Cade rode down a hill, cutting through the forest as low branches dotted her back. Holding him tighter, closer, Dawn feared that they might be heading into a blackness from which there was no hope of ever returning. She nearly whispered her worries into his ear when he suddenly turned the bike sharply away from their current path. Dawn gasped as the entire world seemed to open up in front of them, but the bike hit a bump in the road and threatened to send them crashing to certain death.
“Cade, what’s happening?” she cried.
“Keep holding on to me!” he ordered. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Longing to believe him, Dawn closed her eyes tightly. As the bike tottered and started to spin, she pictured them resting under a cloudless sky or walking hand-in-hand on a sun dappled beach. Just the two of them, contented and alone and so far away from any kind of harm. In her mind’s eye, Cade smiled and swept her into her arms. His kiss was light against her cheek and like fire around her mouth before they fell as one and consumed each other’s flesh with desperate hands and longing tongues. Dawn hung on to that hope, holding fast to something that might never come to pass when she heard Cade curse under his breath. Daring to lift her lids, Dawn saw their bodies and the bike perilously close to the edge of a cliff. A scream brewing in her chest clawed its way up her throat, and the sharp sound hit the air when Cade grunted for her to just keep still.
“But, Cade, I—”
“I’ve got you, Dawn!”
He backed up his promise by turning away from the edge of everything and leaning back into the open road. Dawn’s eyes slammed shut again; she prayed for Cade to work his magic fingers and bring them back to safety, and her pleas for salvation became his name trickling off her tongue over and over again until the bike started to slow. Was Cade the answer to a prayer? Or had they crashed without her knowing, and was this what it felt like to pass over to the other side of things?
“Sorry about that.”
Cade’s voice was ragged and tinged with guilt, and Dawn felt his body leave the bike as he pulled her closer to his chest. Looking into his eyes as she touched his face, Dawn quickly understood that he was real, that they were living and breathing in what was still a strange new world.
“What… what happened?” she asked. “I thought you knew where you were going? What you were doing.”
“I do, Dawn,” he said. “I just wanted to get there quicker.”
“A shortcut?” she said. “Are you out of your mind?”
“You gonna hit me again for wanting this over and done with so I can just get back to you?”
Dawn had no choice but to blush at his reasoning, but that didn’t mean he was playing with a full deck if his moves nearly got them killed.
“Then why take the chance?” she demanded. “Were you trying to impress me or something?”
Cade growled, but Dawn didn’t flinch as he peered hard into her eyes.
“No,” he said. “Can see that it wouldn’t have worked anyway.”
“Then what the hell just happened back there, Cade?”
“I’ll show you.”
Dawn tried to dig her heels in as he dragged her back to the thicket. What would he say? Point out a ridge in the road that he had leapt over more times than he could count and sheepishly say that he wanted to impress her by how high he was able to hit the air before coming out the other side with every bone intact?
“Take a look, Dawn.”
“I don’t care what you try to—”
“Just look!”
His hands pressed into her shoulders, and Dawn peered down to see a steel bar carefully positioned between two stones. The item had no business being there unless the roots of trees had suddenly turned to metal and poked through the dirt in perfectly straight lines. Falling to her bended knee, Dawn touched the impossible barrier, and she offered no resistance as Cade knelt at her side.
“My shortcut,” he said. “Had a run in with some of the Panthers here once before. Guess they figured that I might come back the same way, and—”
“And they left this for you,” she said. “Total trap.”
“Looks like, Dawn.”
Hating herself for doubting him, Dawn slowly looked over her shoulder and tenderly tugged on his golden hair.
“So I jumped the gun,” she stated flatly.
“I kind of like that about you,” he said. “You think with your heart. But, Dawn…” He brought her back to her feet and kissed her cheeks before running his fingers down his arms and grabbing her hands. “I would never have made the move if I thought that anything might have happened to you.”
“I… I believe you, Cade. In you.”
She folded him into her arms and savored the feel of his warm breath passing through her hair. Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced towards the edge of the perilous cliff, and she shuddered at the thought of what might have been when Cade cradled her chin in his hand and smiled. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “Just keep trusting me.”
Nodding into his arm, they walked back to his bike, and he appeared ready to mount again when he seemed to think better of the course of action and simply wrapped his fingers around the handlebars.
“Not far now,” he said. “Might even make more sense to keep the motor quiet. Wouldn’t want to give our position away.”
“And how do you turn into the curves when you aren’t riding the thing hard?” Dawn asked.
“You’d be surprised what my legs alone can make happen,” he responded.
