Her bags were packed and ready, and the life she had known for the past four years had been reduced to a collection of boxes and two suitcases that were ready to be hauled and dumped in the trunk of her car. Sarah looked out at her empty room and sighed.

It had been one hell of a ride.

She had come, she had seen, and she had conquered.

She would be back for graduation, but for now, she had been beckoned home.

The room looked so strange all bare and empty, and it was a treasure-trove of memories. Sarah couldn’t help but ponder who would be moving into it next. Whether the next girls would ever become as close as her and Nicole had, even though Nicole had dropped out and had ended up with her brother.

She shivered.

She had nothing against their union, but at the same time, it was still a strange concept.

Nicole, her best friend, was about to become her sister-in-law.

How had any of this even happened?

She moved toward the doorway and lifted up the two suitcases, one in each hand. They were heavy, but she knew she could manage them, and luckily, they were only filled with clothes, and she had saved her vast shoe collection for one of the cardboard boxes that the janitor had agreed to carry down for her.

She smiled one last time at her old room.

She was going to miss it. It had been there for her through the good times and the bad, and now she was leaving it all behind and venturing out into the world unknown.

Well, kind of.

First, she had to go back to her hometown…

First, she had to go back to Slate Springs.

 

***

 

Slate Springs was a small town out in the middle of the desert, and it was the kind of place you either loved or you would run from.

Sarah had always been proud of her hometown, but at the same time, somewhat indifferent to it. She would defend it until the death, and yet, at the same time, when she had come of age and had left to pursue her dreams, she had barely looked back.

Even her brother, Ranger, had commented on her absence the last time she had found herself back in town. He had remarked snarkily that he hadn’t seen her back home out of choice in the best part of four years. And yet, she did miss it. 

She sat behind the wheel as the engine turned over, and the janitor loaded the last of her belongings, packed in boxes, into the trunk. When he slapped down the lid and knocked on the roof, she leaned out the window and thanked him before she said goodbye.

This hadn’t been how she expected to leave campus. She had always kind of thought she and Nicole would drive off into the sunset with music blaring, heading out into the great unknown like Thelma and Louise.

But there she was, alone, and heading back to her hometown to see Nicole get married to her brother.

Damned, life worked in mysterious ways at times.

She smiled and pulled on her sunglasses.

She may not have been wheels spinning off in a blaze of glory with her best friend by her side, but she had a lot to look forward to and she was excited to be heading home.

“Bye bye, college,” she smiled as she pulled out of campus and headed toward the highway. “It’s been emotional.”

And it really had been. Emotional, and raw, and completely life changing. But now, it was time to step into the adult world head on and find her feet.

She pulled onto the highway as the city began to disappear behind her, and she could already feel the familiar pull of home.

Slate Springs was a couple of hours drive, and yet just knowing that was where she was going was enough to make her push her foot down and urge herself to get there sooner.

She cranked up the stereo and thought of all the places she could go once she got back into town. She could wander down Main Street and sample some of her favorite coffee, she could go to the diner and munch on a cheeseburger, and watch all the strippers and bikers loiter around Tanners. And then her mind began to wander to the real reason she was heading home.

A wedding.

The first wedding Slate Springs and The Forsaken Riders would have seen for some time.

It was sure to cause a lot of interest.

She thought of her brother and the life he led. She had never really understood what kind of brotherhood he had found himself in until a few years ago, and now, she had to laugh at herself for not realizing sooner.

Her brother was a biker.

He was an outlaw, a criminal, dangerous, and hell bent on domination.

When they had been kids growing up, she had always known he had a sharp side to him, but she had never known how deep it had ran. And when he left to join the military, she and her parents had kind of lost touch with him until he came back to town years later.

The Forsaken Riders were the biggest bike gang in the West. And they ruled Slate Springs in a way that neither Sarah, nor anyone who had encountered them, could ever really explain.

They were behind everything, they were the men who owned the town. They ran the businesses, they owned the buildings, they called in debts from outsiders, they helped people in need, and they were the unseen puppet masters who kept the town not only ticking over, but surviving in general.

