Don't Say It: Ronacks Motorcycle Club

by Debra Kayn

  Gia scooted sideways, forgot about the show on television and watched him. He used the screwdriver to slip the bar out of the link, held the chain in position, and laid it out in front of him on the coffee table.

  "Where did you learn to work on motorcycles?" she asked.

  He formed an oval with the chain. "Here and there."

  "The army?"

  "No."

  She leaned against the back of the couch. He rolled to his hip, stretched his leg, and reached into his front pocket of his jeans.

  "It's only a little bar that needs to fit inside the link." He held the part he'd picked up on his lunch break "Then it'll be fixed."

  Gia watched him carefully as if someday she'd need to repair a weak chain by herself.

  He approved of her attention to detail, regardless of the situation. If he had more patience, he'd call Mel and tell him to get his ass back to the duplex and take lessons on paying attention from Gia.

  "Where do you work?" she asked, breaking her two-minute silence.

  "All over." He leaned closer to the coffee table, held the link blunt end down, and worked the chain into position.

  "Well, that doesn't help much." She laughed softly.

  He stopped what he was doing and looked at her. He'd never heard her laugh before, and the softness of her voice laced with humor covered him. Covered him as if someone had thrown a blanket over him and he'd closed his eyes.

  "Do you need help?" he asked.

  "Knowing where you work?" She shrugged. "Not really. I was only making conversation."

  If she wanted to avoid answering any questions about herself, she was doing a good job. "What about you? Are you going to get a job?"

  "A job?" She inhaled deeply and put her head back on his couch. "Yeah, of course. I'll need to go to work soon."

  "I thought you had plans."

  She moistened her lips. "I do. I just thought you might know of someplace with a job opening. You've lived in Haugan your whole life, not me. You probably hear people talking about who is hiring and who isn't."

  He studied her closer, trying to follow the back and forth questions that skipped from him to her. Nowhere in their talk had he told her Haugan was his hometown. He'd confirmed he was in the Army when she'd questioned him before. There was no way she'd know more.

  He stood, knocking his knee into the coffee table, and sent the chain sliding across the surface disrupting the perfect alignment. Pulling out his phone, he walked out of the duplex and called Rod.

  "Yeah?" said Rod a second after Swiss hit connect.

  "Stop the search." Swiss glanced back at the closed door.

  Rod grunted. "Too late. I already ran the plates."

  "Fuck," he muttered, hooking his hand behind his neck. Needing privacy so not to be overheard, he walked to the curb. "Is there any way to erase your tracks. I'm not sure what kind of shit will come down by our getting the information."

  "Hang on." In the background, a door clicked shut. "Before you jump to conclusions, the car is registered under the name Harold D. Pepperstone. Ring a bell?"

  He blew out his breath. "No."

  "Registered address is seven-four-one-two Oak Street, Tacoma, Washington."

  "Tacoma? Where the hell is that?" He lowered his hand.

  "About forty minutes south of Seattle."

  Swiss walked over to his motorcycle. "Gia said she lived in Seattle before coming to Haugan."

  "Another thing..." Rod paused. "Your girl isn't in the system. Gia. Giavonni, Gianni, Gial, none of the names I tried came up. Now, Mel said she was probably between twenty-five and thirty years old, so I ran every name starting with the letters G—I—A between twenty and thirty-five, in case Mel couldn't recognize a woman in a lit room. Nothing. Either Gia's not her name or she's clean with no record."

  Swiss stared at Gia's car. "None of this makes any sense."

  "Want to feel me out with what you do know?" asked Rod.

  "Not yet." Swiss blew out his cheeks. "I'm bringing Gia to the club tomorrow night, in the meantime, I need one of the prospects keeping an eye on my place while I work until I have something more concrete. Something's off, and I haven't fucking figured it out yet."

  "With Gia?"

  "Either with her or she's running from someone. There're too many things that are grabbing my attention and it makes me uneasy. Give me a couple of days, and I might have more for you." Swiss walked back toward the duplex. "I'll talk to you later."

