It had been a week since Kat catered the event at the MC. Dax paid her and told her what a great job she’d done. He told her they would get together that week and talk about advertising, but so far, she hadn’t heard from him. Each day that went by pissed her off more since she was convinced it was Angel holding him back. She was working the bar that night and because there was a wedding in the area earlier in the day, they had collected a pretty good crowd. She tried to put away her anger at Angel and Dax and concentrate on getting the drinks right. Dillon was doing better medically and just that afternoon had been underfoot and wanting to talk to her. Sadly, normal conversation with her father didn’t interest Kat. It always somehow turned into an argument and she just wasn’t in the mood for it that day. Suddenly, now that he might be some help to her, he was MIA. She’d not only hidden the keys to the van, but she’d put a lock on the steering wheel, so wherever he was, she at least knew he wasn’t driving.

“Can I get my drink…please…?” The woman at the end of the bar had come in with three friends. They all looked like professionals, dressed in business suits and heels. Kat couldn’t help but wonder why they were slumming it at Brownie’s. They had an open tab and were throwing back the alcohol liberally, so even though they were a group of snotty bitches, Kat was doing her best to keep a smile on her face.

“Sure, hon, I’m sorry about that. Coming right up.” She turned to grab the bottle of Jack off the shelf and caught sight of a group of men coming in the door. They were all Skulls and when she turned back toward the woman and her friends, she suddenly knew why they were slumming. The woman who’d asked for her drink had sat up straighter and was checking them out. Her three friends, two on barstools and one standing, had their eyes on the leather-clad men as well. As Kat walked down toward them she heard one of them giggle and say:

“That’s him! That’s Brick.” Kat had to suppress a smile as she filled up the woman’s glass. She knew Brick. He was a thirty-something-year-old biker who had been living the outlaw life since he was five years old and stole his first candy bar. Kat knew that Dax had tamed them all somehow, but she’d often wondered how he managed with people like Brick. Maybe since Brick spent so much time in prison, it didn’t matter. She pulled up the hose that was attached to the keg with Coke in it and finished off the woman’s drink. None of them even noticed; they were all too mesmerized by the Southside Skulls.

“Hey there, Hurricane.”

“Hey, Brick.” Kat looked past Brick’s broad shoulders and saw Buzz. The smile fell from her face and she said, “What are you doing here? I thought I told you that I didn’t want you back in here.”

Buzz looked smugly at her and then at Brick, who was looking at him now. “It’s my birthday. Brick brought me in here to buy me a drink.”

Brick looked back at Kat and put up his palms. “Hey, I didn’t know y’all had bad blood. I can take him up the road.” Kat counted five Skulls, which would mean at least two or three hundred dollars by the time they finished drinking. She couldn’t afford to be that picky. She narrowed her eyes at Buzz and keeping them there she told Brick:

“No, the rest of you are always welcome here…maybe you can keep him in check.” Brick reached out a giant hand and without looking at Buzz he pulled him up toward the bar.

“I will do that, but first, Buzz, I’d like you to apologize for whatever it was you did to this pretty lady.”

Buzz rolled his eyes. Unfortunately for Buzz, Brick was looking at him then. He bore down on his shoulder with that hand, like a big vise. Buzz’s face turned red and he squeaked, as he fought off the pain he had to be in. In a voice that sounded like his balls had receded he said, “Sorry.”

“Do better,” Brick said, casually.

“I’m sorry, Kat. I’m sorry I was an ass.”

Kat had to smile, not at Buzz but at the way a mean, practically vicious biker like Brick wouldn’t stand for cruelty to women…and probably animals if the truth were known. “Okay,” Kat said, “Just don’t let it happen again in my place.” Buzz tried to force a smile, but looked like he wanted to cry instead. Brick finally let him go and Kat watched as his eyes found the blonde businesswoman with the big tits at the end of the bar. She waved, excitedly. Brick gave her a chin nod and said, “Bring us a bottle of Fireball and some tequila.”

“You got it,” Kat said. Brick walked to the back of the bar and the other guys followed him. The older guys in the club usually had a posse and Brick was no different. Kat didn’t know the other four guys with him, they all must have patched in while she was gone. She hoped they weren’t assholes as big as Buzz. She got the whiskey and tequila and carried it to a booth back by the pool tables. Two of the guys were setting up the pool table while two of the women watched. The one that had been sitting at the bar seemed to be in deep conversation with another one of the Skulls, and the one who had been excited to see Brick was sitting on his lap. Buzz was the only one of them without a woman and considering he wasn’t as ugly on the outside as he was in, Kat could only guess they knew him and hated him as much as most other people did. She set the bottles and glasses on the table without looking at him and said, “Anything else, Brick?”

