Atone
Rosalie
I stood staring at myself in my mother’s bathroom mirror.
I was going to have scars. Three of them.
Men with scars on their face were considered interesting, like they lived adventurous lives or were tough guys.
Women with them were looked on as pathetic, like some traumatic life event happened to them that they didn’t survive without being marked and because of that were objects of sympathy.
Another discrepancy between the sexes which was absolutely not fair.
Like the difference in physical strength.
I was top heavy. Slender, long legs, slim hips, thin arms, but I had big boobs in a way they looked fake.
They weren’t.
My mother had given me a number of good things, including her thick dark hair.
And her big tits.
My father had lamented this.
“Already hard enough to keep the men off you, gorgeous,” he’d say to my mom. “And you got my ring on your finger and it’s sat there for years. Now I got my baby girl to worry about.”
Man.
I missed my dad.
I stopped thinking about my dad and stared at my torso in the mirror.
I’d learned over the span of my twenty-eight years of life that large breasts had awesome powers.
Helping you handle yourself when eight men were intent to beat the snot out of you was not part of those awesome powers.
I lifted my gaze and studied my face in the mirror.
They’d kept me in the hospital for two days, considering I’d taken a number of blows to the head, and thus had a serious concussion, and they tried to be cool about it, but I could tell they were concerned about the number of times I’d blacked out.
Now I’d been out of the hospital for two days, as, apparently (and thankfully) all systems were a go.
The swelling had decreased significantly but only that morning did I note that the bruising was starting to recede, some of the edges of the purple going yellow.
My broken nose was still taped and would be for some time.
I’d had a total of twenty-nine stitches sewn into my face. My eyebrow would never be the same. The jaw scar wouldn’t be easily seen. But the gash on my nose would stand out.
I had been pretty, not beautiful, but definitely pretty. And I knew it.
This was not vanity. This was being real. I could see myself in the mirror and I’d had a mom and dad who adored me and told me how proud of me they were for a lot of reasons, and they’d done this all my life. My looks just were what they were and I was grateful for them.
I also used them.
I used them to get guys I was attracted to.
I used them to get good tips at Colombo’s.
I used them to jump the line at clubs I wanted to get into.
And I used them to get out of that speeding ticket that time that cop pulled me over.
Mom had taught me, if God gave you something good, you didn’t waste it. You used it (for good, obviously—I mean, it was God bestowing these gifts).
So I’d used them.
But as I stood there, looking in the mirror, I knew that Beck and his brothers had concentrated on my face, thinking that they were taking the most important thing I had away from me.
Men were so stinking stupid.
In the last few days, when there wasn’t a lot to feel good about, I felt good about the fact that they hadn’t raped me.
That was my silver lining.
My boyfriend kidnapped me, delivered me to his buds, they beat the heck out of me, but they didn’t rape me.
If they’d done that to me, it would have taken away something that meant something.
But they hadn’t.
Yeah.
Awesome silver lining.
Still, for sure it was one.
But, to my way of thinking, they didn’t do any lasting damage. They didn’t break anything but nine ribs (since I had twenty-four, that could have been worse) and my nose. When Muzzle’s fist connected with my schnoz, I felt the cartilage give, and that hadn’t been fun, but it would heal. Eightball had sprained my wrist, but he didn’t snap it, and it had been tender but it was already feeling better.
I’d recover.
I could walk, talk, eat, breathe. I could definitely still deliver pizzas to diners’ tables (or would be able to in a week or two, after the bruising and swelling were gone and I had less pain due to the broken ribs).
I might even be able to learn to live with the fact that a man I trusted and thought I loved had not only brought me to that hell, he’d also delivered his share of it.
Sure, I’d broken his trust. I’d informed on him and his brothers’ activities to Chaos, setting them up to be taken down by the cops.
But let us not forget, they were able to be set up to be taken down by the cops. This meant they were doing felonious crap. That felonious crap being providing transport for illegal substances and firearms, offering this service to really bad guys.
So sure, I could see, if he found out, Beck being really freaking pissed at me. Yelling at me. Breaking it off with me. That was, if he didn’t give me the chance to explain why I’d done it in the first place, that being for him.
Well, not so much for him, I’d realized.
But I couldn’t think about that right then.
I had to think about the fact I survived. I was alive. Walking, talking, eating, breathing, and someday soon I’d again be laying pizza pies on tables for tips.
What I would not be doing was getting involved with a man, maybe ever again.
Seriously.
