by Jessie Cooke
“David? Oh, my god, he didn’t…?”
“No. Of course not. I got in a little tussle with his sister.”
“Angel. I should have known. She’s been out to get you for years.”
“Like I said, I started it. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. My head feels like it’s going to explode.”
“Why don’t you tell him, Kitty-Kat? Why not tell him the truth?”
Kat dropped the slowly defrosting bag of peas onto the table and put her head down in her hands. Dillon’s prodding was only making her head pound harder. “It’s too late, and it probably wouldn’t matter.”
“He loved you…” Kat sat up and slammed her hands down on the table in front of her.
“Stop it, Dillon! Just stop, okay? It’s been five years. I’ve moved on. David has moved on. Angel will always hate me but I don’t care. I’ll just have to stop provoking her. But we are not going to talk about what happened five years ago. Not me and David. Not me and Angel, and not me and you. Okay, Dillon? Let. It. Go.”
“Fine. What’s for lunch?”
Kat lost all control of her emotions then and began to laugh, uncontrollably. She couldn’t believe this was her life. She’d made some mistakes in California, but she’d had a life there for a while. Now she was simply existing, and on top of that, she was surrounded by crazy people. Dillon was laughing too, and she doubted he even knew what he was laughing at. Fucking crazy people.
13
By the time Kat unlocked the doors of the bar that afternoon, her headache was finally gone and she’d done a pretty good job of covering the bruise Angel left on the side of her face with concealer. The usual crowd soon arrived, and Dillon was in entertainment mode, going from one patron to the next, regaling them with stories from when he was “almost famous.” It kept him out of Kat’s hair and she didn’t have to worry about his being out, getting drunk and causing trouble, so she was okay with it. She was serving a couple of beers to two guys that looked like they might just be passing through on their way to a rodeo somewhere when Dax walked in. She groaned inwardly, her first thought that he was going to end the partnership that they’d only just begun. She forced a smile and said:
“Hey, Dax. What can I get you?”
“A few minutes of your time?”
She kept her face expressionless, she hoped, as she said, “Sure. Let me see if I can pull Dillon out of story mode long enough to serve a drink or two. Why don’t you take a seat in back and I’ll be right there?” Dax smiled at her—that was a good sign—and he left her there and went toward the back. She let her eyes feast on his perfect ass…just for half a second…and then she turned back around and scanned the room for Dillon. She found him sitting at the far end of the bar, talking to a woman named Bess. Bess had screaming bright red hair and lipstick to match. She was about ten years older than Dillon and when he was in high school being “almost famous,” she was already married with two kids. Her kids were grown up now and Bess spent a lot of time at the bar. She and Dillon seemed pretty tight and sometimes, when Kat had absolutely nothing else to think about, she wondered if there was more to their relationship. Kat didn’t like thinking about her father having a sex life, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew that being single for eighteen years didn’t equal being celibate. The idea of him and Bess was too much for her to imagine, though, so she shook the thought off quickly, each time she had it.
“Hey, Dillon,” she said as she walked up to where he sat. “Can you take over for fifteen minutes or so? I need to take care of some business.”
He stood up off his stool. “Sure, Kitty-Kat. Bess, excuse me, darlin’, we’ll talk more about this later, okay?”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Bess said with a wink. Kat fought off a shudder as her earlier thoughts flashed through her mind. She looked at her father again. He was grinning like an idiot at the red-haired older woman. Suddenly she wondered if his hooking up with her might not be a good idea. Maybe someone else could get him to sober up and stop being an idiot…and at the same time, take him off Kat’s hands.
“I’ll just be over by the pool tables in back if you need me.”
“I’ll be fine, Kitty-Kat. This is my bar, after all.”
She rolled her eyes, pulled off the little apron she wore, and went back to where Dax was waiting for her. As she slipped into the booth she said, “You sure you don’t want a beer or something?”
“Yeah, thanks, I’m fine. How are you doing?”
She chuckled. “I’m okay. Your old lady packs a hell of a punch.”
“Yes, she does. That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. If this partnership between you and the club is going to work out, I’m going to need you to stop provoking Angel.”
“I know,” Kat said. “I take full responsibility for what happened today and I’m sorry…for the trouble I caused you.”
Dax laughed. “That’s about the same kind of apology I got from Angel. I take it to mean neither of you are sorry you went at each other.”
“She’s not my favorite person. But, I’m an adult and I can control myself. I will control myself. It won’t happen again.”
“Good. Now that we have that settled I have a couple more things I need to cover. First off, Buzz won’t be bothering you anymore.”
“Thanks. I wasn’t really worried about him—I mean, I’m not afraid of him. He’s more of just a pain in my ass.”
“He’s a pain in my ass too. I will be honest and tell you that I planned on just taking his patch and throwing him off the ranch. But a few of the brothers spoke up for him and one of them even volunteered to keep an eye on him and make sure he’s staying on the straight and narrow where women are concerned. Buzz didn’t have the best examples growing up. I’m not defending him, but I do hope that since he’s still pretty young we can help him learn a few things about how not to be a dick.”
Kat smiled. “I think that’s a good plan.”
