Hard Ride: A Motorcycle Club Romance (The Fallen Thorns MC) (Whiskey Bad Boys Book 2)

by Kathryn Thomas

  Yes, that was it. I would see that he was still an asshole, which would prove my actions were right. And I would get my manuscript back. That was it; that was what I was going to do.

  Chapter 12

  Logan

  The Boys and Girls Club was in a quiet neighborhood. At least, it was quiet until the Fallen Thorns arrived with their growling motorcycles. The moment we pulled in, every bit of peace was lost. We loved spending time with the children and they were clearly happy to see us.

  There were kids of all ages and Lucy, the woman in charge, just shook her head and smiled when I walked up to her. She had curly brown hair that grayed at the roots and wrinkles that fanned out in spider webs around her eyes.

  "I had to answer questions about when you were arriving all morning. I tried to keep them busy with movies but nothing worked."

  "They're going to love today's lesson. One of our boys is sacrificing his bike so we can take it apart and learn all about maintenance."

  Lucy hugged me. "You're doing wonderful things for the children."

  We looked over at where the kids were saying hi to the few Thorns I'd brought with me. They ran around between the bikes, squealing and laughing. Hyper active through excitement.

  "Alright, boys and girls, let's settle down," I called and walked back to the group. "We're going to divide you into groups and the each of us is taking a group and we're going to do different things with the bikes."

  The kids cheered. The men were all smiling. It wasn't often that you saw badass bikers with their leathers and their studs light up like this, and these were all children. We'd been taking care of the kids for almost four years now and in the time we'd been doing it I'd noticed what a difference it had made. So few people understood the value of time to a child. I'd learned it the hard way.

  I didn't have parents. They'd died when I was very young and my brother Elijah had raised me. He'd had to work to make money for us to survive. He was never there to keep me out of trouble, and I repaid him by getting into every kind of trouble there was. When I looked back on my life there were things I would have done differently. I wanted these kids to understand that in life there were choices, no matter how hard your circumstances.

  And that you could have fun at the same time.

  We divided the kids up in groups of five and each of us took a group into our care, making five groups and twenty-five kids in total. I handed out the books I'd picked up from the library and opened the one I was going to go through today. I was going to try to explain how an engine worked and why it was so important to keep your bike relatively clean. There were boys and girls in my group but everyone was equally excited and interested.

  I checked my wristwatch. Half an hour to go before Selena arrived. I wasn't sure if she would come - she hadn't replied to my message and I was scared she would just stand me up. The truth was, though, I wanted her to see this. I wanted her to understand I wasn't just some asshole who took advantage of people wherever I could. I liked to think I was a nice guy.

  If someone had taken the time to do this with me things would have been different for me. Elijah wouldn't have had to sacrifice his teenage years to be a grownup and look after me, to be the adult and bail me out every time I caused shit so the state didn't take me away. I didn't understand the weight of it then. I did now, but it was way too late.

  "What's this?" the little girl Dana asked. I turned and looked. She was digging in my bag and pointed to Selena manuscript.

  "That's a story my friend wrote."

  Dana eyed the manuscript. "That's a long story."

  I nodded. "She's a good storyteller. Maybe just now you'll get to meet her, but I don't know if she's coming yet. She has work."

  "What does she do?" A boy with hair so light it looked silver asked. His name was Tony or Timmy or something.

  "She works at the library. She let us have these books so we can use them to learn."

  The kids suddenly all crowded around me asking me questions about 'my friend.' This was going to be interesting when Selena finally arrived. If she was going to.

  "I think it's time for some sandwiches," Lucy called and the kids all ran away.

  I let out a breath of relief. They were stunning children but they were a handful. And I only dealt with them once a week. I had a lot of respect for Lucy who held down the fort with only two assistants.

  "I'll bring you boys sandwiches, too," she said and smiled. She disappeared into the facility and a short while later appeared again with a plastic tub with sandwiches. We sat down and ate. Five big bikers, rough, tough and ready to give you a go for your money, eating sandwiches like school kids during break time.

  The sandwiches were good, though. Peanut butter and jelly, cheese and ham, cottage cheese and cucumber, the kind of sandwiches Elijah used to make for me, and I imagined my mom making for him when he was younger, too.

  God, I missed him. I had taken life with him for granted. I guess everyone does that - you don't know what you have until it's gone. I just hadn't thought I would lose Elijah so soon in the game. My dad had left the Fallen Thorns and the clubhouse to us. Elijah had taken over in a time when the gang wasn't on the straight and narrow and there were a lot of thing going on behind the scenes. Club violence was serious with rival gangs thinking nothing of jumping each other or having a shootout.

  Elijah was walking home from the club once, leaving the bike there so he would look decent when he picked me up from school. We usually walked home together.

