by Nicole Fox
Silverback was gazing down at the baby like she was a wonder. He looked up at Kelly, then at Gunner. “And you’re really gonna do it? The name?”
Gunner grinned broadly. “It’s already on the certificate.”
“Man, that’s badass,” Spider said.
Gunner reached out to brush his daughter’s cheek with the back of one finger. “Durango Rose Powers-Wilson.”
Kelly smiled. She’d expected the nurse to look at her strangely when she’d said she wanted to name her little girl Durango, but he hadn’t batted an eye — just wrote it down on the certificate. That was Texas for you, she thought.
“Kind of a mouthful,” Crusader said.
“You’re kind of a mouthful,” Spider said, elbowing him. They started to wrestle, but Silverback gave them a death glare, and they stopped. Silverback looked at Kelly. “She’s going to be very much like her namesake. Brave. Bold. Kind.”
Kelly felt a surge of emotion. She tried to reply to Silverback, but the words caught in her throat.
Gunner placed a hand on her shoulder. “Like her mother, too.”
“Exactly.” Silverback said gruffly.
Kelly managed a laugh. “You two. Cut it out.”
“It’s true,” Gunner said.
Kelly focused on her daughter.Like her grandmother, too.
Mom, I wish you were here.
And the voice came to her, sweet and rich as the sunlight that filtered in through the window:
I am.
I am, Kelly. And she’s beautiful.
Kelly closed her eyes briefly.Thank you. She looks so much like you. I see you in her eyes.
She’d worried a little about what this day would feel like — if it would be lonely, giving birth without her family present. A foolish worry. Her family was here. Noisy, fumbling, a little rough around the edges, but good-hearted all of them. Her brothers.
“So when you gonna teach her to ride?” Chevy asked.
“Dude, she was just born.” Gunner said.
“Exactly. Gotta start ’em young.”
“And whose bike it she gonna learn on?” Jones asked. “Yours, or Kel’s.”
Kelly grinned. “I don’t know if I trust anyone on my bike.”
The guys laughed. “You sure are attached to that thing,” Chevy said.
“How could I not be? You’ve seen how fast that baby goes.”
She and Gunner had picked out her Suzuki V-Strom 1000 ABS a couple of weeks after the showdown at her father’s house. Kelly had spent hours online comparing different models, asking Gunner questions, chatting with people in biker forums before she’d decided on the Suzuki — sleek, built for speed, good off road. She’d managed to get a good few weeks of riding in before her doctor had tactfully suggested she back off a little and focus on getting bed rest. Mostly she’d ridden it to and from the university. But sometimes, on her way home from campus, she’d gotten an itch that wouldn’t leave her alone, and she’d pulled off into the desert, laughing at the wind in her face, the sand stinging her calves as she blazed across the unspoiled land.
She and Gunner had purchased a little house in town, not too far from campus. They’d used only money from Gunner’s auto shop, the sale of her father’s house, and Kelly’s freelancing for the down payment. None of Russell Powers’ dirty money. Kelly had enrolled for a semester of nursing school. She’d be taking the summer off for maternity leave, but she hoped to be back at school in the fall.
“I don’t know if I want her anywhere near a motorcycle,” Gunner muttered. “Those things are dangerous.”
“Hey, dude, don’t be sexist,” Spider said. He looked at Kelly as if for approval.
Kelly looked at Gunner. “That’s right. Our daughter will do just fine on a bike.”
“I’d say the same if she were a boy!” Gunner insisted. “I never realized how terrifying motorcycles are until I started picturing my kid riding one.
They all laughed.
Silverback shifted. “Maybe we ought to let mama and baby rest.” He glanced around at the others. “We’ve got club business to discuss, anyway.”
“Um, excuse me,” Kelly said with a laugh. “I want to hear the club business.”
Silverback grinned at her. “Sure you don’t need a nap first? This is pretty big news.”
“I do not need a nap,” she said firmly. Like hell she didn’t. But the boys had been hinting for a couple of days now about some big news involving the club. She wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Silverback sat back in his chair. “Well. Basically, Chevy and me have been talking for a while now about rebuilding the Horned Devils.”
Kelly nodded. This wasn’t news; they’d already accepted a couple of new members, and had been working for weeks to renovate the clubhouse. Which had needed some work anyway, but particularly required some sprucing up in the wake of her father’s men’s raid on it. The guys had done a deep cleaning, and had even picked out new furniture — mismatched though it was.
Silverback ran a hand through his hair and went on. “So, the plan is to rebuild it as a legitimate business organization. He looked from Gunner to Kelly. “No more drugs. No more turf wars. Nothing shady.”
“Wow,” Kelly said. “That’s fantastic.” She meant it. She’d been trying to reconcile her own role as a Horned Devil with the club’s shady history. She liked the idea of a new start.
