CHAPTER ONE
Welcome to Signal Bend!
The first time Adrienne passed that sign, it had been a different sign—faded and peeling, offering an anemic welcome. A year or two ago, the town had replaced that old relic, and now people driving into town got a more enthusiastic greeting—in bright colors, with exclamation points, illuminated with spotlights so that its welcome was warm even in darkness. Along the bottom of the pretty, stylized image of a quaint signal house next to a bending railroad, a smiling signalman standing beside it, were several logos: the Signal Bend Chamber of Commerce, the 4H Club, the local Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and the Flaming Mane of the Night Horde MC.
A lot had changed in this little town since the first time she’d come. Shops and businesses had been built up, houses that had been abandoned had been restored and filled with families. It was still an insignificant little town, but when she’d first visited, it had shown the wounds of a losing battle, and now those wounds seemed to have healed.
It was nearly ten o’clock on a Friday night. Adrienne had intended to stop for the night in Illinois, hours ago, but then she was so close, having already driven more than eight hundred miles over two days, and she just didn’t want to stop again.
She hadn’t fully calculated that she’d be coming into town so late on a Friday night. She’d only been in Signal Bend half a dozen times in the past four years, but she kept in touch regularly with Shannon and Badger, and he knew that the Night Horde had parties on most Friday nights. She’d been to the clubhouse a few times, but never on a Friday night—yet she’d heard that those parties got pretty intense.
The turn for the clubhouse came up on her right; the clubhouse was visible from the main road, which became Main Street about five hundred feet farther in. To get to Shannon and Show’s house, Adrienne would need to drive into town and turn left at the main crossroads. Without really thinking about it, she turned right, drove the short distance to the clubhouse entrance and pulled in.
Considering the wild reputation of Horde parties, she’d expected the lot to be more crowded, but it was only about half full, mostly with bikes and trucks she recognized. She parked her yellow 1974 Beetle convertible in the closest available space. The little car rattled a little and seemed to sigh as Adrienne turned off the engine. Almost three hundred thousand miles on her, and she was getting a little tired.
Adrienne had always thought of her car as a ‘she.’ For the first few years she’d had her, since she was sixteen, she’d called her Daisy. Then she’d gotten to know Showdown, and she couldn’t think of a car by that name anymore. But she was still a ‘she.’
For a few seconds, Adrienne sat behind the wheel and considered whether it would be a mistake to go into the clubhouse. The club knew her, but she didn’t know about the other people who’d be in there. Show had always been adamant that a Friday party was no place for her, and she’d taken him at his word. So what would she be walking into? She was a little scared.
But Show’s bike was in the lot. So was Badger’s. They wouldn’t let anything happen to her. And, honestly, the reason she was here in Signal Bend, only two months after her last visit, was Badger. He was being weird. More than that, he was worrying her. A lot. He’d been strange since the fall. She knew something had gone down with the club; when she’d visited in January, they’d all looked different—they’d all been different.
She’d come around the corner upstairs one morning when the master bedroom door had been open. Show had been pulling a t-shirt on, his back to the door. His back was a horror of scars. She’d gasped—she’d almost screamed, really—and he’d turned around to see her standing in the hallway with her hand over her mouth. He’d smiled sadly and said only, “It’s okay, little one. I’m okay.”
It wasn’t just him. Len now wore an eye patch. Havoc was dead. And Shannon was pregnant. At forty-two. After always insisting that she didn’t want another child. All the Horde and their families were different in some way. She didn’t know why, only that whatever had happened was terrible.
And Badger—he looked okay, but he was maybe more changed than any of them. They’d developed a close friendship over the past four years, talking and texting several times a month, hanging out together when she came to visit. But since the fall, he’d been like a stranger to her. They talked a lot less often, and he was different when they did. Sometimes, he was hostile. Sometimes, he was open and raw. Sometimes he was almost like he’d been. But he was mostly distant. It broke her heart.
Adrienne was a little in love with Badger. Maybe fifty percent in love with him. But he didn’t feel that way about her, so she didn’t let herself get any further than the crush stage. She’d tried to make something happen a few times, and they’d made out a few times, but he always set her away right about the time she thought they’d go further than just kissing. He only wanted to be friends. She’d rather be friends than nothing, so she’d stopped trying to make it more than that. She knew it was true that he didn’t want more, because he wasn’t jealous. He didn’t mind when she was dating. In fact, he’d talked her through a rough breakup a year or so ago. He’d talked her through a couple of breakups, actually. She’d been dumped a lot. She didn’t really meet guys’ expectations.