  He hadn't come that day. I'd been waiting on the steps, waiting and waiting, until someone else had appeared around the corner. It had been Saul, the only guy I still knew from those days. His eyes had been red and when he'd wiped his face with his sleeve his hand had been trembling.

  "Where's Elijah?" I'd demanded but my legs had already gone numb. I knew the answer. Only later I learned it was because he'd been walking that he hadn't been able to get away from them, and as the leader of the Fallen Thorns they'd been too happy to get rid of him. They'd left him behind a dumpster for his friends to find and Saul was the one who had come across his body when he'd tracked his cellphone after he didn't answer.

  I'd lost a brother that day but Saul had lost his other half. Those two had been so tight it had been impossible to get them apart.

  Saul had taken me under his wing, made sure I didn't get into more trouble because of the anger that had boiled up since Elijah's death. Saul had taken the place of a brother, a parent, a best friend for me.

  I looked at Saul where he was leaning back on his elbow, chewing on a cucumber sandwich.

  "Don't they usually make these for funerals?"

  I chuckled.

  "Who's this friend of yours the kids were going on about?"

  I took a bite of my sandwich before I'd swallowed to buy myself time to think. When I'd chewed and swallowed, the boys were still looking at me, waiting for an answer, I had to say something.

  "She works at the library where I checked out the books."

  Saul whistled. "Logan got himself a librarian." The others hooted and catcalled, saying things like it sounded like a personal porno. That pissed me off.

  "It's not like that."

  They fell quiet, maybe hearing then tone in my voice. "She's different than the rest of them."

  Saul cleared his throat. "I'm assuming she's more than just a friend, then."

  I groaned. "I don't know. She's upset with me."

  "Why?"

  "May got involved."

  Saul whistled low. "You tell her what she's like?"

  I shook my head. "I didn't have a chance."

  A taxi pulled up and Selena got out of it.

  "Speak of the devil," I said and got up.

  The guys all turned around and looked. "Hot damn," Saul said under his breath.

  I walked away from them. Selena was guarded. She turned her cheek when I wanted to kiss her and made eye contact only for a moment.

  "Thank you for coming," I said.
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  "So, the Boys and Girls Club, huh?"

  I nodded. "It's community service."

  She raised her eyebrow at me, looking at me for the first time. "For what crime?"

  I shrugged. "Robbery." Might as well be honest about it. She looked me up and down like she was seeing me in a different light. I didn't like it but I wasn't going to lie to her.

  "When?"

  Saul got up and came closer to us. "Five years ago."

  Selena frowned at him. "He's still doing community service for a crime he committed five years ago?"

  Saul looked at me and back at her with meaning in his eyes but I couldn't tell what he was trying to convey. "No, he did his time then. He stayed on for another four and a half years. We all did."

  Selena looked at me again and this time there was admiration in her eyes. "That's pretty impressive."

  I shrugged. "I love the kids. And I feel like this gives meaning to my life. We all have to do something that makes it worthwhile, right?"

  Selena nodded. I wanted to take her into my arms. I wanted to kiss her properly. I wanted to tell her I was sorry for what had happened last night with the message and I wanted to tell her that May was a psycho bitch who would do anything to ruin my life. I couldn't tell her, though. Not now, not with the boys around.

  The door flew about and all the children streamed out. Here we go.

  They crowded Selena. They kept on calling her “Logan's friend” and asked so many questions it was impossible to hear anything. Selena laughed and looked at me. "I'm assuming you told them I was coming."

  "It slipped out."

  Selena turned her attention back to the children and crouched down so that she hit them at eye level. "Did he tell you what I do?"

  "You're a storyteller!" someone shouted.

  She laughed. "I guess you could say that."

  "Miss Selena here is going to tell you all a story," I said.

  She looked at me, surprised. Her eyes were angry, but she smiled and looked back at the children. "I don't know if I can if any of you are still hungry. Has everyone had enough to eat?"

  They answered her with a shout and I realized she knew exactly what she was doing with children. I wasn't sure why she was so good with them but it made her that much more attractive, and she was already a stunner.

  The kids cheered and clapped. Selena straightened herself up and looked at me, a thanks-a-lot look in her eyes but she kept her smile firmly in place. Lucy brought out a chair and Selena sat down. The kids all sat on the ground around her, creating a half-circle that fanned out. We stood behind them.

  The men watched Selena as intently as the kids did and it made me smile. She was mesmerizing to all ages.

  "This is the girl, huh?" Saul stood next to me, arms folded just like mine was.

  I nodded.

  "Well done."

  I glanced at him and saw he was sincere. He smiled at me. The fact that he approved, that he liked what I'd done, made me feel good. If I couldn't make Elijah proud I wanted to make Saul proud, and lately that had been working since I'd helped the boys turn around and turned my own life around, as well.

