Strength & Courage (The Night Horde SoCal Book 1)

by Fanetti, Susan

  In her own life, that experience, among others, had made her slow to get involved with men. She liked to date, and she did it often. She liked to have a boyfriend, of sorts. But mostly what she wanted was a companion. Someone to go to dinner with, someone to see movies with, someone to have sex with. She didn’t think she’d ever want to live with another person, combine her life with his.

  In temperament and personality, Sid was more like her mother—she needed control over herself. She differed from her mother in that she had no need to control anyone else—in fact, she had no respect for anyone who allowed himself to be controlled—but she could not abide being controlled.

  How could two people live one life unless one person was in charge? She didn’t want to be the person in the lead, but she would never be the person following. So she would be content as a single, more or less serially monogamous, woman.

  She finished her coffee, chuckling lightly into her mug. She knew why she was batting these thoughts around her head this morning, ten years after her parents’ divorce. Because the previous morning, she’d woken up with a man in her bed, practically a stranger, and she’d spent an impressive chunk of the hours since he’d dropped her off at Harry and Carole’s house thinking about him.

  From what little she knew about him, Muse was nothing like any other man she’d been with. That was certainly true in the sex department. He was confident and accomplished in sex in a way that was new to her. He was rough and gentle, demanding and caring, all at the same time. And he understood a woman’s body. He’d understood her body, specifically, very quickly.

  But he was different in more ways than that. He was older, maybe by a lot, though she wasn’t sure. His body was young and firm—and glorious—but his handsome face was creased around the eyes, and his dark hair was noticeably grey. And that hearty, youthful body showed a lot of wear, scars and ink that suggested a life lived hard.

  Also, he was a biker. Maybe an outlaw biker—she’d done some quick research yesterday on his club, the Night Horde, and she wasn’t clear on whether they were good guys or bad guys. They seemed to be prominent citizens in Madrone, and they had a big bike shop that a bunch of celebrities frequented, but Demon’s rap sheet was miles long, and she wouldn’t exactly be shocked to know that Muse had one like that himself.

  The guys she dated tended to be professionals of one kind or another—college graduates, people with careers. Mark, her last ‘relationship,’ was an associate at her mother’s law firm. She had been pleased to see Sid pairing up with someone with such ‘promise,’ and Sid and Mark had gone out with her mother and stepfather on several occasions, all of them awkward to Sid for the very reason that they weren’t awkward to anyone else.

  She’d broken up with Mark when she’d learned that he and her mother had been lunching together on a regular basis. That had been just too fucking weird.

  Sid wondered what the elegant and accomplished Claudine Bouchard Tuladhar-Townley would do if Sid sat Muse down for dinner in her tasteful dining room. At that image, she laughed outright. That possibility alone might be worth giving the man a call.

  But he was pushy. That was fine during sex—great, even, in doses—but she would not allow herself to get entangled with some uneducated, underemployed caveman who called women ‘bitches’ and expected his word to be law. Oh, hell no. So if she did decide to call him—and who was she kidding, she wanted more of him—she’d have to be on her guard.

  She heard a noise behind her, and she turned to see that her father had returned from his ‘constitutional.’ Looking through the open sliding door, she glanced at the large clock on the kitchen wall. Nine-fifteen. Right on schedule.

  “Nanu! Good—you’re awake!” He came into the kitchen and fixed his eyes on the counter. “But you didn’t eat your grapefruit. I left you a grapefruit for breakfast. You always have grapefruit and coffee.”

  She’d come through the slider as he spoke, and now she went to him and kissed his cheek. “I know, Baa. I wasn’t hungry this morning.” She didn’t, actually, have grapefruit for breakfast every morning, not since high school.

  Still staring at the offending fruit, he said, “Well. I’m going to shower. I’m sure you’re hungry now. When you eat that, get cleaned and dressed. We’re going to see the boats! There are four for sale—we can tour them!” With that, he patted her hand, then turned and headed toward his bedroom, his white cotton socks padding over the gleaming white tile floors.

  Sid watched him go, then set her empty mug down, picked up the grapefruit, walked back onto the balcony, and heaved that fucker into the green space below.

  There was no way in hell she would ever be with a man who tried to make her live her life his way. Not ever.

  ~oOo~

  She left her father in the late afternoon, after a day spent at the harbor and a lunch at the Blessed Garden Vegetarian Café. He pouted a little, but he understood. If her mother got word that she had been in Orange County and had not given her equal time with her father, then Sid would have to deal with her mother’s particular kind of quirks, the kind that came with masterfully applied guilt. She wasn’t passive aggressive—in Sid’s mind, passive-aggressive behavior exposed a weakness of spirit and character with which her mother was certainly not afflicted. It was more apt to say that her mother was quietly aggressive, able to convey a very clear and pointed threat with nothing more than a smile.

  Her father knew this—more than that, he believed devoutly in a child’s responsibility to honor and love her parents, and he would have considered it beneath Sid to disregard the woman who’d borne her. So, while he was loath to let her go, he sent her off with a light pat of her shoulder and a blessing.