“Nah, that’ll do for now, Hurricane, thanks. Hey, Paula, this is the lady I was telling you about the other day, the one who used to be a stuntwoman.”

The woman looked up at her and Kat tried to keep her eyes on her face and not Brick’s right hand, which was underneath the woman’s skirt. “Wow, that’s so cool. How did you get into that?”

Focusing on a pair of green eyes that were glazing over as she talked, Kat said, “I was a gymnast and I saw an ad for movie extras who could ‘bend.’ I was ready to get out of here, so I applied. Lucky for me, I met a guy who showed me the ropes and taught me everything I need to know.”

“Wow.”

“Funny, how you’re here…instead of still there...” Buzz was talking to her. She could see him out of the corner of her eye, but she didn’t look at him. Instead she cocked an eyebrow at Brick.

“Hey, boy, birthday or not, if you don’t show Katrina here some respect, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

“It was just an observation,” he said.

“Well, stop making observations where Kat is concerned if you can’t do it without sounding like an ass.” Brick looked at the woman on his lap. Without missing a beat doing whatever he was doing under her skirt to make her face flush and her breathing rapid, he said, “Kat came home to take care of her dad. That’s what life is all about, taking care of family.”

“Aw, you’re so sweet.” The blonde forgot Kat was there and pressed her lips into Brick’s. Kat went back up to the bar. She forgot about the Skulls, except when Brick would call her over to bring more alcohol. It was last call when he asked for the tab and Kat had to suppress a smile when she tallied it up and it came to three hundred and forty dollars. Brick didn’t bat an eyelash at it, and he threw in an extra twenty as a tip. As she was walking back to the bar, old Vince stopped her and asked her how Dillon was doing. She rolled her eyes and grumbled about him being out on another bender after she’d just gotten the bills from the ER two days before. She was telling Vince she hoped he himself wasn’t planning on driving home that night when she saw the Skulls leaving. Buzz was the only one without a woman on his arm and he looked pissed. Kat smiled and waved at him. If Brick hadn’t been looking, she was sure he would have flipped her off. She went back to work after they were gone and finally kicked the last drunk out just after two a.m. She was washing dishes in back when she heard her phone ringing. She wanted to ignore it but with Dillon’s history, she knew that was probably a mistake. She dried her hands and went to get it, not recognizing the number when she picked it up. “Hello?”

“Kat, it’s Buzz.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“No, wait, please. I was on my way back to the clubhouse when I pulled off on Tollhouse Road to take a piss. When I was getting back on the bike, I saw something lying along the side of the road. I almost just left because it looked like a big animal, but I heard it moaning…”

“What’s your point, Buzz?”

“It was Dillon, Kat. It looks like he got drunk and someone dumped him there.”

“Fuck! Is he okay?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t look like he’s bleeding anywhere. He reeks of alcohol and he’s in and out of it…my guess would be just drunk.”

“Shit!”

“I heard you mention his medical bills earlier so I didn’t want to just call an ambulance without asking…”

“No!” An ambulance would cost a fortune and if he was just drunk, she might have to kill him when she got the bill. “No. I’ll come and get him. Tell me where you are, exactly.” Buzz gave her directions and as she wrote them down she said, “What were you doing on Tollhouse Road? That’s not on the way to the club from here.” The hair stood up on the back of her neck. Kat had good instincts. Later on, she would regret not listening to them.

“I told you, I pulled off the main highway to take a piss. It’s a pretty heavily wooded area and I didn’t want to be seen from the road and get an exposure citation. The County Sheriff will take any opportunity to stop a guy just because he’s wearing a Skulls patch, you know that.”

That was true. The Skulls and the cops had a long, negative history on the Southside. That’s why Kat was so confused about Dax and the Bradys being so tight. But she didn’t have time to think about that. She had to go get Dillon before the Sheriff picked him up or someone did call an ambulance—damn him! “Okay. I’ll be right there.” Kat ended the call and ran upstairs to the apartment. She got her leather jacket that was hanging by the front door, grabbed her riding boots and sat down on the floor to take off her heeled boots and slip on her riding ones. She was cussing Dillon the entire time. This shit was going to have to stop. She had better things to do with her life than babysit a drunk 24/7. She had started out of the bar when that bad feeling she’d had earlier returned. She went back over to the locked box under the counter, next to where she kept the sawed-off shotgun, loaded and ready to go. She unlocked the box and took out the weapon she’d bought in California after getting her concealed carry permit. The little .22 Mag had fixed sights and a rubber grip and it was easy to hide. She made sure it was loaded and then slid it down into her boot.

Finally, she grabbed her helmet off the hook by the front door of the bar and locked up.