  He disconnected the call and slipped the phone into his back pocket. It looked like he was going to get to know Gia better, which went against the way he lived his life. Though he was far from disappointed. Away from the odd sense that something else was going on, he'd become fascinated with her and why she felt so comfortable around him when others would go out of their way to avoid him.

  Opening the door, he glanced at the couch and found Gia leaning against the arm of the sofa, her feet still on the floor. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth was slightly open in sleep. He shut the door quietly and stepped into the room.

  What the hell was he going to do now? His chest tightened.

  He couldn't wake her up and send her back to her side of the duplex knowing she'd be sleeping on the floor. She probably hadn't had a good night's rest since she started the move. He stepped over the coffee table, lifted her legs onto the couch and leaving her shoes on, so as not to wake her, he pulled the blanket from the back of the couch.

  Gia continued to sleep, her hair sprawled over her curved arm under her head. He spread the blanket over her body, tucking it over her shoulders, and hesitated. It'd been twenty-two years since he tucked anyone into bed. His daughter had been four years old. The next weekend when he came home from working at the base, he entered an empty house.

  His family gone.

  That was the last time he'd seen his baby.

  Standing up and moving away from Gia. He let her rest. There was no sense in making her go back to her side of the duplex when she had no bed. The couch would do. For tonight.

  Chapter Eight

  Gia paced the length of the six-foot-long kitchen area because it was the only part of the duplex—besides the bathroom—that had linoleum, and she'd used the oldest shirt she had to wipe the floor clean. Manual labor gave her something to do besides worry about going out with Swiss to his clubhouse.

  Yesterday, she felt safe with him and looked forward to eating real food without having to get into her stash of supplies, essentially saving her money. A night away would distract her and anywhere outside of her part of the duplex was a good thing.

  Now that it was time for Swiss to show up, she regretted her hasty acceptance to go with him.

  Her doubts came after she'd woken up early this morning and had to pee, and then quickly realized she wasn't laying on the floor and had fallen asleep at Swiss's place. She'd hurried out of his place in embarrassment and into hers. The shock of letting her awareness for her safety slip, she'd stayed by the window on her side of the duplex, until Swiss rode off to work.

  The rest of the day, she'd gone over every little detail of the night before and finally before five o'clock, she'd showered and slipped into the last of her clean clothes. She looked down at the baseball jersey top with no sleeves and a pair of old cutoffs with the pockets now longer than the fringe. Her outfit was either too casual and would be considered indecent, or make her overdressed.

  She assumed a biker get-together would have other women around who wore a lot less.

  She lifted her hand to rub her face and stopped. The added eyeliner to cover the worry around her eyes would come off if she one-finger rubbed.

  What was she doing?

  If she had any sense, she'd drive into town and ask someone to borrow their phone. She needed to call Bianca and check in. Though they had the understanding that her phone calls would be far and few between, any contact helped Gia feel not so alone.

  Swiss, while he brought her security, also distracted her. She never dreamed
she'd arrive and be sexually attracted to him. The thought had never entered her mind.

  Her whole focus was getting somewhere safe and biding her time until it was possible for her to return to her former life. A career she enjoyed. People she knew. An area she was familiar with and called home.

  She never wanted to become one of those women who clung to men because any attention they received bolstered their self-confidence, but that was exactly what was happening to her. She wasn't immune to Swiss's helpfulness and yes, his overbearing need to take care of her simply because he had a deep belief that he was the man, and she was the woman.

  It was rather caveman-like, and she practically panted at his feet offering her hair and begging him to drag her over to his side of the duplex.

  God, she hated the whole situation. When everything was over, she hoped to gain her self-respect back.