She and Badger, though, were buds. He was her best friend, really—which was probably sad, since they lived a thousand miles apart and she had this massive crush on him. But he was easy to talk to, and he didn’t just chat about nonsense like the girls she was supposed to be besties with. They talked about things that mattered—at least the things that mattered to them, to each other. Over the years, he’d learned more about her than anyone. Probably more even than her family. And she thought the same was true about how she knew him.
But other than those few kisses, the closest they got physically was sitting together watching horror movies in Show and Shannon’s living room, when she’d bury her face in his arm or his chest during the scary parts. She made sure to be ‘scared’ pretty often.
When she’d visited in January, he wouldn’t touch her at all. Not even a friendly hug. Heck, not even a handshake. She’d been in town for four days, and she’d seen him one time, and they had not touched even in passing. She’d left heartbroken, thinking that he didn’t even want to be friends any longer.
And then, a couple of weeks later, he’d called her. Sobbing—and very clearly wasted out of his head. He’d been almost impossible to understand, but he’d rambled on about nightmares and pain and blood and…Adrienne had thought he’d had some kind of hallucination, because half the things she’d been able to make out from his garbled ravings had been too horrific to be real—too nightmarish even to be nightmares.
Except when she took into account Show’s back. And Len’s eye. And Havoc. And Badger, who was just…broken.
He’d seemed to come out of his fit a little at the end of the call. Panicking about what he’d disclosed, he’d sworn her to secrecy. Not sure exactly what secrets he’d revealed, she’d promised not to say anything to anyone. And she hadn’t. But then he’d cut contact completely. Until last week, when she’d threatened to tell Show. At least then, she’d gotten a text back.
Something was really wrong. And even though he’d pulled away—or maybe because he’d pulled away—Adrienne couldn’t just sit in her father’s house in New Paltz, New York and wonder. She had to know. Without breaking her promise, she had only one option: see for herself. So here she was, getting out of her car in the Night Horde clubhouse lot.
The night air was chilly and a little damp on this March night, so there were only a few people milling around outside, none of whom she recognized. They all watched her go in, though, their curiosity whetted. She smiled at their stares and opened the door.
The room was redolent with sounds of country music and chatter, and the smell of weed, cigarettes, and booze. Except for the country music, it wasn’t that different from the few frat parties she’d attended at Columbia. Stopping just inside the door, she took it all in. Not a bad crowd, though not really a wild one. Some people were playing video games. Others were playing pool. Everybody was drinking. A couple of girls were dancing in a vaguely sexy and clearly drunk way. But the scene felt a lot more subdued than she’d been expecting. Show was standing at the bar, his back to her. Len stood next to him, and he saw Adrienne. He cocked his head and said something to Show, who turned around, his brows raised in surprise.
Then Show grinned and walked over. “Hey, little one.” He bent down and folded her up in his massive arms. It was like being hugged by Mt. Everest. “What’re you doing here? Not supposed to be in until tomorrow, right?”
Still snugged into his chest, she hugged him back as hard as she could. He wasn’t her father—she had a wonderful father already—but she’d come to really love this giant, gentle man. When she’d first met him, he’d beat a man unconscious practically right in front of her, but he didn’t scare her even a little. “I didn’t want to stop again. Motels give me the creepies.”
He set her back and looked down at her. “Well, I’m glad to see you. Shannon’s not here, though, hon. She’s at home.”
“Is she still feeling gross?”
“Not so bad as she was. Just tired a lot. She’s probably sleeping, but I can give her a call and let her know you’re in early.”
“No—no. Let her sleep. Can I hang here for a little? Is Badge around?”
He looked around, and Adrienne could see his hesitation. He didn’t want her here. But when he turned back to her, he was smiling. “Sure. Don’t wander much. I’ll be heading out in an hour or so, and I’ll follow you home. Sound good?”
“Yeah. Sounds great. Is Badge here?”
Again, there was some hesitation. “Think so, yeah. You want a drink? Beer?” He put his huge hand on her back and pushed her gently but with determination toward the bar. She let him, because she got it. Badger didn’t want to see her, and Show knew it, somehow. She’d always gotten the impression that he wasn’t thrilled with their friendship, but not in any kind of aggressive way. He didn’t get between them; it was more like he just preferred her away from the club. Maybe that was all his hesitation tonight was—her first time in the clubhouse during a party, coming in and surprising him, made Show just generally reluctant. But it felt like more.
