by Kati Wilde
Zoomie shrugs. “Her loyalty to Stone is as strong as any Rider’s. She’s not about to go blabbing something she hears to anyone who shouldn’t be hearing it.”
“I’m not talking about Anna. She wouldn’t be working my bar if I didn’t trust her. But I’d have liked to know about the brothers. They should keep that shit in the clubhouse.”
“Yes, boss,” she says. “I’ll tattle next time.”
His gaze narrows as if he’s about to tear into her, but he only shakes his head and says, “Shit. So that’s how Jenny always knows more about club business than most of the brothers do.”
He sounds a hell of a lot more amused by that than the prez of most MCs would be. Truth is, I’m more amused than I should be, too. But Zoomie’s got it right. Anna’s too loyal to Stone to risk opening her mouth to anyone other than Jenny—and betraying the Riders would be like betraying her brother. She never would. Just like Jenny would never betray her father or the prez. So everyone in this room trusts both women as much as we do any brother.
More than we trust some brothers, probably.
It’ll have to change, though. Keeping club business quiet isn’t just about covering our asses if shit goes south. It’s about protecting Anna and Jenny, too. If they don’t know about club business that crosses legal lines, they can’t go down for lying to any cops who come asking.
But, Jesus. Thinking about how much shit Anna’s probably kept silent about over the years drills the empty hole in my chest even deeper. Any Rider would be damn lucky to have a woman like her. Smart, loyal—and with just enough bite to her temper and her humor that a man can’t ever rest too easy.
It’s no surprise I’m a goner. The only surprise is that all the other brothers aren’t scrambling over themselves to make her look their way.
The prez rubs his face. “All right. Nothing about Stone goes beyond this room. But we can’t keep it all quiet because I’ll be appointing Bull as temporary enforcer while Stone’s gone. And since Gunner’s going, I’ll put Spiral in as SA.”
Taking over my position. Jesus, even with the ‘temporary’ in there, that burns like hell. But Christ knows how long I’ll be gone and the prez needs to keep order among the brothers.
“So what are we telling everyone?” Zoomie asks.
The best lie is always mostly true. I tell her, “Say Stone hooked up with a girl in trouble. The rest is club business we don’t intend to share.”
“That’ll do.” The prez gets to his feet. “Anything else we need to cover?”
Not here. The only business left to take care of is with Anna. I don’t know what the hell I’ll say when I see her—I can’t trust my mouth when I’m with her. But after tomorrow, I also don’t know when I’ll be seeing her again. Or if I’ll see her again. So I can’t stay away from her tonight.
Just a few hours. And I’ll pretend it’ll be enough.
When no one brings up anything new, the prez heads for the door. Thorne gets up from his seat and I’m up right after him, until Zoomie catches my left biceps and steers me backward.
“Sit back down for a second, pretty boy.” She waits until I do, wearing the same expression she does in the ring, and rolling her tongue over her teeth like she’s already tasting blood. “You know, out of all the assholes in this club, you’re my favorite.”
Shit. She’s buttering me up. I’ve been sparring with her for years and I know what that means. She butters you up right before she knocks your teeth out.
Wary, I watch her eyes. They’re flat and gray and steady on mine. Not giving anything away yet. “Blowback’s not your favorite?”
“I said ‘out of all the assholes.’”
Damn. “I walked into that.”
“Yeah.” But she doesn’t smile. Instead she clenches her jaw and looks away from me. “We’ve been friends a long time, Gunner. And it’s a damn good thing. Because it means I know the way you’re fucking with Anna by using Stone’s phone isn’t what it looks like.”
My grip on the beer bottle goes from easy to white-knuckled. Zoomie and I have been friends a long time. It’s the only reason I’m not forcing those words back down her throat.
Fucking with Anna? Is that what she calls it? Rage rolls up through my chest but I choke it down. “What does it look like?”
“It looks like you think she’s just a piece of shit who can’t be trusted with the truth about her own goddamn brother, even though she’s been keeping her mouth shut for years. What you’re doing is a kick in her face—and instead of backing off, you’re lacing up your boots.”
