Reinventing Mel: A Hellion MC Novel

by J. A. Hornbuckle

  "Hey!" she barked, whipping her head around to glower at him. "Get your mitts off my stuff, Bayco!"

  He leaned down and put his mouth against her ear. "I want you to pack all your beautiful hair underneath your hat and put your sunglasses back on," he instructed softly but firmly. "Otherwise, keep the helmet on and the visor closed."

  Her response was simply two deep blinks before she did as he had demanded. He acted like he was digging in one of the panniers as she did so, blocking the view of her between his torso and the large gas pump. Once her face and hair were hidden, he filled up the tank, his body still on alert with so many others around. When he was done, he started up the bike and took it out into a space adjacent to the bathrooms before shutting off the motor for a second time.

  He got off the seat again but stayed right next to her.

  "Here is what we will do. You go into the Ladies room and do not come out until you hear my knock, understand? You will stay inside for however long it takes me to get food and use the facilities myself. I will double knock three times. Do not come out until you hear them," he said. His voice was again very firm, not allowing for any argument or negotiation.

  She nodded jerkily, her eyes very wide.

  "No, Renee. I need you to repeat it back to me so I know you will do as I ask," Brand commanded.

  "I'm going to the ladies and stay until I hear three double-knocks," she replied, her wide eyes glued to his, and he saw her lower lip quiver when she was finished speaking.

  "Good," he said. "I will not be long."

  He watched as she carefully swung her leg over the seat and stood up. They had been on the bike a long time, so he wasn't surprised when she stumbled in taking her first step. As he caught her arm, he felt her tremble. "I do not do this to frighten you," he tried to explain. "But to keep you safe."

  "I ain't scared," she snapped back, her face lifted to his as she yanked her arm away. "Stop with the grabby hands, all right? My legs just have those pins and needle thingies."

  Brand couldn't help his grin as she flashed a bit of temper, but he didn't speak or move until she was securely behind the closed door of the facilities. Quickly making his way to the Men's room, he took care of business as well before he washed his face and combed his hair, catching it in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. All this was done as his mind wandered over the puzzle of her.

  He had pieces of information, glimpses of what was true and what wasn't, much like having only certain parts of a complex puzzle. He'd gained more knowledge when they'd stopped to allow her to relieve her bladder in a cornfield at sunset.

  When she'd left her backpack behind, propped against the back tire of his bike.

  He hadn't been shocked by either the handgun or the stacks of cash as he had rifled through it. They merely added to his curiosity. He'd already tried putting the bits together, but he was still missing too much information for the dissimilar pieces to make cohesive sense.

  He'd considered and discarded several different theories of who she was and why she was running.

  Drug user had been his first thought until he'd seen the luggage and her mouthiness at his carrying the water, but instructing her to bring only enough clothes for four days. Fashion was not a priority when you had a chemical habit that heavy.

  Drug smuggler had been his next choice, especially after the discovery of her firearm and the money, but she would've had a backer. A backer who would've ensured she had a nice run of the mill, working car to do their work. Plus, she would've been traveling the interstate, hurrying to get the money back to whomever.

  Someone running from the police?

  No, she was dressed too brightly in a way that could be remembered. Most people running from Johnny Law preferred to blend into their environments, even if they were out in the boonies.

  So. She was running from someone but didn't really know how to do it. The tired, worn-out car with the Missouri plates spoke volumes about her ignorance and lack of connections in obtaining an untraceable mode of transportation for her journey.

  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.

  Dedication

  As ever this book is dedicated to my progeny—you know who you are, especially for listening when mom starts talking about people that aren't even real!

  And to Jennifer Guffey. A reader who took the time to email me and ASK for the Hellion Series after reading Hiding in Plain Sight. I can't thank you enough, Jennifer!

  Hat's off to Laura Kingsley, my editor and Faustino Gaitan, my book cover designer. You two are helping me learn how to be a professional author instead of a girl that just types out some books about love.

  And to you, dear reader. For taking a chance on a new author and sticking with her as she is still learning and growing. It really means a lot!

  For those of you that have been with me on this journey, thanks for the memories!

  For those of you still on your way, where've you been? My heart's been waiting for you!

  Author Bio - J.A. Hornbuckle

  Aren't we all curious about the person who wrote the story we read? I know I am.

  Here's what I know about myself:

  · I love red wine

  · Live music gives me tingles no matter what style

  · Muscled, long-haired men are my own personal kryptonite

  · I can't deal with the cold which is why I live in Phoenix, Arizona

  Of course that's just the tip of the ice-berg!

  At first meeting me, people think I'm somber and a little stand-offish. I'm really not. It's a case of my outsides not matching my insides. Because there's a freaking party in my head almost twenty-four seven.

  I'm old enough to know better but still young enough to do it anyway (...the best part of aging is that you know the CONSEQUENCES of your actions and weigh the internal scales accordingly!)

  I love writing, especially romances but only where the 'man' portion is a part of the ro-man-ce word. And...I believe, really do have faith, that there are happily-ever-afters and hop
e you do too.

  Feel free to contact me:

  Email: jahornbuckle@hotmail.com

  Website: http://www.jahornbuckle.com (Be sure to sign up for my newsletter!)

  Facebook: J-A-Hornbuckle

  Twitter: @JAHornbuckle

  GoodReads: J A Hornbuckle

  Other Books by J.A. Hornbuckle

  Pole Dance

  Human Hieroglyphix I

  Tap Dance

  Human Hieroglyphix II