Lock and Key

by Cat Porter

  “Good for you.”

  “I’ll consider giving you a ride, if you keep being nice to me.”

  Oh goody. Flirty Lock was back.

  “Can I be your fender, baby?” I asked.

  A shadow swept over his features for a moment. “You’re no fender, Grace,” he said, his voice low.

  I squirmed in my seat. Yes, at my age I certainly was beyond being the chick on the back of a member’s bike, there just for the ride and the good time. I was never that girl anyway.

  “Yep, those days are long gone,” I said and broke off a piece of cookie. I sunk back in the sofa and enjoyed the buttery chocolate melting on my tongue.

  He leaned into me. “No, Grace. What I meant was that you were never a fender from what I’ve heard. You were straight up fine girl to classy Old Lady,” he said. “Still are.”

  My eyes snapped up to meet his penetrating gaze. It was almost painful, as if he were looking for something inside me.

  Do you see it, Lock? What is it?

  That animal-like arousal he inspired in me stirred again, that needy ache stretched between us.

  Lock’s gaze went back to the window. “When’s the last time you saw him, Grace?” he asked, his hand rubbed over his head.

  “Who? My dad?”

  “Yeah, Raymond Hastings of Montana.”

  “A couple days after my 18th birthday,” I said. “Ray took off on a rig heading for Oregon and never came back.”

  “Very nice.”

  “Yeah, it was something else,” I said. “A wife, two kids. Guess he figured he was leaving us his grand mansion in Meager and his rusty car, so he didn’t have too many regrets. We thought maybe he had gotten into an accident. We checked with everyone we knew, the police, even the trucking company, but there was no accident. Two weeks later he sent divorce papers to my mother and that was that.”

  “Very slick,” Lock said.

  I took a small sip of my hot creamy coffee. “Did he get married again? Have more kids? Tell me. I’m a big girl, I can take it.”

  “No, he never remarried,” Lock said. “He lived with a couple different women off and on, but he’s been on his own for several years now. He owned a couple of rigs and did pretty well for himself in the oil boom up north.”

  “Really?” I put my latte down, rubbed the edge of the wood table and shook my head.

  “What is it?” Lock put a hand on my knee. “Tell me.”

  An unfamiliar warmth slid through me at the low, gentle tone in his voice, at his touch.

  “It’s just that the man I knew, the man I remember, was always so disinterested in everything around him,” I said. “My parents didn’t even fight much, because he would just walk away, take off. End of discussion. She would rage on by herself, throw stuff around the house. I never thought he had much imagination or desire for anything outside his little box of a life. He was usually quiet, distant. It got worse after my little brother got killed. Ray pretty much checked out after that.”

  “You had a brother?” His hand pressed into my thigh.

  “Jason,” I said. “He was nine when he got run over on his bicycle by a drunk driver. It was awful. My parents never recovered from it.”

  “How old were you?”

  “I was thirteen; Ruby was fifteen. Everyone just went their own separate ways after that.” My palm rubbed over my cheek. “Now you’re telling me that he actually created something big for himself, something that must have brought him a lot of satisfaction and self-respect. He couldn’t do that with us? I suppose he had to get away from us to be a better, productive person.”

  “Maybe it was just your mom he needed to get away from,” he said.

  I shrugged and drank more coffee.

  “Marriage isn’t for everybody,” he said.

  My eyes met his. “Is that how you feel about marriage?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never met anyone I wanted to make that sort of commitment to.”

  “Really?”

  “Tried living with a woman once. It fell apart pretty quickly. That was it for me.”

  Our eyes went back to watching people cross the street, to cars cruising past.

  “I was never under the illusion that my parents had a romantic love story going on,” I said. “They got married young when Mom got pregnant with Ruby.

  He gripped my hand in his and audibly exhaled. My gaze darted to our hands that now rested on his thigh. I liked how his tanned fingers were woven with my much paler ones. Holding hands with someone was such a simple thing, but it didn’t feel so simple just now. A peculiar tickle rose from my palm, travelled up my arm, and swirled in my chest.

