1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Fourteen

by Kristen Ashley

  Mandy

  Here I was again—riding home with Shade, although this time it was bittersweet.

  I’d had a good time with him. A great time, actually. So what if the thought of seeing him used to terrify me? That was back when I only knew scary (but sexy) Shade. Now I knew fun (even sexier) Shade, and somehow the two seemed to have settled into a balance that I really liked.

  I didn’t want him to drop me off at my trailer and then say good-bye forever.

  Even worse, I didn’t want to watch him hooking up with other girls at the Pit and have to pretend it didn’t bother me, because it would. This…this was why it’d been stupid to give in to temptation and spend the night with him. Men were a slippery slope, one that started with the most innocent of glances and ended with me handcuffed in the back of a police car.

  So I savored our ride home together but also steeled myself to say good-bye to him. I’d be casual and flippant. Gangster. No big deal. If Wonder Woman could do it, so could I.

  Of course, I wasn’t an Amazonian demi-goddess. I was just a waitress…

  Shut up, Wonder Woman said. Do you know how many heroic waitresses there are? A few years ago, the waitresses at a Denny’s restaurant in Coeur d’Alene recognized an armed serial killer with a captive child, then stalled him until the police showed up! You telling me those women didn’t have courage?

  Wait, what? Whoa… I had absolutely no memory of ever hearing or reading anything about this, so how the hell had my subconscious inserted it into an imaginary conversation with an Amazonian princess?

  Holy shit. Was Wonder Woman real?

  Jesus Christ, don’t be ridiculous, Wonder Woman snapped. Of course I’m not real. You’re talking to yourself, nitwit.

  God. I was literally going crazy, on top of everything else. I tightened my hold on Shade and watched the road fly by under our wheels, trying very, very hard not to think of anything at all.

  Thankfully, I’d managed to pull myself together and was braced to give Shade his casual good-bye when we reached Violetta. I was holding steady right up until we turned down the road and crossed the railroad tracks onto the flat. That’s when Hannah’s trailer came into view.

  There was a sheriff’s patrol car parked out front.

  My nails dug into Shade’s stomach, hard enough that he realized something was wrong. He passed the house, continuing down the street and then turning the corner to swing back around the grain elevator. There—safely hidden by the massive structure—he killed the big Harley engine.

  Abrupt silence filled the air.

  “I really like the way you scratch your nails down my back during sex,” Shade said after a long pause. “But it’s a hell of a lot less sexy when you’re trying to claw out my stomach. Wanna let go so we can talk this out?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, unclenching my fingers through will alone. Then I swung my leg over the bike. “Thanks so much for the ride. I can just walk home from here, no need to—”

  Shade’s hand shot out, catching my arm, forcing me to face him.

  “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen yet,” he said. I stared down at the big fingers, wishing I’d been faster. Shade was strong—no way I’d be getting away from him now. “Why are you scared of cops? I understood why things were tense the other day. You didn’t know why he was there and we’d just gone through the shit with Rebel. But you know damned well that Heath Andrews is at your house today ’cause he’s into your sister. You don’t need to be afraid of him. What gives?”

  “Does it really matter?” I said, sighing as I looked at him. Really looked at him. God, I could hardly believe I’d slept with this guy. Shade was all badass and sunglasses and hair that’d been swept in the wind. I was just small town white trash with a good push-up bra. “It was just a one-night stand. Why do you care?”

  Shade shook his head slowly, running his tongue along his bottom lip.

  “Pull your head out of your ass, Mandy. This is not a one-night stand. I bought you a fucking phone and I introduced you to my friends. You came and ate burgers with us. What the fuck kind of one-night stand doesn’t end until five o’clock in the afternoon?”

  “But you said…breakfast…”

  Shade cocked a brow, and I closed my eyes, realizing I’d been deluding myself. I wasn’t a total moron. Shade didn’t buy girls breakfast, and he sure as shit didn’t hang out with them all day once the sex part was over.

  This might not be a relationship, but it wasn’t a typical one-night stand, either.