That might seem dramatic, but the first man I fell for, Shy Cage of the Chaos Motorcycle Club, had shown me a window to a world I wanted and the doorway I wanted to use to get to that was Shy because Shy was Shy. He was beautiful to look at and fantastic in bed, but he was also funny and sweet and protective and affectionate.
He was my dad (not that I knew about the “fantastic in bed” part with my dad, but from the time I understood the concept of sex, mom’s dreamy looks and dad’s cat-got-his-cream moods were not lost on me—gross, but not lost on me).
So Shy was all that…including having all of it on a bike.
But he dropped me like a hot brick the minute Tabitha Allen gave him indication that her doorway was open. He slammed the one on me and waltzed right through hers without a second thought.
Looking back, I knew as I fell deeper and deeper for him that he wasn’t doing the same.
That didn’t make it any better.
Now, also looking back, I knew as I got deeper and deeper into things with Beck that I was trying to find what I’d hoped to get with Shy.
They both belonged to motorcycle clubs, for one.
And Beck looked a lot like Shy for another (which, not so by the by, was a lot like my dad looked). Beefier, maybe. A bit rougher around the edges. But I definitely had a type.
And then came Snapper.
God, Snapper.
Nope.
No.
No more men for me.
Seriously.
Shy.
Then Beck? (Enough said there.)
And then there was Snap.
I closed my eyes and shook my head just as I heard a knock on the bathroom door.
“Sweetie,” Mom called through the door. “You been in there a long time. You okay?”
She was worried about me.
She would be. She was a mom. An awesome one. And when your daughter gets hospitalized due to her boyfriend and his motorcycle club stomping the crap out of her, that was definitely something that made moms worry.
But she’d been worried before that. She was part of the reason I’d made the deal with Chaos in the first place.
My dad had been a biker. He was a nomad when it came to that kind of thing (or, really, any kind of thing). He accepted being tied down by his woman and his daughter only, not anything else. Not a job. Not a mortgage. Not a membership to a club. He hung with a lot of them, including Chaos (in fact, Hammer, sadly now deceased, but one of the founding members of Chaos, had been my father’s best friend).
But he’d never hung with Bounty.
“Don’t like the feel of them,” I’d heard him mutter years ago. “If you’re an outlaw, own the outlaw. If you’re not, own that. You can’t wanna be a Gypsy Joker. You either are or you aren’t. They wanna be. But they aren’t. That shit just ain’t right and it could get dangerous.”
He’d been right.
It got dangerous.
I should have known.
I should have followed my dad.
Mom and me had done it all our lives, job to job, house to house, city to city.
Why I stopped…
Damn.
I knew why I’d stopped.
I’d wanted Shy, Shy, who reminded me of Dad.
And when I couldn’t have him, I’d gone looking.
I’d wanted what my mom had.
I’d wanted that sweetness. That love.
That devotion.
I’d wanted the stability that just seeped down deep into your bones from all that no matter the job changing, the scenery changing, the amount of times you boxed up a house.
Stability had nothing to do with income and locale.
Stability was all in the heart.
“Rosalie, honeypot, you okay?” Mom called.
“Yeah,” I called back. “Out in a sec.”
“There are some…uh, people here for you,” she told me.
I focused on my battered face in the mirror.
People?
“Who?” I asked.
“Well, uh…”
I didn’t like that she didn’t answer immediately.
I went to the door and opened it.
And there I was, standing before me, just a little older.
Dark hair, but she was letting the thick silver settle in. It looked gorgeous on her.
Hazel eyes that could change to more green or more light brown depending on what color she (or I) wore.
Tallish. We were both five six. We seemed taller because our length was in our legs and we were slender.
We also tanned easily. Laughed easily. But were mostly quiet, sometimes shy but not withdrawn, just not loud and feisty.
“Christ, God loves me,” my dad had said. “Gave me the perfect woman and then gave me her carbon copy so I get double the goodness.”
I remembered him saying that. We were living outside San Francisco then in a little two-bedroom house where we could smell the sea and Mom had a big garden. I remembered how happy he was.
Always happy.
Always right where he wanted to be.
With his girls, his bike close, the world at his feet…or in Dad’s case, his wheels.
I remembered those words he’d said nearly every time I looked at my mom.
And I hoped I never forgot.
“Who’s here?” I asked.
“Kane Allen and his old lady,” she said softly.
Damn.
“And also, um, his lieutenant and his old lady,” she went on.
Damn!
Shy was his lieutenant.
