The thing about dreams? They never seem to work out like you want them to. I’m in the middle of Mountain Bridal, with my best girls around me (save Carrie, who will be back this weekend) and I’m miserable. I’m miserable because Dani has retreated back into the woman who begged me for help all those years ago. I’m miserable because I tried to spy on my future-husband. I’m miserable because in a round-about way I lied to him. Most of all, I’m completely miserable, because there is this wall between Dragon and I now. A wall I put there. A wall I need to break down and smash into a hundred thousand different pieces.

I can’t, not until I can draw Dani out of this place she’s withdrawn to. I can’t even touch it right now though, there are too many around us. Trying will only bring disaster, because Nikki and Lips will hear. If I tell anyone what is going on, it will be Dragon. I just wish I had already done it.

“I still think you should let the boys wear leather. It could be cool. Kind of a ‘Grease’ wedding with them in their leather and us wearing pink.” I look at Lips for like the twelfth time.

“My wedding is not going to be an Olivia-Newton-John musical. Not to mention, Dragon is a million times fucking cooler than John Travolta.”

“True dat,” Nikki chimes in. “Besides, it took me way too fucking long to convince Freak to wear a suit.”

“How did you convince him?” Dani asks. She’s sitting alone, holding herself away from us. It’s a bad sign. One that means I have a very limited time frame in which to talk with her. All the girls except Nikki, who is on a round like pedestal at the moment, have been fitted. There’s a lady going around putting pins in Nikki’s dress, while we watch. I’m so ready for this fitting to be over. I would never admit it to Dragon, but I’m starting to regret demanding a big wedding. I don’t even know why I did. I just wanted something big to mark my marriage to him. It might be a fucked up fairytale, but it was my fairytale, and I wanted it to be celebrated. I was stupid. I should have dragged Dragon’s ass to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, found a chapel, married him, and been done with it. Every day that we get closer to our wedding my panic increases. I have this fear that I will never get my happily ever after.

“I threatened to tell the world what his real name was,” Nikki says, bringing my head back around to the conversation.

“I figured it was blow jobs, that’s how I did it with Dragon.”

The woman pinning Nikki’s dress looks up and blushes, then buries her face in the pink satin. I look over at Dani, she half-way smiles. It’s something.

“Oh, that probably didn’t hurt,” Nikki agrees. “Well that, and the private party we had with Crush.”

“Fuck me! You little hooker!” Lips responds.

Nikki flips her off. “Like you haven’t taken a ride on the Crush train.”

“Not in a long time. Six is not a sharer.”

“Sucks for you,” Nikki pipes up.

“Not so much. Six knows how to work it. Can’t deny it though, Crush did some magic shit.”

“Girl, you don’t lie.”

I’m looking over at Dani and notice the conversation has grabbed her attention. It surprises me to see the distaste on her face. I know for a fact that since Dani has broken away from Michael, she has no problem having threesomes, or what-the-heck-ever else. I don’t understand it exactly; it doesn’t jive with the young Dani I met. Still, it’s further proof that the Dani that survived Michael is not the Dani that I once knew. He took everything from her, most notably her innocence.

I notice the girl that is pinning Nikki’s dress is blushing like crazy. The boys of the Savage MC would eat her alive, it would probably be the best thing that could happen to her. Maybe I should introduce her to Frog? That boy needs a new name. I don’t understand most of the names the boys have. Dragon, of course, but the others leave me shaking my head. He told me once that Dancer got his name because he used to be a big street boxer. I shudder to think how Frog got his.

“I need a drink,” Dani speaks up, rising from the chair, in the corner, she’s been brooding in.

“Sounds good girl, but if I don’t get back, Six will send out a search party.”

“Freak too,” Nikki adds, “we’re supposed to go to Tennessee today to pick up some shit that the boys ordered.”

“I’m out of here,” Dani says already heading to the door.

“I think I’ll join Dani. Lips, can you have Crusher come back and pick us up?”

