by Raven Dark
Trouble
Hell’s Heathens MC Book One
Raven Dark
Trouble (Hell’s Heathens: Book One)
By Raven Dark
Copyright © 2019 Raven Dark, all rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Please purchase only authorized editions of this book, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials.
Cover by Raven Dark
Cover images courtesy of DepositPhotos
Created with Vellum
For anyone who loves an older bad boy
and dreams of danger.
Enjoy.
Contents
1. The First Sign of Trouble
2. Being Nice
3. In the Arms of Danger
4. Liar
5. The Price of Deception
6. The Problem with Birdie
7. Dirty
8. Misinterpretation
9. Half Right, All Wrong
10. And it Just Keeps Coming
11. Leaving
12. Brute
Epilogue: A Mother’s Love
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1
The First Sign of Trouble
The moment I saw him, I knew he was trouble.
Let me explain. This is how our story starts.
I’m working the counter at The Eatery, the restaurant my mom owns. The place is half-full with couples, single mothers with kids in tow, and a trucker or two, all regulars. Between customers, my mother stands at the counter reading Whiskey’s only paper, The Daily News.
“We need to get out of this town, Anne,” she mutters.
I put a couple of orders down on the tables for waiting customers and go back to the front counter, my heart sinking. “Why? What’s happened now?”
Mom turns the paper around on the spotless counter and points to the headline.
My eyes widen.
The headline, in big bold letters, reads, Whiskey Town Bank Robbed, Second Time in a Month.
“Shit. Again?” I hurry over to her side and spin the paper around.
“Language, Anne.”
I ignore her chiding and pour myself a coffee. Heaven forbid the customers hear the owner’s kid talk like a normal college student.
She taps the top of a small jar on the counter and gives me a stern look. It’s a swear jar, something we’ve had for years. Every time one of us swears, we have to drop a quarter in.
I sigh and take a quarter from the pocket of my apron and plop it into the jar with the few coins already there.
Mom shakes her head in disgust at the paper and goes to pour Tom, one of the truckers, his coffee refill. “Scary, isn’t it, the way this town is going downhill? I should have closed this place and gotten you out of here months ago.”
I scan the article, catching buzzwords like “local gang,” “two million,” and “FBI.” The blood drains out of my face.
My mother has always been a tough woman, even if she doesn’t look it with her bun of honeyed hair, stylish business suits, and sensible shoes. She isn’t the kind to panic, to up and run off at the first sign of trouble. Maybe in a big city a bank robbery isn’t headline news, but it is here. With a population of less than seven thousand perched on the ass-end of Ohio, Whiskey really is a small town. This is the kind of place that when someone complains that nothing ever happens here, they mean it.
Here, everyone knows each other, and people still leave their doors unlocked. Whiskey is a dying breed, as my mother puts it, a truly innocent town. Or it had been until a few years ago. FBI is an acronym we only hear about in movies.
“Yeah,” I say, answering her. “Scary.”
An order comes up, and I take the plate of pancakes and bacon from the kitchen.
“Those kids didn’t do it,” she says, referring to the gang the newspaper mentioned. “They couldn’t have.”
“What makes you think that?” I carry the plate and a fresh coffee pot over to the customer and come back, topping off cups as I go.
Mom scoffs. “They couldn’t pull off something like this. Two million? Those are just a bunch of misguided kids who hate their parents and like to thumb their noses at authority.” She points one perfectly manicured finger at the article. “That’s big-time stuff. That was the Heathens.”
I scowl at the paper. The Hell’s Heathens. A shiver runs through me at the name. Most people in Whiskey have heard of them, but no one ever sees them around here. I have no idea if the Hell’s Heathens are into robbing banks, but a large, rowdy Motorcycle Club that likes to party it up and ride up a storm at all hours wouldn’t bother with a town like this. Especially when they congregate over two hours away, in the middle of nowhere and closer to Sandusky.
They wouldn’t come here. Would they?
“All right, I gotta go.” My mother takes off her apron. “Will you be okay for a few hours alone? I have an auction at the antique shop, I’ll be back around three.”
I roll my eyes. “Go.” I kiss her on the cheek as she passes me. “I promise I won’t burn the place down in the next four hours.”
The thought of last night’s robbery rears up, and I shake it off. This restaurant only has about a hundred dollars in the till at the moment. Anyone looking for some serious cash here would be disappointed.
Mom hugs me close and then smooths her perfectly-pressed, beige pencil skirt. “It’s not you I’m worried about. Remember to start the lunch menu in an hour.”
“I know, Mom.” I take the money from a departing customer, thank him, and make his change.
Mom heads for the door only to point at the half-full coffee pots. “Make fresh coffee every twenty minutes. No one likes burned java.”
“Mom. Go.”
“All right, all right, I’m going.” She smiles proudly at me as she walks out.