I’d run into Shy and Tabby in a mall not long after he’d dumped me. I was now over him and not just because I had no choice since he was not only married to Tab, they also had a baby, but because I just was.
And now I was even more because I’d figured out I wasn’t over Shy because I’d had Beck.
But because I’d wanted Snapper.
“I don’t want to see them,” I told my mom.
“It’s Hopper Kincaid, not the other one,” she replied quickly.
Well, at least Shy and Tabby didn’t march their way to my mother’s house to do whatever Kane “Tack” Allen and Hop Kincaid were there to do, this after the guy who came next when Shy was done with me got done with me.
“I still don’t want to see them,” I said.
“Honey, they…” She looked down the hall then back to me. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to refuse an audience with Kane Allen.”
She was right.
The Chaos Club had left their outlaw ways behind and was now clean, but that didn’t mean the brothers were men you trifled with. And of all of them, you didn’t trifle with Kane Allen.
It wasn’t just in the physical (though he was physically intimidating). It was that the man was known to be killer smart. If he perceived a slight and wanted to act on it, that could come in so many different ways, none of them pleasant, it wasn’t funny.
“Right,” I muttered to Mom, then, being careful with my body because other parts might be healing, but my ribs still hurt like hell, I rounded her and walked stiffly down the hall, feeling her at my heels.
And there they were. Two fabulously handsome brothers of Chaos—Tack Allen and Hop Kincaid. They were older, sure, but they were still crazy-hot.
They were also, right then, the instant their eyes touched on me, crazy-freaky-scary.
It was not unknown in the Denver biker world that Chaos took the mistreatment of women seriously, as in, they seriously one hundred percent did not like it (one of the reasons why I used to hang at their Compound a lot, where I’d met Shy).
Now I was getting a dose of that in my mom’s living room.
As the keeper of a vagina, I had to admit, it was cool.
That didn’t make it less crazy-freaky-scary.
To avoid the crazy-freaky-scary, I looked to the women with them.
Tack had had Tyra when I was with Shy. She was gorgeous, curvy, and had deep-red, beautiful hair.
The tall, slim, beautiful brunette with Hop was familiar, but for Hop, as far as I knew, she was new.
“Hey,” I greeted.
“How you doin’, darlin’?” Tack asked.
“Healing. Good. Thanks for checking but it wasn’t necessary. Every day it gets better and soon I’ll be back to new,” I answered.
Or new with scars, so a new kind of new.
“That’s good,” he muttered, staring intently at me.
“So, well…” I hesitated because I didn’t want to say what I said next but I’d grown up around clubs, I knew the drill, and respect needed to be shown. “Do you all want something to drink or something?”
“We’re here to share that we’ve got your place sorted out,” Tyra spoke up.
“I…” That threw me. “Sorry?”
“Throttle’s still in the hospital,” Hop’s deep voice sounded and I looked to him. “He’s being released today into police custody.”
I’d heard about my ex-man, this coming from the police who were keeping me informed about my situation. Thus I knew, before the cops got to him, someone had carved into his face with a blade.
My guess, Hound. I’d heard rumors when he went to work he didn’t mess around.
I had mixed feelings about this.
As a human being, I did not condone slicing someone’s face with a knife.
As the woman who’d been strangled and beaten by her boyfriend only to be turned over to all his friends to have a go, it didn’t bother me all that much.
“Doesn’t matter,” Hop went on. “We figure you wouldn’t want to go back there so the boys went and got your shit, moved it into a new pad. It’s Chaos. We’ve had it secured. The women have sorted your things. So you’re good to move in whenever you’re healed up.”
As he finished, Tack walked to me, lifting his hand.
Dumbly, I lifted mine too and he dropped a key ring in it with a number of keys on it.
I stared at the keys in my palm as my mom asked, “How is it secured?”
“Security system,” Tack answered. “Doors, windows, garage. Direct dispatch callout if breached. When you go in, the garage door openers are on the kitchen counter.”
I looked to him then I turned to my mother.
The relief was practically glowing a golden aura around her body.
Damn.
“The system is top of the line and those Bounty boys broke their bond agreements so they won’t be let out prior to their hearing, and now most of them will be standing trial for more than just the runs they were making,” Tack continued. I looked back to him to see his attention directed at Mom. “Still, we’re not takin’ any chances,” his eyes came to me, “so we’ll continue to have a brother on you.”
Okay.
That wasn’t happening.
“That isn’t necessary,” I murmured.
“We’ll agree to disagree on that,” he returned firmly.
That meant: You’re moving into the space we’re offering you and accepting our protection and there will be no discussion on either.