  A motorcycle rumble filled her empty room. Gia walked to the window and peeked out. Her stomach fluttered, and she rubbed her hand across her ribs. She'd come here seeking shelter, knowing Swiss had no idea the amount of protection he'd provide for her by living on the other side of the duplex. If someone broke into her door during the night, he'd hear. If strange men cased the street looking for her, he'd see. If the worst happened, and the men after her attacked her as she walked to her car, he'd be the one to find her.

  But Swiss turned out to be more than a totem security pole. She'd found an interesting man who shared more of himself in action than words.

  Quiet.

  Strong.

  Gruff.

  Learning he'd covered her with a blanket, let her borrow his couch, looked after her last night when she'd fallen asleep at his place, and even bought her a tire, fed her, and kept her company, she thought of other things all day instead of dwelling on her situation and feeling sorry for herself.

  She wanted to know if he thought about her at all while he worked and if he looked forward to taking her with him to the clubhouse. Everything about her situation screamed for her to stay out of view of others, to not trust strangers. She definitely shouldn't be excited to go to his clubhouse, but she was.

  Swiss's offer to go with him to somewhere that's a part of him, to share his time, and in turn, let her relax in the comfort of knowing she was safe had done funny things to her all day.

  The nervousness.

  The anticipation.

  The newness.

  She'd willingly concentrated on good things for a change, and maybe that was the biggest gift Swiss had given her since she pulled up to the duplex with a flat tire.

  The water pipe connected to Swiss's shower vibrated in her bathroom, hammering against the studs in the wall behind the sheetrock. She crossed the room and stood outside her bathroom doorway. The sound soothed her, knowing Swiss was close and within yelling distance.

  Only a wall separated them.

  Her body tingled and goosebumps appeared on her arms and legs. She crossed her arms to contain the quiver that started her thoughts going to Swiss's naked, wet body less than six feet away from her. Now was not the time to think about sex.

  Not with Swiss.

  Not with anyone.

  Everything she knew about him, which was more than he knew about her, warned her away. He'd been married. He'd had a kid. He lived a solitary life, only keeping in contact with his motorcycle club family.

  And yet, she could easily rally against the negative and point out the positive.

  He served in the Army. He supported himself. He belonged to a motorcycle club. As a middle-aged man, he held a job, wasn't an alcoholic as far as she knew, and had lived most of his life in Haugan.

  Most of all, he protected a woman who remained a stranger to him because he was the type of man who couldn't look away or ignore a woman who couldn't even supply enough food to live on.

  The water shut off. She closed her eyes a second longer than necessary, shook the arousal out of her head, and walked away from the bathroom. In that instantaneous burst of sanity, she missed her parents more than anything.

  She wanted someone to fall back on, to sit down in their living room and feel like she'd never left home. Except, her parents were both gone.

  First, her father died of bone cancer after a short fight, and then her mother passed away from a stroke three years later and joined her dad in heaven. Luckily, they were both in their late seventies and lived a good life together. They were able to see her graduate high school, college, and get a job and become independent. That's all they wished for, and now she was thankful she could give that to them.

  She rubbed her stomach. Her twenties officially sucked, and her thirties weren't heading in that great of direction either.

  A knock came at the door. She sniffed and blew out her breath. Her excitement for the evening dashed by regrets and sadness.

  Opening the door, she plastered on a smile to cover where her jumbled thoughts had taken her. "Hey."

  The clean scent of soap off his warm body wafted toward her. She inhaled through her nose and regretted the action immediately when her stomach warmed, and she caught herself leaning toward him.

  "Ready?" His gaze swept from her face to her legs and back up again to her eyes where the slight lift of his brow and parting of his lips told her everything she needed to know. He approved of her outfit, and if he hadn't thought about her while he worked, he was thinking now.

  She nodded and grabbed her purse off the back handle of the door. "Yes."

  His hand stopped the door from closing. "Grab a sweatshirt. The ride back will be cold."

  "I..." She scrunched her nose and put the long strap of her purse over her head and let her bag hang across her body to her hip. "I haven't done laundry yet, and I don't have a clean sweatshirt."