  “I’m on probation,” I blurted out.

  “No shit,” Shade said slowly, obviously startled. “What for?”

  “Technically, I was an accessory to an attempted robbery, but then I pled down to a misdemeanor in stupidity,” I said, staring at his bike’s air-brushed gas tank. There was a picture of a pinup girl, like on a World War II airplane. It was good. Really good.

  “You wanna elaborate on what happened?”

  “Here’s the thing,” I said, looking back up at him and biting my lip. “It’s the curse of the McBride women. I told you—we pick bad men. My mom got hitched five times, and not one of them stuck. She married the last one when we lived in Spokane. Hannah was nineteen and I was seventeen. One night he and Mom went out and they never came back, because he’d gotten drunk and crashed the car into the river.”

  “I’m really sorry, babe,” Shade said, reaching his hand around the back of my neck, giving it a squeeze. I liked that. Supportive without the expectation that I was going to collapse in a puddle of tears. I’d survived way too much to fall apart behind a grain elevator.

  “Thanks,” I replied, pushing the memories away. “Anyway, so that was that. We bummed around for a while and then I met a guy in Missoula and decided he was Mr. Right, so I married him. His name was Trevor. I’m telling you—never trust a guy named Trevor. He had this other friend named Trevor and they were both shady as fuck.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  I smiled grimly. “Yeah, you do that. Anyway, Trevor wasn’t the greatest but it wasn’t like my standards were that high. I’d had a few boyfriends, but nothing serious. Nobody ever stuck around. But Trevor did. He latched on to me like a suckerfish. Anyway, I was working full time while he was going to college. Then one day he and his friend Robert and the other Trevor decided to start this business. You know, he was going to make his fortune and all that. In computers. Told me I wasn’t smart enough to understand.”

  Shade’s hand tightened against my neck. “Sounds like a real winner.”

  “You could say that. What he was really getting into was drugs. All our money kept disappearing, but every time I talked to him about it, he had a good explanation. His laptop was broken, or his student loan hadn’t come through.

  “I knew he wasn’t sober, but I had no clue how bad it really was. Then one night we had a fight because he wanted to go to the liquor store. I kept telling him he was drunk already and we should stay home. He wouldn’t, so I insisted on driving him. I figured they wouldn’t sell him anything, but that’s not what he was there for. Somehow, he’d decided it would be a great idea to rob the place. With a butter knife, because my life’s a fucking joke, you know?”

  “A butter knife?” Shade asked, raising a brow.

  “Yup,” I said, knowing it sounded like a bad joke. Unfortunately, it was a felony-level bad joke. “A plastic one. He wasn’t a very good robber.”

  “Jesus,” Shade said. “There’s a lot of dumbass criminals out there, but seriously—sounds like Trevor boy was a new level.”

  “Yeah, well, who’s stupider—Trevor or me, because I’m the who one fell for his shit. Then I got arrested as his accomplice. I had no damned idea what was going on when the cops pulled up. I thought they were just trying to say hello when they knocked on my window. Anyway, I spent three nights in jail before I found someone to bail me out. Things went downhill from there, obviously. Trev was so fucked up that he could hardly talk, but somehow he managed to tell
them that the whole thing was my idea. Apparently I wasn’t just his getaway driver—I was his butter knife supplier.”

  Shade gave a choked cough, and I cocked my head at him.

  “It’s okay to laugh,” I said, and his lip twitched. Other than that, he managed to hold it in, which I appreciated. “Everyone else did. Then the prosecutor decided to take pity on me and offer a plea bargain. I got a misdemeanor and six months’ probation. I was a good girl for the first three months so they dropped my supervision. I had to petition to move to Violetta, of course, but they were really decent about it.”

  “And then you met Rebel.”

  “Less than two weeks after I got here. You saw how that ended. Anyway, that’s why I get nervous when I see cops. You never know when one of them is going to arrest you for something you didn’t even know you did…and if I do get caught doing anything, I could go to jail. Have you ever been to jail? It sucks.”