I, however, was feeling a discussion was necessary.
“Mr. Allen—” I started.
“I’m Tack to you, darlin’,” he cut me off, now speaking gently. “Always have been, nothin’s changed that.”
I stared him right in the eye.
“Mr. Allen,” I repeated resolutely, watched his jewel-blue eyes flash and his mouth set tight but I didn’t care, and this time he didn’t interrupt me. “I’m sure you can imagine that I’m keen to move on from all that’s happened and I appreciate your concern. But if you’ll tell me where you took my stuff, Mom and I’ll go get it. I’m not Chaos’s problem anymore.”
“’Fraid at this point that’s not something that’s ever gonna change,” he replied. “Not that you’re a problem, sweetheart. Just that you’re ours and we take care of our own.”
That felt good but I couldn’t let it feel good.
So I didn’t.
“I appreciate your loyalty but what I’m trying to communicate is that I’m out.”
“Rosalie,” Hop said in a quiet tone, “you know, honey, once you’re in there’s never an out.”
I’d hoped for that…once.
I’d hoped to be a part of their family and never let go.
But I didn’t get it.
And now I didn’t want it.
(Okay, so I was just telling myself that but I hoped to get in that mindset in, say, five days to fifteen years.)
“I’ve never been in,” I returned.
“Sweetheart.” It was now Tack who was giving me the quiet. “You’re Chaos and you know it. You know how you are. But I’m guessin’ you know how deep that goes now, am I right?”
“Because I put my neck out for you and nearly got it wrung?” I asked, watching some of the crazy-freaky-scary come back at a reminder of what happened to me.
“There’s that and there’s more, and I ’spect if you don’t know what that more is now, it won’t be long before you find out,” he answered.
That was definitely not going to happen.
I opened my mouth to share that when Tyra stepped forward.
“Kane, why don’t you and Hop step outside?” she suggested.
He turned his head toward his woman. “We’re not steppin’ outside.”
“Okay then.” She gave in immediately, but didn’t give up. “How about you back off?”
“Red—” he began.
“Tack, let me,” she whispered.
He studied her.
Then he backed off.
She came closer to me and the brunette approached with her.
Mom got closer to my side.
When she did, that was when I wanted to cry.
We’d lost Dad three years ago and I, honest to God, to that day, did not know how either of us had survived it.
But I knew there’d come a time, and I prayed it would be far in the future, when I’d face a world without my mother in it and I didn’t know how I’d manage it.
“Hey, Rosalie,” Tyra greeted like she’d just walked in.
“Tyra,” I replied.
She tipped her head toward the brunette. “You remember Lanie?”
Right, yes, I remembered then. Her name was Lanie and she was Tyra’s best friend, now Hop’s old lady.
I checked out the other woman and noted again she was incredibly beautiful and had my body structure, with more length and less breast tissue.
“Yeah, I saw you around the Compound,” I said, then gave her a “Hey.”
“Hi, Rosalie,” she responded on a small smile. “Nice to officially meet you.”
I nodded and gestured to my side. “Did you guys meet my mom?”
“Yes,” Tyra answered. “We introduced ourselves when we came in.”
“Great,” I said, not meaning it, and that sounded in the word.
“I think I need to explain something to you,” she declared.
“I’m not sure you do,” I retorted.
Mom got closer and linked her pinkie with mine.
I held on tight.
Tyra kept talking like I hadn’t.
“They’re feeling this.”
Damn it.
Now I was getting mad.
“They are?” I asked sarcastically.
“They made you a promise and they didn’t keep it,” she pointed out.
“I made my own decisions and I knew the consequences,” I returned.
She kept on her bent.
“They are not men who don’t keep promises.”
I shut up in order to let her finish so this could be done.
“They need to keep that promise now, Rosalie. They need to look out for you,” she shared.
“And what if I don’t want them to look out for me?” I asked.
She gave me an amused smile, a short shake of her head, and replied, “That doesn’t factor.”
I stared at her. “That’s crazy.”
She then gave a slight shrug. “That’s Chaos.”
Okay, I was fed up with this.
“Listen, the police are involved,” I informed her, though I knew she knew. “I’m done with Throttle. Throttle is way done with me. They meted out their brand of justice. I contacted the authorities to mete out mine. I don’t know if there’s anything more to play out but that doesn’t matter for you guys. Chaos has no part in this anymore. When Throttle took me to his brothers, it became about him and them and me.”
“There is no you,” Tyra told me.
That ticked me off.