  He lowered his hand, shut the door, and made sure it was locked for her. "Then, you'll wear the one I have in my pack on the bike."

  She followed him out to his motorcycle. Both excited and nervous. She'd never rode one before, but it looked fun.

  She stopped beside the bike and patted the back of the motorcycle seat. "What will I need to do so I don't make you crash."

  "Hold on to me." He slipped a black helmet she recognized as the one from his television stand onto of her head. "Is your hair okay?"

  She reached up and tucked the strands pushed out on her cheeks under the helmet. "I think so."

  "Climb on the seat after I sit down." He walked around the motorcycle, leaned down, and pointed at the side of the bike. "Watch your leg on the muffler. It gets hot and can blister your skin if you lean against it. You should be wearing jeans."

  "I don't—"

  "I'm not worrying about your clothes tonight. We're not going far." He paused and tilted his head, looking at her face. "It's important to keep your feet on the pegs, sweet."

  "I will," she said, warmed by his endearment. He never used sweetheart, which was generic and covered lots of people. He used 'sweet' as if he personally gave her a name only he was allowed to use, and she liked how he owned that right. It made her feel special.

  He grabbed his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans and looked at the screen.

  Waiting for him to get on the motorcycle, she gazed at the way the muscles on his bare arms bunched when he moved. She wondered what the odds of his phone being untraceable and if he'd let her borrow it.

  She needed to check in with Bianca and find out if there was any more news and if it looked like she could go back home soon.

  Once Swiss finished communicating on his phone, he situated himself on the bike, and the engine roared to life. She put her foot on the peg and wondered if she'd tip Swiss and the motorcycle over when she got on.

  Swiss patted his shoulder. She put her hand on the broadest part of his body and stepped up, sliding her other leg across the bike and found the other foot peg.

  He took her hand and lowered it to his waist and reached back for her other hand. She latched her fingers together around him, and he squeezed her hands. Before
she could wonder if she was doing everything right, the motorcycle moved forward.

  She held on tighter. Maybe at the party, she could use the clubhouse's phone without anyone knowing and call Seattle. That way she wouldn't have to ask Swiss and keep the fact she was even more useless than he already imagined.

  Chapter Nine

  Music blared out of the two-story clubhouse. Gia fingered her hair after taking the helmet off her head and hoped her makeup hadn't slid off her face in the massive amount of wind pressing against her during the ride. She'd expected something more bar-like for a clubhouse.

  Everything from the shutters, hedges, and driveway made the Ronacks clubhouse look like any other house built in the seventies. A little outdated and worn, but homey.

  Swiss placed his hand on her lower back and guided her to the front door. She gazed up at him, uncertain if she wanted other people around her. They'd ask questions about where she came from and who she was, and she hadn't prepared to lie. Unless all the Ronacks members were men of few words like Swiss and she could tell them the same short story—which was as close to the truth as she could get without digging herself into a bigger hole.

  "When we get inside, you can make yourself at home. The downstairs is free range. Stay out of the upstairs. That's Battery and Bree's private part of the house." Swiss hesitated at the door. "If you need anything while you're here, ask me or one of the women."

  "Okay," she said, growing more nervous.

  "Another thing." He lowered his voice. "You can talk to the men, but they're off limits."

  "Off limits?"

  His squint became, even more, squintier. "It's a party, sweet. Every man without a woman inside will be looking for a good time. They'll see you and want what you can give them."

  "Oh," she mouthed. "Maybe it isn't such a good idea that I go inside with you."

  "You'll be fine."

  "Are you sure?" she asked.

  "We'll leave before things get crazy," he said. "Let's go eat."

  Swiss opened the door. She braced against the music, the smoke, the questionable people clustered into one large room with a pool table in the middle covered with bowls and plates filled with food. Stepping closer to Swiss, she noted that her outfit was fine compared to the other women. In fact, she could be overdressed because everyone else seemed to be in bikini's or cutoffs and bras, she couldn't tell.