“So we’re gonna start a repair shop of our own,” Chevy added. “Gunner, we’d be most appreciative if you’d oversee that aspect. Give the rest of us any training we still need.”
“Of course,” Gunner said.
“Thinking about a motorcycle licensing school, too,” Silverback said.
“Awesome!” Kelly said. “I have some friends from school who’d sign up in a heartbeat to learn to ride.”
“Well, steer them our way, please!” Chevy laughed. “We don’t have much experience being legit.”
“I’m not sure that’s true,” Kelly said. “From what Gunner’s told me, your club always tried to do right, for the most part.”
“Yeah!” Spider said. “Right ain’t always the same as legal.”
“Words to live by.” Jones clapped him on the back.
“Yeah,” well now we’re gonna be both,” Chevy said. “Right and legal.”
“Well,” Kelly said, amused. “Then I’m particularly thrilled to be part of the club at such a monumental time.”
“We are, of course, honored to have you.” Silverback smiled kindly. “Glad that your family is a part of our family now.” He stood slowly. He hadn’t recovered from his time as her father’s hostage quite as well as the others. Some of it was old age, but he might always carry the vestiges of the beating he’d taken at her father’s hand. “Well,” he said. “We really should give you some time alone with your daughter.” He motioned to the others, and they shuffled to the door, calling out congratulations. Silverback gave them one last smile and a nod, then the door shut.
They were alone at last. They gazed at each other. Kelly wondered if her smile was as goofy as Gunner’s. “So, we did it,” Gunner said. “You did it, I mean.”
“We did it.” She cradled Durango closer to her. The baby was sound asleep. Very bald, Chevy was right — except for one tuft of dark hair.
Kelly looked back at Gunner, her smile fading. “Is it hard not to have Durango here?”
Gunner shrugged. “Yeah. I mean, it’s always rough. He would have loved to see her. But I think … maybe he can.” He smiled softly at her. “What about you? How are you holding up?”
She nodded. “Same. I believe my mom can see her. See us. I feel Mom here with me. I don’t know if that sound silly…”
“Not at all.” Gunner stroked her hand, then tucked the blue blanket up more closely around little Durango’s chin.
“I’m glad the club’s getting a makeover,” she said after a while.
“Me too.”
The nurse came in to check on them. He offered to take Durango to the nursery so Kell
y could sleep, but Kelly said she’d rather keep her baby with her a while longer. The nurse left.
“I’ve been thinking,” Kelly told Gunner shyly. “Maybe I’d like to specialize in prenatal nursing.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’d like to help other people through the process of — of this miracle. You know?”
He nodded. “I think that’s awesome.”
She gazed at him for a long moment. “It’s gonna be quite a future, isn’t it?”
The grin stretched across his face. “Oh yeah. Lots to look forward to.”
She adjusted the bundle in her arms so she could reach out and take Gunner’s hand. “I’m glad you’re sharing it with me.”
He looked at her quite seriously. “I am…” He shook his head. “The luckiest man alive.”
She squeezed his hand. “They’ll be here with us. To help us. Won’t they?” All of them: Kelly’s mother, Durango. The other fallen club members. Even the man her father had been before he’d become corrupt. The man posing with Goofy at Disney World. She believed he was still out there somewhere.
Nobody was ever all one thing. You needed balance, like Gunner had said. Someone to bring you to the light when you were battling your own darkness. Someone to make you laugh when all you could see was despair. Someone to remind you of what was real and serious when you’d tried your best to numb yourself through sarcasm and feigned levity.
“Of course,” Gunner said quietly, running his thumb along her knuckles. Durango let out a small, sleepy sound, and Gunner smiled down at her, then back up at Kelly. “We’re a family. All of us.”
Kelly tried to swallow the lump in her throat. They’d both finally found what they were looking for. A place to belong. People to care for them.
Gunner squeezed her hand again. “Now try to get some sleep. Maddy’ll be here later, and you know she’s a whirlwind.”
Kelly smiled. She’d been back in touch with Maddy over the past few months, and had even visited one another a couple of times. And when Kelly had texted Maddy after going into labor last night, Maddy had immediately gotten into her old Camry and started driving south.
“All right,” Kelly murmured, closing her eyes. “You might be right for once.
She could hear the answering smile in his voice. “Go to sleep, darlin’. I’ll be right here. Always.”
She knew he meant it.
THE END
Bonus Content – CAGED: A Dark Bad Boy Romance
I’VE GOT HER CAGED AND DESPERATE FOR A TASTE OF THE BAD BOY.
The boss only wants Joey Banks straightened out, but I’ve got a different plan in mind.
I’m going to kill the man and take the smuggling route for my own.
No one else needs to get hurt. The plan is as simple as it gets.
Until I meet Joey’s daughter.
She might look like an angel…
but she f*cks like the devil.