“Of course there’s a me,” I snapped.
“Not when you belong to Chaos,” she volleyed.
I heard Mom take in a breath.
“I don’t belong to Chaos,” I returned.
“Honey,” she said softly, “even if the brothers, each and every one of them, didn’t claim you because of what you did for the Club and what you endured because they fell down in protecting you, which they do, you’re Snap’s.”
Oh no.
Not on your life.
I started to say something but she lifted her hand and kept going.
“I’m so sorry. This is a lot. So much is happening to you, Rosalie, and I hate that for you. But you can lie to me. You can lie all you want. Just never lie to yourself. You know where that stands better than I do. A brother claims a woman, she’s owned by the Club, and when it’s Chaos, that’s a good thing. Trust me.”
“I am currently, and for the foreseeable future, not property of any member of the male species,” I declared, then, for good measure, decided to add, “Especially not a biker.”
“I’ll leave that part up to Snap,” she muttered.
“Okay, Tyra, listen—” I started angrily.
“Rosalie,” she whispered. “Please, I’m begging you, let us take care of you. We need to take care of you.”
At the sincerity in her tone and the look in her eyes that shared she knew my pain in a lot of ways right then, I went still.
And when I went still, my mom’s pinkie released mine so she could curl all her fingers around all of mine.
“I can understand that right now, you don’t want us, but for us, you’re our family and you’re feeling pain and in a serious situation that was caused by our issues,” Tyra explained. “Think about that. Think about how you’d feel if the role was reversed, if you were me standing in front of a woman who had what happened to you happen to her. How would you feel? What would you need to do?”
“And how, precisely,” I began acidly, “did what happened to me become about you?”
“Because we need to atone and you’re you and you’re the kind of person with the kind of heart who’ll need to allow us to do it.”
Damn it!
I was.
I was that person.
That person Dad taught me to be.
That person Mom taught me to be.
Not to mention I hated it they were feeling this so deeply. They didn’t beat the crap out of me and they couldn’t provide 24/7 protection, I knew that from the beginning. I mean, I was living with Beck, for goodness sakes.
I also hated being snarky.
So I clamped my mouth shut.
Mom giggled just a little.
I turned a glare toward her and saw instantly she wanted Chaos to take care of me really, really badly.
Damn it!
Lanie took a step forward, digging in the slick clutch she’d had tucked under her arm, a slick clutch that went with her slick outfit of tailored trousers, fabulous feminine blouse, and magnificent heels that did not say “Biker Old Lady” but instead said, “Givenchy Thinks This Chick Is The Shit.”
She pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to me.
It was thick, almost like cardstock, and had a cool logo of an advertising agency on the top with the name Elaine Kincaid, CEO under it with something written below.
I’d missed that news.
She wasn’t just Hop’s old lady, they’d gotten hitched.
“That’s the address for your new place. It’s close to Colombo’s and close to your mom. Actually, a lot closer than your old place,” she said.
I stared down at the address and saw she told no lies. It was probably a ten-minute ride from Mom’s place and the same from Colombo’s.
Last, it was the same from Ride, the auto supply store and custom car and bike garage that Chaos owned where their Compound was also located.
In other words, it was smack in what certain citizens of Denver knew with zero doubts was Chaos territory, owned, controlled, and patrolled by the brothers.
I’d lived in Aurora, a suburb southeast of Denver, with Beck.
In terms of club turf, that address was like I was moving to a different country.
Well, at least I could shave off forty minutes from my work commute.
“My number is also on that, as is Tyra’s,” Lanie shared. “If you like, we’d love to show you and Renae,” she gestured with a hand to Mom, “your new space.” She gave me a grin. “It’s really cute.”
“And who do I pay rent to?” I asked pointedly.
Tack rejoined the conversation by growling, “That’s covered.”
“Kane,” Tyra said under her breath.
Okay, this I couldn’t give in on. I paid my own way.
“Absolutely unacceptable,” I said on top of mine.
“For a few months,” Lanie cut in. “Just a few months. After you settle in, get healed up, we’ll talk about rent.”
“How do I know it’ll be something I can afford?” I asked.
“It’ll be something you can afford,” Hop answered.
“Hop,” Lanie said sharply.
“We’ll hammer all that out when the time comes,” Tyra put in.
“This is wonderful, thank you,” Mom said.
And that, as was Mom’s way, was that.
My voice was a lot like hers (in times not like this one, but Mom’s never wavered), delicate and melodious. Soothing. Peaceful. I could probably count on one hand how often she’d raised her voice that I remembered. Even in heavy situations, when folks were upset or angry, if Mom waded in, her calm, the tranquility of her voice, assured and settled pretty much any situation.