“A beer for the lady, Double A.”
Double A, wearing a Prospect kutte, poured her a beer from a tap. He was pretty cute, and when he smiled as he handed her the glass, he was gorgeous. She smiled back, but then his eyes shifted to Show, and his smile disappeared. As she took a drink, she turned to see Show glaring at him. So maybe his weird vibe truly was just him not really wanting her in the clubhouse after all.
For a while, she sat between Show and Len, drinking her beer and chatting about her drive, her father and brothers, Shannon, the house Len was building—a lot of aimless chitchat, but nice. This was not at all the party she’d expected to walk in on. There was no sign of Badger yet; maybe Show had been wrong, and he wasn’t around after all.
Nearing the time that he wanted to leave, Show headed off to the bathroom. Then she happened to look down the bar, and she saw Badger walking into the Hall.
To Len, she said, “Excuse me,” then turned and slid off her stool. Badger saw her as she took a couple of steps in his direction. He stopped, surprised, and stared at her.
He looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes, and he stood with a slight hunch of his shoulders. It was subtle, but she’d noticed it in January, too. Even so, he was beautiful. He had amazing hair—long and thick, dark auburn—and a full beard that felt really wonderful on her mouth. And he had the most fantastic eyes of anyone ever. Pale green. Like seafoam green. He was tall and thin, but strong, with great definition in his arms. She’d seen his chest once, when he showed her his tattoo there, and he was defined there, too. She bet he looked wonderful naked. It made her blush to think it.
Still blushing, she smiled and said, “Hi, Badge. Surprise!”
He said nothing, just stared. Then he backed off a couple of steps and turned toward the couches arranged in one large corner of the room. There was a really pretty blonde girl leaning on a wall, talking to a couple of other pretty girls. Adrienne stood where she was and watched Badger grab the blonde by the arm and lead her to one of the couches. He sat, pulling the girl down in front of him, until she was kneeling between his legs. With barely a pause, she started opening his jeans. Badge put his hand on her head and leaned back on the couch, his eyes closed.
Adrienne felt sick, but she couldn’t stop staring. She stood there like a fool and watched the blonde pull Badger’s dick out—right there in the middle of everything—and then stick it in her mouth.
Her stomach rolled dangerously.
They were just friends—if that. He barely talked to her anymore. She had no business feeling like she did, but that didn’t change anything. It hurt. A lot.
A hand went around her arm, and she jumped. “Come on, doll. Come finish your beer. Show’ll be out in a second.”
“I don’t want it.” She could not look away. Badger’s hand clenched in the blonde’s hair as she bobbed up and down on him.
Adrienne had never even done that to anybody, and there Badger was, getting it done in public. Nobody else even seemed to notice.
“Adrienne. Come on. This way.” Len pulled harder and put his other arm around her shoulders, forcing her to put her back to the scene on the couch. He led her back to the bar and sat her down on the stool.
“Not what it looks like, darlin’.”
She made herself shrug. She didn’t know Len very well, so she didn’t know why he thought he could talk about this with her, or why he thought she’d care who was sucking Badger’s dick. But she knew he was trying to be nice. “It’s exactly what it looks like, but it’s not my business. We’re just friends. Maybe not even that anymore.” If that was true, then why had she just driven her forty-four-year-old car more than a thousand miles in two days?
Because she was worried about Badger. Who didn’t care about her at all.
Len gave her a hard look with his good eye. “Okay. There’s just more to it than you think.”
“Whatever.”
As she was about to just leave on her own and not wait for Show, he came around the bar, and she felt his hand on hers. “Come on, little one. Let’s go home. You’ve gotta be exhausted from your drive.”
“Yeah. I am.” She was feeling a lot more tired than she had been when she’d come in, that was for sure. She let Show wrap her hand up with his and lead her out to the lot.
~oOo~
It was chilly when Adrienne woke up the next morning in the little room she stayed in. More of a big closet than a room, really, with its sloped ceiling and narrow layout. But she liked the purple walls and the cozy feel. She knew it had once been Show’s daughter’s room. Daisy, who’d died before Adrienne had known Show or Shannon.
Show had two other daughters, Iris and Rose, who shared the other bedroom. They were teenagers, living with their mother in Arkansas or someplace like that. Adrienne had only met them once, though they visited a lot more often than she ever had. They were nice, though. Cute and sweet. And they sure loved their daddy. There was a lot to love about Show.
