He hadn't meant to get caught up in her business, but as they hit one small town after another, they'd found, on a Sunday afternoon, most places were closed. And, for whatever reason, he felt he had no choice but to get her to safety. As the miles began to pile up behind them, he recognized his interest and curiosity had been engaged.
His mother had called him Bay-co, which was the braying bark of the dogs in their village who could sniff out even the deepest secrets. All his life he'd been the kind of person that once his awareness, his inquisitiveness had been engaged, he couldn't let go of the riddle until he solved it.
As a small boy, the satisfaction in the understanding had been enough.
As a man, he was driven to fix, resolve or correct those curious situations. Especially if they involved women or children.
Why he'd felt the need to give his passenger that old nickname, the name his mother had lovingly used for him, was still a mystery.
Tucking a bag of sandwiches, chips and sodas into the front of his leather jacket and zipping it to his neck, his knuckles hit the metal door adorned with the silhouette of a skirted female, giving the prearranged knocks.
It was time to get more information.
*.*.*.*.*
I hadn't been to a park at night since I was fourteen, but that's where he took me to eat our food. It was the typical kind you find in small towns with its kids play area tucked in one corner and the prerequisite baseball field in the other. The expanse of grass, not specified for any certain purpose, was dotted with the aging picnic tables and waste receptacles.
"Looks like we're chasing the storm," I announced just for something to say. Our damp, weathered bench and table just caught the edge of the lights beaming from the area where two teams were battling it out on the scoreboard in the twilight of late evening.
"Yes," he said simply, his limpid eyes meeting mine as he shifted the pile of our jackets further down the table. He'd already polished off two sandwiches and two bags of chips. I was still working on just my one. "We need to discuss your situation."
When it came to plain speaking, I was thinking that my new friend Bayco was the world-champion. "I don't have a situation. Just drop me off at the nearest motel and I can take it from there."
His eyes narrowed as I spoke.
"Shall I tell you what I know?" he asked, low and slow. For whatever reason, I braced myself even though I nodded as I took another bite of my sandwich. I had a definite suspicion I wasn't going to like what I was going to hear.
"You are running from someone. More than likely a man. But you do not know how to run, to escape, properly," he said flatly. "You have tried this before and each time you have done so, you have learned a new skill, a new way of hiding from him. However, he always finds you."
Fuck! My stomach clenched and my jaw seized mid-chew.
"This time, though, is different. You have alluded either him or the men he has sent after you and have gotten further away than you ever have before. But you know that he and his men are still searching."
Goddamn! How had he… what had I said or done… how did he…
"Stop. You need to keep a clear head and you must tell me of this situation," he said, making a small hand movement, probably in response to whatever expression my face held, or the lack thereof. Ice was now running through my veins. I needed to think and think quickly, but my brain had turned to sludge at his words.
"You're imagining things, Dude," I replied, breaking the laser beam of his eyes before turning away and upending the last of the soda can into my extremely dry mouth. "My car broke down and I just need to get to a motel so I can rest up and get my peeps to, you know, come and take care of things."
Of all the things he could've said or done in reaction to my words, none shocked me more than him breaking out into laughter. Not just a chuckle or a smirk, but a head pointed straight up, braying into the night sky, full-on laugh. I didn't think what I'd said was funny in the least, so I just sat, waiting for him to get his shit under control.
I saw him wipe his eyes with a corner of his t-shirt sleeve as the barks of his merriment slowed, which took more than a few minutes. Minutes that I used to gather up all the paper, metal and plastic from our meal and take to the nearest trash can.
"Peeps?" he said with a chuckle when I sat back down at the table. "No, I do not think so."
Okay, he maybe one of the most gorgeous things I'd ever seen, and I admit that he seemed to have the 4-1-1 on how to keep a girl safe and out of the public eye, but he was really starting to piss me off. True, I hadn't trusted him at all, mainly because of his gender in the beginning. But at his words, that distrust had started to morph into good old fashioned shut-the-fuck-up anger.
"You don't believe me?" I asked with as much outrage as I could, considering, once again, he had caught me in a lie. As stated, I'm not a very good at the prevarication stuff.
His eyes again zeroed on mine and all traces of humor were gone from his face as he shook his head 'no'.
"Which part?" I pushed. I needed to know so I could back pedal as fast as my legs, erm, my mouth could work.
"All of it," he said finally after letting me stew and squiggle under his unwavering stare. "Let's start at the beginning. What is your name?"
"Ah…uhm," I began trying to remember what name I'd given him earlier. I always tried to keep the first letter the same, but I couldn't dredge up the one I'd given him before. Remy? Roxy? Reina? Rita?
"Look at me, please," he barked on a low note. "I asked for your name, which should not be a difficult question. Not for someone that just needs a place to sleep so she can call her people to resolve her 'problem'." The bastard even used his fingers for air quotes over the word problem.
I snapped my eyes back to his and saw his were guarded. He was on to me, and I couldn't shake him off.
"Your name?" he prompted, breaking the silence that had descended. A silence that wasn't comfortable in the least. "And the truth this time."
I stared at him, doing a bit of measuring and assessing myself.
Could I trust him?
