Still Standing

by Kristen Ashley

  Still Standing

  Wild West MC Series

  Kristen Ashley

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by Kristen Ashley

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the US Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at info@kristenashley.net

  Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Contents

  Still Standing

  1. Earthquake

  2. Clean

  3. Redhot

  4. Venom

  5. Crackers

  6. I Got Your Back

  7. Is That Enough for You?

  8. I Took You On

  9. Professor Higgins

  10. As Good as I Could Get

  11. What Would a Biker Babe Do?

  12. Gear

  13. Tatiana

  14. Moody

  15. Do You Need CPR?

  16. Happiness Is Pop-Tarts

  17. There’s No Way Out

  18. That’s How Families Are

  19. You Were Standing in My Way

  20. Waffles

  21. It’s the World as I Want It to Be

  22. The Biker Babe Initiation

  23. Pretty-Pretty

  24. You Live in the Sunshine

  25. A Man with Vision

  26. I Like It Like That

  27. He Has No Problem Branching Out

  28. Is This Really Happening?

  29. Never Easy

  30. Still Standing

  31. All Good

  32. The Life and Times of West Hardy

  33. Family

  34. Voodoo

  35. Problems

  Epilogue

  Discussion & Reflection Questions

  About the Author

  Also by Kristen Ashley

  Still Standing

  By Kristen Ashley

  1

  Earthquake

  I pulled into the back lot next to the huge warehouse beside the super-hip home improvement store, Ace in the Hole, and as instructed, kept driving around the back of the warehouse to get to the long, squat building next to it.

  I did this practicing deep breathing.

  I’d done my research at the library the day before and I’d lived in Phoenix all my life.

  I’d heard about Ace in the Hole, but I’d never been there.

  Rogan took care of the house, or at least he took care of calling the people who took care of our house.

  That was, he did that before he was incarcerated.

  There was a large area between the warehouse and the building next to it.

  At the end, there was a line of four vans facing the chain link fence that protected the area from the street (a fence with razor wire on top—it wasn’t a great neighborhood in north Phoenix, it also wasn’t the worst neighborhood in town—I knew this because I lived in the worst neighborhood in town, and that was on the south side).

  The back doors of the vans had a decal of a playing card—the ace of spades, with the curves of the symbol being the eyes of a skull, flames coming out the top, black rivulets (meant to denote blood? eek!) dripping from the bottom, spatter around it (again, blood?)—and next to it, it said Ace in the Hole Contracting.

  That area between buildings also held a variety of Harleys parked in a line. This in front of the long, squat structure. Under the overhang that ran the front of that space were three (three!) barrel grills. Two picnic tables. A scattering of mismatched outdoor chairs with equally mismatched tables, almost all of which had empty beer bottles or cans or overflowing ashtrays or all three on top. And I could see there was a misting system built into the overhang to cool it down during hot Phoenix days, of which, that day was one, it was just that the mist wasn’t on right then.

  The Aces High Motorcycle Club hangout.

  Where I was heading because I was stupid.

  Stupid and desperate.

  “You’ve done this before, Clara, you’ve done it twice,” I told myself under my breath as I parked outside the building, next to the bikes. “You did it and you walked away. You’re fine. You’ll be fine. You’ll say what you have to say and then go. They’re not going to kill the messenger. Right?”

  I said these words to convince myself I was going to be perfectly okay.

  And, truth be told, this was actually one of the less dangerous messages Esposito had sent me out to deliver.

  The Aces High Motorcycle Club owned this long stretch of property on which they had a large home improvement store, a larger warehouse, and this building.

  They were well-known.

  This was because it was Phoenix. A haven for bikers. A haven for badasses. And perhaps the last bastion of the Wild West.

  I’d heard others who did not grow up there say they’d lived their whole lives going into places of business and not seeing a No Firearms Allowed sign on the door.

  To me, that was shocking.

  To them, seeing that sign was more shocking.

  During my research at the library the day before, I’d pulled up a variety of stuff that included a couple of articles about the opening of a home improvement store run by a gang of bikers and how that was instantly popular.

  How Aces High MC were “changing the face of the MC culture” by running two successful businesses (the store and the contracting) as a club.

  How people, especially Phoenicians, found it cool to turn away from a chain store like Lowe’s or Home Depot and “shop local,” when that local shop was owned by bikers.

  I’d also seen pictures of the members of the club, all rough-looking guys. But they were bikers, they were bound to look rough. It wasn’t like they were the kind to gussy up to have their picture taken for an article in a newspaper.

  Or maybe they did gussy up and in real life, they were really rough.

  Bottom line, I didn’t know much about bikers (at all), but I figured they were who they were and part of who they were was rough-looking.