“Thanks. Now to convince my old lady about that one…Anyways, on to the next reason I wanted to talk to you. The law firm that my brother-in-law works for is having a luncheon and looking for a caterer…”
“Kyle?”
“Yeah, is that a problem?”
“Not for me, but you might want to run it by him. Kyle doesn’t like me any more than Angel does.”
“Well, I did mention it to him and he didn’t say anything about that. I’ll double-check, but if it’s okay with him, can you commit to lunch for 30 people with drinks and dessert this coming Monday?”
Kat’s mental wheels were spinning. She’d already decided to steer clear of all the Bradys and then this comes up. She needed the money, and her new business was going to need exposure and word of mouth if it was going to go anywhere. Hopefully, in the midst of his colleagues, Kyle would be able to keep his Brady attitude in check. She had to do this. “Absolutely,” she said.
“Good. Like I said, I’ll double-check with Kyle and get back to you in the morning. Then we’ll set it up.”
“Thanks, Dax. It means a lot to me that you haven’t just written me off because of how your new family feels about me.”
“Angel means the world to me. She is my world. As long as you can commit to not antagonizing her, what’s between the two of you and her family stays there. You and I have our own past, and it’s not one I’d just turn my back on…but I have to choose Angel first always—you understand that, right?”
“Of course.” Kat did understand it and oddly, as much as she didn’t like Angel or think she was good enough for Dax, it made her respect him all the more for making it so clear. He was a good man, and Kat hoped Angel Brady knew how lucky she was to have him. “I won’t disappoint you,” she said.
“I don’t think you will,” he said as he stood up. “Let me know if there are any more problems with Buzz. You can call me…”
She laughed. “As opposed to showing up? Okay. Thank you, Dax.” Kat watched him go and finally got up to go back to work. As she walk
ed up to the front, she saw Dillon and almost every patron in the bar, gathered around the television. She looked up at it and saw that a football game was on and the kicker was getting warmed up.
“Okay, have I got everyone’s bets here?” Bess was still sitting at the bar, but she was holding up a tablet and she had a pen in the other hand. The crowd turned to look at her and a few of them called out numbers and she looked at the tablet to make sure she had them.
“What’s going on?” Kat asked, to no one in particular. She was standing behind the crowd that Dillon was in the center of. He didn’t hear her, or was ignoring her, which was more likely. Bill was there, however, and he turned around and said:
“We have bets on how far that punt will make it.”
“Who has bets? Dillon…”
“Shh!” someone said. “Here he goes.”
“Dillon!” Again, he ignored her. The crowd began to chatter loudly as the football was kicked, and the cheering was almost deafening as the ball fell to the ground just short of the goal posts. One guy put his arms up and said:
“Yeah, thirty yards! Gimme a whiskey sour, Dillon, and make it a double.”
“I’ll have another beer…one of them fancy ones from Europe.”
“Make me a screwdriver…”
“What is going on?” Kat asked again. That was when Dillon finally looked at her. She saw the guilt in his eyes right before he forced a fake smile and said:
“Don’t be mad, Kitty-Kat.”
“Drinks are on Dillon until closing!” one of the men yelled.
Dillon was still smiling and, lucky for him, far enough away that Kat’s fist couldn’t reach his teeth to knock them out. “I lost the bet. In my defense that kicker’s been doing better this season than any other kicker in…” Kat had heard enough. Too much. She knew patricide was not only a sin, but would get her at least twenty years. She slammed her apron down on the bar and while everyone was still yelling out what drink they wanted, she cleaned out the cash register, grabbed her keys, and escaped the urge to commit homicide. At least for the moment.
The wind tore at Kat’s cheeks and flattened her hair as it whipped back across her shoulders. Her eyes watered and insects collided with her face. She’d been so mad at Dillon and in such a hurry to escape that she’d forgotten her helmet…but she didn’t care. All she wanted to see were the yellow lines on the asphalt in front of her and all she wanted to hear was the screaming of the Harley’s engine in her ears. She flexed her right wrist, opening the throttle even wider as she rounded the curve that would lead her away from town; she mashed down on the clutch with her boot. She loved the way the bike growled and seemed to leap forward like a wild cat when she shoved it into the next gear…and it still sometimes made her think of Dax and all the hours he spent with her when she was a kid, learning how to ride.
“You have to use all your senses, Kat. You have to watch everything around you, because they’re not going to be looking for you. You have to listen to your engine and learn how it sounds when it’s healthy and when it’s sick. She’ll always tell you what she needs…she’ll even tell you when to pop her into the next gear—you just have to learn to speak her language.”
Kat smiled at the sound of Dax’s voice in her head. He was the most patient teacher she ever had. She was thirteen, and he was God to her. He was this almost grown-up, biker royalty, bad boy who took time out of his life every day for almost a year, teaching a little kid with a big, bad attitude how to ride a Harley, work on it, and love it almost as much as if it were flesh and blood.