And right then it said she appreciated what they were doing for her daughter, but she and I were both done with this conversation.
I’d had years of Mom being able to pull that kind of thing off.
I was still surprised to see it work on Tack Allen and Hopper Kincaid.
“Appreciate you ladies givin’ us time,” Tack murmured. “And good to see you’re healin’, sweetheart,” he said to me.
“We’ll just head out,” Hop added, making a move with Tack.
“Call us when you go to your new place,” Lanie urged. “Or…you have the keys, if you go, give us a bell and tell us what you think.”
“Right, thanks,” I replied.
“And if you need anything…” Tyra let that trail.
I just nodded to her and gave her a tight smile.
“Thank you for coming,” Mom said, making her own move to the door.
I stayed where I stood.
“See you later,” Lanie said to me.
“Mm-hmm,” I hummed noncommittally.
“’Bye, Rosalie,” Tyra said.
I nodded to her again.
Tack and Hop gave me looks and jerked up their chins.
A week ago I would have found that hot.
Now I thought…
Men.
Mom murmured good-byes and thank yous and see you laters and I stood watching her as she ushered them out and closed the door on them.
Only when the door was closed did I walk through the room to the front window.
I looked out, intent to watch them drive away.
But what I saw made me suck in breath.
Snap was out there.
Now talking in a close-huddle, heads-bent way with Tack and Hop while Lanie and Tyra drifted toward the truck and SUV in our driveway, Snap’s bike at the curb.
He was out there.
Shy was tall, dark and lanky.
Beck was tall, dark and stocky.
Snap was blond, shorter than both Shy and Beck, (taller than me), with an athletic build that was both powerful and lean. He had thick eyebrows darker than his hair and a blond beard that was dark under his jaws, light everywhere else, clipped short and groomed, mostly, but long at the chin.
His hair came down to his shoulders and he almost always wore it in a messy bun at the back, but if he kept it down, he slicked it back with something so it stayed out of his face.
He had amazing cheekbones, a beautiful lower lip, and gorgeous, strong white teeth that shone bright against skin that was always tan due to his ride being a bike.
All that was fantastic.
But for me with Snap it was the eyes.
His eyes reminded me of a husky dog’s eyes. If you looked closely enough (and until recently I hadn’t allowed myself to pay attention to the fact that I did…a lot), they weren’t the light blue that they seemed to be at a glance.
Most of the iris was almost like snow and the blue cast they had came from a rim of sky at the edge of the iris and the edge of the pupil, both that bled into the white.
I’d never seen eyes like Snapper’s.
You would think that snow would put you in a deep freeze but he’d never, not once, not even for an instant, given me anything cold.
He was all warm for me.
It was a hair down day for Everett “Snapper” Kavanaugh, slicked back, whatever he used making the light blond seem darker.
It was also an intent day, I could tell by the serious look on his face while he was listening to Tack speak.
He wasn’t going to invade my space because I’d kicked him out of my hospital room (God, that was so Snapper).
But he wasn’t waiting even for a phone call to learn how I was. He was getting a briefing on me. Everything. From how I looked to how I held myself to how I behaved to how I reacted to what they’d offered me (or, more accurately, what I’d been forced to accept).
You’re gonna be in my life and I’m gonna be in yours. Bank on it.
“Is that him?” Mom whispered from beside me, standing so close our arms brushed.
She knew everything. Everything about everything. Around the time I turned seventeen, she started the long process of morphing from just my mom, to my mom and sometimes friend, to my friend and sometimes mom, to my best friend who was also the precious being who had birthed me.
“That’s him,” I whispered back.
He nodded and I knew by the movements of his body he was going to disconnect, so I quickly moved out of the window, doing it watching and seeing his head turning my way.
Standing out of sight, thus losing sight of Snapper before he caught sight of me, I watched my mother wave at him.
“Mom!” I hissed.
“He’s really cute,” she said.
He was. He was really cute in a hot-guy, badass biker kind of way. Take off the leather cut, trim his hair, shave his beard, and he’d be the boy next door.
The boy next door you were itching to get in your bed and would sell your soul to earn the honor of having his ring on your finger.
To escape what was happening at the window, I turned so my shoulders were against the wall and looked down at the paper in my hand.
Elaine Kincaid, CEO of an advertising agency.
Hop had married a business lady.
Surprising and interesting.
And cool.
