Still Standing: Wild West MC Series

by Ashley, Kristen

  I had also only earned one paycheck and my fat, as Minnie put it, was by no means out of the fryer.

  In other words, I wasn’t (yet) in a position to find my own space and live my own life beholden only to me.

  That didn’t change the fact that Buck and I were still new. He acted like I was his woman and his people acted like I was his woman, but I wasn’t sure yet that I actually was.

  So I figured I was still my own woman.

  What I didn’t know was how I felt about losing my freewill if I officially became Buck’s.

  This was what was on my mind as I searched through the shop, then the warehouse, and finally headed to the Dive.

  It wasn’t unusual for Buck to disappear and not tell me where he was going. But his SUV was out in the lot, he had to be somewhere.

  The common area of the Dive was deserted, but I heard noises coming through the door that led to the hall where the bedrooms were.

  I headed that way.

  My mind was still whirling with my Biker Babe Lesson, I didn’t even think as I moved.

  I should have thought, and I should have processed the sounds I was hearing and stayed far, far away.

  The minute I turned the final corner and hit the hall, I stopped and stared.

  Nails, her upper body nude, her skirt bunched at her waist, was against the wall astride a biker.

  She was riding him, her breasts bouncing, and he was thrusting, his face shoved in her neck.

  My heart stopped beating, my stomach clutched, and I stared, immobilized, even though my brain was screaming, Run!

  “Jesus,” I heard growled from behind me.

  I jumped and an arm clamped around my belly, locking me to a tall, solid body.

  Nails’ eyes shot open, her head jerked our way, and she arrested mid-bounce. The face shoved into her neck came out.

  And I saw it was Gash.

  Minnie’s man.

  Gash.

  Oh God!

  My body moved forward, toward the action, obviously not of its own volition.

  It locked in protest but this didn’t stop it from moving.

  “Not smart.” Buck was still growling, but now he was growling at Gash. “Minnie was in Toots’s office not fuckin’ fifteen minutes ago, brother.”

  “Fuck,” Gash muttered, his eyes on me.

  Nails’ eyes were on Buck.

  “Get this, Gash, they’re tight. Minnie’s gonna be hangin’ here a lot. You take that shit somewhere else or at least get behind a fuckin’ door,” Buck ordered as he pulled us deeper into the hall.

  He let go of my belly, grabbed my hand and dragged me toward them, also toward where Buck’s room was, the opposite way from the exit, where I really, really wanted to be heading.

  We then moved past them in a way I could not avoid seeing Gash pull Nails off his member and set her to her feet.

  We got to Buck’s room. He pulled me in and shut the door.

  Then he stared at me, one hand at his hip, the other lifting so he could run it through his perfect greasy-wet-looking, thick awesome hair.

  “Jesus, fuck, I don’t even know where to begin,” he muttered, dropping his hand and putting it to his other hip.

  I knew where to begin.

  “Who was that woman?” I asked, even though I knew.

  I knew and I couldn’t believe I saw what I saw. I also couldn’t believe he saw it. I further couldn’t believe he didn’t seem angry Gash was having sex with his other woman.

  Did Buck share?

  Would he eventually share me?

  Oh God.

  I knew how that went.

  “Gash,” he stated.

  “No,” I whispered. “I know Gash. The woman.”

  “She’s gash, Toots,” he replied.

  “Sorry?”

  “Cunt,” he went on, and that awful word hit me like a punch to the stomach and the blow was more powerful because it came through Buck’s lips.

  “Sorry?” I whispered.

  “She’s gash, pussy. She’s fucked practically everyone in the Club, in other clubs, men who aren’t in clubs. You ride a bike, she’s down to open her legs.”

  Oh God.

  Minnie, Pinky, and Lorie didn’t tell me that.

  But maybe they didn’t know.

  “Ink?” I asked.

  Buck didn’t answer.

  This meant yes.

  I couldn’t believe this.

  Ink seemed utterly devoted to Lorie.