“Think I’ve already got some idea.”
Walking silently at his side as they weaved down a soft patch of hill, Dawn pictured him younger, shorter. Darting through the trees until he came across the shortcut, in search of nothing but the way home.
“This… has this really been your whole life?” she asked.
“For as long as I can remember,” he admitted. “Harold Whitaker took me in when my folks passed.”
“And how did that happen?” she asked, sad to even have to form the words.
He clammed up, as his jaw clenched, and she decided to let the matter drop, as she rubbed her fingers down his arm and shot him a small, soft smile.
“But you figured a way back that no one else knew about,” she continued.
“Guess I thought as much,” he said. “All spoiled now.”
He looked tragic as he made the admission, as if something precious had been snatched from his grasp without his even knowing how it happened. Bringing the bike to a halt, he fixed his eyes on the ground, his heavy sigh working its way around his shoulders.
“Dawn… they…”
Cade rested his bike against a strong tree, and he took his head in his hands as he spoke into the space between his fingers.
“Think you want to tell me what came before the shortcut?” she asked.
His head swooped back, and Dawn watched his face soften as he smiled around a memory that she could hardly see yet still envision.
“I… I didn’t just choose to be an Alpha, Dawn,” he started. “I was born into the fold. Not long after Nicole.”
“So that’s why you think of her as a sister.”
Cade nodded without words, and Dawn waited for him to finish or rather start his thought when he clutched her hand and breathed between his lips.
“Maybe… maybe if my mother had lived she would have pushed us closer together,” he confessed. “Sealing the Alpha line in place for the next generation. But all I can do is carry the mantle and try to do her proud.”
“Which you do,” Dawn said. “I… saw you with Nicole. Never should have thought that it was anything dirty.”
He laughed darkly as he looked into her eyes and shook his head.
“Everything is dirty when you bury your parents.”
“Oh, Cade…”
Dawn started to fall into his arms when he held her back, baring his teeth as he pierced her stare.
“They were true,” he said. “And they believed that there could be peace between the crews. My dad… Harold said that it was a sure thing. My mom followed him into the night. Always sort of wondered why they both kissed me before they left.”
A single tear started to trickle down his cheek, and Dawn folded him into her arms as he rested his head to her shoulder. She felt no desire to hit him now; he already seemed so beaten down.
“Cade?”
He sighed and tried to push away from her. But Dawn caught his chin in her hand and made him look into her eyes.
“It wasn’t the Panthers,” he said. “Whole crew would be smoked by now if that was the way it went down.”
Dawn relaxed slightly in his arms, but her ears still pricked to attention as her lips started to form the consummate question.
“Then… then who, Cade?”
“Don’t really know,” he said. “Panthers still came along after that, and we had to go underground. But someday I’ll make it right.”
“We… we will, Cade.”
She kissed his brow and just held him as a breeze raced up their joined backs. Dawn started to shiver, but Cade’s arms made her feel warm even as she knew that they couldn’t just stay like this. They pulled apart slowly, and Cade touched his warm finger to her nose with a small smile.
“And nothing or no one is going to hurt you,” he said. “I’ll lose you first.”
“Cade, don’t talk like—”
“We can always find each other later,” he promised. “But you have to stay safe.”
His eyes wouldn’t let her object, and even as she silently vowed to keep close at all costs, Dawn bowed her head and curled her chin closer to his lips.
“Then keep… keep me that way,” Dawn said. “Don’t make me hit you again.”
“I like that, Dawn,” he said as the light returned to his eyes. “No other girl ever touched me like that.”
“So there were other girls?” she asked, struggling through the sadness still permeating the air to keep things light and sweet.
“Did I feel like I’d never done it before?”
His smirk and the promise behind it caused her to hold his neck.
“You have your moves down,” she muttered. “I’m living proof of that.”
Cade just kissed her hair, as he lifted her head to look at his face. She felt flushed and knew that she was sweating as he worked his fingers down her cheeks, and when he stopped to stare into her eyes, Dawn held her breath and waited for his words.
“Let’s keep it that way,” Cade said. “But it is nice having you near.”
His fingers curled around the handlebars before he looked back to meet he eyes.
“We’re doing this,” he said. “No turning back now. I’ll make you sorry if you renege.”
“Another big word,” she said.
“I have a good teacher,” Cade said. “Do I sound smart?”
“Yes,” Dawn said. “But you taste even better.”
She gave him a quick kiss and smiled around his tongue when Cade was the one to pull back and tousle her hair.
“Taste sweet and sure,” he said. “Could still hide you away for later.”