  Shade nodded, and I remembered the rumors I’d heard about him. Of course he’d been to jail.

  “I’ve been arrested several times. Never convicted,” he told me. “And you’re right—it’s not pleasant. But it’s not the end of the world, either. I’ve got brothers serving hard time inside, so that gives me some perspective. How much longer do you have?”

  “Four more weeks.”

  “That’s not bad at all,” he said. “You got any special plans for afterward?”

  Right. Special plans, because I can afford to do all kinds of crazy stuff as a waitress. You know, in all my free time, when I’m not watching my sister’s kids in our luxurious trailer. I sighed, shaking my head. “You’re really lucky, you know that?”

  Shade sat back on his bike, studying me.

  “Yeah, I think I’m a lucky enough guy, but I’m not quite sure what it has to do with the conversation.”

  “You get to travel,” I told him, frustrated. “In a few weeks or a month or whatever you’ll leave this place. You’ll go see things and do things, and for some reason you seem to have enough money to live on without taking a shitty job waiting tables.”

  Shade snorted. “Mandy, you don’t wanna know how I get my money.”

  “Let me guess—it’s bad?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “I’m starting to think I’m genetically incapable of being attracted to a good guy. No offense.”

  “None taken,” he replied, offering a slow smile. “I’m not a good man. But I’m not a man who’ll drag you down into the dirt, either. Or let you get caught up in club business. The Reapers have been around for a long time and we’re real good at taking care of our people. I’m not sayin’ I’ll never need a getaway car, but if I do, I sure as shit won’t trick my woman into driving it.”

  God, how was he so sexy when he was saying such terrible things? And that knowing, naughty look in his eyes… It wasn’t fair.

  “This is crazy,” I said, trying hard not to smile back at him. “I need to get to work and you need to go do whatever it is that you do that may or may not involve getaway cars. I’m sorry that I was weird about Heath’s car. I know he’s just there to see Hannah. He’s probably even a good guy. I overreacted and it was stupid.”

  “I’ve asked around about him,” Shade said, his voice serious this time. “And he is a good guy. A real good guy. Good enough that he won’t play ball with us, if it makes you feel better.”

  “It actually does,” I admitted, then my purse buzzed. Pulling out my phone, I found a message from Hannah.

  Hannah: Are you ever coming home? i saw you drive by. Heath just stopped by to say hi

  Me: Yeah will be there soon. Sorry. It felt weird seeing him there and I guess i panicked

  Hannah: He’s a good guy.

  Shade must’ve been reading the messages upside down, because he laughed.

  Me: so i hear. coming home soon

  I looked at Shade, stiffening my spine.

  “Okay, so you’ve heard the story, we’ve finished our one-night stand, we’ve finished the bonus barbecue, and now it’s time for me to go to work,” I said. “It’s been fun.”

  “Great. I’ll wait while you get ready and run you over to the Pit,” Shade told me, patting the back of his bike. “Hop on. I can’t stick around tonight because I gotta go back to the clubhouse, but I’ll be in touch. Bone will change your work schedule if I need him to.”

  “Um, weren’t you listening?” I asked. “I have to stay single. Otherwise, you’ll destroy my life. It’s my destiny.”

  Shade reached out, hooking his fingers into my waistband, then pulled me close.

  “I didn’t ask you to marry me,” he said seriously, catching and holding my gaze. “And I promise, I have no plans to. But we aren’t done fuckin’.”

  Oh, God, I wished that could be true. But there’d been my dad, Trevor, Rebel, Randy and so many others. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t afford to take the chance on a guy right now.”

  Shade studied me, then nodded. “Okay, so we’ll just have another one-night stand.”

  “But they’re only one night—that’s the definition.”

  “Yeah, and they don’t include afternoon barbecues, but we managed to survive one, didn’t we? So we’ll just fuck again. No relationships. I promise.”

  It really would be nice. And I was already setting Future Me up for a win by finishing out my probation.

  Yes, you are, said Wonder Woman approvingly. Future You is a very lucky girl.

