by Dahlia West
The rider tucked his helmet under his arm and strode toward her. He grinned and extended his arm. “Gonna shake my hand, at least?”
Ava hesitated, then figured what the hell. Instead of taking the offered hand, she reached up and unsnapped the strap on her helmet.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
She took off her helmet and shook out her long blond hair. The night breeze felt good against the back of her face. She turned and grinned slyly. “Surprised?”
He shook his head as he smirked at her. “Nah, chica. Not surprised.” He made a show of looking her up and down. Ava suppressed a shiver, trying to play it cool. “No dude’s got an ass like that. I’m just happy you’re so hot.” He gestured to the helmet she held in her hand. “Could’ve been anything under there. Gap teeth, big nose... I’m not surprised, I’m relieved.”
She laughed.
“What do you say we ditch this crowd?” he suggested. “Go for a ride, just the two of us.”
She tossed him a sharp look. “Like some starry-eyed Start-line Skank?”
For a moment, his brows knitted together. “A what?” Then he turned and glanced over his shoulders toward the bunnies. “Oh, them. Yeah, I’m not looking at them, chica. I’m only seeing you. And I’d like to see more of you.”
Ava shook her head and rolled her helmet in her hands. She’d like to see more of him, too, out of all that leather. But it would be supremely stupid to go anywhere alone with a guy she just met. Ava was fast, in every sense of the word, but she wasn’t dumb. They could stay here, though, in the relative safety of the gathered crowd. They could compare... bikes.
“How about a drink?” she offered, tossing a glance at the keg someone had rolled out to the end of the bed of their F-150. Usually Ava avoided that swill, but for this guy she’d make an exception.
He wrinkled his nose. “Hair of the dog, huh? You sure I won’t go blind?”
She shrugged. “If you haven’t by now, you probably won’t. Oh, wait—hair of the dog! Oh, sorry! Thought you said hairy palms.”
His gaze darkened. “Careful. I’m in a mood, chica. I lost my first race, nearly crashed my bike. Any lip you give me better come with tongue attached.”
Ava smirked at him. “Sounds like you’re giving orders.”
“I’m setting expectations. I want a cold drink and a hot woman, and the way I see it, you’re offering both. Now, we can stay here, but I prefer my place. I’d tell you to hop on, but you’ve got your own set of wheels. Nice ones, at that,” he declared, but he wasn’t looking at her bike. “You want to follow me home, chica? Get something with a little more power between your thighs? If you can keep up, that is.”
Ava gaped at him. “Hey, who lost, asshole?! ‘Cause it wasn’t me!”
He grinned. “You’re cute when you’re angry. Your cheeks match your lips: fiery red.” He lowered his voice so that only she could hear him. She didn’t think privacy was what he was after. His tone was intimate. “I like red but, you know, pink’s my favorite color.”
Ava’s core ached at his words and she somehow knew a night with him would be different than anything she’d experienced so far.
“Say yes,” he whispered.
Ava licked her lips as she stared at his. It was such a bad idea. But, then again, so was racing in the Badlands.
She drew in a breath to answer. “I— ”
An engine revved and caught her attention. She turned to see a green BMW 1000 rolling up slowly. “Shit,” she whispered.
“Friend of yours?”
“I gotta go,” she told him, face burning with disappointment and irritation.
“Wait a minute.”
Ava didn’t wait. She brought her Honda’s engine to life, slammed on her helmet, and turned away. A quick glance back revealed the BMW was following her. She didn’t head toward the main road; instead, she circled the revelers and took the fire road. The canyons were a labyrinth of access roads and hiking trails. Ava took a familiar turn and sped off to the next one before the BMW could catch up. After a few twists and turns, her front tire hit the two-lane road that led back to the interstate. She gunned the engine and disappeared into the night.
Chapter Four
Rapid City this late at night was considerably quieter than the race rally she’d just left. Instead of flares, her street was lined with streetlights, sending a warm and familiar yellow haze over the neighborhood. Up ahead, Ava saw Calla’s Mustang parked at the curb.