  I liked sitting here with him watching the world go by, recounting our past horrors. For some reason it didn’t feel awkward or uncomfortable. It was a relief. I eased back into the sofa, my hand still in his.

  “I’m going to take you to Montana,” he said.

  “What?” My pulse jammed in my throat.

  “We’ll go together, Grace.”

  “What are you talking about Lock? You don’t have to do that. Just give me the address, and I’ll go.”

  “You shouldn’t have to do this alone,” he said. His hand released mine and squeezed my knee.

  “That’s right, I shouldn’t.” I fought the tears that filled my eyes. “Ruby should be with me to ream his ass. But alas…” I didn’t want to cry over my dad and my sister, and I certainly didn’t want to cry in a public coffee shop in my hometown with Lock.

  “Grace—” He pulled me into his chest and stroked my back.

  This felt too good, being soothed by this man who could be rough and yet gentle with me. The ache in the hollow of my chest faded, and I couldn’t help but ease into the solid warmth of his body. His lips brushed my forehead and his clean masculine aroma filled my nostrils and stirred my nerve endings. His scent reminded me of Earl Grey tea with an edge of rough thrown in.

  Oh hell, I should push him away, sit up, suck it up, drink my coffee, and put my game face on. But I didn’t want to. It felt too good here in Lock’s arms. His steady heartbeat drummed under my ear, and I focused on that.

  “Lock…”

  “Shh.” His face leaned into my hair.

  “You don’t have to take me,” I said. “I can handle this on my own. It’s just my father.”

  “Not a good idea.” His voice rumbled in his chest, and his fingers slid under my hair and lightly stroked the back of my neck.

  I blinked up at him. “Is something wrong?”

  “You can’t go alone. In fact, you shouldn’t go at all. But we get that this is huge and you need to take care of this shit in person.”

  “We? You mean the club?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But this has nothing to do with the club. I have nothing to do with the club. What does it matter?” I pushed against his chest and sat up.

  “Baby, you’re one of the most famous club Old Ladies that ever was in all of South Dakota. You’ve been MIA for fifteen years after your old man, a club officer, got mowed down, you having survived that attack. Not to mention you were the only witness to the shooter.

  “I also shot him dead, Lock.”

  “Exactly. The cops couldn’t do much with your statement. You were never able to give a very thorough one which was good for the club, of course.”

  “A hysterical depression didn’t allow me to be too communicative.”

  “That’s right. Don’t you see? You’re back now. You’re here. It won’t be long before the cops come knocking on your door to revive the case if they’re in the mood. Your sister was really smart to get you as far away from here and the club as possible. But now that you’re back it might call up the ghosts wanting to make sure you don’t remember anything from that night that you might possibly tell the police about.”

  “I really don’t remember much from that night. He was wearing a ski cap, his weapon pointed right at Dig. That’s all, that’s all I remember. I knew better than to
get the police involved in club business, anyhow.” My breath quickened and he took me in his arms as his free hand rubbed the side of my thigh. I leaned into him.

  “I know you did,” he murmured in my hair. “Don’t forget, your shooter was related to a Demon Seed, Grace.”

  “I know that.”

  His tight gaze was focused out the big front picture window, all the while his hands clamped on mine. “And you killed him. There’s bound to be blowback.”

  “Great. I’ve spent the past fifteen years licking my wounds in a self-imposed exile pretending everything is going to be fine. My killing my Old Man’s killer didn’t heal me, though. And time didn’t heal me either; it only dulled the pain.”

  Lock tucked me closer into his warm body. “I know the feeling,” he said. He leaned back into the sofa taking me with him. My hand went to his on my knee and my fingertips slid over the eagle ring.

