Stone Princess

by Devney Perry

  Instead, they landed on white-blond hair and my heart skipped.

  Presley was sitting at the bar. She caught me in the reflection of the mirror behind the liquor bottles and her spine straightened.

  She was alone.

  A slow grin spread across my face. It stretched, wider and wider, when she didn’t look away and a smile of her own tugged at her lips.

  Lost in that blue gaze, I didn’t notice Dacia staring between the two of us until her hand slid into mine and she stood on her toes to nibble on my ear.

  Dacia really was a bitch.

  Chapter Ten

  Presley

  Why did I ever listen to Leo?

  I dropped my gaze from the mirror and stared at the napkin on the bar. Was it too late to cancel my order? My stomach growled but a cheeseburger didn’t sound appetizing anymore. I didn’t want to be here by myself anyway, but especially if Shaw was here with Dacia—holy shit, she’s pretty—French.

  Why did it hurt to see them together? Of course he’d be with a movie star. He was a movie star. I kept forgetting.

  Lately, he’d just become . . . Shaw. My wickedly sexy, flirtatious neighbor.

  Dacia was stunning. Her long, blond hair was shiny and thick. It was actually similar to the hair I’d once had. She was tall though, and she had breasts bigger than B cups. Standing beside Shaw, with her lips at his ear, they were the perfect pair.

  I raised my hand to snag the bartender’s attention from where she was talking to another customer. “Can I get my order to go?”

  She smiled. “Sure, hon.”

  I should have just gone home after work, but Leo’s words from this morning had been playing in my head all day.

  Don’t hide away from the world, Pres. Don’t let Jeremiah win.

  I didn’t think I was hiding, but Leo had made some good points. I used to be out, visible in town more often. I loved grabbing a coffee at the coffee shop on Saturday mornings and meandering along Central, especially in the summer. But since the wedding, I hadn’t set foot downtown unless it had been to stop by the bank and make the garage’s deposits.

  I’d been humiliated and hiding my bruised heart at home, like my mother had done with her black-and-blues.

  I refused to become my mother.

  So here I was, not hiding, still humiliated, but the agony had faded.

  Leo had told me to stop worrying about gossip and other people’s opinions. He was right. Who cared if people whispered behind my back? Eventually, it would stop if I showed the world I was happy on my own. But if I became a hermit, the pity would continue. I’d be that broken woman who avoided life.

  So after work tonight, I’d gone to get a burger rather than escape into chores at home.

  I had to wash my bedding tonight. Leo’s drool was probably on my pillow along with the stale scent of blood and wind. After he’d apologized and hugged me, he’d nearly passed out from exhaustion. Staying up all night, riding to Ashton and beating the shit out of my ex-fiancé before riding home could really wear a guy out. I’d pushed him toward my bed and told him to take a nap while I went to work.

  While I did the wash, I’d eat my burger. Alone.

  Stockyard’s wasn’t as busy as the diner. This was a bar with bar food, but their burgers were delicious and the owners made sure families were welcome. The room was dimly lit and quiet music played over the speakers. The only thing I didn’t like was the poker table at the back.

  This had been Jeremiah’s preferred poker stop. He used to bring me a burger and fries on the nights when he’d get home before midnight. We’d eat them together on the couch while he’d tell me about his game.

  The appeal of the game eluded me, no matter how many times he explained the rules and strategy. But I’d been innately supportive, like my mother.

  Supporting a man with horrific habits was her ultimate weakness.

  If—when I began dating, I was breaking that cycle.

  And I would not hide.

  Starting tomorrow.

  Shaw had stepped away from Dacia, shooting her a glare and jabbing his finger toward a table. When his back was to her, she sneered at me through the mirror.

  I kept my head down, blocking out the sound of their hushed voices. Dacia laughed, too loud, and it carried across the room. My eyes caught them again.

  She wore her multi-million-dollar smile as she placed her hand on Shaw’s arm.

  He removed it.

  So maybe they weren’t together, but regardless, it was a good reminder.