As soon as she pulls out of the parking lot in her shiny black convertible with a watching eye and a wave, I shake my head. You’d never know I’ve been working here for a year, paying my way through culinary school, often holding down the fort alone for whole shifts. Or that I’m nineteen, not ten. I swear to God my mother is such a hoverer. I can practically hear helicopter blades every time she appears.
An hour passes, going on noon. The place should be jumping, but it’s not. There’s only one or two more people than there were when my mother left. With a robbery having just happened, people should be coming out to gossip, but they’re not.
Damn, she’s right. We really do need to get out of this town.
The thought makes me sad. We’ve lived here since I was little. I’ve made friends here, gone to school here. I like the hangouts, what few of them there are. I had a guaranteed job lined up, set to own this restaurant when Mom’s gone. I don’t want to leave.
One of the kids starts throwing a tantrum. Mrs. Hathaway’s son Johnny tosses his ice cream to the floor, splattering it all over my mom’s perfect white tiles. He screams up a storm until I rush over with a fresh cone and give him the blankie he’s dropped.
I smile at him and ruffle his hair. It makes me feel good when he stops and smiles back. His mother mouths a “thank you” and I nod, going back to the counter after bussing the tables.
I love kids, but I’ve given up on having any. I’d need a husband for that, and no one is good enough for my mom not to scare off. Besides, all the boys I’d want anything to do with are taken, or too immature.
Or gay.
If I had only put the dishes down a
second faster, or if Johnny hadn’t been screaming like a banshee a minute ago, I might have avoided crazy mess that happened next.
“You got anything good to eat here, beautiful?”
A man’s deep voice fills the air from behind me, and a hand touches my shoulder. I yelp and spin around. Every dish hits the floor with a crash that puts little Johnny’s screams to shame.
“Shit.” I don’t normally curse a lot. I’m not sure what scared me more; the man’s sudden appearance, his touching me, or the dishes dropping. My eyes go up to his face.
No, they go up, up, up to his eyes, and I nearly swear again.
He has the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen. They’re a stunning dark blue like the deepest sea, and they look even more striking with that thick hair falling over one eye, black as the leather that covers every inch of him.
Leather.
I blink. The rest of him is as gorgeous as his eyes. I’m five-four and small-boned, and he’s at least a foot taller and twice as wide in the chest and shoulders, towering like a redwood over me. His face looks like a Greek god’s, all chiseled angles and tanned from the summer sun.
Damn, he’s hot.
His beautiful mouth is moving, but I can’t process what he’s saying. I’m too busy taking in the rest of him.
He’s dressed in leather pants. Black leather boots. A matching leather vest-thing stretches over his massive chest, leaving plenty of tanned, muscular goodness on display, along with arms as thick as my thighs.
I already know he’s trouble with a capital T, a bad boy to the bone. But that’s when I notice what’s on his vest.
Patches. They’re sewn on, all skulls, guns, and flames. One of them has the words Sergeant at Arms, whatever that is.
Some of the blood leaves my face, but a rush of excitement also makes my heart pound. He’s a Heathen.
No, he’s literally a Heathen—there’s a patch saying so. He’s a Hell’s Heathen MC.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I should be scared, but I’m not. His magnetism is instant and electric, sending heat flooding through me from head to toe.
He’s caught me staring, and his white teeth flash in a smirk that makes my knees wobble. After staring at him like an idiot for a full minute, I tear my eyes away and bend down to pick up the dishes.
“Sorry, sir, I’ll get to you as soon as I clean this up,” I mumble, stifling my annoyance with him for startling me.
“I’ll get it. You handle the food, beautiful. I don’t have time to wait around.”
Beautiful? That’s the second time he’s called me that.
Maybe it’s the way he says the word beautiful, as if I’m there for him to ogle. As if he thinks because he’s hotter than hell, he has a right to talk to me like this is the 1950’s and every woman is a bitch or a babe. Maybe it’s because he told me to tend to the food as if it’s my entire purpose to serve him. Or maybe it’s because, in that honey-dipped voice of his, the words send a jolt of fire through my veins. Whatever the case, it pisses me off.
My eyes shoot to his face again, and it takes effort to shut off his effect on me. “Well, you’ll have to wait, sir. I wouldn’t have to clean up this mess if you hadn’t snuck up on me like that.”
His smirk is back, and it does all sorts of wicked things to my insides. His eyes sparkle. He picks up a chunk of broken glass, and I snatch it from him. I don’t want a man like him helping me and making me feel any more incapable than I already look.
“Touchy this morning, are we?” He picks up another piece and ignores my attempt to get him to leave the mess alone, setting the broken bits on one of the trays.
I sigh and take the tray from him, gathering all the bigger pieces. “Please go sit down, sir. I’ll take your order in a minute. If you cut yourself, I could get in trouble.”
He straightens with the grace of a panther, teeth flashing down at me as he raises his big palms. “Suit yourself, beautiful.”