That speech is a knife in my gut. “I’m trying to keep her from hurting.”
“I know that. She probably doesn’t. She has no clue how you feel about her. So I’m telling you—it’ll look like something else to her when she finds out the truth.” Her gaze meets mine again. “And if Stone doesn’t come home, your lie isn’t the kind that can be forgiven.”
I know it. But if I don’t bring Stone home, Anna will be hurt by far worse than a lie. So not bringing him back isn’t an option.
But the other bit Zoomie mentioned—she has no clue how you feel about her—that’s catching right in my chest. Zoomie and I are friends but I’ve never said a damn thing to her about Anna. I’ve never said a damn thing to anyone about Anna. Yet Zoomie threw that out as if there was no question.
The same way Strawman thought he knew something, too.
Watching her face, I ask, “What exactly do you think I feel for her?”
An abrupt laugh sputters through her tightened lips. “Seriously? I’d say you think she hung the goddamn moon.”
I do. But I didn’t think it was that fucking obvious. “Everyone thinks this?”
“Not Anna.” Zoomie grins slyly and takes a swig of her beer. “But I’ll put it this way—the past two years, Beaver’s been running a pool. Every New Year, he takes bets on when you two will finally hook up. But half the brothers think you two are already hooking up on the sly.”
Motherfuck. I thought Strawman just focused on Anna because he didn’t know I was close to Stone, and so he assumed my sitting at Anna’s bar and being at her house was all about her.
But the other Riders know why I’m always around the Den. Why I’m always around Stone. So that shit doesn’t fly. “Why do they think it?”
“Why?” She frowns, a line forming between her pale eyebrows. “Or do you mean, ‘Who noticed the way you watch her and started talking about it?’”
“That.”
Her gaze searches my face for a long second. Finally figuring out this is a real problem instead of a joke. “The women,” she finally says. “They’ve always got their eyes on you. You know that?”
“I know.” And it never mattered.
Maybe it should have.
“When you don’t hook up with anyone, they start wondering why—and they don’t stop looking at you just because you turn them down. Not with that face. They watch you and they talk. Some of that talk reaches the brothers’ ears.”
Fucking hell. “And their talk reaches other ears.”
Zoomie’s eyes narrow. “Whose ears?” When I only shake my head, she adds, “If it makes you feel better, it took me about two years before I picked up on it, and that was only because I’m around you so much. The brothers probably never would have on their own. You hide it well.”
It doesn’t make me feel better. Not when Anna could have been hurt because of it. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because it was pretty damn funny watching you turn into a lovesick dick every time you saw her.” She picks at the label on her bottle. “And maybe because I was never friends with her. But the last couple of months, that’s changed. I’ve seen the shit she takes for it.”
The back of my neck tenses. “What shit?”
“Uh-uh.” With a slight smile, she shakes her head. “That’s for her to say. If she ever wants to.”
“You see this?” I flick the Sergeant at Arms patch on my shoulder. “It’s
my job to keep the brothers in line, so you’re gonna damn well share it.”
“I’m not talking about any Riders. The brothers know better than to fuck with her.”
“Then who doesn’t know better?”
Zoomie shrugs as if she doesn’t see how I’m ready to bust some goddamn heads. Maybe starting with hers. “Anyway, none of it is quite so funny anymore.”
“It was never funny.”
She nods, watching me. “I always figured you held back because of Stone. Some ‘I can’t bang my friend’s sister’ bullshit. Or maybe you asked her out and she told you to fuck off, and you’ve been pining ever since. Because if it was Anna going after you, she’d still be going after you. She’s like a bulldog with a bone as soon as she gets her teeth into something.”
She is. And the thought of Anna getting her teeth into my bones is too damn distracting. Or maybe I just don’t want to think about how easily she shrugged and went about her business after I turned down her invitation all those years ago.
“We agreed it was best to keep it simple.”
Zoomie snorts out a laugh. “And she’s the only one who held up her end of that?” Her amusement quickly fades. “But apparently you had your reasons to hold back.”