I reviewed the hours I'd been with him, trying to find a chink or a crack in any of our interactions that showed me he was looking to profit from my 'problem'. The way he'd held me during my freak-out over the storm was the part that swayed me as well as the bit at the truck stop in hiding my hair.
While I couldn't trust him completely, I was willing to take a small risk.
"Reese," I said finally, and I felt the tension in my shoulders release a bit as I spoke. "I won't give you my last name, but my real, first name is Reese."
"Reese," he repeated and I loved the little burr on the 'R' when he said my name. The way he said it made my plain, old everyday first name sound sexy and mysterious.
"Yeah," I said, ducking my head and tucking my hands between my knees. This honesty shit was scary.
"Are you running, Reese?" he asked with a head tilt.
"Yeah," I admitted quietly, feeling my heart beat hard within my chest. I still wasn't 100% sure he wasn't working for him, even though Bayco was way better than any of the others that I'd had run-ins with before.
"Do you need help?" he asked, his voice almost a low growl in the quiet of the park. I turned my head and saw the baseball game was breaking up. This question was harder to answer than the other ones. But it wasn't me asking him for help. Rather it was him asking if he could help me.
A big difference.
Huge in the fact that for once in my life, someone other than my mama was trying to give aid. And it was a man who was doing the asking. In my life, in the few times I'd actually tried to request it, I'd either been laughed at or found that the male version of help only seemed to help them—never me.
I swallowed thickly before I nodded, crossing my fingers underneath the table.
He blinked slowly. "I want to hear the words, Reese."
"I need help, Bayco," I muttered.
"How old are you, draga?" he asked, his voice still quiet and deep.
"Twenty-one and what's that name you called me? That 'draga' thingie?" I answered and glanced at his face, catching his look of doubt. "What? You don't believe me? It's the truth!"
"You look and act so much younger," he said thoughtfully after a thorough study of my face. "Since you seem unsure of your name, I gave you one of my own."
I let what he said settle around me and felt my eyes narrow as I thought.
"How old are you, then?" I asked and felt my chin jut at my question, making it more like a challenge.
"Twenty-five," he answered without hesitation and without breaking eye contact.
It was my turn to be shocked. He was only twenty-five? No, that couldn't be right. I studied his face. Maybe it wasn't so much his looks that made me think he was so much older. His attitude? His calm, his control, in spite of everything?
"I, ah, I thought you were a lot older," I stammered. He lifted one eyebrow in question. "Not, like, old-old But you know, like thirty-old."
I got a dual eyebrow lift at my explanation. I decided to shut up since I was only making it worse as I tried to explain. At that, the lights, which had dimly lit our wooden rectangle, went out.
I heard him sigh from across the table as my eyes tried to adjust. All I could see was the shadow of him in the street lights that encircled the park.
"I am tired, Reese, although I need to get home quickly. We will find a place to stay and sleep for a few hours. Then we will continue our journey and our talk," he said and I could hear the exhaustion in his voice.
Hey, wait a second.
Who was he to be making decisions about what 'we' were going to do? As a matter of fact, when did the two of us become a 'we' anyway? I opened my mouth to disagree but before I could, he spoke over me and my mutinous thoughts.
"Please do not argue with me, Reese. I am tired and sore and short-tempered."
Although I wanted to say a lot more, I shut my mouth and simply followed him to the motorcycle. My arguments could wait for another time.
Reinventing Mel
Dare showed up at Mel's place just after eight-thirty with a six pack. Since it was a mild night, the two men took their beers out to the back porch to talk.
"So as soon as you're on a crew you'll start as a recruit at the club," Dare said.
"What exactly does that mean? I know you said that I'd be a part of the club and that you were sponsoring me but I don't know nothing about the biker world." Mel had been holding on to his questions for two months and needed an explanation before he was shoved into that arena which seemed to be looming on the horizon.
Dare upended his bottle and reached for another one before he spoke. "Basically you'll be at the beck and call of the full-time members of the club for a full year doing whatever, whenever you're asked. You'll be riding with the brothers and doing their scut work. It ain't pretty but once you're in and that recruit patch is torn off, you'll be happy to have gone through it."
"And the sponsor thing?"
"Consider me your 'daddy'. I'm ultimately responsible for your interactions with and around the club. So if you fuck up then I get to fuck you up."
Mel emptied his bottle and sat back as he considered what he'd been told. "I don't have a bike and don't even know how to ride one."
"No worries. We had some trouble earlier in the year and lost a few brothers. We have some bikes in storage you can pick from and there are some sweet rides just waiting to get back on the street. Once you've got electrician's green in your wallet, you can pay the club back. As for the riding? I'll teach you and take you to get your license."
"Does the recruit thing involve a lot of hours?"
He felt the biker's face turn towards him. "Some. Mostly evenings and weekends. Is that a problem?"
"It's just with my brother and sister…"
"Your girl's already under the Honey's wing and Dee knows what's doing so that's a no brainer. What about your brother? I thought he was fifteen."
Mel sighed and hearing it, Dare started laughing.
"Being a punk-ass?"
"Yeah, he is."