  God.

  “Cruise?” I continued.

  Buck’s jaw got tight.

  Another yes.

  God!

  “You?” I whispered, even though I knew the answer to that one.

  “She’s nothin’, babe. Like I said. Pussy. That’s it.”

  “She’s a woman, Buck,” I told him.

  “Nope, she’s pussy,” he replied.

  I stared at him.

  Then I closed my eyes tight.

  I also turned my face away.

  “Eyes to me, Toots.”

  I clenched my teeth, looked at him, and he kept talking.

  “That is not what we made her. That is what she made herself. This Club sees a lotta different kinds a’ women who have a lotta different kinds a’ uses. Hers is one she chose for herself. You, Lorie, Minnie, yours is different. And you all chose yours too.”

  What did he mean uses?

  “I don’t know what to say,” I whispered.

  “It’s our way of life, babe, there’s nothing to say.”

  I felt my back go straight. “How many other uses does the Club have for women?”

  He shook his head.

  “We’re not doin’ that shit, Toots. You know what you need to know, and you don’t know anything more. Not now. You shouldn’t’ve been back here. You can come into the Dive, back here, no fuckin’ way. Not unless you’re with me or not until I make you mine by puttin’ a ring on your finger. Wives, they got free rein, but then they know what they might see, and they know to avoid it. You. No.”

  Oh God.

  Every scrap of advice Minnie, Pinky, and Lorie had shared, even the stuff I really didn’t believe, or maybe didn’t want to believe, Buck proved true in that one statement.

  “I don’t know how I feel about that,” I told him quietly.

  “Toots, doesn’t matter how you feel about it. You took me on, you take my cock, you accepted my protection and you put your ass on the back of my bike. That’s the decision you made, no one forced you to make it. This is your life. And part a’ that is keepin’ your mouth shut about what you just saw. Minnie doesn’t need to know that shit.”

  She knew.

  She already knew.

  She didn’t know about Nails, but she knew.

  “I think I’m changing my mind,” I whispered and then took an immediate step back because his face changed, his body changed, the air in the room changed.

  The snake was preparing to strike.

  “Too late,” he said in a lethal voice. “You’re in, and once you’re in, there’s no way out.”

  “Buck—”

  He cut me off. “Get your shit and get your ass in the truck.”

  Was he serious?

  “But—”

  He leaned forward at the waist and whispered a poisonous, “Now.”

  I stared at him.

  He was serious.

  Dear God, he was serious.

  Then, clearly with no other choice (as usual, and if I wasn’t already sick of that, which I was, I’d be sick to death of it in that moment), I walked past him, opened the door, walked down the now thankfully vacant hall, through the common area, out the front door…

  And I did as I was told.

  I got my “shit” and got in his truck.

  18

  That’s How Families Are

  We turned up Buck’s drive, Mrs. Jimenez in the back.

  Me, luckily saved from my thoughts because I had to pretend everything was all right.

 
No.

  Everything was just great.

  Instead of everything being wrong, wrong, wrong with quite a bit of clashing, right, right, right.

  I had jumped from the frying pan straight into a fire.

  Sure, this time, I had a roof over my head (that Buck was providing), food in my belly (ditto from Buck), a job (given to me by Buck), friends (also Buck’s) and safety (provided by Buck and his boys).

  All of this was good.

  All of it I liked.

  But all of it made me more indebted to him.

  This, however, was not in the normal way partners became indebted to each other.

  Like, he took care of me, and later on down the line, I listened when he had problems or I made his favorite birthday cake or I bought a set of underwear he really, really liked and let him unveil it as a surprise, giving a little back.

  This was a debt that was paid by the loss of my freedom, and maybe, my choice.

  Apparently, according to Buck, I couldn’t leave.

  And I couldn’t leave, not realistically.

  But also, according to Buck, I just couldn’t.

  The drive to Mrs. Jimenez’s had been tense.

