by Kati Wilde
While she slips the platter into the dishwater, I grab a towel and start drying my hands. “How does Jenny look?” I ask.
“Guess.”
I smile a little. I can’t remember exactly when we started doing this, but it’s a game we’ve played for a while: Take everything you know about someone and guess what their reaction will be to any given scenario.
With Jenny, it’s not really guessing. I know exactly what’s going on out there. “She’s holding up, because she’s got something to occupy her with all these people here. And if I told her that we’re back here washing dishes, she’d freak out and feel guilty because we’re cleaning.”
The arch of my mom’s eyebrows and the curve of her mouth says that I got it in one. Stone claims I often wear the same expression—except that, on my face, it just looks smug.
I don’t look a thing like my mother, despite wishing fervently for her genes when I was younger. Wishing didn’t turn my hair blond or my eyes blue. It didn’t make me any taller, either. I’ve been called an elf more times than I can remember.
Which…all right, I can’t really argue that. And I’m not like one of the majestic elves from Lord of the Rings, unfortunately. My mom might pass for Galadriel; stick me in green tights and add pointed ears, and I could pass for one of Santa’s helpers.
I don’t have any of my dad’s genes, either, but—personality-wise—I probably resemble him more.
She sighs, then looks around at the counters as if searching for something to do. “Have you seen Aaron yet?”
Unease skitters up my spine. I understand why I might not have seen my brother yet, considering the crowd and how I’ve been holed up in the kitchen, but I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t have sought out our mom for a word and a hug.
But he’s been gone a week, chasing down God knows what. Maybe he’s holed up, too, filling in a few of the Riders about what’s going on.
“I haven’t, but I saw Zach,” I tell her. My mom doesn’t refer to either my brother or Gunner by his road name. “So Aaron’s probably around somewhere. But good luck trying to text him and telling him to get his butt in gear.”
Not with the bad reception out here.
“It’s a miracle if he answers promptly even with reception,” she says with dry amusement. “I usually have better luck going through Zach.”
God, that shouldn’t hurt, hearing how easily she communicates with Gunner. From practically the moment he arrived in Pine Valley—way back when he and Stone were still in the Marine Corps, and he was visiting my brother while they were on leave—my mom and dad treated Zach Cooper like he was another son.
But, me. Jesus. Unless Stone or someone else includes me in a conversation with him, Gunner barely even speaks to me. I’ve never texted him. Yet my mother does all the time.
“Oh,” I finally say, but I can’t really remember what I’m responding to.
Her voice softens. “Anna. Do you want to talk about it?”
Yes. But if I do I’ll just start crying again. “I really can’t.”
“All right.”
Her reply is so accepting, so easy. Because she probably knows I’m going to spill my guts to her, anyway. And she probably knows exactly what this is all about.
I blurt, “Tell me something bad about Zach.”
Her brows shoot up. “Bad?”
“Yeah.”
“Why do you believe I know anything bad about him?”
“Because you know everything about everyone. You probably see right through him.”
She regards me for a long moment. “Why do you believe there is something to tell?”
I notice she doesn’t deny knowing everything about him. “Because there’s always something to tell. He can’t be as nice and as perfect as he seems—”
“Perfect?”
Oh shit. That word says way too much. But since I can’t go back I go forward. “Everyone has secrets. He must, too.”
“And those secrets must be bad?”
“Why would anyone keep good things secret?”
She gives me a pointed look. “Good things…such as caring for someone? Yes, indeed. Why would someone keep that secret?”
I groan in frustration. She always does this. You start talking with her about someone else and she flips it around and makes it about you.
But all right. She has a point. This is about me. “I need a kick in the ass. Something to make me stop. Seeing him all the time… I just can’t. Not anymore.”
She sighs a little. “I know, honey.”
“But I don’t…” My breath hitches in my chest. “I don’t want to leave.”
“I’m selfishly pleased to hear that.”