Dare sobered and turned back to the younger man. "Hellions have a program for that, too. Right now Trey's future bro-in-law is one month into his six month stint and doing good. If your little shit gets further out of line, just let me know and I'll talk with the council to see about getting him in."
"I don't think we're to that point yet but I'll keep it in mind," Mel replied. God! Was there anything the club wasn't involved in?
The men were quiet for a time until Dare abruptly changed the conversation.
"So you still hard after spending all that time one-on-one with the sweet cherry in reception?"
Mel smiled before answering. "She's hot all right."
"Fuck, yeah. But she keeps shutting all of us down and we can't figure it the fuck out."
"Maybe she doesn't date the guys she works with," Mel offered.
"Who said anything about dating? I just want to I just want to dip into her sweet honey-pot to the point I can't remember my own name," Dare chuckled. "But the thought that the drapes and carpets match is kind of scary. I mean, hot pink pubes?"
Mel couldn't help his laughter at the mental picture the biker created. "No, that'd kind of be a deal breaker."
"Deal breaker? Shit, I'd lose my fuckin' stiffie, dude!"
Their combined laughter rang out into the quiet night and Mel heard a "quiet down" shouted from someplace down the block.
"I should probably bail. Listen, I'll be around if you have any more questions. You still have a few days before you'll be sporting the Hellion cut so if you've got worries come see me. Brand's got you on inventory, right? Good. So swing by my office if something occurs to you. Nah, stay there, man. I'll see myself out." And with a flick of his fingers, the huge biker left.
Mel stayed outside and considered how much both he and his life had changed in only a couple of months. He was learning a trade that would definitely support his family over the long haul and he was slowly coming out of his shell each day. When he was younger, he'd been pretty chatty but had quickly learned Deschames liked his guards seen but not heard. Since the old man had been holding Der and Jules as insurance to keep Mel in line, he'd had no choice but to become quieter and much more serious.
He still wasn't sure about becoming a part of HMC but they'd done so much for his family Mel didn't know how to refuse. And from what he could see, the club behaved much like a family, a very large and boisterous family. But one that took care of each other and those under their protection.
Compared to their old life, being a part of the Hellion family wouldn't be so bad, Mel decided as he picked up the empties and went into the house.
*.*.*.*.*
"Texas, huh? So how come you don't have a drawl?" I asked, delicately forking up another mouthful of my diet meal for one.
"I still do when I'm stressed but I'm working on getting rid of it. Montana seems to think you have no brains when they hear the South in your voice," Mel explained with a chuckle. I really liked his smile deciding his slightly crossed front teeth only added to his charm.
He and I just 'happened' to have the same lunch break and had taken to spending that time together since we were the only ones who didn't go across the wide, wide driveway to eat at the club. 'Happened' because I snuck his timecard out of the holder after his first day and saw when Brand had scheduled Mel's half-hour to eat.
"What do you do for fun in your time off?" I asked. We'd had lunch four times by then and I was getting tired of our little getting to know you chats. I'd dropped more than enough hints in trying to get him to ask me out but he didn't seem to be picking up on any of them. It was so darn frustrating! So frustrating I was considering asking him out, something that went against my code of dating which was very specific about the man being the hunter.
"Not too much because I don't have that much extra time with my brother and sister and all," he said, taking a bite out of his second sandwich. The man su
re could eat and his daily lunch usually had more items than my entire week's worth of groceries.
"So you don't date or have friends over?" I was fishing but trying to keep it light wondering if the lack of initiative on his part was because he was already seeing someone.
"I haven't dated in a while but sometimes the Hellions or Honeys come by to visit."
Shoot! So the reason he hadn't asked me out wasn't because of another woman which meant…what? My mind moved at the speed of light to come up with a reason. I knew he liked me and found me attractive since I'd caught him looking at me and my rounded parts when he thought I didn't see.
"Can I ask you something, Miss Palmer?"
"Sure, Mel. Ask away," I replied with a giggle. Usually I was the one carrying most of our conversations.
"Why is your hair pink? I mean, did you color it that way on purpose or was it just something that happened?"
I know I blinked before I answered wondering if the reason he didn't want to see me outside of work was because of my bright hair. "No, my hair's this color because I like it. I don't moo on cue."
"What?"
"I'm not part of the herd and like that my hair makes me different than everyone else."
"Moo on cue, that's funny!" he chuckled finishing the last bite and reaching for his chips. I must've sounded defensive with my answer because he went on. "It's not that it doesn't look good on you, though."
"Why, thank you, Mel," I said, beaming my best smile at him. "And for that you can call me Lulu."
"Lulu," He repeated as he smiled back and I saw his eyelids move to the half-hooded position. I knew what that meant having seen the look on many men's faces before, so I turned my head to allow his eyes to roam over me where they would.
"Erm. If you're not busy tomorrow night, would you like to go with me to 'Boots'? They have live music on Tuesdays that I've heard is pretty good."
"Sure. That sounds like fun!" Yes, yes, yes! He asked me out! Yes!
"If you give me your address I'll pick you up around seven," he continued and I could see he was making a concentrated effort to keep his eyes on my face.
The Possibility of Trey (A Hellion MC Novel) Page 27