  He might feel a lot of things toward me but getting involved with Shaw Valance would only lead to disaster.

  The bartender came out of the kitchen with a paper sack in her hand. “Here you go.”

  “Thanks.” I smiled and left a twenty on the bar. “Keep the change.”

  I slung my purse over my shoulder, took my food and walked straight for the door.

  “Presley.” Shaw’s voice was like honey, smooth and thick and sweet.

  “Hey.” I looked up, and damn it, one glimpse of those eyes made me shiver. “What’s up?”

  “Are you okay?”

  I nodded. “Hungry.”

  “About this morning. I, uh . . .”

  “Forget about it.” I waved it off as he struggled for what to say.

  His jaw ticked. “You and Leo seem close.”

  “So do you and Dacia.”

  “There’s nothing there.”

  I lifted a shoulder. “Not my business. See you around, Shaw.”

  “Presley—”

  I was out the door as my name floated off his lips. My Jeep was waiting around the corner. I got in and wasted no time going home.

  Leo was right. I needed to rejoin society.

  But not until Shaw Valance was gone. Not until there wasn’t a risk of seeing those golden eyes and letting myself daydream that a rich and handsome star had his sights set on me.

  “Got a sec?” Dash asked from the doorway between the shop and office.

  “Yeah.” I stood, following him into the shop, smiling at the customer waiting and reading on her phone.

  Emmett, Isaiah and Leo were standing beside a tool bench. I scanned the room, searching for our other two mechanics. “Where are Sawyer and Tyler?”

  “Out back.” Dash tossed his thumb to the wall. “We need to regroup on the Warriors.”

  Leo groaned. “We talked about this yesterday.”

  Yes, we had. At length.

  When Dash had come to the garage and I’d told him about Leo, he’d gone ballistic. I hadn’t seen him that mad in years. When Leo had finally crawled out of my bed and joined us at the garage, Dash had hauled him into the office and proceeded to lecture him for an hour about the Warriors.

  “Yeah, we talked about it yesterday,” Dash snapped, the anger lingering. “But we talked about it in June too. I used to not have to repeat myself, but since you didn’t listen the first time, I want to make sure it’s clear. Stay the fuck away from the Warriors.”

  “I know.” Leo threw his hands in the air. “I fucked up, okay? I’m sorry.”

  “Have you heard anything?” Emmett asked.

  Dash shook his head. “Not yet, but one of their members got his ass kicked by one of us. You know them as well as I do. They’ll retaliate.”

  “Goddamn it.” Isaiah dropped his gaze to the floor. “We don’t need this.”

  “It’s not going to blow back on you,” Leo said. “That fucker knows exactly why I did it. If the Warriors come after anyone, it’ll be me.”

  “We don’t stand alone.” Emmett clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Never have.”

  “I shouldn’t have done it,” Leo muttered. “I was drunk and stupid. I mean it. I’m sorry. I’ll get ahold of Tucker and explain.”

  Tucker Talbot was the president of the Arrowhead Warriors. He was ruthless and cunning. The man scared the hell out of me. He was not like Draven. There was no soft side to Tucker.

  “No. I’ll be the one to call Tucker.
” Dash’s entire body went rigid. His fists were so tight he could have crushed bolts to glitter.

  There was no love lost between the Tin Gypsies and the Warriors, but I hadn’t seen Dash like this before. His fury vibrated around us.

  Was I missing something?

  “Sorry, Dash.” Leo looked truly miserable. His knuckles weren’t as red as they had been yesterday morning at my house, but the crack in his lip almost seemed worse.

  I gulped. What did Jeremiah look like?

  “I get it.” Dash huffed. “I wanted to do the same.”

  My frame slumped. This was not what I wanted when I’d planned my simple, classy wedding.

  “This isn’t your fault.” Isaiah threw his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his side.

  “I just want to forget the whole thing ever happened.”

  “It’s forgotten,” Dash declared. “As of today, it’s done. I’ll do what I can to smooth things over with the Warriors, and we’ll put it behind us.”