Because she must have wondered if I would. “But what should I do? Just tell him I don’t want him around anymore? Don’t come to my house, don’t sit at the bar? But it’s Aaron’s house, too. And at the Den, he sits at the bar to keep an eye on everyone.” As sergeant at arms, that’s his job—just like slinging drinks is mine. “I don’t want to make things awkward for you and Dad, either.”
“It wouldn’t.” Her steady gaze holds mine. “Unless you’re asking us to choose between you and Zach? Or suggesting that we shouldn’t invite him to our home anymore? No more Thanksgiving, no more Christmas?”
“I’m not suggesting that.” I never would.
“Then whatever you do, however you decide to move forward, the only awkwardness will be between the two of you.” Elegant brows arch over eyes sparking with sudden laughter. “Which will be no different from all the awkward silences of previous years.”
God. “Thanks, Mom. I’m so glad my angst amuses you.”
Though I know it doesn’t really amuse her. She’s just very good at helping me balance my emotions—and at pulling my head out of my ass.
She takes my hands, her expression serious again. “This will be good for you.”
“Moving on?”
“Moving forward. It might be good for Zach, too.”
I scoff at that. “I don’t think it’ll make a difference to him at all.”
She gives me an unreadable glance. “I suppose you’ll find out.”
I don’t think there’s anything to find out. Nothing’s different now than it was ten years ago. I’m just Stone’s little sister. “Well, whatever. I’m just going to try to get over him.”
“Yes. Try.”
Oh, God. She’s using her agreeable tone, which makes it impossible to tell whether she’s actually saying, “Yes, you should try,” or “Go ahead and try, but we both know it’s futile.”
To argue with her would be futile, too. Because she’s not even arguing. She’s agreeing. Maybe. But that problem I have with not being able to quit? Yeah.
“I’m not in love with him,” I tell her.
“Of course you aren’t.”
Lord help me. There goes her other agreeable tone. And I should really, really quit.
But I can’t. “I don’t know him well enough to be in love with him.”
“Now that’s true.” She kisses my forehead while I try to wrap my brain around what wasn’t true. “Now stop digging your hole. Go on and check in on your father. You know how he gets when he’s talking to Thorne, and I don’t need a new motorcycle sitting in our garage.”
“The motorcycle is never the problem,” I tell her. “It’s the kutte you have to worry about.”
The kutte and all the obligations that come with it.
“The way your dad drives, I worry about the motorcycle.” She purses her lips and adds lightly, “I’d enjoy it if he just wore the vest.”
Oh, Lord. I’m old enough to handle the thought of my parents getting their kink on, but… Okay, no. I’m not.
And she likely said it to send me scurrying out of the kitchen that much faster. Guess how Anna will react to the sexualized image of her dad in a kutte? There’s only one possible outcome: I skedaddle.
My mom knows me well. So she must know I’m not in love with Gunner. I’m not. Y
ou have to know someone before you can fall in love, and Gunner never let me know him.
I know some things. After almost a decade, of course I do. He’s only lived in Pine Valley for the last six years, but he’s been Stone’s friend longer than that.
I know he went straight into the Marine Corps after high school, and that’s where he met my brother.
I know he’s a nice guy. Some women say nice is boring, but not me. I can’t stand assholes who are dicks to everyone and who don’t care if they hurt someone. And Gunner, I knew he was nice before I knew anything else about him—even before I knew how gorgeous he was. Because we met when he pulled over on a highway to help me change a flat tire. I didn’t know who he was; he didn’t know who I was. But he stopped in the middle of nowhere to lend a hand.
I know nice doesn’t mean he’s not really fucking dangerous. I’ve seen what his fists have done and I’ve heard his bullets have done worse.
I’m not supposed to know that, but I overheard it at the Wolf Den. What I’ve never heard? Anything that makes me think less of him.