And then I find out she’s letting me reel her back in so she can get her own revenge on her father.
Fair enough; I can respect a little deception. I’m no stranger to it myself.
We might even have made a good team – if she hadn’t turned on me.
Now I’ve got no choice but to call in a siege.
I’m going to have to fight my way out, but I’m not leaving empty-handed.
I’m taking that fiery b*tch with me no matter what.
Chapter One
Lydia
Buck's Diner on Highway 65 was the type of shit-hole stop-over you could get a cup of coffee for 99¢, a bowl of chili for a couple bucks, and the toughest cut of meat you've ever had for just under ten. The gas station next door kept a steady stream of truckers and travelers, all going to some destination other than the nearest town, and most of them just looked like they were passing.
It was the perfect place for a woman like me. Drifting, trying to fly below the radar, just wanting to make it from day to day, and stay one step ahead of my past. Because that's all you had out here, really, on this lonely stretch of road. Your day-to-day, and your past. Futures were for rich folks and people who didn't have anything they were running from.
Today was slow. Achingly slow. Even the lunch rush had been as sparse as the desert land I was looking out over from where I sat on an overturned milk crate next to the fire exit door, trashy paperback folded up in my hands, the smell of old, stale cigarette butts filling the air.
My book was one of those old bodice rippers, the type my mom would get into back when she was alive. The clerks at the truck stop next door kept them rotated and well-stocked for the truckers that came in. The older drivers were insatiable in the way some of them read these. I guess I could be, too, on slow days like these.
Out of all the types I read this was one of my favorites. The bad boy, a good-for-nothing rugged type with the secret heart of gold. Didn't matter if he was the noble savage type, or the Scotsman, or just a trashy biker. I loved them all. Because, when you're stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of drunk rednecks and truckers as far as the eye could see, what else were you going to do?
“Amy!” Buck called to the back of the house, his voice rebounding through the clatter of dishes and kitchen work before it reached me. “You got a table, one top! Number five!”
Number five, the corner booth.
Buck didn't use my real name because, quite frankly, I'd never given it to him. He paid my tips under the table, kept my names off the forms, the works. I wasn't altogether sure if he knew I was working under an assumed name, but he knew something was up, I was sure of it. Why else would a pretty girl who could read be working in a place like this, especially when she wasn't knocked up with her third baby from her high school prom date? I had the feeling Buck had seen his fair share of desperate cases like me, though.
I leaned my head back into the fire exit door as I closed my bent-up romance novel and stuffed it in my apron. “On it, Buck!” I shouted back, then heaved myself up from the plastic crate to head back inside.
I'd had dozens of gigs like this one, all over the west and south, all in the kinds of places you don't see a new face very often. At least not one that sticks around. Places like these, you start to realize, are the kinds of places that people go when they want to disappear. If you weren't born around here, then you were probably trying to stay away from something else. Sometimes the law, sometimes bad decisions, sometimes just their past in general.
Me? I'm Lydia Banks, and I was running from my pops, Joey Banks, one of the biggest movers and shakers in in the Tri-State area. Richer than sin, and twice as deadly to your health. I learned that the hard way when I watched him beat my mother to death in a paranoid rage because he thought she was working with outside forces to bring him down. I high-tailed it out of there and kept to the shadier side of life ever since that night. No social media, no emails. Hell, not even a phone.
It's amazing how easily you can hide in a country this big. Just don't tell anyone your real name, and you're set.
I grabbed a towel as I walked through the kitchen, slapping it down over my shoulder. Here, at least, I didn't have to pretend I was some kind of trashy waitress that was one step away from stripping, like I had at the last joint. They made me crawl into the booth with customers and flirt with them no matter how gross the guys were, my skirt was short enough I might as well have not even been wearing one, and the managers always had a nasty tendency to get a little too handsy.
Buck kept out of my way as long as I did a good job, and he let me wear whatever I wanted. Normally that just amounted to a decent top and some jeans I didn't mind smelling like a greasy spoon at the end of the day. Throw an apron over it all, put my hair back in a ponytail, and you've got a work uniform. Or at least enough of one to keep him happy.
I pushed through the kitchen's swinging doors and headed out onto the floor. Without even glancing to my table, I grabbed a menu off the counter and swung back around to head to my customers. What I saw sitting at
the table almost made me stumble.
He was tall, with short and shaggy dark hair with auburn notes that shone in the brilliant sun streaming in through the windows. His shoulders were broad, and he had an easy way about him that told you he could handle himself in a fight. I briefly wondered if he could handle himself, or me, in something other than a fight. Something about the way he sat there, relaxed, but still aware of his surroundings as he waited for me to bring him the menu.
And he was looking right back at me.
His eyes flickered up and down my body, returning the favor I'd given him. His full lips curled up a little at the edge, like he knew exactly what I was thinking.