  “All right. We can have sex again, but there won’t be any relationship bullshit. You need a getaway driver, call someone else. Dopey. You should call Dopey. He’s a decent guy, even if he is nosy.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell him that,” Shade said, cracking a smile.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I slept in the next morning, or at least as much as I could with three little girls sitting on me while they watched cartoons. It was Sunday and Hannah was making pancakes.

  That meant she wanted to ask me a favor. I had a massive weakness for pancakes and we both knew it.

  Just to spite her, I pretended not to notice until she literally waved them under my nose. Then it was all over because she’d put in chocolate chips. Whatever she wanted me to do, she felt strongly about it—those were the big guns. Half an hour later I sat at the counter, watching as she dried the dishes. Usually, whoever cooked didn’t have to clean, which raised the stakes even more.

  “Okay, spit it out,” I said, waiting until she was done. That way if I told her no she couldn’t stick me with kitchen duty, because that’s what sisters do to each other.

  “What?” Hannah asked, all innocence.

  “Just tell me what the favor is. You wouldn’t have pulled out the chocolate chips if wasn’t a big deal to you… But it’s also something that you think I might say no to, which means it’s technically optional. Otherwise you wouldn’t bother sucking up so hard. It’s about Heath, isn’t it?”

  Hannah dropped the innocent act and put both hands on the counter, leaning across the faded laminate toward me.

  “He asked me out on a date,” she said in a hushed tone. “Like, a real date. Oh, don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t the police department’s fault you got arrested and thrown into jail. They were just there to finish what Trevor started. And Heath is cute—really cute. Not only that, he’s stable and nice and doesn’t do drugs. He’s a volunteer baseball coach, for God’s sake. What more do you want?”

  “I hate it when you’re all reasonable and expect me to be reasonable, too. It’s not fair.”

  “Whatever. Will you watch the girls or not?” she asked, crossing her arms and glaring at me.

  “Ha! I knew you couldn’t keep up the nice act,” I replied, sticking out my tongue. She stuck hers out back at me. “But yeah, I’ll watch the kids. When?”

  “Tonight,” she said. “It’s the only day this week that neither of us have to work. More like this afternoon, really. He wants to go on a picnic, maybe watch the sunset from the butte.”

  “Bullshit. He wants
to go park somewhere and make out with you.”

  Hannah blushed fiercely as I waved my finger in disapproval.

  “Men are the enemy, remember?”

  “Says the girl who came home at five in the afternoon, delivered by a strange biker. Don’t be such a hypocrite. Anyway, I never said anything about staying away from men. That was you. Just because things didn’t work out with Randy doesn’t mean they can’t with someone else.”

  “This kind of attitude might be why Mom was married five times,” I pointed out.

  “Well, if she’d stuck with my dad, she’d never have met yours, and then I wouldn’t have a sister,” Hannah replied. “It’s just one date. Will you let me have this? Please?”

  I sighed melodramatically and then nodded at her. “Okay, you can go out with Heath… But I’ll expect you back by dark or I’ll have to ground you.”

  Hannah gave the children a quick glance to make sure they were still watching TV, then flipped me off. My phone buzzed before I could retaliate.

  Shade: Hey—you busy today? Another one-night stand might be nice… Technically we never finished the first one. You didn’t get breakfast

  I looked at Hannah, holding the phone up so she could read it.

  “Please don’t bail on me!” she said, eyes wide. “I’ll do your laundry.”

  “I’m listening,” I told her, although we both knew I’d keep my promise no matter what. We only had each other to rely on, so we had to be damned reliable.

  “Um…and I’ll sleep on the couch. You can have the whole bedroom to yourself tonight.”

  “You’re just saying that so you can sneak in super late and I won’t know.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  I snorted, turning back to my phone.

  Me: Sorry. My stupid sister wants to go on a stupid date and get laid by the stupid cop. I need to babysit

  This was where—in the John Hughes movie version of my life—Shade would’ve offered to come over and help watch the kids. He’d bring a pizza. Then they’d take their naps and we’d kiss across a coffee table or something.