Kat turned onto a long, dirt road and leaned forward toward the big headlight to turn the dirt and wind from her eyes. Smiling again, she thought about how many times she’d ridden that road with Dax behind her in the seat, taking his life in his hands. She’d dumped it countless times, once sending him sailing into a tree. He’d gotten up laughing, and she’d loved him even more for not being mad at her. When she started getting better at holding the bike up, he’d urge her to open the throttle a little more each time and he’d whisper in her ear, telling her to feel the joy. Ironically, the better she got, and the more in control she was of the bike…the more control she felt she had in her life. It was a life that had been a lot like the hurricane she was nicknamed after, wild and chaotic. Her mother, murdered by a mystery lover when she was seven, her father accused of it and not officially cleared for years, and then life above a bar in a town ruled by an outlaw motorcycle club. Kat had been going nowhere fast. She was headed toward club girl or exotic dancer, and she credited that time in her life, and Dax, for saving her from both of those fates.
“You need to wipe the grease off those tools before you put them back in the box, Kat.”
When Kat whined about wanting to ride instead of working on the bike, Dax would tell her that having a Harley was a big responsibility…almost like having a kid. You couldn’t just parade it around and show it off because it was pretty. You had to feed it and nurture it, you had to bond with it. Part of that bonding was learning how to make it run the way it was supposed to…and making it run better. He told her that her tools would last forever if she took care of them, and she knew now that he was right. She still had the same toolbox and the same wrench he’d given her the first time she loosened the axle nuts and adjusted the chain. He’d not only taught her how to ride, he’d taught her how to take pride in herself at what she could do. He’d helped her learn that being independent wasn’t always about doing your own thing…sometimes it was giving help and sometimes it was asking for it. He’d made her a better person and he’d also been the first person who ever broke her heart.
When Kat turned fifteen, a twenty-one-year-old Dax had shown up with a gift for her. It was a customized gas tank, painted in pink and blue with tiny little skulls all over it. That was the day she’d told him how she felt. It was the day she told him that she loved him and offered him her virginity in return for everything he’d done for her. Every time she’d thought about it since, even ten years later, her face went hot with humiliation, but at the same time, she thanked God he had turned her down.
14
Kat tucked away those memories as she pulled up to the cabin, shut off the bike, and took her flashlight out of her saddlebags. She hadn’t been there since she came home and she wasn’t even sure it would still be there. It was an abandoned cottage that a man had built for his wife after returning home from Vietnam in the early seventies. They lived in it for thirty years before they both got too old to stay so far away from town and doctor’s offices and hospitals. Kat knew them from the bar. They used to come in every Friday night and call it “date night” when she was a little girl. She thought it was silly then, but now that she was grown…and alone…she could appreciate the romanticism of it.
The man had passed away first when Kat was in her late teens and the woman passed not long after. Kat had been shocked when she got a visit from an attorney who told her they had left the old cottage to her in their will. They didn’t have any children and they’d taken a liking to Kat. The old man used to tell her that he liked her “fire.” The place wasn’t much even then, but Kat had it in her head that someday she and the man she fell in love with would live there. It was a place she’d finally taken David after that first night they made love, and it was where they had ultimately conceived a child that he was never supposed to know about. The mixture of good and painful memories associated with the old building was almost overwhelming, and she had to concentrate on breathing as she approached it.
It sat crouched into an overgrown, grassy embankment and gave the impression that it was trying to hide. The roof shone in the moonlight, though, and the hand-built chimney rose unevenly against the dark sky. It was made from bricks and stones, mismatched and uneven, but its oddness was what had always attracted her. Kat never went in for the “normal” things. She liked the misfits and weirdos, the underdogs and the people that society labeled with ugly names just because they refused to try to fit in. Th
is place was like that. It was a misfit, an underdog that should have never stood for over fifty years, but despite that, it was still going strong.
When she got up to the door she shone the light up across the top of the doorframe and stood on her toes, looking for the key. Her heart nearly jumped out of her chest when the door was pulled inward and a harsh light was suddenly in her face. “What the fuck?!” she yelled as she reeled backwards. She stumbled on a loose board and a strong arm caught her around the waist. The familiar scent of him flooded her senses as she realized that once again she was face to face with David.
“Hello again.”
“David? What are you doing here?” She pulled away from him because she was afraid that if she didn’t, she’d curl into him and hold on until he peeled her off.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here and let myself in without asking you.”
Kat was trying to get her brain to work, but now that he’d taken the light out of her eyes and they were beginning to adjust…she could see him. He had always been handsome, but his military-cut blond hair, deep green eyes, and smooth face had always given him a kind of “little boy” look. He used to have hard, sinewy muscles in his arms and legs, but on his six-foot-four frame, covered by his clothes, he’d always appeared slightly skinny and undernourished. His hair was longer now, not below his ears, but he’d let the top grow out and it stood up all over his head at the moment like he’d been dragging his hands through it. Those green eyes were as sexy as ever, but unless Kat was imagining it, they held a more mature, and maybe even harder look in them than they used to. He had stubble across his jaw and upper lip, darker than his hair, and his body had gone from long, lean muscle to something a UFC fighter might be proud of. Kat’s eyes went to one of the biceps that his t-shirt was straining against and she caught a glimpse of colored ink peeking out. David had a tattoo…wow.