I want to snap at him to stop that, but I bite my tongue. There are guys like him at the culinary school, entitled ones who get off on making girls mad just for fun. I know the type well.
While he saunters across the restaurant toward an empty table, drawing every eye, I grab a broom and start sweeping up the rest of the mess. Several of the kids point and whisper at him, to the chagrin of their parents. He either doesn’t notice, or he doesn’t care.
With his back to me for several long seconds, I catch a good glimpse of the back of his vest. My broom stops in mid-sweep.
The wide expanse of his leather-covered back is emblazoned with a wicked-looking skull with a snake coming out of its mouth, with the words Hell’s Heathens in blade-like cursive. God, he already sticks out like a sore thumb in this town without that demonic monster on his back. Worse, there’s no way my mother would miss that insignia. Or the ink that covers his massive arms.
I have a God-awful image of her coming into her normally spotless, family-style eatery and seeing him. My mother is never openly rude to customers, but she’s never had a biker in here before, either. I can hear her now, muttering about getting out of this town away from the riff-raff, just loud enough for him to hear.
Shoot me now.
I finish sweeping and cross the room toward him. Why the hell are my hands shaking? It’s as if I could feel his presence from across the room, pulling me to him.
Approaching him, I can’t take my eyes off his face. The heat of his presence only intensifies. There are flecks of grey in his hair, and fine lines around his mouth. I’d put him at close to forty.
Had I just compared him to the boys at college? This one is all man. He wears authority and confidence like good leather.
Dayum. I have a thing for older men. This guy is ticking all my hotness boxes.
I swallow hard, deliberately focusing on his patches and tats, on reminding myself that he’s bad news. It doesn’t help; if anything, my muscles tighten more with awareness of him.
Get a grip, Anne. He probably eats girls like you for breakfast. I flush at that, feeling as if I’m approaching a large predator that’ll devour me if I get too close. I like the feeling.
“What can I get for you, sir?”
He orders a double burger, everything on it, a double order of fries, and a large Coke. Even giving me his order, his voice is hot, making me wonder what it would feel like to have him whispering much more exciting things in my ear.
I jot his order down. “One heart attack on a bun with a side order of blocked artery coming up.”
He lets out a deep, husky laugh that makes my insides dance. “That’s cute. You should be doing standup, not making a few bucks an hour in here, beautiful.”
There he goes with the beautiful again. I let out a long sigh. The urge to not serve him just to piss him off wells up. Bad idea. This town doesn’t welcome bikers; he might sue the restaurant for discrimination or something, just to be a jerk.
Mother would love that.
“There’s a word for what you’re doing, you know.” I drop the sir this time.
“Oh?”
“It’s called chauvinism.”
Well, that had sounded like the right thing to say, but when his brow goes up as if in challenge, the words suddenly seem petty.
“Tell me, is it the word beautiful you don’t like, or that I’m sitting here ogling you like I have a right to?”
“Both. Sir.”
“Well.” He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms which cause them to ripple and bulge, making the tribal lines and snakes inked on his skin look as if they’re alive. “As you’ve probably guessed by now, I don’t much care about social niceties.”
Ohhh boy. His words should annoy me, and they do, but my heart also gives a wild leap. I didn’t think I was into bad boys, but apparently I am, because I love that he doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks, that he’ll do what he likes, regardless of the rules he’s breaking.
My mouth hangs open for too long before I gain the sense to shut it. “I’ll
be back with your order shortly,” I snap.
I head for the counter, but not without another look back at him. I can feel his eyes following me.
Damn it. His eyes are glued to my ass as if they’re missile-locked. I growl and stomp off to the kitchen for no reason. His chuckle fills my ears.
An hour ticks by at a snail’s pace. He’s still there, even though his food has long been eaten. Oh, for God’s sake. There’s a sign on the window beside him that states there’s no loitering allowed, and besides, he’d said he didn’t have time to wait around. He’s only staying there to piss me off. Unfortunately, he keeps ordering refills of Coke and taking his time, so I can’t kick his ass out.
For the umpteenth time, I glance at the clock. It’s only going on one. I swear, if that thing moved any slower it would be going backwards.
Most of the customers leave, and I’ve noticed none stay longer than they have to, a lot of them shooting the biker uneasy looks and getting gone too fast. He doesn’t seem to care, just drinks his Coke and watches me work without a word.
My mother isn’t supposed to be back for another two hours, but I half expect her to walk in now, her auction having finished early.
To get my mind off the hottie in leather, I read the paper and remain at the counter for my break. I don’t normally read the paper, but I need a distraction from him.
My eyes fall on the front page article about the bank robbery. They slide across the room to the biker. My mom thinks the Heathens did the robbery. It’s horrible, but even I know about some of the rumors about the Heathens being criminals. I wonder if they did do it—if he did.
That’s a little badder than I like my bad boys. The thought makes my blood chill.