  Chapter 13

  Selena

  Imagine my surprise when the cab pulled up to the address and it was the Boys and Girls Club. I hadn't for a moment considered that Logan might want to meet me here. I hadn't thought he was the kind of person to set foot in places like this. I'd thought the children's DVDs would be for his niece or nephew or something.

  And I'd even been skeptical about that part.

  Five big bikers lay on the grass eating sandwiches like school children when I got out of the car and Logan was the first to come to me. He smiled at me like he was genuinely happy to see me. I was still upset but something inside me melted a little when he did. I pushed it away. I didn't want to feel this way about him until I knew what I was feeling and I knew where I stood with him. Right now it felt like I was just another woman to him, a notch on his bedpost.

  I noticed other things, too. Motorcycles - five of them - placed strategically on the law and equipment, too. Things like spanners and wrenches and oilcans. Judging by the grease on the boys' arms they'd been working on their bikes.

  There were books on the lawn, too. Some open, some closed, all on motorcycle maintenance, and all from my branch.

  So this was what he'd been doing.

  The revelation was a kind one. It made me see him in a different light. I still didn't think much of his ways of getting out of fines but somehow the fact that he'd gotten fines in the first place was a lot more forgivable now that I saw he didn't just leave everything lying around. He was using them.

  The door flew open and a horde of children of all ages ran out. A lot of them had grease on their arms and clothes, too, and it wasn't hard to put two and two together and realize these five badass bikers were teaching children something that could benefit them. I looked at Logan and saw someone completely different.

  I didn't have time to think about it for very long. The children crowded around me, tugging on my clothes, all talking at once.

  "You're Logan's friend." "He said you were coming." "Do you want a sandwich?" "Are you his girlfriend?" There were so many questions and I could avoid answering most of them, including the one about me being Logan's girlfriend. I wasn't right to make a decision on that one yet. I was getting pulled in different directions - the contrast between last night and today was crazy.

  "Miss Selena is going to tell you all a story," Logan said and for a moment I was back to my anger.

  Who was he to volunteer my services? But then the kids looked at me with such expectant faces and such joy that I couldn't say no to them. I could say no to Logan, and maybe later I would, but I wouldn't say no to them. I smiled at them and made sure they were all eating.

  The caregiver brought out a chair and I sat down, and like one organism the kids all sat down and looked at me with bright eyes, chins on their hands or hands in their laps. They were adorable. I could see why anyone would want to come back here and spend more time with them - even if being with them had only been community service at first.

  "Does anyone know the story about the Three Billy Goats Gruff?"

  Some of the kids shouted yes. Others looked around like they should have known but didn't.

  "Well, you've got the story all wrong. And if you haven't heard it before, you'll hear the true version right from the start."

  I glanced at Logan. He stood with his arms folded, watching me with a smile. Another biker stood next to him with the same stance and they seemed like brothers although they didn't look the same.

  "Right. Well, once upon a time in a far away land there were three goats. They all had the same name. Gruff. The first Billy Goat Gruff was the smallest of the three with a tiny squeaky voice. The second Billy Goat Gruff was a little bigger and his voice was a little louder and a little stronger, too. The third Billy Goat Gruff was much bigger with a big scary voice and curly horns that made everyone scared of him. The three goats were best friends.

  One day the three Billy Goats Gruff decided to go up the mountain to have some delicious grass that would fill them up for the entire winter. The first Billy Goat Gruff, the littlest one, went first.

  Trip, trap, trip, trap, his hooves went on the bridge.

  Now, under the bridge there lived a big, nasty troll named Logan."

  The kids squealed with laughter. When I looked at Logan he pulled a face but he was smiling.

  "Hunger the troll was selfish. He wanted to eat all the goats and refused them to go up to the pasture to have their grass.

  'Who's tripping on my bridge?' he called. The littlest Billy Goat Gruff answered him in a tiny voice, 'it's only me, the first Billy Goat Gruff.'

  'You can't cross my bridge,' Troll Logan said."

  Logan walked to the front of the group, standing next to my chair. "You can't cross my bridge," he said in a bellowing voice. "I'm going to eat you." I smiled. The kids laughed and pointed.
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  "'Oh, no. You can't eat me, I'm too little,' the first Billy goat Gruff said in a trembling voice. 'I still need to fatten up. Wait for the second Billy Goat Gruff. He's bigger.'

  The little Billy Goat Gruff crossed the bridge safely and went on to the pastures where he could eat enough for winter.

  The second Billy Goat Gruff arrived and started crossing the bridge. Trip, Trap, Trip, Trap."

  "Who's tripping on my bridge?" Logan bellowed next to me and I jumped a little.