“Yeah, where’d he go?” she asks.

“He said something about all the dresses and pink was making his cock fall off,” Nikki says.

“Can’t have that.”

“Girl, you ain’t lying,” I hear Nikki agree before I run to catch up with Dani, who just went out the door.

“Hold up, Dani!” I grumble.

She stops on the sidewalk and turns to look at me. “Dragon will flip if you don’t show up with the other women.”

“We need to talk.”

“I’m getting a drink.”

“Then we’ll talk over drinks.”

Dani gives me the what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about look and motions at my stomach.

I roll my eyes.

“I’ll have chocolate milk.”

Dani looks up at the sky. “This is what my life has come to. We’ll go to Weavers, I doubt the Den or Pussy’s even has chocolate milk.”

I grin. “Hey girls, tell Crush to pick us up at Weavers,” I yell back through the door of the shop, then reclose it, and wrap my hand around Dani’s. We walk down the street and, if the shadow of Michael wasn’t over us, I would love every minute of it.

“You okay?”

“Not really,” Dani responds, honestly.

I don’t say anything. What could I say? I totally relate. We walk the rest of the way in silence. When we make it to Weaver’s, we take a seat at one of the tables outside. A waitress comes and takes our orders. I order a foot-long hot dog and a large chocolate milk. This is what baby Dragon has reduced me to. I smile. It’s awesome.

Dani orders a diet soda. It drives me crazy. The woman is like a size four, maybe smaller by this time, because she keeps losing weight. If I was as skinny as her ass, I’d live on nothing but doughnuts and chocolate.

We’re quiet. Dani is running her finger over the Styrofoam cup of her drink, deep in thought. I’m afraid to get into it. The waitress brings my hotdog, and I smile at her. When she leaves, I decide to dig in—in all ways.

I grab the hotdog, ignoring the way the chili drops on my hands as I take a bite. I put it down, wiping my hands off while I chew.

“No more notes?”

“No.”

Well this conversation is going nowhere fast.

“We need to tell Dragon.”

“No. We. Do. Not.”

“Yes, we do. He needs to know there could be trouble on his doorstep soon. He can’t protect us, if he doesn’t know.”

“He can’t protect us anyway,” Dani argues.

“Yes, he can.”

“No, he can’t.”

“Damn it, Dani. Dragon needs to be prepared. There’s too much to lose.”

“I know that, Nic. Don’t you think I know that? Fuck. Don’t you get that I live daily with all the losses I’ve had since I met Michael Kavanagh?”

“Dani…I don’t mean…”

“I know what you mean, Nic. Fuck, I know what I’ve cost you. I do. I wake up with nightmares about it. That’s why I want to leave now. To protect you and little Dragon. Fuck, even to protect Dragon. I don’t want any of you to get hurt. Michael is my problem. You guys didn’t choose this.”

“You didn’t exactly choose it either, Dani,” I defend, because she didn’t. Even the fucked up choices that she’s made, I couldn’t say I wouldn’t have made the exact same ones. Hell, maybe even worse ones.

“I made the choice to bring you into them. I shouldn’t have.”

“Fuck that. You couldn’t do it on your own.”

“I could have, I was weak. I should have fought to keep you safe.”

“Afternoon, ladies.”

My head jerks around to see an older man standing by our table. He’s stocky, not overweight really, it’s more like muscles that have been neglected over the years. His hair is gray. Something about him sends off warning bells.

“Not interested, buddy. Move along,” Dani says. Perhaps she doesn’t get the same vibe from him, I’m not sure. She barely glances at him.

“Really, Mrs. Kavanagh, I assumed you would be most interested in what I have to say.”

My heart stops. My eyes lock onto Dani’s. I watch as the color slowly drains from her face.

“Sorry, you have the wrong person,” I say, reaching under the table to put my hand on Dani’s leg. Her hand meets mine under the table and grips it tight.

“Oh, I don’t believe I do at all, Ms. Wentworth.”