  I let out a sigh. “I loved your brother, you know. Wreck was good to me. He was at the shed shop every day working hard and teaching the younger guys about their bikes. He even took time with me, telling me stories about the old days. Real stories about what being out on the open road was really like, what it meant to him.”

  “Yeah,” Lock said. “Those were good stories. Building bikes, the crazy shit they got up to on runs, living by his own rules.”

  “That was everything to him,” I said. “Wreck was the real deal, genuine 1%.”

  “And that’s how he died,” Lock said.

  My fingers trailed down to the cluster of knotted leather cords at his wrist. “He took me under his wing like the older brother I never had. I have to say, his kindness helped me get settled in the life.”

  Lock’s brows pulled down, and he stared at his boots. “I’d looked forward to being part of the club with him,” he said. “I wanted to prospect under him, ride with him like a brother. But I took on another tour of duty, stayed away too long, and I was too late. I’ll always regret that.”

  “Lock…”

  “It’s alright though. The club was his only family, and it became mine, too. I’ve had that thanks to Wreck.”

  “I get that. You know, as messed up as it sounds, if Ruby hadn’t gotten involved with the club and gotten into trouble, I never would have gotten involved with Dig. We knew each other before, but not like how we got to know each other after Ruby got arrested. When she got sent off to jail, then went on to rehab, the club became my family, too.”

  “And they always will be, Grace,” said Lock. “You know that don’t you?”

  “Yes, I know.”

  His gaze drifted out the window once more. I got the feeling it wasn’t enough for him, the club as his family.

  “Is it enough for you?” I asked.

  His head snapped back at me, and he frowned. “I’m not so sure anymore. I’m not questioning the brotherhood, just my role in the club. Things have been feeling routine for a long time now. Hitting forty last year, made me start wondering.”

  “It’s okay to want more out of life, you know,” I murmured. “It’s one thing being grateful for what you have, it’s quite another being satisfied. I know that too well.”

  He studied me and rubbed his hands together.

  “Wreck told me how he had found you beaten up and locked in the cellar of your father’s house on the reservation,” I said.

  Lock nodded. “My dad had broken my nose, but by the time Wreck found me it had already been a couple of days.” His fingers flicked over the bump on the bridge of his nose.

  “With a scar to go with it?” I was sure the scars he carried on the inside ran deeper than the one on his face.

  He nodded at me. “Yeah, nice souvenirs of my brief time with Daddy. Our mother hooked up with some real shitheads over the years, one right after the other. My father was just one in a long line of many,” he said.

  His fingers slid over mine at his wrist. “Wreck found me, got me out of that hellhole, and took me home with him. He didn’t even know me, but that didn’t matter to him. We were brothers.”

  I leaned my head against his shoulder and opened my hand to his fingers.

  “I was a pain in the ass half the time,” Lock said. “But he dealt with it. “He missed out on a lot of club rides because of me, but he didn’t mind, never complained. He was Road Captain at the time too, so that must have been rough on him and a pain in the ass for the club. They gave him a pass on it, though, because I was his family.

  I smiled against his shoulder.

  “For a long time Wreck spent more time fixing bikes and cars to keep the money coming in, than hanging with the boys,” Lock said. “Once I turned sixteen he started going out again, riding to rallies, partying. That simple shit made him so happy, especially riding with his brothers. I was glad when he got back to it full-time. I didn’t want to be the reason he stopped being a full-fledged Jack.”

  “You were loved,” I whispered. My words hung between us. His eyes slid closed, his lips pressed into a firm line. My fingers entwined with his.

  “He had shown me a picture of you on your first bike, the one he rebuilt for you,” I said.

  “He did?” His eyebrows lifted. “The Indian Chief was a classic, Grace. A thing of beauty.”

  “You looked so happy sitting on that bike, Lock.”

  “Not spooky?” His fingers squeezed mine.

  “Not spooky at all.”

  “It was one of the best moments of my life,” he said, his voice husky.

