Turns out my ma had grown up here, and she never told me. She had gone to high school with a few future members of The Throttle, Lon Cooper being one of them. They had even dated briefly back in the day. My ma implied, but didn’t say, that Lon had been her first love. All the time we’d lived in Cheyenne, and I never had the slightest idea the two of them knew each other. But one day not long after I was patched in, Randi showed up at the clubhouse. And Lon didn’t seem at all surprised to see her.
It happened pretty naturally after that, and no one seemed to question it one way or another. One day, Randi was Lon’s old lady, and that was it. They even decided to get married. “I gotta provide for your mom, in case something happens to me,” Lon said to me gruffly of their decision. They tied the knot one hot summer day, and the party the club threw that night was epic. Long after the sun had gone down, Lon ambled up to me with a couple of shots of whiskey. He handed me one and raised his. “To my son,” he intoned with a twinkle in his eye.
I nodded. “To my father,” I grinned at him, and we drank.
In the six years that passed, a lot of shit had gone down in the club. We’d had some major shakeups, some bad deals gone down, and somehow, I’d ended up as the club’s VP. Things were starting to look up lately, but there was still some major shit up ahead to be dealt with. Some of that shit was on my mind as I walked up to my ma and sat down next to her. I nodded at Cal behind the bar and he brought me a shot and a beer. “Hey, Randi,” I greeted her.
“Hey, baby,” she smiled.
“Gonz said you were lookin’ for me?” I grabbed the shot glass and slammed it.
“Yeah,” she began, and as she did I noticed the crease in her brow. “Ryker, I just wanted to give you a heads up. You know you’ve heard that Lon has a daughter?”
Sure, I had. Though I’d never met her, I’d heard bits and pieces about her over the years. Hadley, her name was. The club members would talk about her from time to time, though not when Lon was anywhere near. Apparently, Lon had sent her out east to live with an aunt when she was fourteen, to get her away from the club. She had gone to high school in Connecticut or Vermont or some shit, and stayed out there for college. I figured she would be about twenty-one or twenty-two now, from what the other brothers had said.
Lon himself never talked about her. Apparently, Hadley had been so pissed off at her dad for sending her away that she cut all ties with him. Lon hadn’t seen or heard from her in years, from what I understood.
“Yeah, sure. What about her?” I couldn’t imagine why Randi was bringing her up now.
“Well,” Randi sighed, “apparently, she’s coming for a visit. Lon didn’t even know about it until a couple of days ago. He just told me about it this morning.”
“Huh,” I grunted, taking a swig of my beer. “How long’s she gonna stay?”
“I don’t know, baby. A while, I imagine.”
“How’s Lon feel about it?” I asked.
Randi scoffed. “You know Lon. He doesn’t do ‘feelings’. But I know he’s a little worried about her. She was supposed to show up yesterday, but she called and left a message on his phone that she had been having some car trouble. She said she was getting close, though. Probably be here sometime this afternoon.”
Something clicked in my slow lizard brain then – like two and two locking into place to make four. I opened my mouth in a daze and murmured, “Car trouble...?”
“Yeah,” Randi replied absently, her gaze flicking up to the TV where two guys were doing their best to knock each other senseless. “Burning oil, or something.”
Just then, the door to the clubhouse opened, and in walked a fiery brunette in a pair of daisy dukes, with legs that wouldn’t quit. Hadley Cooper. Apparently, my stepsister.
Jesus fuck. This was going to get complicated.
Chapter 5
Hadley
I knew he was gonna be there, of course. I just didn’t know his would be the first damn face I saw.
I pushed the door to the clubhouse open and walked in, trying to push down my jangling nerves. I had sat in the parking lot taking deep breaths for the last five minutes, steeling myself for this moment. I wasn’t sure what made me more nervous: seeing my father again for the first time in seven years, or seeing the man who had kissed me like the world was ending and then just left me there hanging, with nothing but the memory of his heat pressed up against me.
There he was. Sitting at the bar, looking at me with a mask of indifference that covered something else I couldn’t quite read. He sure as hell didn’t seem surprised to see me, which was awfully strange. I did my best to show no sign that I recognized the man who had helped me top off my oil and had almost lit my underwear on fire just a couple of hours earlier.