  But whatever they did behind the scenes, they had a very visible face. A woman couldn’t drive in broad daylight to their hangout and then disappear.

  Unfortunately, no one but Esposito and Tia knew I was there.

  If something happened to me, I doubted Esposito would care.

  Tia would, but she wasn’t in a place to do anything about it.

  This part was bad.

  And try as I might, I couldn’t find good.

  But I hadn’t had much good in a long time (say, since the moment I was born), so at least I was used to it.

  I switched off the ignition, grabbed my purse and slung it over my shoulder. Then I exited my car hoping that the repo man wasn’t following me.

  I suspected, however, that my car was safer outside the Aces High Motorcycle Club’s hangout than it was anywhere.

  Repo men undoubtedly had a variety of ways and means, but I didn’t figure one of their ways was to repossess a car right outside a possibly dangerous motorcycle club’s clubhouse. I figured members of the club might frown on that simply for territorial reasons alone.

  I slammed the door to my car and walked to the hangout still sucking in deep breaths.

  My message was short.

  They were going to be angry, but that was Esposito’s problem. Not mine.

  I was just the messenge
r.

  Simply the messenger.

  That was it.

  The front door to their lair was off to one side, close to the end, away from the street.

  I pulled it open and stepped through into the dark, my eyes taking a moment to adjust as it was a shock after being out in the bright Phoenix sunshine.

  This was unfortunate because I immediately heard the low, angry growl of a man.

  “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ shittin’ me.”

  I turned my head toward the sound and my eyes adjusted.

  It looked like a bar. A comfortable one like you’d have in your house if you owned a very big house, you’d lived in it a long time, you had a great number of friends, and you partied frequently.

  Two pool tables. Some couches and armchairs. Some tables and chairs (most of these poker tables). A massive wide-screen TV hanging on the side wall close to the door. A long bar at the wall across the wide room opposite the TV. A bar with shelves behind it, liquor on the shelves, some glasses, stools in front, but no cash register. Things on the wall: pictures, plaques, flags, stickers, carvings.

  Yes.

  Carvings in the wood paneling on the walls.

  Jagged ones.

  Although I was surprised at this choice of decoration, and what it said about the easy and prolific access to knives the people who used that space had, I was on a mission, and thus, didn’t pay much attention.

  I took in what I could of the environment just to understand where I was, because I felt it prudent to focus on the humans and not the décor.

  This was due to the fact that the room was also filled with about ten big, rough-looking, angry-looking men.

  I focused on the one I was guessing spoke and said, “I’m here to see a Mr. West Hardy.”

  “Fuck you,” the man replied, and I squared my shoulders automatically as a thrill of fear raced down my spine.

  I wasn’t one of those people who liked fear, who fed off it.

  I didn’t like fear.

  In fact, I hated it.

  And in all this time, the eighteen months since Rogan was arrested, feeling it nearly every day, I still wasn’t used to it.

  But I was desperate. I had no choice.

  “Get your ass outta here,” another man ordered, and I looked at him.

  “Are you Mr. Hardy?” I asked.

  “Get your ass outta here,” he replied.

  I ignored him because I had a job to do and I needed to do it. Desperation, obviously, made you do desperate things.

  And, like I said, I was desperate.

  My eyes scanned through the men.

  I had to take this. If I didn’t take this and say what I had to say, I didn’t get paid and Tia got into trouble.

  And I needed to get paid, and I needed that badly.

  But more, I couldn’t get Tia into trouble.

  All the men were standing, save one.

  One was sitting at a stool at the bar, slightly twisted to the side, but his head was bowed to it, looking at a bottle of beer in his hands.

  I only saw his profile and not much of it since he had a very full beard.

  He had a lot of tattoos on his arms which were exposed by a short-sleeved T-shirt. He had very muscular arms. And from what I could see from the tight T-shirt he was wearing that stretched along his broad back, a very muscular everything.

  He had dark hair that was too long. Not long, long, as in, he could put it in a ponytail like some of the men had, but it curled around his neck and swept back from his face and looked kind of greasy-wet, but in a cool way, and I wondered inanely if he used product.

  Then again, you couldn’t blame him if he did. I suspected even bikers used product. Since it was so long in the front, if he didn’t do something to keep it back, it would fall over his forehead into his eyes and that would be annoying.

  If he wasn’t so rough-looking, I could tell, even in profile, he’d be immensely attractive.

  He just wasn’t my type.

  Not that anyone was.

  Not anymore.

  I also knew he was West Hardy, president of the Aces High Motorcycle Club.