“I won’t wait, Cade. And I should be with you.”
“No objections here.”
As they kept moving, it was clear that Cade’s eyes, his feet, had committed every other crook in the road to memory, and Dawn felt a fresh wave of guilt for calling him out for showmanship that was so far from the fact. But the woods behind them were dark and deep. It seemed certain that Cade would probably want to take her back saying that she needed some proper rest. However, if he had to keep returning to the fold, Dawn wanted to go along for the ride. And to that end…
“We’ll find another shortcut, Cade,” she promised him. “One that no one will take away from us.
Cade brought his bike to a stop, and he smiled sweetly as he pushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes.
“Sounds like a plan to me,” he said. “I’ll look forward to that.”
The ground suddenly grew flat against their feet. As soon as the way felt easier, Dawn lightly touched her fingers to his hand still curled around his bike. Their eyes locked in a warm smile, and they stayed in each other’s gaze as they kept moving forward.
“And you always have to come back, Cade. Right?”
“It’s what family does, Dawn,” he said. “You got one of your own.”
“Sort of,” she said. “I guess. They don’t… they’re not exactly on board with the whole journalist thing.”
“Because they worry about you,” Cade said. “And maybe they should.”
“That’s sweet,” Dawn said. “But I think they’re just after grandchildren.”
And even if they saw her here, marching willingly into the lion’s den, she knew with total certainty that their first thought would have nothing to do with her safety. Not that that wouldn’t come with the second or third go around. But at the end of the day, her father wanted someone to carry on the family line, and her mother longed for a fresh little one to pet and protect. Maybe it wasn’t her fault; maybe it was natural to want a child to stay small, to be doted on and pampered non-stop. She would have done better with cats and dogs because children had to grow taller, and they were supposed to blossom into their own skin.
In her parents’ minds, Dawn always wore the wrong coat, and if they could see her now, walking into a dark place with an outlaw biker at her side, no doubt they would turn their backs for good, barely giving her a passing thought.
“You want kids, Dawn?”
Stunned from her reverie by the sound of his voice, Dawn met his earnest gaze and shrugged her shoulders.
“Someday,” she started. “I mean I… I mean, I guess. But not just because an invisible clock is winding down. It would have to be the right moment with the right guy.”
“Always so smart,” Cade said.
“And did you ever doubt that?” she asked.
Stretching closer to her, Cade played with her hair and smiled. “No way,” he said. “And maybe one day it’ll be me.”
Dawn hated herself for having to stifle a laugh, but it still bubbled in her breast. Cade, the Alpha’s go-to guy who knew all the secrets from every side, playing daddy? Not that he hadn’t taken care of Nicole in a strange way. But there he had Mona’s help. Could he really do it without the woman’s support?
“Are you… what are you asking me, Cade?”
He started to speak, his fingers curling around her waist when he suddenly pulled back and shyly shook his head.
“Just spit balling or whatever,” he said. “Now’s not the time anyway.”
Cade grabbed his bike and pushed forward. Following him, her head swimming with a rush of new thoughts, Dawn picked up her pace to get closer to him, and she nearly took hold of his hand when a massive structure finally came into view. Run down was generous; dilapidated a more apropos word. Just a few steps closer, and Dawn could smell and see the smoke wafting through the windows. An assortment of Alphas lingered on the porch, and they gave Cade the high sign. Two members of the crew stamped out their cigarettes under the heels of their boots and offered to place his bike behind the shed of to the left of the barn.
“Good enough,” Cade said, as he slapped the boys on the back. Dawn saw their distrust, but she soaked in their unintentional respect as the men moved without words. They hated him for keeping her close, but Cade kept them in line with a single glance.
“Let’s say you gas it up in case I need to make a run for it.”
The Alphas obliged, and Cade started to lead her deeper into the barn when she held him back and looked hard into his eyes.
“Dawn, there’s no turning back now,” he reminded her.
“In case you have to make it a run for it?” she echoed. “Where does that leave me? Here? Or—?”
“Dawn…” He held her closer and only broke away to sigh into her flushed face. “Only without me if things head majorly south,” he said. “I’m keeping you close for as long as I can.”
“And that means right now?” she asked.
“Sure enough,” Cade said. “You up for it?”
Even if she wasn’t, no way she could tell him as much now. And the part of her mind that still heard Michael’s voice ringing in her ear demanded that she get to the heart of the story. But the feel of Cade’s hand in hers made him and his hopes the more urgent matter at hand.
“I’m right here,” Dawn said.
And she hoped that she could handle it.