She froze. If there was one thing that she hated, it was hearing about kids being abused.
“Warren…”
“It was one hell of a hard way to grow up,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “All the harder because my brothers and sisters grew up and got out – and left me and Mom there on our own.”
“They never – they didn’t take you with them?”
“Nope.” He struggled hard against the hurt and rage that he always felt when he thought about how his own kin had abandoned him to his violent, painful fate. “They left, got jobs, moved away. Started families of their own, bought houses, moved on. And me and Mom stayed.”
“Why?” she asked softly. “Why did you two stay?”
“For the farm, mostly. It had belonged to my Mom’s father, and she’d been raised there. After she and Dad got married, they moved straight to the farm, helped Grandpa run it. After he died, he left it to her.” Warren shrugged. “She loves that farm desperately, and she always said that if she left it in Dad’s hands, the animals would die, and the crops would rot out in the fields, and the whole place would fall apart in about a month.”
“So why didn’t you get him to leave? Your Dad?”
“He flat-out refused. And I wasn’t big or strong enough for a long, long time to make him. Then when I was finally big and strong enough, he got a handgun for the specific purpose of protecting himself from me. Never took it off his body, not even in his sleep. Leveled the playing field quite a bit.”
“Oh, God,” Shay said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. Me too.” He gave himself a shake. “Anyway, I barely finished high school and I couldn’t find a steady job for a long time, then I finally got work at the mill. It was all I could do, and I did it for almost four years. Times got tough, debts didn’t get paid, and then the mill went bankrupt. When it shut down, the whole town just died, and things just got worse when the factory closed, too.”
“Those were the main source of jobs for your town?”
“They were the only source of jobs for my town.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes.” He gave her a grin, but it had no humor in it. “So there I was: on the farm with my parents, no prospects, no money, no way out. Me and Mom ran the farm, which kept our bellies full and earned us some cash, and Dad drank. I thought it’d be like that forever, and I just kind of buckled down and got on with it for a few years. But then Donovan called and made me an offer.”
She cocked her head. “Donovan?”
“My cousin. You know him as Joker.”
Her puzzled expression cleared, and she thought about the man’s cold, dark eyes. “That guy’s your cousin?”
“He is,” Warren said heavily. “His father is my Mom’s brother. My Uncle Sandy moved to Colorado a long time ago after some trouble with the law back in Kentucky. That’s the reason the farm went to Mom, you see… because her brother was already settled here. He knocked up some hanger-on at the clubhouse, and they worked something out so they stayed together, kind of. They had Donovan, then they had my other cousin, Mirrie.”
“Were you kids close?”
“For a while, yeah. Donovan and Mirrie would come up to the farm for a few weeks every summer, and that was awesome. But when she was about ten or so, Mirrie begged to go to live with her Mom’s sister over in Colorado Springs.”
“Really? Why?”
Warren gave her a small smile. “I’m sure you can relate to this, honey. Mirrie didn’t want to be anywhere close to MC life.”
Shay sighed. “Yeah.”
“She and Donovan had been raised in the MC, and it was all they knew. Since birth, Donovan was earmarked to join up, and Mirrie was expected to be happy being a pass-around until she got claimed. She didn’t want any of that, so she was out of there. Donovan stayed, of course, and as soon as he was able, he pledged his loyalty and took on his name. Officially became Joker.”
“Joker invited you to prospect for the Fallen Angels, didn’t he?” she said slowly. “He’s the one who brought you in to the life.”
“Yeah, he extended the invitation to come to Denver, but I was the dumbass who accepted it.”
“You didn’t know what you were getting in to?”
“No.” Warren sighed. “I know how idiotic that sounds, OK, but it’s true. I’d never even seen a biker in the whole of my life – except for Donovan and his Dad, I mean, and I hadn’t even seen them since I was a teenager – and I sure as hell didn’t see any hanging around my hometown. All’s I knew was that Donovan had a steady job with the club, and a house, and lots of cash to throw around. He had a bunch of men that he called ‘brothers’, and he told me that they had his back, always and forever.”
“And was that…” Shay paused, wondering if she should ask the question, worried that he may be hurt by it.
“What? What were you going to say?”
“I just – I was wondering what decided you. Was it the money, or was it the thought that somebody would look out for you the way that your own brothers and sisters hadn’t?”
Warren went very still. God, this woman was most definitely no dummy.
“Warren? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to –”
“Nah, baby.” His voice was gentle. “You’re right. I loved the idea of having cash of my own, but really, what I wanted was the family that Donovan was promising me. The whole idea of being a part of something strong and dependable was just so damn appealing. That’s what got me on the bus, and that’s what got me in the clubhouse.”
“I can understand that,” Shay said quietly.
“You can?”
“Sure. We all need to belong somewhere.”
“Yeah, well. That need made me an easy target. That and Mom.”
Shay sat up straight in shock. “What about your Mom?”
“Turns out, Uncle Sandy had had no idea that Dad was beating the crap out of Mom for years. They weren’t close, and when they did talk, she never said a word. I ran my mouth in the club bar one night after a few too many beers, and Uncle Sandy lost his mind, I swear. He ordered me and Donovan on to our bikes and we drove across four states to get back to the farm, and we beat the living shit out of my Dad. He’s in a wheelchair now, and he’ll never walk again.”