I know he likes his job on the city’s maintenance crew because he enjoys working outside. I also know his favorite part of the workday is lunch. Not because he eats, but because he pulls a paperback out of his back pocket or opens up the ebook reader on his phone and sits down with it for an hour. He’s read more than almost any other person I’ve met—and every Christmas, he gives me copies of the books he liked best that year.
I don’t know why he spends almost every holiday with my family. I mean, of course it’s because my mom and dad have issued a standing invitation to him. But I don’t know why he never goes home.
I know he has issues with his own family, because any time they come up in a conversation, he can’t change the subject fast enough. I don’t know what those issues are, and I don’t think many of the Hellfire Riders do, either, because that’s another thing I haven’t heard them talking about at the bar.
But they do talk about how he never hooks up with anyone, and there’s a bet going around about whether he’s a virgin. Or married. Or gay.
I know he’s not any of those, because he told me so the first time we met. But I also know a lot of the women who hang around the Riders don’t call him Gunner. They call him the Damn Shame. As in, it’s a damn shame all that prime male beauty is being wasted because he doesn’t use it. I’ve never seen him with anyone. I’ve never heard of him being with a woman—and I would have heard about it.
I don’t know why he doesn’t sleep around. Heaven knows he gets enough offers. A couple of times, I was the one making those offers.
I know he can kiss like a house on fire, and I know the hot taste of his mouth, and I know the rough sound he makes in the back of his throat when I press up against him. But that was a long time ago, when he wouldn’t let me buy him a drink as a thank-you for changing my tire. He took a kiss, instead.
Then he found out who my brother was and never tried to kiss me again. And when I tried to kiss him a few months ago—drunk off my ass—he gently pushed me away.
I know why. Or at least, I know what he said. That he’d be taking advantage of me. And, “It’s better to keep things simple.”
I don’t know if he truly believes things are simple between us. I don’t know what he imagines complicated is.
I know I never told Gunner how much his rejection hurt me. Instead I shrugged and pretended it didn’t matter. I always shrug and pretend it doesn’t matter.
But I’m not in love with him. How can I love someone who rarely talks to me, unless my brother’s around? Who won’t let me get to know him? No. If I love anything, it’s the idea of him—and the hope of what could be.
But it’s time to hope for more. I can’t hold an idea close. An idea can’t love me back. I know that for sure.
Just as I know Gunner will never be the one who gives me more.
But, oh my God. Knowing that hurts, as if every time I take a breath, a burning knife slices through my chest.
Luckily today is the one day it doesn’t matter if that pain shows. Today, no one will wonder why my eyes are red and my mascara is gone. I don’t like to expose myself when I’m hurting, but if my voice sounds thick and if my emotions seem raw when I see Gunner, everyone will assume it’s just for Red.
Thank God, I don’t see Gunner now.
From the kitchen, I make my way through the formal dining room and past the table loaded with food, slowly winding around a crowd of plates and familiar faces. I haven’t been out of the kitchen since the funeral, so I’m stopped for too many greetings and hugs to count. Along the way, I steal Picasso’s beer—he owes me one for driving him home from the Den the night before, when he was too smashed to ride—and finally emerge into the great room, where I spot Jenny standing in front of the fireplace.
She’s still pale, and strands of brown hair are beginning to escape her French braid, but she’s smiling and nodding at something Millie Wright is saying to her. Our third grade teacher has Jenny’s hands clasped in her wrinkled ones, and I know the older woman probably has the same twinkle in her blue eyes as she did twenty years ago. Jenny was always one of her favorites. I…was a little more difficult.
But Jenny’s in good hands right now. Which means I ought to go in search of my dad.
He won’t be hard to find. Mom said he was talking to Thorne, and there’s one of two places the Hellfire Riders’ vice-president will be: in Red’s garage or on the deck with the rest of the smokers.
Probably not the garage. Thorne and Red rode and worked together most of their lives. At the funeral, his face was like shattered stone. The garage would be too close to Red—and too painful because Red’s not there with him.