I stared at the address under it, focusing on it rather than the fact that Snap was right outside.
Suddenly, my eyes narrowed on it.
As they did, I recollected a conversation I’d had with Snap, one of many I shouldn’t have had when he was just supposed to be my contact with Chaos, sharing with him what I’d heard Beck say his brothers were up to when it came to antisocial activities, not to mention I was living with another guy.
How many properties? I’d asked, aghast at the intel about himself he’d shared over the course of our by then hour-long phone conversation.
Five, no…six. But, babe, it isn’t a big deal. All the brothers get a cut of Ride and both the store and garage do a huge turnover. It is what it is but the way I live my life, what am I gonna do with that kind of money? he’d answered.
I could think of a lot of things to do with that kind of money, I’d told him.
Yeah, well, I’m not big on shoes, he’d replied. So I buy houses.
I’d laughed.
I had to admit, I liked shoes.
What I didn’t admit was that I liked that Snapper had noticed.
He’d listened to me laughing for a while before he’d said, I can’t just sit on it. I got it, gotta make it work for me.
So I guess you buy six properties and let it work, I’d teased.
Yeah, he’d said with a smile in his voice. Comes time, I’ll be good. My woman will be good. Our kids wanna go to some expensive college, they’ll be good. They want big weddings, that’ll be good. We wanna take crazy huge family vacations, that’ll be good. Or if a shit storm hits, we’ll be covered.
I didn’t remember my reply to that, just that I’d turned the topic of conversation.
But I remembered how what he’d said made me feel.
I stared at the address on the paper.
Tack had said the place they’d put me in was Chaos.
But I knew it wasn’t just Chaos, as such.
It was Snapper.
He had six rental properties, a couple were condos, the rest small homes.
This was his.
He was giving this to me.
He probably had someone evicted so he could give it to me.
I drew in breath as I heard a motorcycle roar to life.
“Rosalie?” Mom called.
I shifted just enough I could see out the window and watched Hop pull out with Lanie at his side in his truck. Tack and Tyra in their huge SUV were already out and driving away.
I shifted more and saw the curb was empty but I knew that already, the sound of Snap’s pipes were fading.
“Honey,” Mom murmured and I looked to her. “You okay?”
“This,” I waved the note in the air, “is Snap’s.”
“Sorry?” she asked.
“This place they moved me into without my permission or agreement or even really acceptance. Snapper owns it.”
“Oh,” she murmured, her eyes drifting reverently to the paper.
Yep.
Reverently.
She’d always liked Chaos too. She used to party with them with Dad back in the day before I came along.
The thing I was worried about was that she’d start to get to like Snapper, especially before she’d even met him.
This could happen. He was just that likable. An all-around good guy. Easy on the eyes. Easy to talk to. Easy to be with. Sweet, smart, thoughtful.
It was my turn to call her attention to me.
“Mom.”
She looked right into my eyes.
“Please, Rosalie, let them take care of you.”
I closed my eyes.
I opened them.
“You did the right thing with Beck and his club,” she said when I did. “I’m proud of you. Your father would have been proud of you, though he wouldn’t have let you do it.”
That made my lips quirk.
Then again, Dad would have been on me about being with Beck at all. He’d let me make my own decisions, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have something to say about it.
“He still would have been glad you considered it,” she carried on. “It went bad. He’s not here to keep you safe and I—”
“Mom—”
“But they can,” she finished determinedly. “I’m here to listen, you want to talk. I’m here to hold on to, you want to let it out. I’m here to get angry right along with you, you want to rail and scream. Whatever you need from me, I’m here. But I can’t give you that. I can’t keep you safe. You can’t keep you safe. But they can and…” she swallowed then pushed it out, “Bounty is not done with you.”
I drew breath in through my nose, ticked my mom was worried, ticked at Beck, ticked at myself, but she was and there was nothing I could do about it so I nodded.
“We’ll go look at it soon, okay?” I offered.
“We should ask Tyra and Lanie to meet us,” she suggested.
I shook my head. “I don’t think getting deeper into that crew is a good idea.”
To that she stated, “He’s handsome.”
She was talking about Snap.
“Yeah, he is, but—”
“He’s yours.”
I shut my mouth.
Mom didn’t.
“Standing outside in the cold, waiting for word about you, putting you in his place so he knows you’re safe, he’s yours like Beck never was, like that other one never was. He’s yours. He’s yours to break or he’s yours to hold safe.”
“Chaos men are unbreakable,” I informed her.
