“I’ll tell you what you want to know in exchange for a twenty minute interview right now, nothing off limits.”
By the look on his face, she could see he was entertained, by the prospect or the negotiation, she couldn’t tell which.
“Seven minutes. I’ll tell you anything I’m allowed to share.”
“Who picks a number like seven?”
“Me. You’re evading.”
“Fifteen minutes. No hemming. No hawing.”
“Hawing?”
“Straight talk. Right now.”
“Ten minutes.”
“Done.”
“Hawsome.”
She laughed and then tried to cover it with a scowl, which made Brash smile even broader. Getting a laugh out of the buttoned-up scientist felt like a little victory. He had no idea why he’d care about that, since his lip had been throbbing all day. Worse, everywhere he went, people had stared at it like he hadn’t been able to duck a punch to the face. Which, technically, he hadn’t.
“So?”
“What do you mean ‘so’?” she asked.
“Answer my question. Where’d you get the cash?”
“My parents were killed in a plane crash when I was a teenager. They both had life insurance policies.” He watched her features carefully. Her tone was matter-of-fact, almost emotionless. When he didn’t respond, she added, “It was a long time ago.”
“Okay. You got ten minutes. Starting now.” When he looked at his watch, it reminded her of her first meeting with Brant Fornight.
“You know you look a lot like your daddy.”
He grinned. “So they say. They also say he’s a handsome devil.” When she didn’t respond, he said, “Interview over?”
“Pain!” She heard someone call the new ‘name’ from somewhere behind her. She looked over her shoulder at Eric, who smiled and said, “How ‘bout a brew?”
She turned back to Brash. “Put that stopwatch on pause and meet me outside at the picnic table.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
On her way around the bar, she took off her apron. “Sorry, Eric. I’m taking a break. Get your own.”
By the time she got to the picnic table under the big mesquite tree, Brash was waiting quietly with his beer. He looked at his watch and said, “Go.”
“How long has your father been president of the club?”
“Twenty-four years.”
“Do you ever remember a time when he wasn’t president?”
“Not really.”
“Was he a good father?”
“The best.”
“Did anybody else help raise you?”
“My Gram. Her name is June. You probably met her.”
“I did. Did you live here growing up?”
“No.” He looked at her like she was crazy. “Children don’t live at the club.”
“Okay. So did you live with your grandmother and your dad lived here?”
“No. They bought a big piece of land a little bit south of here and built three houses on it. One for Gram, one for my Aunt Joanna, and one for the two of us. It was a big job, raisin’ a kid and keepin’ the club in line. I guess he was lucky that my grandmother and aunt were in a position to help. And were willin’.
“He was four years younger than I am right now when I was born. Christ. I can’t even imagine.”
“You can’t imagine having a child or being a single father?”
He gave her a strange look. “Of course I can imagine havin’ kids. But raisin’ one up from infancy? Alone?”
“So you have a lot of admiration for him.”
“More than I can say.”
She nodded. “He told me you were a handful.”
Brash grinned. “Did he?”
“How’d you get your biker name?”
“It’s usually called a road name, but I’ve had it since my tricycle days.”
“What’s your real name? I mean, your birth certificate name.”
“Brannach.”
“Hmmm. Brant and Brannach. I sense a trend.” Brash didn’t respond, but he thought about Brandon. “So you were nicknamed Brash because…”
“Guess.”
She laughed. “So you and your dad still officially live somewhere else?”
“No. When I became a patched in member, I started spendin’ more time here and I think Dad liked the convenience of bein’ thirty paces from his office. So, when my cousin, Crow, started a family, it seemed like the right thing to let them move into our house. It worked for my grandmother and Joanna, bein’ close to those girls. And it worked for Crow’s wife, too, ‘cause she got lots of help.”
“Have you ever been married?”
Brash lowered his eyelids and smiled. “This the personal part? No. I’ve never been married. Thought I might once, but it didn’t work out. Now I’m glad.”
“Why?”
She saw the moment he decided to laugh it off instead of giving a serious answer.
“’Cause then I wouldn’t be free to flirt with you, darlin’.”
Ignoring that altogether, she forged ahead. “What’s the best thing about living at the clubhouse?”
“Good food. Somebody to clean and do my laundry. No strings attached other than earnin’ my cut of the paycheck.”
“What’s the worst thing?”
“Lack of privacy.”
She nodded. “Anything else?”
“Too much of a good thing, the togetherness I mean.”
“It’s kind of like living at a bar?”
He laughed. “Yeah. From your point of view, I guess it looks that way. Hell. Maybe it is that way.”
“What do you do for the club?”
“I supervise the businesses we own and operate.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“I don’t know. What are you lookin’ for?”
“Well, you left here this morning. You came back at suppertime. What did you do in between?”
He cocked his head. “You lookin’ for an invitation to ride around with me?”
He caught the flash of surprise coupled with excitement. “I wasn’t. Could I?”
“I’ll think about it. You sure you can get away from your new job?”
“My new job?”
“Behind the bar?”
“I’m a volunteer. So. Yes.”
