by Dahlia West
Just then, Daisy’s phone went off. She ignored it and wiped down the bar.
“That’s her boyfriend,” Milo chirped.
“You have a boyfriend?” Abby asked.
“No,” Daisy growled and shot Milo a look.
Milo shrugged. “Phone’s always ringing.”
Daisy blew out a harsh breath. “And do I answer, old man?”
Milo’s face screwed up as he considered this. “No,” he decided.
“What does that tell you?”
“Ex-boyfriend,” Abby guessed.
“Give the lady a gold star,” Daisy grumbled, her mood suddenly soured.
“I’d settle for another martini.”
Daisy gaped at her. “How many can you drink?”
“Don’t judge me,” Abby replied.
“Oh, I’m not,” Daisy assured her.
“So, your ex keeps calling.”
Daisy glowered. “Don’t know what he wants. We are never getting back together.”
“Never, ever, ever...getting back together!”
Daisy rolled her eyes. “Knock it off! You are not Milo Cyrus!”
“Is it a sordid tale of woe?” Abby asked.
Daisy shrugged. “Not really. Girl meets asshole. Asshole leaves her in Sturgis during the rally and goes back home.”
Abby’s mouth dropped open. “He left you?”
Daisy nodded solemnly. “We had a fight, and he took off the next morning.”
“Holy shit!” Abby breathed. Then her forehead wrinkled. “The rally’s in August,” she pointed out. “What’ve you been doing all this time?”
Daisy’s stomach tightened. Oh shit, she thought. She’d managed to open her mouth and insert her whole foot inside. She was desperately trying to think up a reply when a man stepped up to the bar. He had shoulder length, brown hair and what was not really a beard but some serious five o’clock shadow. It suited him though.
His black t-shirt hugged his body. Large biceps stretched the fabric and black ink travelled the length of both arms. She recognized the face as well as the tats.
“Hey,” Daisy said and smiled up at him. He returned the sentiment. “I remember you from last week,” she declared. “You said I had nice tats.”
“Why does he get to say it?” Milo whined.
“Tats!” Daisy barked at him. “Tats! Clean your ears while you cut that hair.”
The guy grinned at her. “Both are nice,” he told Milo loudly. Daisy blushed as her heart thudded. She was not about to take this man’s chili cheese fries away, no, sir.
“I’m glad you remember me,” he said in a smooth, velvet voice. “I’m Adam.” He reached out to take her hand and shook it. Then he turned her wrist and inspected her ink. His thumb ran over her orange white koi on her forearm. “Traditional and Japanese, but it works,” he said. “Very nice.”
Daisy would’ve said something about Sailor Jerry but she’d momentarily misplaced her tongue.
Adam turned, looked down, and nodded. “Abby,” he drawled. She blushed and nodded back.
“Holy hell,” Daisy breathed as Adam walked away. She looked at Abby, who was ready to fan herself. “Have...?” Daisy asked. “Have you two...?”
“No!” Abby cried, and shook her head vehemently. “Oh, no. Worse, in a way.”
Daisy stared at her. “Worse how?”
Abby wrinkled her nose. “Remember when I told you I had a tattoo of my own?”
Daisy nodded, then recalled Milo’s offer of information about said tattoo’s location.
“Oh,” she giggled. “Yeah, that’s why I don’t get ink there.”
She couldn’t imagine lying on a chair, face down, ass in the air while Adam stared down at it, for hours, possibly, depending on the art. Rather, now she could imagine it, and it sent shivers down her spine.
Breaking the awkwardness, Abby said, “Hey, you play poker?”
Daisy was momentarily tripped up by the question. “What? Do I-? Yeah. Yeah.”
Abby grinned. “Fantastic,” she said and took out a pen. She scrawled an address onto a napkin. “Every Thursday, my friends and I play at Sarah’s house,” she told Daisy. “You should come. It’s a blast.”
Daisy glanced down at the address and frowned.
“Oh,” Abby said quietly. “Yeah. Easy will be there. Awkward. Forget I said anything.”
“No,” Daisy protested. “It’s not that,” she insisted. And it wasn’t. She was long over that mistake. “I don’t have a car.”