A woman in her forties sat on the stool next to him. She was dressed in a tight black tank, her dyed blond hair pulled back in a loose pony. At the sight of me she stood up quickly and moved toward the rear hallway. Her eyes never left my face. “Lon!” she called down the corridor, her voice trembling a bit. “She’s here.”
I expected my stranger to say something – to make some wisecrack about the coincidence of seeing me here, maybe – but no dice. Total stone face. Nervously, I opened my mouth to say something – anything -- but just then the cadence of my father’s loud, unmistakable steps echoed down the hallway toward me.
“Hadley?” he called as he entered the bar. When his eyes locked on me, a wide, open grin spread over his face. In three strides he reached me, and my father enveloped me in a warm, powerful hug, so tight I wondered if he was trying to go back in time to prevent me from leaving in the first place. I inhaled the scent of leather and smoke that was always the smell of my dad. I had almost forgotten it, but memories came flooding back as I breathed it in.
“Hi, Daddy,” I managed to wheeze out as I struggled for breath in his grip.
If Lon was angry at me for all the years of radio silence, he didn’t say anything about it. And if I was angry with him for sending me away, well... somehow, right now with him hugging me so hard I was a little afraid he’d squeeze the life out of me, it didn’t matter quite so much.
He finally seemed to realize he was hugging me too hard and let go, grabbing my shoulders in his big, bear-like hands. He held me at arms’ length to look at me. “Baby girl,” he rumbled, his eyes shining a little. “It’s been a long time.”
I smiled, willing my voice not to falter. “Yes, it has.” Blinking back what threatened to be a flood of tears, I looked around the bar to see a handful of people had entered. A few of them I recognized from the old days. The others – younger, most of them – I didn’t. “Hey, Gonz, Benny,” I said tremulously. I waved at them as they stared back at me and smiled uncertainly in recognition. Wrench stood in the back and nodded once. I nodded back. It was weird. I had expected my reunion with my dad to be awkward, but I had somehow thought that the guys would be less hesitant. Gonz had always treated me like a little surrogate daughter, and I would have expected him to come up and give me a bear hug to end all bear hugs. Instead, the guys I knew were hanging back. They seemed to be waiting for something, but I had no idea what.
“I, uh, just graduated from college,” I said, my eyes moving back to meet my father’s. “I thought I’d come back for a visit before... well, before I made any concrete plans.”
“That’s great, baby,” my dad grinned. “I sure hope you’ll stick around for a while.” He really did seem happy to see me, I realized. His eyes were glinting with that familiar twinkle I knew so well. It suddenly occurred to me that maybe things could just be normal between us. My heart leapt to my throat as I allowed myself that thought. Maybe we could let bygones be bygones and put the past behind us. Maybe seven years hadn’t changed as much as I thought they had. Maybe we really could more or less pick up where we left off.
We stood there dopily, looking at each other. No one else said a word. In the ensuing silence, my dad’s eyes flickered toward the woman sitting at the bar next to
my stranger. She looked back at him, her eyes communicating something I couldn’t identify. Something passed between them, and it occurred to me that Lon might have found himself an old lady. I hadn’t known my dad to have a serious relationship since my mother. Of course, I had to assume that as the president of the club, he had to have his share of the women who hung around the men of The Throttle, just like the others. But he had always kept that side of things away from me when I was a kid.
Lon tore his eyes away from the older woman and looked back at me. He seemed to hesitate, a frown of worry creasing his brow. I almost laughed. Surely he didn’t think that I would begrudge him his share of happiness, did he? I could hardly expect him to stay loyal to the memory of my dead mother forever, after all. I decided I needed to make the first move, to show him that I was more than happy to accept another woman in his life. “I’m Hadley,” I said, stepping forward and sticking my hand out toward the woman.
Her eyes locked on mine, and she shook my hand in a sort of daze. Smiling nervously, she said, “Hi, honey, I’m so glad to meet you. I’m Randi. I’m... your daddy’s old lady. He’s told me so much about you.”