He nodded. “I’d definitely say okay in exchange for sexual favors.”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars isn’t enough? You want sexual favors, too?”
“Well, see, it’s like this. My mind understands money. But my dick don’t understand money. He just understands there’s a beautiful honey-colored woman in front of me with a lush body I’d like to get lost in.”
Though she made a valiant try to keep from getting an image of that, the pictures in her mind caused her to flush. She remembered how slapping Brash had hurt her hand, but she also remembered the feel of his hands on her body before she’d gone Irish-woman mad.
“Is that a blush?” He chuckled. “Christ, Brigid. You really are buttoned up, aren’t you?” He hoped his teasing didn’t give her the wrong idea. Because he liked the fact that she wasn’t easy. A lot. “How about you? You ever come close to gettin’ married?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ve been concentrating on getting grades ever since I was in the ninth grade. That’s what it takes to get into grad school at an institution like U.T. All work. No play.”
“You have regrets about that?”
“Hey. Who’s asking the questions here?”
He held up his hands in surrender, but went on. “Not even a serious boyfriend?”
“You can buy an answer to that with another ten minutes of your time.”
He chuckled. “Much as I’d like to take you up on that, I got someplace to be. I’ll take a raincheck. Can I walk you back in?”
“No thanks. I know the way.”
She watched him walk off, knowing that he knew she was watching. He swung his leg over o
ne of the monster machines lined up facing the club, and started the engine with a roar. One of the prospects was on gate duty and opened up without needing to be asked. Brash gave him a two-fingered wave as he went through.
Bradley had been lucky enough to escape a ‘road name’ so far. The gate prospect hadn’t been so lucky. He’d been dubbed Gulp and she hadn’t needed to ask why. He had a nervous habit of swallowing made worse by a thin frame and an extremely pronounced Adam’s Apple.
Brigid leaned her elbows back on the picnic table and breathed in the soft evening air as she listened to the sound of the motorcycle fade away. As she lingered, she watched the ones who lived at the club come back for the day, alone or in pairs. From the picnic table she could watch unobserved. She could hear voices, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. Still, it was plain that the members enjoyed an easy camaraderie.
As Brash was making the rounds the next day, his thoughts drifted back to Brigid. That first night, even with a smashed mouth, he couldn’t help noticing the way she looked in that thin blue nightshirt. It wasn’t the kind of thing a woman would wear to seduce a man, but the way she filled it out caught his attention and, apparently, kept his attention.
It hadn’t taken long for him to figure out that she was an early riser. Every morning she was already at the far end of the bar, typing away on her laptop. He usually ate in the kitchen with whoever was there, but that day he decided to get a plate and see if he could annoy the redhead into showing him the spark he’d seen in her eyes the night she busted his lip.
Brigid was making notes when she saw a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon being set down next to her where the bar curved. She’d gotten into the habit of writing in the mornings unless someone volunteered to be chatty. After she made herself a salad for lunch, she’d put her laptop away and bartend.
She stopped typing and looked up at Brash.
“You had breakfast?” He took the seat and reached for his fork.
“Hours ago.”
“Hours ago? How early do you get up?”
“Well, that depends on how much sleep the house lets me get, but I like to be up by six at latest.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “So what were you writin’ just now.”
When she didn’t answer, he swiveled the laptop screen toward him and read out loud.
“At the same time, tribal societies exhibit a remarkable economy of design and have a compactness and self-sufficiency lacking in modern society. This is achieved by the close, and sometimes unilateral, connections that exist between tribal institutions or principles of social organization, and by the concentration of a multiplicity of social roles in the same social persons or offices. There is a corresponding unity and coherence in tribal values that are intimately related to social institutions and are endowed with an intensity characteristic of all ‘closed’ systems of thought. Tribal societies are supremely ethnocentric.”
Brash looked at her like he was trying to read her mind.
“Your eggs are getting cold,” she said, glancing at his plate for emphasis.
He turned the laptop back to its position facing her and said, “You got lots goin’ on in that gorgeous head, Pain.”
“Look. I know this is a losing battle, but I really wish you’d call me Brigid.”
He studied her carefully. “Has anybody ever pointed out that Brigid rhymes with frigid?”
She narrowed her eyes and set her mouth. “Yes. The same people who pointed out that Brash rhymes with gash.”
He almost choked on the piece of bacon he’d just put in his mouth. “Real mature.”
“You started it.”
When he grinned the light shining in his eyes was so captivating she caught herself leaning forward a little.
“Guilty,” he said softly. “I see you’re pickin’ up the lingo, but I warn you. Pop doesn’t approve of disrespectin’ women. This club has kind of strict rules about the way women are regarded. Even the ones who don’t care.”
“Should I take that to mean that your club is different from most? In that regard?”
“Take it any way you want, but it’s a fact. This club is different from most. In that regard.”
“Okay.”
“So why are you curious about us?”
“I’m gathering evidence to prove a theory.”
“What theory?”
She smiled and looked away for just a second. She hadn’t expected to ever be asked.