Since it was early on a Saturday morning, Adrienne scooted deeper into the covers and closed her eyes, letting her mind wander. It ran into Badger first, but she made it turn away, not yet ready to confront her feelings about the night before, or the recent months, or why she’d packed so much stuff and driven to Signal Bend practically on a whim, worried about a guy who didn’t care about her anymore.
Well, he was mostly why she’d come. She thought it was mostly him.
She’d asked Shannon if she could stay for a while, and Shannon had been enthusiastic about her being with them as long as she liked. Adrienne had been thinking she’d stay until summer. Maybe even longer. Her father was not happy about this decision.
Charles Renard was an academic, a tenured professor of world literature at the state university in New Paltz. He was a quiet, thoughtful man, who managed both to be strict and to deny his children very little. Since Adrienne’s mom—her real one, who’d raised her—had died when Adrienne was in high school, her father had closed ranks around his family, directing his attention away from his career and spending as much time with his children as he could. Adrienne had twin brothers, Remy and Roe, who were now fifteen, and they were proving to be a handful in ways Adrienne had never been. She’d always been a good girl, never finding a reason to rebel against a family she’d loved.
Adrienne and her brothers were all adopted, which had never been a secret. It wouldn’t have been a secret anyone could have kept, even had her parents been inclined to try. Her father was Jamaican, with skin the deep brown tone of bittersweet chocolate. Her mother had been a WASP, with brown hair and eyes. Her brothers were Korean, and Adrienne, the family joke was, looked like she’d been born in Brigadoon, with curly, bright red hair, freckles, and deep blue eyes.
In truth, she looked strikingly like her bio-mom, Shannon. That had been a real shock, meeting her and knowing the truth instantly.
Her parents had always been supportive of any curiosity she’d had about her biological parents, but she’d never really had much. Her parents were her parents, and the only set she’d needed. But when her mother passed away, and Adrienne had found old journals she’d kept, chronicling her struggles to get pregnant, her devastation at learning she could not, their arduous journey to adopt, and her mother’s vividly expressed bliss at bringing her new daughter home, Adrienne had suddenly, desperately wanted to meet the woman who had brought her into the world and made her mother so happy.
And now she knew Shannon and Show, and she had grown to love them both. That wasn’t why her father was unhappy that she’d come. He wasn’t jealous or threatened, and he had no cause to be. But he didn’t like what he knew about the life Shannon and Show led, and he didn’t like what he believed Adrienne was giving up to spend any significant time in Missouri.
The world in which Shannon and Show lived—Signal Bend, the Night Horde—was completely different from anything Adrienne had known before, but that was part of the appeal. She’d been brought up in a college town in New York State, a couple of hours from New York City. She’d graduated from Columbia University, living for more than four years in the heart of that city. Her family was international, and she’d begun traveling the world at a young age. Her parents were both academics, so her life had been comfortably middle class from her birth. It had always been a life as big as she’d wanted it to be.
Signal Bend was so different it was almost like a new dimension in time and space. The town was tiny. Everyone seemed to know everyone and care about what everyone was doing. The Horde seemed to be more in charge than the mayor.
She’d seen the same movie her father had. She knew they’d been into some bad things, or at least illegal things, and that bad things had happened in the town. But while that knowledge made her father worry, it made Adrienne curious. Until recently, Signal Bend had seemed quaint—sleepy, even—and the Horde had been just a bunch of nice guys with a couple of extra helpings of testosterone. Something had changed, though, and she didn’t know enough to know what.
She’d spent a year teaching English in South Korea and then had rattled around Asia on her own for a few months, and since she’d come home, she’d been at loose ends, not sure what she wanted to do with her life. At her father’s encouragement, she’d chosen a degree according to her interests and inclination rather than job prospects, so she had a double major in Fine Arts and English. Most of the jobs available to her with that kind of education were of the intern variety—gopher jobs for no or low pay, intended to get her foot in the door toward a career as a curator or editor or something. That wasn’t what she wanted. At all.
She wanted to take pictures. Of the whole world, writ large and small both.
But since she wasn’t quite sure how to do that and make a living, she’d been kicking around her family house for months, nannying part time, regressing back to her high school stage—and it had been shockingly comfortable. She thought maybe some time in Signal Bend, trying to fix things with Badger and maybe helping Shannon out during her pregnancy, might at least shake her up a little.
Her father, though, saw only backtracking. Hiding from the world. In a place where shootouts happened on Main Street.
One shootout, Papa. Just one.
