“This is Texas,” Huntsman acknowledged the good-looking biker leaning against the bar with a cigarette in his hand. Unlit. He had dark, spiky hair on the top, the sides shaved bare, and a solid square jaw which was covered in a brush of dark bristles after what looked like a couple days of not shaving.

Texas dipped his head. “I saw you out there, you’re a damn good shot.”

I frowned and tilted my head to the side. “You don’t have an accent.”

The younger biker next to Texas almost choked on his drink while Texas’ dark, moody features seemed to brighten excitedly. “Road names sometimes shouldn’t be taken so literal.”

I continued to stare at him for a few seconds, mulling over what he’d said and trying to figure out what his road name could mean. Finally, I clicked my tongue and shook my head. “You’re gonna have to throw me a bone here.”

“Oh, fuck…” the young kid groaned.

“Funny you say that,” Texas chuckled, the noise a deep rumble that reminded me of some of the men back home, instantly giving me this churning feeling of guilt in my stomach. Texas continued a sparkle in his eye that made me wonder if I should have even asked the question. “They say everything is bigger in Texas.”

I couldn’t stop the giggle that followed, while Dakota’s face just lit up like it was Christmas morning. “I think I’m gonna like it here.”

“God, just fucking kill me,” Huntsman rumbled, looking to the sky as if he was praying for the Lord to just smite him on the spot. After a breath, he finally lowered his head and narrowed his eyes at the two men. “Shouldn’t you two be back at work by now?”

The two of them were quick to scamper, the younger guy stopping right in front of me and holding out his hand. “Diddit.” He shook my hand tightly before ducking around me and heading out through the massive rolling door to his bike.

My hand was still floating in the air from his handshake as I looked over at Huntsman with a raised eyebrow. “Diddit?”

“Yeah, as in who did it,” he answered as if that was the obvious answer.

“And if he didn’t do it?” Dakota asked seriously.

“He did.”

I had the feeling there was a story behind that, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what the story was, and I was pretty sure Huntsman had no intention of telling it, already moving on to the next part of the clubhouse.

“Hunts!” a stocky looking guy called, stepping out from one of the many office looking rooms that lined the right side of the room. “I gotta chat with you about some shit.” It looked like he’d taken one too many steroids and had to turn to get through the doorway.

Huntsman just nodded at the man before turning back to Dakota and me. “I’ll just be a few minutes. Go sit at the bar and help yourself.”

I chewed my lip but just nodded and did as I was told while he stomped off like a man on a mission. I wondered if this was what it was going to be like the whole time I was here, or whether there would be a point where I would actually see his hard shell open a fucking little bit to let me in.

Huntsman was good at locking down his emotions, that I knew for damn sure, but I wasn’t here to just be an accessory or an obligation. He either wanted to make an effort, or I would go back to my life without him. And you know what, at this stage, I’d be okay because he had yet to show me anything that made me want to stay other than the fact his sperm was needed to create me.

Thanks, Dad.

Great job.

“You okay?” Dakota asked, looking at me worriedly.

I swallowed past the agitated and disappointed lump in my throat and forced a smile—one I knew she would see right through. “I’m just gonna sit and have a drink.”

She nodded in agreement. “Give me one moment to find a bathroom, and I’ll come back and hook you up with the world’s best margarita.”

“Sounds fucking amazing.”

She skipped off to God knows where. But that was Dakota, unafraid of anything. Even a biker clubhouse where she knew no one but me in reality, but she was about to go and open any door she felt like opening in order to find a bathroom and not give a shit who she pissed off in the process.

I took a seat on one of the barstools, running my hands over the rough surface which resembled a type of concrete with a sheen over the top to make it smooth.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

I instantly cringed and didn’t want to look at him as he took a seat next to me. Wrong foot my ass. He’d come at me like he was going to throw a punch. I knew this club was a little different, a little deeper into the shadows than the boys back home, but one thing I could guarantee you—not one of them would ever hit a woman unless she was threatening to hurt the people they cared about.

Tapping my nails on the stone bartop, I peeked at him out of the corner of my eye. He was looking straight ahead, his body slumped as though he was feeling defeated. He looked older, more weathered and broken down than he did a few weeks ago when I’d pointed my gun at his chest. I sat a little straighter and took a deep breath. This was someone who was important to Huntsman—my dad—and even if I didn’t like him, I had to respect he’d been there for Huntsman for a long time, supporting him, protecting him.

“I think the wrong foot is kind of an understatement,” I murmured after a minute of silence, turning my body slightly toward him.

He nodded, doing the same, opening himself to me, so we could at least have some kind of a conversation, at least until someone came to my rescue. “Huntsman and I have known each other for a long time,” Brew explained. “We met at high school, we were kinda shitheads. By kinda, I mean Hunt’s mom spent a lot of time coming to the principal’s office to rescue us.”

“Just his mom?” I questioned instantly, and a smile quirked at the corner of his mouth.

“You’re a smart kid,” he acknowledged before continuing, “Yeah, I was in foster care from the day I was born. Shifted from one house to another as I got older. No one really around to give a damn. Was lucky to find Hunt and his parents. They helped me out. Let me stay with them when my foster parents were drinking too much or forgot to buy food.”

The more Brew talked, the more I turned my body toward him, opening myself up and feeling his pain. He was probably close to fifty, but the way he spoke, the grit in his voice, it was like he could still feel that pain as if it was only yesterday.

“Hunt’s granddad was one of the founding fathers, one of the original Exiled Eight. Huntsman was always going to join, he was always going to become the president one day because that’s just how things work around here. It’s about leaving a legacy, a bloodline to be proud of,” Brew explained, his gestures animated, telling me it was something he was really proud of. “I joined the club straight out of high school, there wasn’t anything else for me. I had nowhere else to go, and they were accepting of a kid who had nothing to show for their education.”