“Whoa. Really? You – you did that?”
“I did.” His gaze was unflinching. “Whatever the hell it says about me, it’s just about the only thing that I’ve done in eight months that I actually stand by, and which I wouldn’t change.”
“I understand,” Shay said quietly. “It was a long time coming, huh?”
“Damn right. Anyway, before we left, we paid him a visit in the hospital. Told him to get the hell away from Mom, and leave the farm. Uncle Sandy backed it up and said that if Dad so much as talked to Mom on the phone, the whole MC would be after his ass.”
“That’s quite a threat.”
“You know it. When we came back to Denver, Uncle Sandy talked to Trigger MacGee – he was President then, though he’s dead now – and told him everything. Trigger decided that Mom had the protection of the Fallen Angels, and that she’d never need to worry about anything again.”
Shay hated to admit it, but that was actually really nice. Sadly, she was sure that there were strings attached to the MC’s good deed, strings that could so easily double as a garrotte.
“And how’s your Mom now?” she said.
“Good. Happier than I’ve ever seen her. Ace has upheld Trigger’s commitment and still sends her money every month, and she uses it to hire a few guys to help out around the farm. She’s relaxed and safe, and she’s finally saving money for retirement.”
“And that made you a target because as long as you did what Trigger and Ace wanted, your Mom was taken care of,” Shay said, as light dawned. “You stayed quiet and toed the line and prospected with all your mi
ght, and your Mom was safe. Right?”
“Right.” Warren’s tone was resigned. “I knew within a month of coming to Denver that I’d made a huge fucking mistake… but by then, Mom was roped in and my hands were tied. I couldn’t walk away, couldn’t tell everyone that I’d messed up. Couldn’t ask to be set loose, couldn’t run. If I had, they’d have come after both of us.”
“Yeah. Yeah, they would have.” Shay tilted her head at him. “Also, I bet you knew too much even by then, huh?”
“I sure did. And now that I’m patched-in, I know even more. Too much.” He held her eyes, saw how beautiful she looked in the glow of the fire. “I’m in the club, baby. In for life. No way out for me.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“So, you see, this ain’t me. Not me as I really, truly want to be. But at the same time, it is me. I’m the one who did what had to be done to patch-in, and even though I can say that I did it for Mom, it doesn’t excuse some of the things I’ve done.” He hesitated. “You know I’ve hurt people, Shay. Killed people. You know the kinds of things that I’ve had to do in the past, and you know that I’ll do things like that again in the future.” He forced out the next words. “You know that I’m a bad guy in so many ways, and the fact that I don’t want to be one doesn’t take away the blackness of my sins.”
Shay was silent now. Yes, she knew all of this about Warren. As gentle and kind as he was in his heart, there was no pretending that he hadn’t done horrible things. No denying that he’d do a lot more of them. Hell, he was smack in the middle of doing a horrible thing, wasn’t he? Holding an innocent woman hostage definitely fell under the category of ‘Bad Shit’.
But she also knew all about being trapped in to the MC life because of family connections. Her saving grace was that she was a weak, stupid woman, and so she’d been spared the whole ‘patched-in-for-life’ thing. Yeah, her brother had tried to get one of his brothers to claim her as MC property, but Shay had fought that tooth-and-nail. Hal had finally had to back down and let her go – and she knew that he still resented her for that.
And hell, look at her now: kidnapped because of Hal and who he was. So yeah, Shay knew all about the messy, tangled web that was outlaw biker life. She knew how it could trap you, suck you in, take over your whole existence. And even if by some goddamn miracle you managed to extricate yourself like she had, the truth was that you weren’t totally free and clear of it. You still weren’t out. You weren’t free.
The undeniable truth was that the only way to be really out, to really be free, was to be dead.
So she nodded at Warren. “I know. I know the position you’re in.” Regret made her voice heavy. “I’d do anything to make it better for you. Make your life different.”
She was surprised when his eyes lit up, and he gave her a huge smile. Puzzled, she stared at him.
“But you do make it better, Shay, and because of you, my life is different right now.”
“I do? It is?” she faltered. “But – how?”
“Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I got to be gentle with someone?” he said. “Since I got to take care of someone?”
Stunned, she shook her head.
“Just over eight months. For just over eight months, I’ve been a sexist, violent, angry asshole. I haven’t even touched a woman, because I don’t like one-nighters, and that’s all that the club hellions offer. I’ve had no chances at all to be careful or kind or steady, since acting that way isn’t rewarded in my life now. Being loving and tender is weakness in my world, and taking care of someone else is making yourself vulnerable. But these past four days here, with you?” He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. “I’ve been able to be myself for the first time since I left Kentucky. You don’t know what that’s meant to me. You don’t know that you’ve given me something back that I thought was gone forever. You don’t know how grateful I am to you for that, baby.”
She gazed at him, so incredibly touched.
“I know I was a dickhead a few times,” he admitted. “I’m truly sorry for that. I just – I didn’t know what to do with what was happening between us.”