“Oh,” Abby repeated and took back the napkin. “Oh, no problem. I’ll pick you up. If you’re sure it’s cool...”
Daisy nodded. She had no friends yet and Abby and her friends seemed nice. “Totally cool,” she assured Abby. “I’m so over that.”
Chapter 9
Daisy saw a cherry red muscle car pull up in front of her motel room and had to do a double-take to make sure it was Abby. The tall redhead opened the driver’s side door and stepped out, dispelling any doubts.
“Nice ride,” Daisy called out as she locked the door behind her.
Abby grinned. “Thanks,” she replied, patting the hood. “This is my baby.”
Daisy settled into the front seat and ran her hands over the leather. “You know, a few years ago, I’d have fallen hard for any guy who cruised around town in a ride like this.”
Abby looked at her over her sunglasses and put the car in reverse. “How about now? Have you seen the error of your ways?”
Daisy laughed. “Hell no. I just traded up. Nowadays it’s a hot guy on a hot bike.”
Abby joined in her laughter. “Can’t say I’m any better. My car- not my baby, mind you, a different car- crapped out on me on the highway on the day I came into town. Tex rolled up behind me on his huge, black Harley, and I just about wet my panties.”
“A guy like that would make any girl’s panties wet,” Daisy teased.
Abby giggled, slapped Daisy lightly on the arm, and pulled out onto the main road. As she drove through the city, Daisy leaned her head back against the seat. “Matt doesn’t have a bike. Or a muscle car. Just a beat up truck. Should’ve been my first clue his priorities were screwed up. You know how some guys you can look at the way they treat their cars and you can see how they’d treat you? Should’ve picked up on that.”
Abby smiled. “I know what you mean. The way Tex goes over every inch of his Harley, polishing it, testing it, I never wanted to be a motorcycle so badly in my life.”
“So, you’re Vegas from Vegas,” Daisy ventured. “I take Tex is from Texas?”
Abby nodded. “They all met in the Army. They’re all ex-Rangers.”
Daisy gave a low whistle. “Yikes,” she muttered.
“Shooter was a sniper,” Abby informed her, “as you might guess. Hawk’s into computers. Tex knows about eight languages and has a psych degree on top of that. Doc, Caleb, has emergency medical training, but he’s a cop now.”
Daisy glanced at her. “A cop?” she asked and tried to keep the waver out of her voice.
“Yeah. I think he’d had enough of the blood and guts on tour. He’s an officer now. I was surprised he’s not interested in becoming a detective or anything like that. He’s happy on the streets, I guess.”
“So, he’s pretty straight and narrow,” Daisy guessed, and couldn’t tell if that was a good or a bad thing.
But Abby surprised her and shook her head. “Not really,” she said quietly. “I mean, he wears the badge, but... I get the impression that he’s not all about the rules, you know.”
Daisy scowled. Even worse was a cop who thought the rules didn’t apply to him. She made a mental note to stay far away from Caleb.
“And Jimmy-” Abby glanced at Daisy to see if it was okay to talk about him. Daisy just shrugged.
“Jimmy’s got a degree in mechanical engineering. I guess he loves seeing how things work and putting them back together. He’s not a bad guy,” she insisted. “I think he just came out of it the worst, you know? Makes sense that he’d take
the longest to recover.”
Daisy watched the downtown area give way to warehouses. “Maria said it was a bomb.”
“Took out half their unit,” Abby explained. “And they were all pretty close. They’re the only ones left so they decided to stick together.”
Daisy nodded to herself. “Like a family.”
“It is a family. They think of themselves as brothers, which means they support each other through everything.” She sighed. “Of course, it also means they fight like brothers, too. And they don’t pull punches, literally or figuratively.”
“Are they violent?” Daisy asked cautiously. She’d seen some one percenters get into it at Sturgis. Some of them were ex-military; all of them were pretty much crazy.
“No,” Abby assured her. “Only with each other. And not seriously. No one’s ever gotten hurt.”
They pulled into a large circular driveway, and Abby parked in front of the log cabin style house. “Wow,” Daisy muttered, taking in the view of the place. Her whole trailer could fit in the garage.