Finally bestirring herself from the narrow bed, Adrienne dug her slouchy sweater out of her rucksack and, after a quick trip to the bathroom, headed down to the kitchen to see if breakfast, or at least coffee, was possible.
She’d think about Badger later. Maybe.
Coffee was definitely possible. As Adrienne came downstairs and headed down the main hallway, the aroma of brewing or freshly brewed coffee nearly grabbed her by the nose and pulled her forward to the kitchen.
Adrienne really liked their kitchen. She liked the whole house, but the kitchen was her favorite room, all done in a soft yellow and grey, with bright accents of a limey-green color—chartreuse. It was cheerful and tasteful. The cabinets and table were heavy wood and looked old, but the appliances were new. It was kind of a mishmash, but visually it was perfect. Not too staged, not too haphazard. Shannon had an eye.
Shannon was standing at the stove, wearing a black silk robe, her dark red hair clipped into a loose bundle on the back of her head.
“Morning!” Adrienne went straight for the coffee.
Shannon turned with a smile. She was making oatmeal. “Morning, Ade. It’s a nice surprise to have you here already. It was a nice surprise to have you back so soon at all—and maybe to stay longer? That makes me happy.”
After she stirred her four teaspoons of sugar into her coffee, Adrienne went over and kissed Shannon’s cheek. “I’m happy to be here. I just kinda need to…reset, you know? If that’s okay? I guess I have some culture shock or something after Asia. I don’t know. But I needed some distance, so I could figure out my next thing.”
“Well, we’re happy to be your distance.”
Shannon was about three months pregnant, and she was showing already, despite being generally thinner than usual. She also looked tired. Though she didn’t complain much, Adrienne knew that pregnancy had been hard on her so far. “How are you feeling?”
“Better, really. A lot less puking during the past week or so. I’m about out of the first trimester, so they tell me I should feel great any time now.” She laughed like she didn’t believe that.
“Was it like this when you were pregnant with me?” Adrienne sat down at the table.
“You know, I don’t really remember. I was so young, and there was so much going on. I wish I remembered.” She turned and smiled. “I remember the first time I felt you kick, though. That was wild. From that point on, you were practicing your dance moves nonstop.”
Adrienne laughed. “Funny—since I can’t dance even a little now. Hey—you have a wedding today, right?”
“Yep. A small one this afternoon. Very low key, only forty-six guests. But pretty.”
“You need any help?” Adrienne had helped a few times, running interference for minor questions or helping set up. It was fun.
“Yeah? That would be great. That would be wonderful, actually.”
“Cool!”
Showdown came into the kitchen then and smiled at them both. “Now, this is a great sight for a man to start his morning. Two gorgeous redheads in their pajamas.” He bent down and kissed Adrienne’s cheek. Then he stood behind Shannon and kissed her neck, his hands on her hips. “Morning, missus.”
“Morning. I made oatmeal for breakfast.”
Show looked into the pot. He hesitated only briefly, then said, “I see that. I’m sorry, hon, but I need an early start. Only time for coffee.”
Show did a lot of things well, but he wasn’t a good liar. Adrienne could tell that he was ducking out of breakfast, and Shannon certainly could, too. She stiffened and turned, and, to Adrienne’s stark surprise, her face crumpled into near-tears. “But I made you breakfast. Oatmeal with cinnamon and raisins. Like you like.”
“Hey, hey. I’m sorry.” Show lifted Shannon’s chin on his finger. “Thank you. I can stay for a minute and have bowl.”
“No. Never mind.” She threw the wooden spoon she’d been using to stir the oatmeal, and it landed in the sink. “Just screw it and go.”
“Shannon. Hon, come on. I love that you make me breakfast.”
And then the waterworks came on full force. Through her gush of tears she moaned, “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I know I’ve been making oatmeal every day for weeks, but it’s the only thing that doesn’t sound gross in the morning. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be like Holly. I’m sorry.”
Now Show grabbed his wife’s head in both his huge hands and forced her face to meet his. “Hon, you need to stop that. You’re not anything like Holly. I know you’re not feeling right. I’m not mad. I love you. Okay? Okay?”
She sniffled and nodded, and he pulled her into his arms and held her close. Adrienne felt weird and guilty, sitting at the kitchen table watching that uncomfortably intimate moment unfold, but she didn’t know how to leave without drawing attention to herself. So she sat and stared at her coffee.
Then Show sat down and Shannon served out bowls of oatmeal. It was pretty good. Not so good Adrienne would want to eat it every day for weeks, but then, she was neither pregnant nor married to someone who was.