“For all the good it did. So tell me—who’s giving her shit?”
Zoomie just shakes her head.
Maybe because I just did the same damn thing to her, refusing to answer when she asked whose ears were hearing about Anna and me.
I can’t afford to keep silent about that, though. She is Anna’s friend. And there might be trouble when I head home.
“Do this for me,” I tell her slowly. “If you ever see someone come around who looks like me—but who isn’t me—you get to Anna’s side real fast. And you watch her back.”
“You know I will.” She bumps my fist, sealing the promise. “Since Blowback and I are taking off tomorrow, maybe you ought to give Spiral and Bull a heads-up, too.”
“I will.” Along with the prez.
She nods, then purses her lips and gives me a pointed look. “Last I saw her, Anna was in the kitchen with her mom.”
I won’t be alone with her. But I’ll take what I get.
I clink the neck of my beer bottle against Zoomie’s and slide off the stool. As I head past her, she tosses at my back,
“Try not to fuck it up too bad.”
Shit. I’ll try.
But lately my ‘don’t fuck it up’ track record is a damn sorry one.
8
Anna
Eventually, the cold drives me back inside the house. I leave my dad and make my way toward the great room. A step through the threshold, I come to a halt.
By the fireplace, Gunner is standing in the cluster of people talking with Jenny—a cluster including my mom, who’s right by his side. There’s also Spiral, who’s saying something to make Jenny laugh—probably by poking fun at Picasso, because he’s scowling at Spiral and his “do you believe this bullshit?” expression is firmly in place on his uneven face.
My plan is to walk over there and say “Hi,” to Jenny, give her a hug, and join the conversation. Gunner will fall quiet when I show up, because he always goes quiet around me. But I won’t let myself wonder what he’s thinking. I won’t obsess over why he never tries to make me laugh. And when I notice him watching me in that silent way, I won’t nurture any hope that his attention means there’s something between us, or that the attraction isn’t all on my side, or that I’m more to him than just Stone’s little sister.
I’m quitting all of that. Right now. This is the moment when everything changes.
Except I can’t force my feet to move. I stand immobile, my face flushed with heat, my heartbeat throbbing heavily in my ears. After the chill outside, the house feels suffocatingly warm. The conversations around me seem muffled, the hushed and solemn voices drowning in the thick, hot air filling the room.
Until one voice cleaves straight through. “Do I need to pull those two jokers away from her?”
I glance over…and up. Saxon Gray doesn’t usually stand this close to me, so talking to him doesn’t normally threaten to put a kink in my neck. And, considering that he’s the owner of the Wolf Den and my boss, I talk to him regularly.
Never about personal stuff, though. It’s kind of crazy—I’ve worked at his bar for six years, and I’m pretty sure part of the reason he hired me was because Jenny is my best friend. Not that he ever asked me about her. The whole Romeo-and-Juliet thing they had going on for almost fifteen years was one of those subjects we never touched. Saxon was my boss and our relationship was that simple. If he just happened to love my best friend…well, he wasn’t ever going to mention it. Neither was I.
Red’s cancer changed all that. Not right away. But when Jenny’s dad found out he was sick, one of the first things he did was go to Saxon. Red had been president of the Steel Titans MC for decades, and before Saxon took over as Hellfire Riders’ prez, the two clubs had some serious bad blood between them. But there wasn’t any bad blood between Red and Saxon. Not after Saxon saved Jenny from being raped fifteen years ago, and got five years in prison for manslaughter after killing the biker who attacked her.
So Red went to Saxon and asked him for two things: to protect Jenny from the asshole skinheads who’d been hassling her, and to fold the Steel Titans and the Hellfire Riders into one club.
That was only a few months ago. With the club rivalry no longer an issue, Jenny and Saxon hooked up in two seconds flat, and they’ve been together ever since. It’s kind of cute, actually. Here’s Saxon, this big and gruff guy who can make a roomful of bikers quake in their boots simply by looking at them, and he’s head over heels for my BFF—so much in love that she can make him quake.