  Her mother wouldn’t mind if she just dropped by, but Sid didn’t like to do that, not there. They were always off doing something, or planning some big hootenanny, and she would have hated to fall into the middle of some event. So, while she and her father were eating lunch, she called. They were at Sid’s stepsister’s soccer game but would be home by the time she got there.

  For her marital reboot, her mother had married a man not much older than Sid. Davis Townley would be forty later this year. Claude—everybody but Sid and her father called her Claude; mother and daughter had both ended up with mannish nicknames—was fifty-nine.

  Sid would be thirty-three in November. Her stepsiblings were young enough to be her own children, if she’d gotten a fairly early start. Helena was twelve and Harrison was ten. Though they had a relationship with their mom, they lived full-time with Davis and her mother. Sid didn’t know the details of Davis’s custody arrangements with his ex, and she didn’t much care. The truth was that her mother was raising more children, and those children were living a much more ‘normal,’ predictable life than she herself had. If such a posh life could be considered normal, that was.

  Sid’s mother was a partner in a big L.A. law firm, the head of litigation. Davis Townley was a venture capitalist—which, Sid thought, meant that his job was basically to be rich and arrogant. But he was a pretty good guy, overall.

  Her father a dentist and her mother a lawyer, Sid had grown up in an affluent home, even by Southern California standards. But her childhood seemed positively starved by comparison to her mother’s new family.

  Not that she was jealous. The opulence made her feel a little queasy, frankly. Their whole huge house echoed. Every room but the smaller bedrooms. When she walked through the front door, she half expected to find a concierge desk.

  So, no. Helena and Harrison weren’t having a normal childhood, either. Just one that was traveling more steadily in one direction. Because Davis and Claude were in accord.

  She pulled up into the circle drive of the big house in Newport Beach as Davis and her mother were emptying the hatch of her Mercedes G-Class SUV, lading their arms with sports gear and canvas grocery sacks. Sid jumped out of her Thing and trotted up to help.

  “Hey. Where are the twerps?”

  “Hey, Sid.” Davis
winked and carried a giant sack of soccer gear over to the appropriate garage shelf.

  Her mother turned and smiled, handing her the groceries she’d just picked up. “Hello, darling. They are at a sleepover birthday party. We’ll be a family of three tonight, I think.”

  Though her mother was Quebecoise, she had lost all trace of accent long ago. Her precisely correct and elegant way of choosing her words, however, had had little to do with not being a native English speaker and a great deal to do with her idea of whom she wanted to be—an idea which had become reality.

  “Co-ed sleepover? Getting pretty progressive there, Claude.” Sid grinned and elbowed her mother as they walked into the house through the garage.

  With a twitch of a perfectly-shaped eyebrow, her mother indicated her affectionate irritation at her daughter calling her by her name. “Yes. Well, the boys and girls won’t be sleeping in the same room, of course. And they are being carefully chaperoned. I got assurances.”

  Sid was sure she had. As she sat the groceries on the black marble countertop, she snickered, imagining that conversation. Claude Tuladhar-Townley would have made quite certain that her charges were well guarded.

  “Davis would like to eat in tonight. He wants to play at the grill, so we have fresh salmon and swordfish, and I picked up a really lovely pinot d’Alsace. How does that sound? Oh—and we invited one of the soccer dads to join us. A little impromptu dinner party.” She noticed the bandage on Sid’s hand—just a large Band-Aid now. The cut wasn’t that bad. “What happened to your hand?”

  “Nothing—broke a coffee mug. It’s fine.” Unpacking a sack of greens, Sid rolled her eyes at the more important thing—her mother was matchmaking again. This is what she got for coming home to do her filial duty. “Mother. Don’t set me up. Please stop setting me up.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Parker is a surgeon, and he’s very handsome and witty. I’m not planning your wedding, darling. I’m simply making sure you meet the right kind of men. What you do with that meeting is entirely up to you. Come. I’m sure you have a suit and a pareo up in your room. We’ll get the pool set up for dinner, and then we can play. Summer weather is really lingering this year.”

  Not much about her mother’s attitudes surprised her, but now Sid’s jaw dropped. “You want me to meet your handsome surgeon son-in-law prospect in a bikini? Should I make sure to show him my teeth, too?”

  “Sidonie, watch your tone. You are almost thirty-three years old, and you are alone. I’m only trying to help you. Parker is a very nice man. He is fit and very good looking, with dark hair and light eyes. He has the sharp humor you like. He is your type.”

  “I don’t have a type.”

  Her mother laughed. “Whatever you say, minette. Fine. Wear what you like. I, for one, shall dine in a bathing suit. We are Californians, after all. Now, help me prepare the rice and vegetables, and you can tell me all about your job.”

  ~oOo~

  Parker Sanders had turned out to be just as advertised—fit, handsome, funny. Dinner was delicious and the company was good. It was a nice night.