Ava slid her Honda into a small empty space in the driveway and crept up the porch steps. She didn’t have a curfew, per se, but neither did she want to barge into the house making lots of noise, waking everyone up. Pop needed sleep on a regular schedule and Ava always did her very best to make sure he got it.
The living room was empty save for Calla’s familiar white album opened and spread out over the coffee table. Sample napkins in various shades of white and cream were scattered everywhere. Ava plucked one up and peered at it.
Adam and Calla, Dalton and Zoey
June 26th, 2015
Not much time left. Ava hoped they had everything hammered out by this point. The Stark house had become the War Room for the Wedding of the Century, or at least as far as her family was concerned. What Calla and Zoey achieved through compromise and cooperation, Adam and Dalton quickly undid by arguing over neckties and nuptials.
Thank God they didn’t have to live together after the ceremony.
The house was silent. If Adam and Calla were still up planning the wedding, they’d moved to Adam’s room to do it. Or at least that’s what Ava hoped they were doing. It was still a bit odd to think about your brother marrying your high school guidance counselor. Which meant Ava tried never to think of it at all, to avoid having to bleach her brain afterward.
Behind her, the kitchen light suddenly came on. She gasped and spun around to see Pop standing several feet away. He peered at her, brows knitting together. Ava knew this look, recognized the clouded eyes as he searched his mind, trying to identify the teenage girl standing in his living room.
Ava waited.
Of all the changes in her life, Mom dying, Adam moving back home, she hated this one the most, that Pop could sometimes look at her and not see her anymore. More often than not, if he was having an episode, he thought she was Mom. Sometimes, on the worst days, he thought she was a stranger.
It was selfish to be upset about it, Ava knew, but for a girl who’d spent her whole life trying to find her place in her family, to be shut out now— not even recognized as a Stark— it was too much.
She fisted her hands—waiting, waiting, waiting. It was all she could do. It hurt to be called Miriam. The name was nearly a curse now. It conjured up images of Mom lying in her bed, unable to move, debilitated from pain and morphine. Cards had come to the house, addressed to Miriam Renee Stark. Get well soon, sent before they knew it was cancer.
Pop opened his mouth.
Ava clenched her teeth.
This time, though, the blow was unexpected, devastating, nearly a mortal wound. Because she hadn’t expected it, hadn’t known that there was a worse thing to fear than Pop’s Alzheimer’s making him confuse her with Mom. But there was. Oh, there was.
“Ashley?”
His voice was weak, confused, as he squinted into the relative dark of the living room.
She hadn’t meant to, but a fierce, gurgling noise of shock and terror ripped from her throat. She stumbled back, as though he’d actually hit her. Her knees hit the coffee table. Off-white, eggshell, and cream-colored squares trumpeting lifelong happiness skittered across the carpet.
A bitter irony since Ava’s life was getting bleaker by the day.
A door opened, somewhere far away. Footsteps bounded down the hall, shaking the house despite being muffled by the carpet. Adam appeared in the doorway, out of breath, eyes wild. His gaze found Ava, then Pop standing just inside the kitchen.
“Pop?!” he nearly bellowed. His voice was strained in panic.
Pop didn’t answer.
Adam looked to Ava for explanation.
She swallowed hard, heart pounding in her throat. Her gut twisted as though she might vomit. “He... he scared me,” she said quietly. “I thought he was asleep.”
Adam sighed in relief, and possibly from exhaustion. The dark circles under his eyes were more prominent in the glaring florescent light of the kitchen. Too many late nights with the old man were taking their toll. On all of them.
Gently, he gripped Pop’s arm. “Pop, why are you up?”
Pop looked at Ava again and her breath caught in her throat.
Say it again.
Don’t say it again.
Maybe she hadn’t heard him right. Maybe he’d said something else. But even as she tried to convince herself, she knew it wasn’t true. She’d heard him. He’d said it.
Pop grunted, not giving an answer.
Adam coaxed him out of the kitchen and toward the hallway. “It’s late,” he told the old man. “We should get some sleep.”
“Work in the morning,” Pop declared.
