned.
“Later. Benson already looks pale. Don’t want to give him a heart attack by revealing too much about our evil biker ways.”
Dawn tipped her head down, hiding a smile. “I kinda like your evil biker ways,” she murmured.
His groin tightened and he leaned over to whisper, “Next time I get you in bed, I’m gonna show you just how evil my biker ways can be.”
“Cade!”
He threw back his head and laughed. Really laughed. He loved the way she shrieked his name.
* * *
Dawn gave her statement and answered Doug’s questions with Cade’s arm around her shoulders the entire time. Although she considered shifting his arm away, especially since his overt possessiveness clearly made Doug uncomfortable, she liked his warmth and quiet support. Even Doug had never made her feel as safe.
“If you change your mind about Victim Services, the number is here.” Doug slid a piece of paper across the desk. “And if you think of anything else…”
The Sinner’s Tribe Motorcycle Club, Books 1-3 Page 41