Not that Saxon shows it; he’s a hard man to read. But I’ve known him a long time and I’ve had a lot of practice deciphering his expressions.
To most people, the stone set of his face and the clench of his bearded jaw probably appear on the edge of pissed. But he’s not angry. He’s worried, his gaze fixed on the group across the room, and his entire being focused on Jenny.
And he’s asking me whether to toss Spiral and Picasso out on their asses.
The president of the Hellfire Riders doesn’t exactly go around asking advice. He probably listens to the club’s officers behind closed doors, but under normal circumstances, he doesn’t openly consult anyone before making a decision. He certainly wouldn’t consult me.
Even after he and Jenny became a couple, my relationship with him didn’t change. Saxon draws lines, and I was still his employee, so he still didn’t talk about her with me. And that was the way I liked it, too. No need to make things awkward at work.
But that’s all been turned around in the past couple of days. Losing her dad ripped Jenny apart, and Saxon’s desperate to help her though this. So he’s been crossing those lines, because with Red gone, I know Jenny better than anyone—and I was there when she lost her mom, too. Now Saxon and I are the closest two people she has left, so we’ve formed kind of a team, making sure Jenny has everything she needs.
I love him a little for that—for crossing those lines. For doing whatever it takes to help her. Because I would do the same.
Glancing back at Jenny, I study her for a long second, my heart pulling tight. Her face is drawn and pale. She looks so tired, despite her smile. Despite her laughter. That’s what Saxon’s picking up on. He’s worried she’s expending too much effort pretending to be amused by whatever antics Spiral and Picasso are pulling.
I don’t think she’s pretending, though. “She probably needs the laugh,” I tell him. “And she might feel guilty about laughing after burying her dad, but it’s also probably a relief. I mean…look at everyone.”
So serious. So careful. A whole house full of people walking on eggshells, and there go Spiral and Picasso playing the clowns—maybe even deliberately. Considering who else is standing there, I wouldn’t be surprised if my mom asked Gunner to recru
it these guys in an effort to cheer Jenny up.
“And don’t forget my mom is there to run interference,” I add.
Saxon nods. His steely gaze touches my face for a moment before returning to Jenny. “What you said to me the other day, about not asking if she was all right—it was good. I told the brothers not to ask her.”
I have to bite my lip against a grin. Stopping every Hellfire Rider from asking Jenny if she was all right wasn’t exactly what I was thinking when I gave him the advice, but I should have realized he would take it a step further. Now he’ll probably pound the shit out of them if they forget and do ask her.
Maybe it’s for the best, though. My mom taught Stone and me a long time ago that “How are you?” can be one of the most unintentionally cruel questions to ask someone who is grieving. Sure, it stems from concern about that person. But it can place a burden on them, too—the burden of reassuring the other person that they’re fine. The burden of lying if they’re not. The burden of pretending the question doesn’t hurt even though every emotion is raw and exposed.
And Jenny…Lord, I love her, but she’ll bend over backward to help someone, to reassure them. She’ll pretend she’s okay until she breaks—and she’ll especially pretend for Saxon’s sake, because she won’t want him to worry.
But he’ll worry anyway. So it was best just to nip that in the bud, so he never asks a question that will force her to pretend.
His voice sounds a little rougher when he abruptly asks, “Is she all right?”
“No,” I tell him and when despair suddenly wipes the steel from his eyes, leaving misery in its wake, I rush to add, “But she will be.”
And look at me. Just like Jenny, reassuring him. But, God. Seeing that expression was like watching him take a slow dive into Hell.
I bump his arm with my shoulder, so I know he’s listening to me instead of wallowing in a lake of fire. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. Be there for her. Don’t try to keep her from working”—no matter how much he probably wants to roll her up in a blanket and prevent anything from touching her until she stops grieving—“because keeping busy is how she copes when she’s hurting. And don’t ask her if she needs help with anything, because our girl will feel bad if you do things for her. So frame any help like, ‘I’d love to do this thing for you,’ because then it’s about what you want to do, and it’ll make her feel good because she’s helping you.”