Adam agreed even though Pop was officially retired. “Yep,” he lied. In the morning, Pop wouldn’t even remember it anyway. Somehow that made it seem more cruel—necessary, but awful nonetheless.
Ava watched them go, back to bed, back to sleep. She stood in the living room trying to control the shaking in her knees. In her hand, she held a wrinkled napkin. She hoped it wasn’t the one Calla and Zoey had chosen.
She knelt on the floor; her legs couldn’t hold her anyway. Gingerly, she plucked the squares up off the floor and put them back on the coffee table. The house was dark, quiet once again. Occasionally there was a creak of floorboards, the click and hum of the refrigerator. In the back yard, a tree limb scraped the glass of the dining room window.
All sounds the Starks had gotten used to over the years. Only Ava knew that the house was really haunted. Only she felt the ghostly presence of a little girl who’d never actually lived, a girl who might have looked like her. Blond, possibly, because Mom had been blond.
Ava hadn’t been raised to wish ill on anyone, so she’d always been confused about her feelings toward her spectral sister. Because Ashley wouldn’t have been her sister. If Ashley were here, they wouldn’t have needed to adopt Ava at all.
Being happy to be here was to be happy that Ashley wasn’t. And Ava had never reconciled that. Maybe that was what her birth mother had seen in her that had made her walk away. Some kids were born bad. Other kids, like Jonah, became bad afterward.
Ashley was the real Stark daughter—or would have been if she’d lived. Ava was just a cheap imitation.
Outside, the wind picked up and the tree danced to its tune. Ava had always hated that tree, because it was so close to her own bedroom window. The wind howled; the wind wailed; the wind was the grief that no one gave voice to. The wind said things that no one else would.
The wind said, “Ashley,” and Ava had been trying to outrun it her whole life.
Chapter Five
Ava checked the clock over the shop’s front door. Almost time for her shift to be over. Off to the side, someone screeched. The sound came from Jonah’s workroom. Ava snorted. Another swaggering badass brought low by one of her brother’s needles. It was funny, most of the women didn’t seem to mind the pain but the men were huge crybabies about it.
The bell hanging over the front door tinkled brightly and Ava watched Sienna slip into the shop. She fanned herself with her hand. “Good God,” she huffed at Ava. “I think it’s possible to melt out there.”
Another cry sounded through the open side door. Sienna’s mouth dropped open. A twenty-something dude in a muscle shirt and ripped jeans half-stumbled out. He brushed past Sienna, headed for the door.
“Jonah,” Sienna declared as she hopped out of the man’s way.
As if he heard her, Jonah’s large frame appeared in the doorway of his studio room.
Sienna seemed to have stopped breathing. Judging by the look she was giving him, Ava was starting to think it was possible to melt in here.
Jonah’s eyes narrowed at the dark-haired girl.
Sienna shuffled nervously. “I’m picking up Ava.”
There was a silence before Jonah finally shrugged. “I didn’t ask.” He strode past them and disappeared down the back hallway. Instead of heading upstairs to his apartment, though, Ava heard the back door to the shop open and close. A few seconds later, the sound of Jonah’s Harley starting rumbled outside the building.
“Forget him,” Ava advised. “He’s a dick.”
Sienna didn’t argue.
The bell jingled again and Jeannie sauntered in. “Hey, all!” she declared before she caught sight of Sienna’s face. Jeannie shook her head and clucked. “Girrrrrl.”
“Don’t say it,” Sienna warned.
Jeannie raised her hands. “Wasn’t gonna.”
Ava stood up and scooped her phone off the counter. “Place is yours,” she told Jeannie.
“Have a great night!” Jeannie called after them. “Don’t do anything I would do!”
Ava held the door for Sienna and then followed her through. Even though it was evening, the sidewalk was scorching.
“Jesus, it’s hot. This place sucks,” Sienna growled as she stomped to her Oldsmobile parked down the street. “You sure you want to go to Death Valley?”
Ava shook her head. “The Grand Canyon isn’t in Death Valley.”
“Whatever. Is it hot there?”
“Probably.”