  Sid wore a long, flowing sundress for dinner, to her mother’s evident displeasure. But she had no intention of parading around in a bikini before a strange man, especially not a man there specifically for her to be presented to. She didn’t ever like to be in a bathing suit around people she didn’t know. She was skinny and gangly and had no ass or chest at all. Though she wasn’t someone who normally fixated on her looks, being nearly naked was a circumstance in which she got self-conscious.

  Unless she was drunk and pissed, in which case, apparently, she had no compunction about running around the streets in her underwear.

  Damn, that was embarrassing. There were some memories of her Thursday night—or Friday morning, really—that she wished tequila had vagued up. Others, though, she was happy to relive again and again.

  When Parker left, he gave her his card and asked her to call him, then wrapped a surgeon-smooth hand around her arm and bent down to kiss her cheek. “It was very nice to meet you, Sidonie. I hope you call soon.”

  He drove off in a Porsche Cayenne. When her mother closed the huge, double front doors, she spun on her heel in triumph. “He’s delightful, is he not?”

  Sid did kind of like him, in fact, but there was no way she was going to admit that to her mother. “He was okay. Kind of a snob, though.”

  “He was not! Good heavens. Enjoying nice things does not automatically make one a snob. Why you insist on living so far below your means, I will never understand.”

  “I live to my means, Mother. I’m a social worker. A state employee. You want me to live to your means. No, thank you.” She kissed her mother’s cheek. “I’m going upstairs. Thank you for tonight. Honestly, I understand that you do these things with love. I’m sorry I’m so…” she wasn’t sure which adjective she wanted.

  “Recalcitrant.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry I’m so recalcitrant. I love you, Mommy.”

  Her mother sighed and rolled her eyes. “You’re too old to call me that. You know how I feel about it.”

  Sid grinned. “Yep. I do. Good night.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Muse stood back as far as he could from the commotion on the desert. Normally, he loved the desert—the wide open space, the horizon far away, the general lack of human or natural obstacle that allowed a rider to get and maintain real speed for long distances—but his work with the entertainment assholes was starting to wear on his good feelings about the dusty brown landscape. Seemed like everybody and his uncle wanted to shoot in the desert.

  Right now, he was surrounded by vehicles and gear, and little chairs with big umbrellas attached to them, keeping the dastardly sun off delicate skin. Even the nobodies were fragile flowers in this world.

  The company had signed with the Horde for three bikes and two stunt drivers, so Muse was out here with his brothers Ronin and J.R., both of whom worked stunts, and with the Prospect Fargo, who’d become his assistant by virtue of being the one who was usually around when he needed a grunt. He’d gotten good at the routines of prepping the bikes, tying them down on the flatbed, driving the flatbed, and cleaning up at the end of the day, so now the job was his.

  This was just an insurance commercial, but there were easily two dozen people milling around, and they’d been out here all damn day, doing take after take. Because of the dust, the bikes had to be washed down after every take, so Fargo was working his ass off. It looked like they were wrapping up, though, or close to it. With a few exceptions for obvious problems, Muse couldn’t tell from one take to the next how they were different. Most commercial shoots were more cost-conscious than this one had been. But this was a huge international company, working with a huge international advertising agency, and they all thought they were artistes.

  While Muse watched Fargo shine up a green metal-flake Dyna Street Bob, J.R., dressed all in black, armored gear and probably sweating off about a pound a minute, walked up and handed him a bottled water.

  “You look pissed, brother.”

  Muse took the bottle with a nod of thanks. “Nah. Tired. Distracted. Don’t rise to the level of pissed.” He broke the seal on the bottle’s cap and took a long drink. “That’s not to say I wouldn’t be glad to put my fist in the director’s face. Ass thinks he’s fucking Tarantino or some shit.”

  J.R. laughed. “You’re telling me. At least you can stand over here and look mean. I’m the one he’s telling how to ride a fucking Harley. I hate these gigs that the riding isn’t even stunt work. Just rolling across the frame, looking like a badass mofo.” He grinned. “’Course, that’s my natural state. But what’s-his-name wants more ‘attitude.’ Whatever. I’m wearing a full-face helmet. Where’m I supposed to show ‘attitude’?”

  J.R. tipped his head back and swallowed down the rest of his water. Nobody was fussing over him because he’d have a helmet on in his shots, so he could wilt all he wanted inside. His short, black hair sparkled with sw
eat, which ran in rivulets down his temples. He was African American, the only black member of the Horde. It was unusual for MCs to be integrated along the black and white color line, but there had been no language in the Horde bylaws preventing J.R.’s membership, and the Missouri mother charter had not raised an objection. Muse figured some Podunk little town in the middle of the heartland was probably so lily-white, they’d never even thought to consider the question before. The mother charter was all about their ‘Viking’ heritage, and a lot of club traditions carried that idea on. But Southern California was a different place. It was practically a different country. And the SoCal charter reflected that somewhat, with members of various backgrounds—white in all manner of combinations, as well as black, Latino, Native American.

  Muse had not grown up in a racially enlightened household, not hardly, but he’d lived his adult life on the road and had met people of every stripe and creed. He thought the makeup of his club was pretty cool.