  Buck, in true Buck form, tried to dispel it.

  He did this by taking my hand and saying gently, “I wasn’t pissed at you, baby. And I’m not now. I’m pissed at Gash. Then…and now.”

  “Why?” I’d asked.

  “Why?” he asked back, like that was a crazy question.

  “Yes, why are you pissed at him, West?”

  “Because he was stupid, babe,” he stated, like that was obvious.

  The good of that was, it sounded genuine. He genuinely sounded pissed that Gash had been “stupid.” Stupid, I assumed, because he was doing something somewhere where he could get caught.

  Not pissed that he saw Gash screwing his side piece.

  So that was good.

  Sort of.

  The bad about that was, his answer was not, “Because Minnie’s a good woman and no man should do that ever, but definitely not to a good woman.”

  Upon which, maybe, I could open discussions about what I saw weeks ago with Buck and Nails at the picnic table.

  So at that point, I’d become the woman no woman should ever become.

  I tested my man.

  “I called Rayne Scott today,” I announced.

  “Come again?” he’d replied.

  “I called him. He came into the office,” I shared, and it even sounded like a dare. “I told him about the money. Rogan’s money that’s not really his money as well as the life insurance payout.”

  Buck had no immediate reply.

  But when I said no more, he drawled out a leading, “Okay.”

  “I told him he could have it when I got it. To put it back in the pension fund.”

  At that, Master of the Contradiction, West Hardy, who came with so much good, but also some significant bad, lifted my hand to his mouth, brushed my knuckles with his lips, dropped it to his thigh and said, “That’s cool.”

  “That’s cool?” I pressed. “Minnie and Chap didn’t think it was cool.”

  “They didn’t?” he asked, sounding perplexed.

  “They didn’t think it was cool I give that money away and they really didn’t think it was cool I called Scott.”

  “Gotta say, wished you’d told me that, so when he showed, I could have had your back, darlin’. He tweaks you. Not a fan of not bein’ there for you when you had your chat. Glad Minnie was there. But the money, it’s not Minnie’s. Or Chap’s. It’s not mine. It’s yours. Though, you’re right, some of it should go back to that pension fund. The money he stole. The life insurance, honey…” He let that trail.

  “What about the life insurance?”

  Yes.

  Still testing.

  “You haven’t had a lot in your life, Clara,” he said softly. “And that guy fucked your life and your future. He owes you that. He owes you more than that, but at least that’s something. It’ll be a nest egg for you. And if you’re careful with it, you’ll never be back where you were ever again. And I can’t say I don’t like that for you.”

  I could read from that I had been correct in my earlier thoughts.

  Perhaps Minnie (and Lorie and Pinky) had to put up with a man calling the shots.

  But it would seem Buck was not like that.

  So…

  Yes.

  Pure Buck.

  After some significant bad, he gave good answers, reminding me about all there was to Buck, how much of it there was, and the fact that most of it was pretty awesome.

  Hmm.

  Fortunately, these answers were good enough, at least by the time we got to Mrs. Jimenez’s and picked her up, I wasn’t in a dither.

  I could do the introductions and even laugh when she stared at Buck when she first saw him like she didn’t know if she wanted to flee or throw herself into his arms and lament time, wishing she was thirty again and she could make a play for him.

  It was cute.

  What wasn’t cute was the look she gave me after.

  Filled with such relief, such warmth, such happiness all that was West Hardy was at my side, I nearly cried.

  Mercifully, I got a handle on it and didn’t.

  And now, I could bury my thoughts in Buck’s enchiladas, Gear’s winning personality and Mrs. Jimenez’s love.

  So at least, I figured, I’d be able to get through the night.

  “Aiy,” Mrs. Jimenez said from the backseat, “you have a beautiful home, West.”

  I twisted in my seat to see she had her eyes glued to Buck’s house.