Not a lot of people knew what Sarah knew, but because of her brother, she had been privileged to certain information, and she knew the bikers were a force unlike any other.

They weren’t just dangerous and frightening, they were also kind hearted and moral when it came to what mattered.

They would defend their loved ones to the death, and that included their little town.

If anyone tried to fuck with that, they would have hell to pay.

Sarah bit her lip and wound down the window as she drove on. The midday sun was rising, and it was blazing down on the road ahead, making the heat rise so it blurred her vision.

She squinted and mopped her brow with the back of her wrist. As she pulled past a sign, she could see that she had fifty-two miles to go.

“Nearly home,” she mused as she turned up the stereo and started to sing along to the music. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel and started to get even more excited at the thought of stepping back into the town she loved so dearly.

 

As the roads began to look more and more familiar, Sarah turned the stereo down, as if, in some way, it would help her concentrate on where she was heading.

She smiled as she passed a sign that welcomed her to Slate Springs, and then she almost squealed with excitement as she saw the red neon sign of Tanners come into view ahead of her and then the familiar silver shine of the diner on the other side of the road.

She slowed her car and began to crawl along, wondering if she had the nerve to pull into the parking lot of Tanners and head inside.

The last time she had come home, she had gone there with Nicole to find her brother, and she just hoped that, this time, Ranger would be working and in there again.

She pulled into the parking lot and brought the car to a halt, and then she turned off the ignition, and opened her door. When she stepped out into the hot desert sun, she could already smell the familiar scent of home.

It was wild and unruly desert all around her, and there was nowhere quite like it on earth. The mountains all shone purple and orange in the distance and she smiled as she shielded her eyes from the bright light.

She turned and cast a look over her shoulder, and realized there were a few trucks and motorcycles in the parking lot out back, shielded from view. She bit her lip and momentarily felt nervous. She could easily get back in the car and drive away. She didn’t have to go into Tanners, one of the most notorious strip clubs in the West. But at the same time, she was so excited, she wanted to see if Ranger was there and to congratulate him on his and Nicole’s news.

She rolled out her shoulders and held her head high.

She was going in.

As she approached the door, she could already feel the familiar bounce of music and bass underfoot and she smiled. Even in the middle of the day, the bikers knew how to keep the place rocking.

She pushed on the door slightly and it peeled open slowly, beckoning her inside.

She slipped in quickly and let it close behind her, as her eyes were still trying to adjust to the dark, and she just hoped that all the eyes in the room weren’t on her.

She took a deep breath and looked around, and she was relieved to see there were only a few truckers sitting at the front near the stage, watching a beautiful girl dance, and a couple lounging around the bar area, drinking and looking miserable.

She debated which direction to go in, and settled on heading toward the bar. She noticed that there was a girl working behind it, and as she approached, she was aware of her stare fixating on her so hard it felt as if she could burn holes.

“Can I help you?” the girl asked sternly.

Sarah instantly started to regret her decision. Wandering into a strip club in the middle of the day, on her own, was certainly not something she had ever planned on, and now that she was doing it, it felt like the worst idea in the world.

“Umm,” she began. “I’m looking for someone… Ranger, is he here?”

The girl looked her up and down again, and Sarah couldn’t work out if she was angry, curious, or both, but whatever it was, it was making her uncomfortable.

There was a tension rising between them, and Sarah felt the need to take a step back, so she could make a run for the door if she needed to. She didn’t know why the girl looked so annoyed to see her, as far as she was concerned, she had never seen her before. But it was as if she had just barged in to her worst enemy’s bedroom and was demanding a place to spend the night.

The girl curled her lip and then she reached down underneath the bar and grasped for something, which Sarah was relieved to see was a phone.

She reached up and held it to her ear and waited a moment before she spoke.

“There’s a girl here looking for Ranger,” she said sternly into the receiver. “I think you better come out.”

She hung up and a wry smile worked its way across her lips.

All Sarah wanted to do was run.

But it was too late, she heard the clatter of a door opening behind her and then came the sound of heavy footsteps…