“If your father lived to see his daughter in that hospital bed like I saw her, he’d have shattered,” she retorted.
And that’s when the tears started to sting my eyes.
“Men are breakable, Rosalie,” she said in her calm, serene voice. “They just hide the cracks better than we women do.”
“I thought he was going to kill me,” I whispered.
She stood solid and held my gaze, hers suddenly bright like mine was, filled with wet, knowing I was now talking about Beck.
“He’d kissed that neck he’d nearly squeezed the life from so many times, I couldn’t count them,” I told her.
My mom stood there and kept hold of me, warm and safe, using nothing but her gaze.
“Do you think I want to jump into another situation with another biker?” I asked.
“Your father was a biker,” she reminded me.
“My father was one of a kind,” I reminded her.
“He died and you went searching,” she stated.
This, I couldn’t handle. I knew it. I understood it. I was coming to terms with the mistakes I’d made.
But hearing it come from my mother’s lips, I couldn’t deal with it.
So I looked out the window at our dead winter lawn, our empty driveway, the curb bare.
“You found that Chaos boy, the first one, as a replacement,” she said, careful, gentle, sweet.
I swallowed.
She was right.
Dad had died.
I’d been lost.
Then I found Shy.
“He wouldn’t keep you, you went reeling,” she kept on.
I saw nothing but clear, hot waves rippling before my eyes.
“Then you latched on to the next thing that reminded you of what you lost,” she said.
I’d done that for sure.
My voice was trembling when I replied, “I messed up.”
“You were grieving.”
I turned to her, shaking my head fiercely to shake the tears from my eyes, and repeated, “I messed up.”
“Okay, that wasn’t what I was trying to get through to you, I was simply trying to guide your way to understanding the path you’ve been on. But if you have to look at it that way, sure, okay, you messed up,” she agreed half-heartedly. “Though it burns me that any woman takes responsibility for the callous brutality a man can inflict, that burn runs deeper I hear that come from my own daughter’s mouth, but for now, I’ll let that be and just say, my beautiful girl, don’t mess up again.”
“Life is not about finding a man,” I told her.
“Life is about finding happy,” she told me. “So don’t,” she jerked her head to the window, “mess up.”
“They all went at me, Mom.” Now I was talking about Bounty.
She’d pulled it together.
With that, it killed, but the water hit her eyes and she couldn’t contain it.
It started leaking down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t lay that on you. Not you.”
“Rosalie, honeypot,” she began, lifting her hands to brush away the tears, “pray to God you learn, and when you do, trust me, you’ll learn that as difficult as it is to take, as heavy as any burden might be, when a woman becomes a mother, she can bear anything for her child. So lay it on me.”
“I’m scared,” I told her.
“Of course,” she told me.
“I can’t think of another guy right now,” I shared.
“That’s understandable,” she replied.
“I just have to get through today.”
“Then we’ll get you through it.”
“I loved him before,” I whispered the admission. “Before what happened happened to me.”
“What?” she whispered back.
“I wanted to make Beck into Snap.”
“Oh, Rosie,” she breathed, finally coming toward me, and if I wasn’t wrong, there was a grin playing at her lips.
“Mom, it was stupid,” I said as she lifted both hands and held my jaw carefully.
She tipped her head toward me, eye to identical eye.
“I just need to get through today,” I restated.
“How can I help with that?” she asked.
“Do you have Tillamook salted butterscotch ice cream?”
“Is my little girl in the vicinity?”
My grin was shaky and my nod in her hands was jerky.
“Spoons and the container and a marathon of Jason Bourne?” she proposed.
My grin got less shaky and my nod was far more definite.
“You’re on TV duty, I’ll get the ice cream,” she decreed.
She then came in, brushing her cheek against mine before she let me go and moved toward the kitchen.
“Mom?” I called.
She turned to me.
“I’m sorry you have to go through this with me,” I said.
“Something else you’ll learn, I pray, my beauty, is the good, the bad, the ugly, a mother is never sorry. Their baby needs them, there’s no other place they would be.”
Yes, oh yes.
I’d never manage without her.
“I love you,” I told her.
“And there it is,” she replied simply.
Then she went to get the ice cream.
I watched her go, knowing she was right.
There it was.
That was us. Our family. Our life.
We’d never had a mortgage (Mom still rented). We’d never had roots.
But we’d had each other.
And love.
And that was all that was needed.
So life sucked right then, it was uncertain and scary, both of those things in the extreme.
But I had my mom.
And that was all that was needed.
On that thought, I moved to the TV.