  He made it sound so easy.

  Maybe it was.

  I didn’t think about Jeremiah much these days, and I had Shaw to thank for that. He occupied the thoughts that had once been reserved for my fiancé. He and his movie had taken the place of wedding planning.

  “Let’s get back to work,” Dash said as Sawyer and Tyler rounded the corner of the shop, returning to work after a cigarette break.

  I was glad those two had each other. They’d bonded quickly when they’d started working here, much like Isaiah and I had after his first day. Sawyer and Tyler probably wondered why the five of us were always talking without them. What did they say about us as they smoked out back?

  I made a mental note to tell Dash we needed to include them more in our regular activities. I didn’t want either of them to feel like an outsider—I knew all too well what that was like.

  “Hey, guys.” I waved at them before heading to the office.

  They nodded and Sawyer returned the gesture.

  Leo followed me to the office with Dash bringing up the rear. The minute we entered, Dash’s shoulders fell with the weight of a thousand bricks and he trudged to his office, closing the door. He was probably calling Tucker.

  Leo met my gaze and his was full of so much regret, so much sorrow. It was rare to see past his cocky, playboy exterior to the fears underneath.

  “It’ll be okay.” I walked right into his space, wrapping my arms around his waist.

  “I’m sorry, Pres,” he said, returning my hug. “It was eating at me and I lost my head.”

  “You’re going to get yourself killed,” I whispered so the customer waiting couldn’t hear. “Don’t make me bury you too.”

  “Never.” He held me closer.

  Dash had labeled me a hugger years ago. It was true. I hugged. But what people didn’t seem to understand was that I didn’t only hug for them. I hugged for me. When my emotions got the best of me, when life got to be too much, I always went for the hug.

  My sister had taught me that.

  Leo dwarfed me. My head only came to the center of his chest, but I held him as tight as my arms would allow. Maybe if I held tight enough, this would go away. Like Dash had promised, today would be the end. Leo wouldn’t be in danger of some violent retribution delivered at the hands of the Arrowhead Warriors.

  All because he’d been drinking at The Betsy and had gotten a wild hair up his ass to punish Jeremiah.

  Leo had told us that Jeremiah hadn’t been hard to find. He’d been at a bar, playing poker—shocker. Jeremiah wasn’t going to change. Leo had ordered a drink and hung out until Jeremiah had spent his chips, after two in the morning. Then Leo had beat the hell out of him. I’d been spared the gory details.

  Then he’d driven home, stopped at a gas station to wash up and come to my place.

  “What’s up with that Shaw guy?” Leo asked, letting me go.

  I shrugged. “He’s my temporary neighbor.”

  “He likes you.”

  “Maybe.” I suspected Shaw liked a lot of women and they liked him in return. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Leo’s face soured and he glanced toward the shop. “He’s getting the bare minimum paint job on the bike Isaiah’s building.”

  “Ha!” I laughed. “No, he is not. That bike is making us a lot of money, and it’s going to be in a movie. You’ll do the best damn paint job of your life on that motorcycle so that when the fictional Draven rides it down the street, it’ll be one the real Draven would have been proud to ride.”

  He grumbled and shook his head, but he’d do his best work. Leo loved Draven as much as I did, if not more. It was the reason Leo’s drinking had increased ever since Draven’s funeral. His nights at The Betsy used to be limited to two or three a week, but he went nearly every night these days. And Draven died three years ago.

  Dash had tried talking to Leo about it. So had Emmett. But lectures about drinking and women fell on deaf ears. Besides, who was Emmett to talk? He didn’t flaunt it as much, but he partied too. Leo’s crutch was alcohol. Emmett’s was women. I heard the rumors about who he hooked up with on any given weekend.

  “Are you going to be okay?” I asked Leo.

  “Are you?”

  “Yes.” I’d said it automatically, but deep down, there was truth behind that word.

  Leo winked and returned to work. I smiled at our customer and returned to my desk, taking a moment to face my screen and close my eyes.

  What a damn mess.