“What about Huntsman?” I asked curiously. I knew there was more to his story. There was something about the way he spoke and acted that reminded me of Uncle Leo. “He joined the army, right?”

Brew’s eyes grew a little wider, and he grinned before dropping his head in a nod. “You’re good,” he praised. “He wanted to follow in his dad’s path. Did eight years. Five of those as a Navy SEAL.”

My mouth dropped open. Navy Seals were the elite of the elite. Part of me wondered whether I should go and find him, ask for more information, desperate to hear how this man fought for our country and did so in one of the most demanding and dangerous jobs in the entire world. But would he tell me?

Huntsman so far was more of an ‘order people around’ and ‘refuse to share my emotions’ type of guy, which made me wonder how he and my mom had gotten on so well when she was so ‘in your face’ and ‘need to know every detail’ control freak.

“You know, I see your mom in you,” Brew continued, his eyes roaming over me, assessing and pulling apart my appearance. “She was strong, feisty, and determined.”

“You remember her?”

He hummed as he nodded. “Yeah. She was special, that one. Her laughter and the way she was always so bubbly and a little flamboyant.”

“Wait,” I interrupted, holding up my hand. “I thought my mom and Huntsman had a fling? She said it was like three days. It sounds like you knew her for a while.”

His brow seemed to pull together at my question. I could see the question going through his mind, and I watched as he asked himself whether he’d said something wrong. He was pulling back, but I just wanted more information. I wanted to know more about this strange woman who claimed to be my mother. Because the person he was speaking of—bubbly, flamboyant—it was hard for me to envision after spending so long with a woman who was not either of those things.

He was shutting down. There was something I was missing in this story. Something everyone seemed to be holding back from me.

So before the door could shut completely, I tried a different approach. “Why were you so intense with me the first time we met?”

His body quickly became alert again, and his eyes focused back in on me. “Because whether your mom knows it or not, what she did was the catalyst for a war that hasn’t ended since. And unfortunately, the other side has a tendency to really try and hit Huntsman where it hurts.” His eyes glazed over like he could see the enemy ahead of him, and he was contemplating how he would destroy them. “Huntsman is my best friend, and I’ll protect him whichever way I have to, even if that means taking down teenage girls playing games too old for them.”

Gone was the calm and talkative Brew, the one who had actually helped me feel a little more at peace about who Huntsman really was. He was replaced with the man who would do anything to defend the club and his best friend. The man who I know for a fact would have taken me out within a second if I hadn’t been able to prove my story. No matter that I was only young. No matter that I was a girl. None of that mattered when the person who had had your back for over forty years could be in trouble.

“That’s enough, Brewer,” Huntsman’s voice growled, echoing in the vast space. I looked over to see him standing in the doorway of the office he’d entered moments ago, watching me. Maybe gauging my reaction to the situation I was in.

Did Brew scare me? No, not really.

Because I knew he’d only act if he felt like the club was under threat, and I wasn’t a threat to the club, not like he originally thought.

Brew climbed off the barstool beside me, nodding his head. “See you ‘round, princess.”

As Brew moved away, Huntsman moved in, his eyes cautious, maybe even a little nervous. “You have a nice chat?” he asked, not snappy or rude, but definitely tense.

“Scared he told me something you didn’t want me to know?” I taunted, enjoying the way his lip twitched uncomfortably before he gained his composure. I was starting to see more and more of Huntsman not in control. Maybe it was because we were on his home turf, a place where he didn’t feel like his walls needed to be as tall. Or maybe it was because having a daughter had forced him a little out of his element.

“That’s not something I need to worry about given that none of my men would tell you anything I didn’t want you to know.”

I smirked. “So there is something?”

He didn’t have time to answer—despite the fact that I saw the way he wanted to argue—because a young guy, covered in tats and wearing nothing but a towel came around the corner, dragging my friend by her arm.

“Seriously, what the fuck is going on around here? We just let midgets roam the clubhouse walking in on people showering?”

Dakota was cringing, the pain in her face obvious from the tight grip he had on her.

I launched forward, taking several large steps toward them. “Let her go. You’re hurting her,” I demanded, grabbing his wet arm and trying to pull it away.

“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but club bitches aren’t allowed to just walk into our fucking bedrooms unannounced,” he barked, finally releasing Dakota. Who for the first time in the past few months we’d been hanging out didn’t have some witty remark, and instead, tears filled her eyes.

“Ripley, calm the fuck down,” Huntsman ordered, taking a step forward, but the young guy took very little notice. His mouth might have stopped running, but he was looking at Dakota and I like we were pieces of trash.

Fire flared inside me as I watched my ever bright friend cave in on herself, her body curling into mine. “Luckily then neither of us are your fucking club bitches,” I sneered, every word laced with venom. “So we will go wherever the fuck we want.”

“Enough!” Huntsman’s voice echoed off the walls deafeningly, the boom that bounced back hitting my body with force—just the sound of his voice enough to scare anyone straight.

Ripley gritted his teeth before turning around and stomping back the way he came, muttering to himself words I thankfully couldn’t make out, because God help him if he said one more thing against Dakota.

This girl went out of her way to befriend me and promised to have my back, even when she didn’t know me. And she’d always followed through on that, supporting me whenever I needed someone. I would fight tooth and nail to do the same for her.

“He’s a jerk,” I declared as I pointed Dakota toward the bar and started pulling out ingredients for margaritas.

“Yeah, but you two are gonna have to find some fucking way to get along,” he muttered, scratching at his beard. I was about to argue until he added. “You’re the only sister he’s got.”

Sister?

Damn.