And sure enough, I find my dad outside. It’s not raining now, but the November night is cold enough to make my breath puff like smoke, and the cap sleeves of my black dress offer no protection against the chill. My dad sees me and pulls me in close.
I slide my arm beneath his tweed blazer, holding tight to his whip-thin waist, my throat one big lump again. My dad. I can’t imagine losing him. And even though I don’t see him every day, I can’t imagine never again seeing his balding head and horn-rimmed glasses and infectious grin. He’s not as big as most of the guys out here—at five-foot-four, he’s barely taller than me—but he feels safer and warmer than a wall of muscle could ever be.
“Mom says you can’t buy a motorcycle,” I tell him.
He laughs and gives me a little squeeze. “Do you think she’s practicing reverse psychology and that’s her way of encouraging me?”
“No, I think she’d kill you.”
“Then I’ll suppress the impulse and live another day.”
“Good plan.” Smiling, I glance away from him to scan the deck. “Have you seen Aaron?”
“Not yet. But I’ve been hiding out here, so that doesn’t surprise me. How are you holding up?”
I shrug, because there’s really no answer to that. He gives me another squeeze and looks to Thorne, who nods at me in greeting before crushing out his cigarette. Like the other Riders, Thorne isn’t wearing a suit or his Sunday best. Instead he’s wearing his leather kutte over his club best—black jeans, polished boots, a black button-down shirt.
I know some of the guests consider the kuttes disrespectful, especially the older vests that are beaten up by time and miles, but the kuttes represent the opposite of disrespect. All of the Riders have already sewn a patch with Red’s name into their leather, declaring he’s still their brother and he’s still with them, and he won’t be forgotten.
Thorne’s eyes hold mine for a long second, his gaze searching my face as if there’s something he expects to see. But he doesn’t say anything, just looks away as Jeremy Marshall and Travis Jones join us, beers in hand. Both work for Red and Thorne’s company—Travis as an engineer and Jeremy as a laborer, I think. I only know Jeremy by sight and by his preferred drink, but I went to high school with Travis, which unfortunately makes him
think we have more in common than we really do. He’s not my favorite person in the world, but he’s not the worst. He’s not an overt jerk or a creep. Mostly he’s just always too much. When something is funny, his laugh is too loud. When he greets you, his smile is too big. And when the occasion calls for being upset, he’s always the most upset, the most offended, the most ready to do something about it.
Right now, his sorrow is a physical weight on his face, pulling all of his features into a mask of grief. Except he wasn’t really a good friend of Red’s, so he’s too sorrowful.
Especially since he’s standing next to Thorne, who’d been Red’s right hand for decades.
The older man bears it quietly, as he bears almost everything. An exchange follows between the men about what a damn shame Red’s death was, and what a good guy he was, then Travis’s attention turns to my dad.
There’s his big smile, jarring after the deep display of grief. “How’s retirement suiting you, Paul?”
“It suits me,” my dad says, though he’s not really retired. He’s taking classes up in Bend, working on a second degree and eventually a second career, because real estate wasn’t suiting him anymore—even though he did well enough he could retire if he wanted to. “My thumbs are more limber than they’ve ever been, playing Aaron’s old Nintendo every spare minute.”
I suppress a grin, because my dad sounds like he’s kidding but he’s not. He’s become obsessed to the point that, just yesterday, Mom sent me a picture of him wearing a Mario T-shirt. I wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled up the legs of his charcoal pants and exposed a pair of Yoshi socks.
But the mention of my name turns Travis’s attention to me. “Since you’re still working at the Wolf Den, Anna, I guess nothing’s opened up for you?”
For heaven’s sake. No matter how many times I tell him… “I haven’t been looking.”
He nods like he knows exactly how that is. “Job market’s rough. I guess I thought something would come up for you, though. Or maybe your mom could put in a good word for you somewhere.”
“I’m happy where I am.”