“It’s great, isn’t it?” Abby replied. “They love it.”
“It’s beautiful out here,” Daisy commented looking at the wooded areas surrounding the house.
Abby rounded the car and headed up the front steps. “South Dakota isn’t anything like the desert,” she told Daisy, “but it has its own kind of beauty.”
“Better than Nebraska,” Daisy pointed out. “It’s just corn and cows.”
Abby opened the front door and ushered Daisy inside. The living room was two stories high with a large fireplace and not a stitch of shag carpeting to be seen.
“Hey!” Tildy gushed and swept Daisy into a hug.
Tildy’s man sat on the couch, nursing a beer, and nodded to her. Daisy could totally see why even a girl as bambi eyed as Tildy would want a tattoo that reminded her of him. Lord, she thought, and wondered if he was that big all over and how a girl as small as Tildy managed to take it.
There were two she didn’t recognize seated in chairs across the room. “I’m Chris,” one of them told her. “This is my place.”
He looked slightly older than the others, but it looked good on him. So did his jeans. Daisy was beginning to wonder if she wasn’t quite out of her dry spell yet, because every man in here was mouth-wateringly delicious looking.
Tex, whom she hadn’t officially met but recognized because Abby had pointed him out, gave her a warm smile as he leaned up against the wall. Daisy smiled back. She figured the dark, broody one might be Caleb, the cop, and only gave him a cursory nod before looking away quickly. He didn’t seem all that interested in her anyway, which could only be a good thing.
“Something sure smells good,” Daisy declared.
“I’m trying to help Sarah in the kitchen,” Tildy replied.
“Well, I don’t cook,” Daisy announced. “But I can wash dishes. If-”
At that moment, Easy rounded the corner. Daisy had known she’d run into him here, but apparently her indignant brain had made her mental image of him uglier and far less attractive than RealEasy, who stood out as the hottest guy in a room chock full of them. The imaginary punch to the gut nearly knocked the wind out of her.
Then she realized he was holding the baby Sarah had brought into the bar earlier. Hope was snuggled against Easy’s chest, taking up real estate that Daisy found herself wanting to occupy, despite it being a very, very bad idea.
“What is she doing here?” he demanded, dispelling any idea Daisy had of Round Two.
She narrowed her eyes at him, feeling a little embarrassed that she’d let herself fantasize, however briefly, about him. It hadn’t taken long for him to remind her why it was never going to work in the first place.
Easy was an asshole.
“I was invited,” Daisy shot back. “They like me.” She indicated Abby and Tildy. “Probably because, you know, they got to know me. Don’t worry,” she sneered. “I’m not here because of us.”
Easy bristled and shifted the baby a little in his arms. “There is no ‘us’,” he growled.
Daisy laughed. “Oh, you’re right about that. It isn’t a relationship by anyone’s standards. Not even mine,” she added, because she could practically hear him judging her.
It irritated her that he’d called her out like he couldn’t just forget it happened and move on. He had to point out that she wasn’t good enough, not only for him, but to even join their circle of friends.
“She should leave,” he declared.
“She has a name,” Daisy replied.
He sneered at her. “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now.”
“Jimmy!” Abby scolded.
He shrugged. “It’s not like she asked me for my name, either.”
“Well, I tried,” Daisy pointed out. “Earlier, if you remember. But you were too busy acting like an asshole to notice.”
Easy snorted. “So, you just bone assholes on a regular basis?” he asked, trying to shift the focus back to Daisy.
“Pretty much all of them have been, yeah,” Daisy responded coolly. “From the one that cheated to the one that knocked out one of my teeth and the ones in between. Yep, all assholes. You’re just the one who doesn’t know my name. And to be honest, that doesn’t put you very high on the list. In fact,” she informed him. “A two-minute schtup standing up in a bathroom where I didn’t even get off doesn’t even deserve to make the list at all. So, why don’t you forget it happened? I pretty much have.”
Someone whistled, but Daisy didn’t look around to see who.