“What is happening between us?” she asked softly. “What can happen between us?”
“Well, maybe we need to talk about that a bit, huh?”
His voice was molten and husky; his smile was slow and hot. Right away, her breath caught and her thighs clenched. Oh, Lord, this man. Why was the most perfect man in the world for her also the last man on earth that she should or could be with?
“OK,” she said, fighting for calm. “We can talk about that.”
“First, though…” He touched her hair. “Can you tell me about you?”
“Me?”
“Ummm-hmmm. You.”
“Alright.” She gave him a small shrug. “But I’m not that interesting.”
“I doubt that very, very much. “ He ran his fingers through her blonde waves, stopped when he hit a snag. “Will you let me brush your hair while you talk?”
“Uh.” She stared up at him. “You want to brush my hair?”
“You mind? It’s all tangled.”
Her legs felt weak, even though she was sitting down. No man had ever done this for her, and she was almost overwhelmed by the sweetness of the offer.
“I don’t mind,” she managed to say.
“Awesome,” he said with so much enthusiasm, she laughed. He jumped to his feet. “You want something else to eat?”
“Oh, no, thanks. It was amazing, but I’m stuffed.”
“You sure now?”
“Totally. Maybe some more water, though. I’m really thirsty.”
“One water, coming up.”
Shay watched him take their dirty dishes to the kitchen, put them in the sink to soak. He had his broad back to her now, and she admired the way that his large muscles were visible even through his t-shirt. She had no idea what they put in the water over there in Kentucky, but she totally approved.
He brought her the water and then ambled off to the bathroom, came back carrying a brush still in its package. When he got to her, he oh-so-carefully lifted Shay to her feet, then sat her down again on the floor in front of the fire.
The MC boys must have either been inspired by some porno, or by a James Bond villain lair, or maybe just by the rustic cabin setting, because they had a real, actual, bear-skin rug on the floor. She settled down on it, her injured leg stuck straight out in front of her, and tried to ignore the gigantic head with eyes that seemed to stare right at her. The thing was creepy, was what it was.
Warren sat down right behind her, gently pulled her between his long legs. He leaned back against the chair that she’d just vacated, and she almost sighed at how good this all felt. Shay hesitated, just for a second, then she rested her elbows on his thighs, loving the solid bulk of his muscles under her. She longed to just curl up against his strong body, just close her eyes and fall asleep in the warmth of the fire. But he’d been open and honest with her, and now it was her turn.
Fair was fair, after all.
Warren started to brush her hair, going slowly to not hurt her when he hit a knot. His huge hands felt amazing on her, and she relaxed completely under his touch.
“This is OK?” he asked.
“This is perfect.”
“Yeah. I think so too.”
She sat silent for a minute, and he didn’t push. He just brushed her hair in long, rhythmic strokes, letting the golden strands run through his fingers like water. Her skin looked so delicate and pale against his rough, calloused hands, and he handled her like she was made of the finest bone-china. Caring for her soothed him and calmed him, but most of all, it made him happy, happy in ways that he’d never been. Not even before the MC had taken over his life and he’d gotten lost in the dark.
God, this woman was something else, something tha
t he’d never encountered in the whole of his existence. She was all sunshine and sugar: hot and sweet, golden and creamy. Shay was everything that he’d ever wanted and never known it, and he wasn’t about to miss his chance to be with her for as long as they had. He had no idea what time with her was going to look like, but even if it just looked like this – her leaning against him, him brushing her hair – then he’d fucking take it. He’d take anything that she wanted to give him.
“So.” She sighed, shifted so the blanket fell off her shoulders a bit in the heat of the flames. “Me.”
“Yeah, baby. You.”
“Well, you know who my brother is, so I guess that’s the best place to start. With me and Hal.”
Warren just kept brushing, listening hard. He heard nothing but hurt in her voice, and he found that he was aching for her already.
“Our parents died in a car accident, back in Utah,” she said quietly. “Like I said, I was fifteen and Hal was nineteen. You need to understand that he was different then. He was – he was a good brother. A good person. He was in college on a football scholarship at the time, and he dropped out to come back home and find a job and take care of me.”
“That must have been hard.”
“It was. It was so hard that I didn’t want him to do it. I begged him to stay in school, begged him to not give him up his pro football career, begged him to let me move in with my aunt and uncle.”
“He said no?”
“He said no to all of it. He said that we weren’t close with my aunt and uncle, which was true, and that my only real family was him. He said that we’d need each other, and so he wanted to be with me.”
“He was trying to do right by you,” Warren said. “You were his little sister and he was trying to protect you.”
“I know. But it was the worst thing he could have done, in the end. It – it turned us against each other.”
She fell silent again, and he waited.
“Anyway… Hal couldn’t find a job. Like – nothing. He found out the hard way that if you’ve spent your entire life playing football, then that’s all that you’re qualified to do. He ended up working nights at a canning factory for absolutely shit money. We had to move in to a one-bedroom apartment, and he gave me the room, since he said I needed it to study in private. We saw each other in the mornings after he came back from work and before I left for school, and that was it. But we actually held it together for a while, which still amazes me.”
Dark Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 6) Page 12