  Behind Dash’s closed door, I heard the low rumble of his voice but couldn’t make out the words.

  I glanced up at the picture of Draven and his sons, wishing more than ever he was here. He’d fix things. Draven would straighten out Leo and take some of the weight off Dash. He’d tell Emmett to stop messing around so that when a woman with staying power showed up, he’d be ready.

  But Draven was gone.

  We’d buried him beside his wife in the cemetery. The service had been small, no more than twenty people invited to huddle around the casket.

  Bryce and Dash. Genevieve and Isaiah. Emmett and his mom. Leo had stood by me. Nick and his wife, Emmeline, had been there with their two crying kids, who had adored their grandfather. Some of the former Tin Gypsies who still lived in town had attended.

  Dash had attempted some words, but when he’d stumbled over them, Nick had taken over.

  After he was done, we’d left. I’d gone home alone—Jeremiah had been in Ashton, vying for his position as a prospect for the Warriors—and cried all day.

  No matter how many times I tried to imagine Draven’s death, it left me unsettled. Suicide? That hadn’t been his style. Draven had been the kind to go out in a blaze of glory, not hanging from a noose in his own home.

  Was it possible that he hadn’t killed himself?

  My thoughts were interrupted when Tyler came in with the customer’s car keys. I hurried to take her payment and smiled as she waved goodbye. Then the office was quiet again.

  I hated the quiet.

  I stared at Dash’s closed door, waiting for it to open. I didn’t have to wait long. He stepped out and looked . . . beaten. Dash Slater never backed down.

  “Are you okay? How did it go?”

  “I don’t know,” he muttered, coming to the chair across from my desk.

  It was days like this when I wish Bryce still wrote her stories at the garage instead of at the newspaper. She’d know what to say to Dash. He’d confided in her about the club, things I’d never know.

  “I think we’ll be okay,” he said. “I just don’t want to get a call one night from Paul at The Betsy, telling me that Leo is drowning in a pool of his own blood.”

  My stomach turned. “Me neither.”

  “Sorry, Pres.”

  “If this is anyone’s fault, it’s Jeremiah’s.”

  Dash chuckled. “I’m good with blaming him.”

  “Me too.” I bit my lower lip, hesitating to ask the question that had been on my mind before he’d
come out, but I had to know. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Course.” He relaxed into the chair.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about your dad lately. With the wedding and the movie, he’s been on my mind. I need to know something. Was it really suicide?”

  Dash’s eyes flooded with grief, and a pained expression crossed his face. “Pres, I—”

  “Please? Tell me the truth. Trust me with it.”

  He blew out a long breath, then shook his head. “No. It wasn’t.”

  A stab of pain hit me in the chest, like I was experiencing Draven’s death all over again. Tears flooded my eyes and my lungs struggled to hold in air. Wasn’t I supposed to feel better, knowing the truth? Instead, I felt like I’d grieved the wrong way. Was that possible? To grieve incorrectly?

  There’d been blame inside my grief. Resentment that Draven had left us behind. When really, there should have been anger and fury and revenge.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “The Warriors?”

  Dash stayed quiet, giving nothing away, which gave everything away.

  “You should have told me. Did you think I’d betray you?”

  “No, but you were marrying one of them, Presley. You were going there every weekend. It would have made things worse for you. I didn’t want that.”

  “Except it’s worse now. I’ve spent three years asking the wrong why.” I took a deep breath, giving my emotions a minute to level. Then I raised my gaze and, this time, asked the right question. “Why? Why did they kill him?”

  “He made an arrangement with Tucker to save Genevieve and me.”

  “Oh.” My hand covered my aching heart.

  Draven had protected his children. It made perfect sense because that was who he’d been. He’d sacrificed his life to save his kids from Tucker and the Warriors.

  And because of me, because of Jeremiah, I’d brought Tucker back into Dash’s life. No wonder he’d looked so angry in the shop. That phone call was probably the last one he’d ever wanted to make.

  “I’ll text Jeremiah and tell him it was my fault for Leo,” I said. “Maybe that will help.”