  So I looked at his house on the short ridge, nestled in the trees, above the pretty, twinkling-in-the-waning-rays-of-sunlight creek flowing in front of it. A house with all its windows, gleaming wood, fantastic deck, the red rock foothills rising steep from beyond the valley.

  She was right. I’d thought it before. It was a cool house in a beautiful location.

  But it was far out of town. Hard on the gas budget, which was hard on the environment. And living there meant, if you needed anything outside groceries, or had a desire for food outside what you could get at the Valley Inn or the single Italian place that also delivered pizza, you had a long slog to get there, that same slog back.

  As such, it weirdly defined Buck.

  That house was awesome, the locale amazing, you had everything you needed there and then some.

  But it came with drawbacks.

  They didn’t seem significant.

  But over time, they could wear on you.

  “Wait until you see the view from the inside,” I told her, trying to sound excited and thinking I’d failed when I felt Buck’s eyes on me.

  I looked to the windshield to avoid his gaze only to see four things.

  One was Gear standing outside looking strangely troubled.

  Another was Gear’s sweet ride, as ever, shiny clean and clearly taken care of.

  The third was another sweet ride, this one an interesting shade of blue/green and definitely awesome.

  The last was a hugely smiling Tatiana who was bouncing on her toes and not looking troubled, angry, pouty, blank or any way she normally looked while around me.

  The last made me stare.

  “Shit,” Buck muttered under his breath, and I turned my stare to him to see his gaze locked on his daughter.

  Buck stopped the SUV, but before he’d done it, Tatiana launched herself toward us and she was in Buck’s door nearly before he got it fully open.

  “Daddy! A Charger! I knew it!” And she threw her arms around him when he jumped down.

  “Babe,” he murmured as I got out, closed my door and went to help Mrs. Jimenez.

  “A 1969 Dodge Charger. Turquoise!” she screeched.

  I looked her way as I helped Mrs. Jimenez get out and saw Tatiana was jumping up and down.

  “It’s perfect!” she declared. “It’s better than the last one! It’s even cooler than Gear’s
ride! It’s the bomb.”

  “Tatie,” Buck said as I closed Mrs. Jimenez’s door and we moved to the hood of the truck, all this while Tatiana ran toward the turquoise car, which she was right, was quite something.

  “I knew you didn’t mean what you said!” Tatiana yelled, still jumping up and down, but every once in a while, stopping to touch the car reverently with both hands. “I knew you wouldn’t make me wait.”

  We all moved toward her, Buck stopping a few feet away, Gear, for some reason, keeping his distance.

  I took Gear’s distance as a warning and stopped Mrs. Jimenez at a safe location not close to the exuberant Tatiana.

  “Gear says it’s just somethin’ you’re workin’ on. But I know. I know!” she continued.

  “Tatie, honey, what’d I say?” Buck asked gently, and she grinned at him.

  “Yeah, you said that, but this isn’t here just to be here.” She threw her arm out to the vehicle. “I know what this is.” Then she launched herself at her father, jumping up, throwing her arms around his shoulders and giving him a big hug. “I soooooo knew you wouldn’t make me wait!” she shouted and then giggled.

  She was cute when she was excited, smiling and giggling. Although I had a feeling this wasn’t what it seemed to be, not for Tatiana, I thought vaguely she should be that way more often.

  Buck set her away from him and repeated, again gently, “Tatiana, what’d I say?”

  Her head tilted to the side, and it took a minute, but slowly the smile faded away.

  Buck went on, “You smashed up the ride I gave you for your birthday within three days, and since, you got two tickets joyridin’ in Gear’s.”

  Really?

  He hadn’t shared any of this with me.

  “I told you,” Buck continued. “You weren’t gettin’ another car until you could control your shit. And, honey,” he put his hand on the side of her neck, “sorry, but I meant it.” His voice gentled even further when he shared, “That ride’s Clara’s.”

  Uh-oh.

  Gear’s eyes came to me.

  I felt Mrs. Jimenez’s eyes on me.

  Buck’s eyes stayed on his daughter.