“I’m new in town and I don’t have any friends. I’d like to make some. And right now something in the kitchen smells awfully damn good, and, seeing as how I’ve been living off of bar food and trashburgers for weeks, this will be the first time I’ve had a home cooked meal in... Well, honestly, my mama’s not exactly the Nebraska Martha Stewart, so unless ravioli from a can counts as home cooking, then I’ve never had it. So, do you think you could find it in your too-small Grinch’s heart to let me get a decent meal and talk to someone who isn’t ordering a beer?”
Daisy crossed her arms and waited for him to decide. She was totally aware that everyone in the room was looking at her. Even Sarah had come out of the kitchen to see what all the fuss was about. Daisy didn’t care. She’d learned long ago that you couldn’t hide who you were, especially not in Delay, Nebraska. Everyone knew you were from the trailer park. Everyone knew your daddy got your mama pregnant and took off before you were even born.
No amount of church-donated clothes and shoes would let you fool anyone into thinking you were anything but Poor White Trash. Over the years, she’d also discovered that being open about it and yes, occasionally wielding it like a weapon of sorts could make things easier on herself. Now Easy had to decide if he was going to be the guy who wouldn’t let a broke-ass barmaid have a meal.
It wasn’t hard to be an asshole when you were surrounded by a group of them, but it was often difficult to be the only one. Easy shifted the baby in his arms and finally looked away from her. Daisy figured it was as close to a guy like him waving the white flag as she was ever going to get. She lifted her chin and walked past him toward Sarah and the kitchen beyond.
Chapter 10
Easy couldn’t bring himself to look at her as she walked past him. He knew that none of this was her fault, anyway. It only bothered him that he thought of Brenda when he looked at her.
Her, he realized, looking down at Hope, he didn’t even know-
“Her name is Daisy,” Abby told him quietly, as though she read his thoughts.
He had a vague memory of daisies tattooed on her shoulder. She had tried to talk to him, multiple times, but he’d been brooding over Brenda and hadn’t responded. Then he’d cornered her in the bathroom, but she hadn’t minded. Well, she’s used to assholes, he thought. Apparently, serious assholes at that.
Now he was the asshole. Wasn’t that always the case? Everyone was looking at him. He’d fuck
ed up; he knew it. He didn’t need a lecture from his former lieutenant, or insight from Tex, or any damn thing else. He strode to Shooter and passed the baby to him then turned and walked toward the door.
“You’re leaving?” Abby asked, slightly panicked.
Easy ignored her and kept moving. He stepped out the door onto the front porch.
“He’s leaving?” he heard her ask the others. “He can’t just apologize? Is... is he going to make us choose?”
Easy didn’t wait to hear the rest as he descended the steps and headed to his truck. Fuck no, he wasn’t going to make them choose. At this point, they’d choose her. Daisy, he corrected. And who could blame them? Then he’d lose his family- again. He stepped on the gas and shot toward the country lane that led down the foothill. It was a fairly quick drive back into town, quick enough in the truck at least. Easy still couldn’t drum up the courage to ride his bike out this far.
He didn’t call it fear, not out loud. He simply told them his thigh got a little numb if he rode too long, which was not a lie. The damn temporary prosthetic wasn’t the greatest fit, but Easy still wasn’t too comfortable even driving outside the city limits. He’d sucked it up for Slick’s wedding in the Badlands, but that was it. For a while he’d had crazy visions of putting it down on the pavement and losing the other leg. That fear had now subsided until it was mostly just a nagging bad feeling in the back of his mind, but it hadn’t yet gone away.
As he hit the city limits he turned onto the road that led through town. He passed Maria’s, which looked slow, but then again it was only Thursday. He briefly considered stopping but really didn’t feel like being surrounded by people. He passed the motel and Burnout and turned down his own street and pulled in the driveway next to his bike.
He killed the engine and hauled himself out of the front seat. It was early yet, he thought to himself as he looked up at the cloudless sky. Their poker games usually lasted half the night, a nice distraction from sitting at home, which until recently had been a perilous pastime. Inside he felt jangly, hot and intense, and recognized that he was on the edge. He stood, paralyzed, at the bottom of his own front steps.