  I knew this only because, though he was sitting, staring at his beer, he had something about him—a charisma, a magnetism. He exuded the gravitas of a chief.

  He was not one of the boys.

  He was the leader of the pack.

  I started toward him and a big man with long, dirty-blond hair not pulled into a ponytail (but it could have been) stepped in front of me.

  I stopped, sucked in a breath and looked up at him.

  “Get…your ass…outta here,” he growled.

  “I have a message to deliver to Mr. Hardy,” I replied.

  “Bitch, get…” He leaned into me and it took everything I had, but I stood firm because, it must be said, this man was big, but he was also seriously scary. “Outta here,” he finished.

  “Ink,” a deep, rough voice said quietly, and the man in front of me glared at me, straightened, then twisted his neck to look over his shoulder.

  “What?” he barked.

  “Tequila,” the deep, rough voice replied strangely.

  The entire room changed then.

  It was odd.

  The atmosphere was heavy and dangerous one second, but the minute that voice said “tequila,” a lightness flowed through, the tenseness immediately evaporated, and chancing a glance around, I saw some of the men actually smiling.

  What on earth?

  The man in front of me, who I suspected was called “Ink,” stepped aside, his mouth moving like he was fighting back a smile, and the way was cleared to the man at the bar.

  He was still cradling his beer with both hands and his head was still bowed, but now his neck was twisted, and his eyes were on me.

  Okay.

  Um.

  Wow.

  I had no type, but when I did have a type, he was not my type.

  That said, if he was charismatic, magnetic and attractive in profile, those dark eyes with the laugh lines emanating from the sides, his thick beard with hints of gray in it, his strong bone structure (specifically his cheekbones, they were magnificent) and his intensity aimed at me, I had to admit, was beyond charismatic, magnetic and attractive straight to downright electrifying.

  “Have a seat, Toots,” he ordered, his head tipping to the stool beside him as the men around me moved away.

  I pulled in a short, calming breath, thrilled beyond belief the scary portion of my task was over, and I walked up to the bar but didn’t take a seat.

  “This shouldn’t take long,” I told him.

  “Have a seat,” he repeated in his gravelly voice.

  “I just came to say—”

  “Babe,” he cut me off, his voice going lower. He hadn’t lifted his head, but his dark brown eyes changed in a way that both scared me and enthralled me, but not in a way I could describe, they just did. “I said, have… a… seat.”

  I decided it was judicious to have a seat.

  So I pulled my purse off my shoulder and slid as best I could in my tight skirt up onto the barstool. Once situated, I put my purse on the bar and turned to him to see he’d lifted his head and was also lifting his chin.

  A young man, as rough as the rest, but definitely younger (early twenties at most), came forward with two shot glasses and a bottle. I watched as he filled both shot glasses then stepped away.

  The man seated beside me straightened and reached out to the glasses. He picked one up and extended it to me.

  “Um…I haven’t had lunch,” I demurred, my gaze going from the shot glass to his eyes.

  “Take it,” he ordered. “Drink.”

  “I drove here. It would be irresponsible to drink straight alcohol on an empty stomach and then—”

  He cut me off.

  “Toots, I said, take it.”

  Oh dear.

  I took it, and the instant I did, he reached out and nabbed the other one, put it to his lips and threw his head and the shot
back. I watched his throat work and was vaguely intrigued through my what-on-earth-is-happening-now feelings to see his neck was as well-muscled as the rest of him.

  He slammed the glass down, his head turned to me and then tipped to my glass.

  “Shoot it,” he demanded.

  “Are you Mr. Hardy?” I asked.

  “Buck,” he replied.

  I felt my brows knit. “You’re Mr. Buck?”

  “No, darlin’, I’m called Buck.”

  “Oh,” I muttered then asked, “Is the name on your birth certificate West Hardy?”

  He grinned at me, all strong white teeth in a dark beard, and for some reason that made my heart skip a beat.

  “Affirmative,” he stated.

  There it was.

  Good.

  I scooted my bottom on the chair, ready to get down to business, and stated, “Okay, then, Esposito says—”

  He interrupted me again. “Shoot it.”

  “Pardon?” I asked.

  “Babe, shoot the tequila.”

  “What I have to say won’t take long,” I told him. “And I appreciate your offer of refreshments, but—”

  He grinned again, looking like something was immensely entertaining, and I stopped speaking because West “Buck” Hardy’s entertained look went so far beyond attractive it was not funny.

  “You appreciate my offer of refreshments?” he asked.

  “Um, yes, it’s very nice, but it’s just past noon and—”

  “Toots, quit jackin’ around and drink the shot.”

  I stared into his eyes.

  Then I decided to drink the shot.