“That’s Mrs. West.”

“That’s not quite true. At least…not yet.”

“Who the hell are you?” I tear my eyes away from Dani and look at the stranger. He’s too damn smug and condescending to suit me.

“That’s neither here nor there right now. I have a message for you, Melinda. It’s from your husband.”

“I…I don’t….”

“Save it, we both know that you would be lying. Mr. Kavanagh will be in town next week. He will expect you at this address on the day and time listed. Do not disappoint him,” he says putting a piece of paper on the table.

Dani looks at it and then back up at the stranger. Slowly, her back stiffens and the fear that had been dogging her since she got the reminder of her past life disappears. She meets his eyes; her face is cold and not an ounce of the fear she is truly feeling shows. Her hands cross under her breasts and she gives off the badass vibe that she has adopted since she first ran to me years ago.

“You can tell Mr. Kavanagh to go fuck himself—preferably with a sawed-off shotgun and the safety in the off position.”

The man looks at her, you can see the disdain in his eyes, and the way he regards her. I want to strike out at him, but I don’t. Doing so will only make a bad situation worse.

“I can see hiding in the hills with a bunch of uneducated Neanderthals has had an unfortunate effect on you, Mrs. Kavanagh. A shame but, hopefully, not an irrevocable change.”

“Being around real people has had a fucking great effect on me, douche bag. Why don’t you get the fuck out of here so I can enjoy my dinner? I got to tell you, your stink is starting to affect my appetite.”

“Really, Mrs. Kavanagh, I do hope you remember who you are before you meet with your husband.”

Dani flips him off with both fingers and the man’s face colors as the other customers take notice because, well, Dani is not being quiet.

“I would suggest you remember your station before coming to your husband.”

“I would suggest you go to hell.”

“Do not make Mr. Kavanagh come and get you. Rest assured your punishment will be much worse if you do. You have brought enough disgrace upon the Kavanagh name.”

Dani and I remain quiet as we watch the asshole walk off. I hear Dani let out a breath and move my head to watch her. It’s then I see the tell-tale trembling in her hands and the over-bright sheen in her eyes.

“I’m going to have to leave, Nic.”

I nod. She can’t stay—not now.

“I know. I’ll help you relocate and we’ll…”

“No.”

“Dani, I can…”

“You can’t be part of it. I will not be responsible for you getting hurt anymore.”

“Dani, we’ve been over this.”

“We have, so you should understand. It’s time I stand on my own two feet.”

“We need to talk about….”

“No, at least not right now. Here come’s Crusher. Let’s just let it go for now. You get back to Dragon.”

“What about you? Where are you going?”

“Think I’ll head down to the Den and find someone to scratch an itch,” she says, and I’m probably the only person who can tell that the smile doesn’t reach her eyes—not even a little bit.

“If you want company tonight Hell Cat, I’m free.”

Dani leans back, her lips going into a full kiss-my-ass-kind-of-smirk.

“Hell Cat?”

“It seems to fit,” he shrugs.

Dani shakes her head and gets up from the table.

“I don’t think so, stud.”

“Baby, I could scratch your itch so well you’d purr for days.”

“From what I hear, your scratcher has been around so much, it’s liable to cause an itch a girl needs medicine for.”

“Didn’t realize I was dealing with Queen Elizabeth.”

She stops, turns around, and looks at him. I can’t stop from watching them. In some ways, they remind me of the way Dragon and I are with each other.

“What the hell are you talking about, Crusher?” she asks.

“The virgin queen?”

She shakes her head, “Long way from a virgin baby, I just don’t happen to want Nikki and Lips’ sloppy seconds.”

“I could make sure you liked it.”

“Bigger men than you have tried and failed—and I do mean bigger,” Dani says before turning around and walking away from us.

“See? Pussy with claws. Hell Cat,” Crusher yells back and Dani flips him off, not bothering to turn around. If I wasn’t so worried about her, I would have laughed.