He hasn’t told me anything about you, I thought with a trace of bitterness, but pushed the thought away. I had been the one to cut off ties with him, I reminded myself. And our only conversation since the day I turned eighteen had been just two days ago, when I called him to let him know I was coming back to Cheyenne. I could hardly have expected him to tell me about his old lady over the phone.
“It’s nice to meet you, too,” I said sincerely as I took her hand and shook it.
Randi eventually pulled her hand away and looked over her right shoulder. “And this,” she said, “Is Ryker. He’s my son.”
My stranger stared at me, his expression unreadable. My eyes widened as I took in what she was saying. I stifled a gasp.
“Your... your son?” I managed to stammer.
“Your stepbrother,” my father murmured next to me. “And the VP of the club.”
“I...” My mouth opened, and then snapped shut again. My stepbrother? Ryker’s eyes were locked on mine. His jaw clenched, but other than that I saw no reaction from him.
“Your brother,” Randi corrected my father. She looked back at me warmly and smiled. “There are no ‘steps’ in this family.”
I realized that several seconds had passed, and that people were looking at us. Someone behind me cleared his throat.
“Umm... Nice to meet you,” I croaked at Ryker. I felt frozen to the spot. I knew I couldn’t shake his hand; I was afraid I would explode into flames if his skin touched mine.
“Nice to meet you, too.” His deep, rumbling voice vibrated through me, as though it was touching me in all the places I had wished his hands had, back on the desert highway. The corner of his mouth turned up in a slight smirk, but other than that, he made no sign that he even remembered what had happened between us a couple of hours earlier.
Randi’s voice broke the tension. “I, uh, made up the spare room... I mean, your old bedroom, at our place for you, Hadley. I hope you’ll stay for as long as you like.”
I glanced at her, grateful for the change of subject. “Thank you,” I said sincerely. I took a deep breath and pushed all the swirling emotions at the news of my new stepbrother away. “I really appreciate it.”
My father seemed glad that the conversation had moved on to logistics. “Hadley, you said your car was giving you trouble on the way here. What’s the problem?”
“It’s been sucking down oil,” I said, turning to him. I resisted the urge to look back at Ryker. “But it’s done that basically the whole time I’ve had it. It’s no big...”
“I’ll have one of the boys check it out, get it all fixed up for you,” he said brusquely.
I started to protest, but then I realized that this was his way of showing me he was glad I was home. “Thanks, Dad,” I replied, smiling at him.
“Of course, baby girl,” he replied, almost businesslike. Turning to Ryker, he said, “Ryke, grab Hadley’s bags outta her car and take her to our place to get settled in. Take the truck.”
“You bet,” Ryker said impassively. I opened my mouth to protest, but couldn’t think of anything to say. He turned and strode out the door without another word.
Lon held out his hand to me. “Give me the keys, Had. I’ll have one of the boys work on it, get it back to you soon as we can.”
Dumbly, I dug into my pocket and fished them out. As I gave them to him, he grabbed me and folded me into another hug. “So glad you’re home, baby girl,” he murmured as he held me.
“Me, too, Dad,” I said.
Though, truth be told, I wasn’t sure I was happy to be home, after all.
Outside, I found Ryker loading my bags into an aging F150 with the garage logo on the outside. “Hey,” I muttered as I walked up.
“Hey,” he replied, not looking up at me. He threw the last of my stuff in the back, opened the door to the cab, and climbed into the driver’s seat. After a moment, he rolled down the passenger window and looked out at me. “You coming?” he asked, a slight note of impatience in his voice.
Mutely, I opened the passenger door and got in. He started the engine, revved it once, and pulled out of the parking lot. He turned right out of the lot, on a route I knew only too well, toward the house I’d grown up in.
After a minute or so, it became apparent that he wasn’t going to say anything. My nerves were getting the better of me, and when I’m nervous, I talk. “Did you know Lon was my dad?” I demanded. Way to start a casual conversation, Hadley.
“What do you mean? When I stopped on the road to help you? How the hell would I have known that?” The impatience in his voice was only too clear. Of course he was right, but his tone only served to irritate me, making me respond in kind.