  “You know, a lot of the guys had gotten caught up in the drugs, the partying, or the business of making money any way they could,” I said. “Not Wreck. He liked partying and all the rest of it as much as anyone, but his soul was in his bikes, the road. But most of all, in you.”

  His fingertips grazed the stack of silver rings on my middle finger. “I’m glad you got to know my brother like that,” he muttered as his eyes pierced mine. “That makes me feel good that back then a good girl liked you appreciated the kind of man he was. He deserved that, someone like you giving him that love and respect.”

  His heavy gaze fell to my mouth. The air nipped from my lungs. My insides launched into orbit. I shifted on the sofa and took a sip of my latte.

  “Why did you go into the army, Lock?” I asked. “Why not just become a member of the club right off?”

  He sighed, and his hand remained over mine. “Wreck wanted me to have more life experience before I made the commitment. He took that really serious, and I respected it, understood it. I was itching to get out on my own anyhow and push my limits. The war in Bosnia had broken out. I got sent over there, then ended up in Kosovo later. That’s when Wreck got killed.”

  Wreck had been stabbed and killed in a bar fight while on a run with his brothers to Texas. It had haunted Dig for a long time, put him on more of an edge than he already was on. It had changed something for him, made him think differently. Wreck’s death eventually led him to make different decisions about a lot of things.

  “Right, Kosovo. I remember Dig being on the phone to the Army powers-that-be about contacting you.”

  “Yeah, Dig was the one who told me.”

  “Dig told me the three of you would go out riding and shooting,” I said, a half-smile on my lips.

  “Yeah, your Old Man gave me my first gun,” he said, his hands stilled on me. “He taught me how to take good aim. Dig always had my back and got me out of a few nasty scrapes as a screwed up teenager before I signed up for the Army. I owed him big time. He was a fearless son of a bitch, and I learned a lot from him.” Lock’s jaw tightened.

  I imagined my husband taking a young Lock under his wing and teaching him his way around a bike and a weapon. It was pretty nuts the way our lives were connected in a crazy zig-zag through the same people and places. We shared so much of the same past, and yet we had only just met.

  Lock made a noise in his throat that cut off my reverie. His back had gone rigid. Had talking about Wreck and Dig with me made him uncomfortable?

>   “Grace, listen, that part of Montana is Demon Seed territory. You can’t just go waltzing over there on your own. You going into their territory after having been gone so long will put you on their radar. They might get ticked that you went in without a heads-up and see it as a sign of disrespect on our part, or a threat.”

  “But I’m a citizen. I’ve been one for ages now.”

  “To them you will always be our property, Grace. You know that. You’re branded as Dig’s Old Lady. Can’t change that fact,” Lock said and focused his attention on his coffee mug once more, a muscle pulsed in his jaw.

  “No,” I murmured. “I can’t change that.”

  “Don’t you think they’ll be wondering if you’ve been laying low on purpose all this time plotting your personal revenge and this is you making your first move with or without our backing?” Lock asked.

  “I don’t want to put the club at any risk. I’ll back off, be out of everyone’s hair. No problem.”

  His head snapped to me. “Don’t think like that. You’re not in anyone’s hair, Sister. This is your home. You have every right to be here. And to be honest, it’s a good shot in the heart for the club to see you and think about those times again.”

  My skin heated under the intensity of his glare. I turned away and my eyes fell on a teenage couple kissing hard outside on the street. The girl was leaning into her boyfriend standing on her tiptoes, her fingers buried in his shaggy hair. A corner of my heart squeezed. If only things could stay that simple and fresh forever.

  “Jump sent out a friendly request to the Demon Seeds for me to take you in to see your father,” he said, his voice lower.

  “Why you?”

  “Why not me?” he asked. His lips pressed into a firm line. “Grace, I want to keep you safe.”

  My heart ricocheted against my rib cage. “Okay,” I said. “Are they gonna let you ride with your colors or do we go in a cage?”