Sienna tossed a dark glare at Stark Ink. “I’m moving to Alaska,” she declared loudly.
“You hate the snow, too,” Ava pointed out.
Sienna shrugged. “But there are guys there. Lots of guys. Tons of guys, and not that many women. I could have my pick.”
“Your pick of flannel and thermal underwear?”
The sound of a motorcycle accelerating pulled Ava’s attention away. Her stomach flip-flopped as she turned toward the sound. There were a lot of bikers, especially in Rapid City. Some she preferred to see more than others.
A black Harley turned onto the street. No helmet, no cut. No one she recognized. She turned away, half disappointed, half relieved.
“Ava?”
Sienna was standing at the driver’s side door. Her eyebrows were raised.
Ava frowned.
“Why are you so jumpy?”
“I’m not,” she insisted.
Sienna narrowed her eyes.
Ava felt a pang of guilt.
“Did something happen? Last night? At the— ?”
One sharp look and Sienna slammed her lips closed. Her eyes darted around them, checking to see if anyone was listening.
Ava shook her head. Something had happened. Lots of things had happened, especially since she’d discovered street racing. Sienna knew a little but Ava kept her mostly in the dark. The rallies weren’t any place for a girl like Sienna and Ava couldn’t race and watch over her friend at the same time. Plus, Jonah wasn’t likely to be there, ever, so Sienna probably wouldn’t care all that much.
Sienna didn’t like the idea. She was convinced the racers were going to get busted. But she’d given up trying to warn Ava away.
Ava looked at her now and realized that Sienna wasn’t going to drop it this time. She opened the passenger door and slid into the seat, both to give them some privacy and buy herself some time.
Sienna ducked into the car and slammed her own door. She didn’t start the engine, though.
“Okay,” Ava started slowly, weighing how much to say. “I met someone.”
Sienna’s mouth dropped open and her eyes got huge.
Okay, maybe that was overselling it.
“I mean, I didn’t meet him,” Ava clarified. “I saw a guy at the rally last night.”
“Hot?”
“Super fucking hot. With a killer bike. And he can ride it, too.”
“So, who is he? What’s his name? Are you gonna meet h
im later? Is he— ?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. I don’t know. I know exactly jack shit about him. But he’s Latino, and hot, and I was kind of hoping...” She let her voice trail off with a shrug and jerked her chin at the biker who’d now passed them.
Sienna pursed her lips. “When’s the next race?”
Ava shrugged again. “Who knows? Could be tomorrow. Could be next week.”
“Next week?!” Sienna pouted.
Ava relaxed back into the seat of the car and let Sienna’s mind go wild.
“All right,” she said, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. “If there’s no race, where do we find your Latin Lover?”
“He’s not my lover,” Ava reminded her. “He’s not my anything.”
“Yet.”
Ava shrugged despite the flutter in her stomach. The guy last night had been hot as hell and, yeah, she’d been into him— at the time. But it could’ve been the race. Racing always lit a fire inside her and had an added effect similar to beer goggles. Take the pulse-pounding adrenaline rush of two wheels at seventy-five miles per hour and add all that tight leather... synapses had a tendency toward transference.
Maybe her crotch-rocket cowboy wasn’t as smoking as she’d thought.
“I don’t know where to find him,” Ava replied. There was probably a gathering somewhere in the Badlands, maybe even in the same location as last night. There wouldn’t be a race tonight, though. It was too late to organize one. Weasel rarely organized two races back to back— too risky, too much heat from the cops. RCPD was aware that street racing was a problem in their town but so far had been unable to do anything about it. Ava wasn’t sure where to find a racer when there wasn’t a race.
Sienna gazed out at the cross street in front of them. “Well, there’s the bar,” she finally said quietly.
Ava glanced at her.
“Maria’s, on the other side of town,” Sienna clarified and ducked her head away to avoid Ava’s sharp look. The heavy silence finally made her turn back. “What?!” she cried and threw up her hands. “It’s a biker bar! Bikers hang out there! You’re looking for a biker. It’s not out of the realm of possibility.”