“I don’t know what you know,” I snapped back. “Why the hell did you suggest I go to Cooper’s then? Am I supposed to believe that was just coincidence?”
“Uh, considering it’s the only garage in Cheyenne, yeah, I think that’s a reasonable assumption,” he retorted, his tone mocking.
God, he was infuriating. I fumed for a moment, not finding anything withering to shoot back, and then tried another subject. “So, how long have you been VP?”
“About a year and a half.”
“What happened to Scully?”
“Killed in a gun battle.”
That brought me up short. Scully had always been really kind to me. “Oh,” I murmured, my eyes pricking a little bit. “That’s terrible.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Now shut up and let me drive.”
I rolled my eyes and shot him a look of disgust, but his gaze remained fixed on the road and he didn’t notice. After a few minutes, we turned onto the small street my house was on. Ryker slowed up to the shake shingled house and pulled into the driveway. Before I knew it, he was out of the cab and collecting my bags. I leaped out of the cab and slammed the door. “I can get...,” I began.
“Leave it.” He grabbed my duffel and my day pack and turned toward the house. I jogged after him and watched him open the front door, noting with interest that he had a key. The screen door slammed shut behind him, and I rolled my eyes again as I opened it and stepped inside.
The living room was almost completely different from how I remembered it. The walls were painted a light sage green now, and the furniture was all new, probably chosen by Randi. To the back, the dining room table was the same, but the chairs had been replaced. A large, cumbersome chandelier was gone, and in its place was more modern track lighting. The effect was disconcerting, but I had to admit, it looked better than the worn, antiquated look that the space had when I lived there.
While I was taking stock of all the changes, Ryker had gone to my room and dumped my stuff. I continued down the hall after him and found him standing in the center of it, next to a queen-sized bed with a patterned comforter that was also new. I looked around my former room. All of the m
arks of my teenaged self had been removed. There were no more posters of boy bands, no more pictures of adolescent me with friends, no more stuffed animals. A wave of sadness washed over me. “It all looks so different,” I said in a small voice.
For the first time, Ryker’s tone seemed to soften. “Yeah, I imagine it must be strange being back and seeing things change.” His eyes flicked away, as if acknowledging that he was one of the changes.
“It really is. Seven years... is a long time, I guess. I don’t know what I expected,” I admitted. “It’s all just a little... overwhelming.”
“You really haven’t been back here at all in seven years?” Ryker mused. He turned and looked at me curiously. I shook my head. “Why not?” His voice was inquisitive, but not harsh.
I considered trying to explain, but the thought just made me tired. “Long story,” I said. “The short version is, Dad sent me away because he didn’t think the club was a good place for a teenage girl. And I was so mad that he sent me away to live with my aunt, that I decided to punish him for it.”
“Until now,” Ryker added.
“Until now,” I agreed.
“And you really didn’t know he and Randi had gotten married.” It was a statement rather than a question.
“No. I really didn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” he said softly.
“Don’t be,” I replied. “It’s not your fault. And it’s not so much that he’s remarried... It’s just...” I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“One more big change from how it used to be,” he offered.
“Yeah,” I smiled sadly. “But I guess I’ll just have to get used to it. Having a stepmom.”
“And a stepbrother,” he muttered with a short, dry laugh.
I looked and his gaze locked on mine. His eyes, at first sympathetic, seemed to change in an instant. His pupils grew large, and his brows knit into a frown. Suddenly, the heat that had been there between us back in the desert flashed again like a lightning bolt, and my breath hitched in my throat. A flame seemed to erupt inside me, burning from my chest down to lick between my legs. My lips parted involuntarily; my breathing shallowed and sped up. Ryker’s eyes widened, and then I saw them grow dark with desire. He raked them up and down my body, and suddenly I was acutely aware that we were completely alone in my bedroom. Alone in the house. Somehow I knew, looking at the naked lust in his eyes and the large bulge in his jeans, that one move would be all it would take. One small move, from either of us, and it would be all over. And God, how I wanted to make that move.
Getting the DOWN (A Bad Boy Sports Romance) Page 21