“My theory is that we, as a species, are hardwired to seek a community organized according to the most ancient social structures, tribes. In the modern world, we have civilized constructs that exist outside of instinct. Layer after layer of rules and guidelines, intellectual experiments in culture, that operate in direct opposition to human instinct.”
“What’s that have to do with us?”
“Don’t you see? I think motorcycle clubs have attempted to reconstruct what was lost, at least in part. Tribal society.”
He cocked his head and shoved the plate away. “You romanticizin’ us, Pain?”
“Maybe I am, Brannach.”
He smiled. He hadn’t known how she was going to answer his question, but he hadn’t expected that answer. At all. He’d gotten it all wrong. He’d thought she looked down on them and wanted to prove that they were primitive throwbacks. He supposed that was part of what she was saying, but the way she said it made it sound like a good thing. “You talked to Nam yet?”
“Nam? No. I don’t think so.”
“You’d know if you had. He’s the… in your terms I guess he’d be the tribe elder. He’s the oldest active member of the SSMC and he’s also the historian. Everything about the club’s formation, what’s happened since when, where, how, who… he knows it all. Got it in his head.
“Next time he wanders in here lookin’ for a sip of whiskey and some company, you pull his chain, he’ll talk for hours. The MC is his favorite subject on earth.”
Brigid’s eyes were sparkling like he’d just offered her a lottery win. “That sounds… perfect. What’s he look like?”
“Old. Gray. Wiry build. Has long hair. He’s clean shaved when he thinks about it. Other days he’s got a bristle on his face that’s part black part white.”
She learned that general meetings of the membership were held on Wednesday afternoons and that women weren’t allowed inside. Brash had given her a tip that members usually stuck around to talk and drink after. So she took her place behind the bar, and waited patiently with Bradley.
“You know, Pain,” Bradley said, “it’ll be nice to have your help today. They run me ragged after church.”
“Church?”
“The Wednesday meeting.”
“Oh. Well, I’m glad to help. I’m not doing anything else.”
He laughed. “Yeah. Sure.”
She didn’t have time to ask him what he meant. They heard a chorus of voices talking when the door down the hall opened and the members headed straight for them.
“Bar’s open,” Bradley said. “Look alive.”
All thirteen members were present. Most asked for longnecks and drifted over to the lounge area or pool table, but a few slid onto bar stools. She had compromised her dress code when Brash had told her that men will give up more information if they have a hint of cleavage in front of them.
Cleavage was not a problem for her. She’d been blessed in that department. Showing the blessing was the problem. She was the furthest thing from an exhibitionist, but decided that, if she could get the members to talk more about cogent details with a little skin, she’d make the sacrifice.
She bought a couple of knit tops that dipped enough to erase all doubt that she was a woman. One black. One blood red. That day she wore stretchy skinny jeans with the red one and lipstick to match. That was another concession. The red lip gloss looked good with her hair and eyes, and she knew it would also draw attention, but not too much attention.
A black apron tied around her waist completed the ensemb
le.
When the guys first sat down at the bar, they gawked and ogled. But she smiled in return, as if she was there to earn some extra money, and after a few minutes they became involved in their own conversations and forgot she was there. She bustled around the bar, sometimes pretending to do things that didn’t need doing so she could eavesdrop without appearing to eavesdrop.
They talked about wives, kids, nephews, and yard work. Not the sort of thing one would expect from anarchists and desperados.
When the flurry of activity died down, she walked over to stand in front of the stool where Nam was sitting. She set a fresh bowl of nuts in front of him and replaced his beer with a fresh cold one.
“Hi. I’m Brigid.”
“Not what I hear.”
“What’d you hear?”
“That your name’s Pain. ‘Cause you are one.”
She shrugged. “People are entitled to their opinion, I guess.”
He grinned. It was clear that he hadn’t been worried about teeth whitening as the years progressed, but he still had all his teeth.
“Is Nam your real name?”
“What do you think?”
“I suspect it’s short for Vietnam?”
“That’s right. D’you learn about that in school, little girl?”
“As a matter of fact I did. I bet they left some things out of the textbooks though.”
“Got that right. I could tell you stories…”
Edge took the stool in front of her. “She’s not interested in your stories, old man. Give me a shot of Jack.” He said it with a mean grin to show that he knew exactly what he was doing.
“I’ll get your Jack, Pete. But I would like to hear what Nam has to say.”
Nam looked at Edge. “She called you Pete.” He looked at Brigid. “This here’s Edge.”
“Well,” she smiled at Nam. “I call him Pete,” she said as she poured a shot from a whiskey bottle with a black and white label.
Nam thought that whole thing was funny. So much so that Edge took his drink and left. As soon as he was gone, Brigid said, “Thank you,” to Nam.
The old man nodded. “Now. Where were we? Oh. You were saying that you know you haven’t heard the whole story.”
An hour and a half later, Nam was explaining that Vietnam vets were responsible for curb cuts, that in prior wars people who lost their legs usually died, but in Vietnam, helicopters scooped them up and got them to med in time to save their lives, if not their limbs.
Two Princes: The Biker and The Billionaire Page 15
