It wasn’t long before Valentina heard the approach of an oncoming car on the other side of the road. She scurried into the bushes when she saw the black SUV make its way slowly up the deserted highway. Its ominous approach was like something out of a horror movie—dark, menacing, and filled with evil intent. The SUV pulled over to the side of the road, and three men wearing sun glasses and dark suits got out and stood at the twisted guardrail. One man spoke into a cell, one took pictures with a close-lensed camera, and the other started pulling branches off trees and using them to camouflage the break in the guardrail. They worked with quiet choreographed efficiency—not their first time at the rodeo. Then the men gathered together again and spoke for a few minutes. When one of the men turned to look at the rest area, Valentina felt a cold prickle of fear race down her spine. He stared for a few minutes right towards the bush that sheltered her, and Valentina held her breath when she realized that she had left the backpack sitting on the rest area bench. When the guy finally turned away and followed the other men to the vehicle, Valentina almost fainted with relief.
She stayed in the safe covering of the bushes for a while after they had gone and tried to reason out her situation. A few cars sped by in either direction now and again, but they were going too fast for Valentina to run out from her hiding place and flag them down. She had just decided to take her chances and walk along the side of the road when Valentina heard the loud rumble of Harley exhaust pipes.
Hal
He had come for her.
Thank god.
But when the bike rounded the bend, and Valentina saw the silhouette of the rider, her hopes were dashed. The Saint pulled up next to her, cut the motor, and took off his helmet. He had short black hair, dark eyes, a cleft in his chin, and a long scar that ran from the corner of his mouth to his left ear.
Valentina knew she had seen him before and desperately tried to place him, but she couldn’t. Her mind was too muddled with confusion, exhaustion, and fear to make sense of much. It made her feel better to see that at least he was wearing the Saints cut.
“Get on,” The man said in way of introduction. Then he handed her a helmet.
“Get on?” Valentina didn’t take the helmet and stepped back.
Because…get on?
She wasn’t sure what she had expected someone who came to her rescue would say, but an order to simply get on certainly was not it.
“Look, darlin,’ I know you been through some shit today, but you can trust me. The club sent out a patrol, they have brothers out all over the place looking for you. Guess I got lucky.” He smiled at her. Then he tilted his head and continued, giving Valentina no more time for hesitation. “The guy driving the Lincoln, where is he?”
Tears filled Valentina’s eyes, and she could only shake her head.
He looked at her for a long minute. “Okay. Let’s get you out of here.”
Valentina looked from the man to the motorcycle then back again. The thought of getting on the back of a bike with all that vibration pulsing through her bruised and quite possibly broken body filled her with dread.
“Can’t you just call Hal and tell him that you found me? Maybe someone can send a car for me? I don’t think I can ride; I’m afraid I might have cracked a couple of ribs, and I think I should probably go to the hospital and get checked out…”
“Prosper sent out strict orders. Whoever finds you takes you immediately to our safe house.” He interrupted her tersely. “Hal will meet you there and bring someone to see to your injuries. Unless you want me to bring you straight to the hospital, I can do that too.” He shrugged.
“Can’t you call in now?” Valentina pressed a hand on her ribcage as a new burst of pain made her see stars. “Tell him I need a car and to be taken to the hospital?”
“Sure, I can.” He gave her a slick smile, then pulled his cell out of the inside of his leather cut and squinted his eyes at it. “Fucking sun. I can’t see anything.” He held the cell up high and walked away from Valentina into the shaded trees. He moved the phone around in the air for a few seconds then stuffed it back in his pocket before returning to her. “Only could get one bar, and that’s not enough to connect these damn cheap throwaways. But look, you want to go to the hospital, that’s what we’ll do. We can call Hal from there. I’ll take it easy on the road. Your head looks pretty sore, too. Shit, are those burns? Sorry, but you’re gonna have to put on the lid— state law.”
Valentina hissed out in pain when he put the helmet on her head. Then he took the backpack from her and hung it on the sissy bar backwards so that it would act as a cushion. He swung his leg over the bike, then balanced and straddled it between his strong, leather covered thighs and waited for Valentina to get on.
“You didn’t tell me your name,” Valentina shouted over the revving of the engine.
“My name is Rooster, darlin’. Now wrap your arms around me and hold on tight.”
Rooster started off slow and easy just like he promised he would. As they rode down the highway, Valentina began to recognize some of the road signs and was able to get a sense of where they were. She knew that Med General was situated just off an interstate ramp not too far from up the road. She remembered it as a large, imposing building with a multi-tier parking lot that sat close to the highway. Valentina felt some of the tension leave her body when they got closer to the exit, but as they began to pass right by the off ramp, her anxiety returned tenfold. She leaned forward, shouted out close to Rooster’s ear and pointed to the hospital, but he acted as if he hadn’t heard her. Valentina leaned back on the cushion of the backpack to try and ease the pain in her ribs and the pounding of her heart.
A million questions and fears ran through her mind, but her self-preserving instinct made up a logical and rational reason for all of them. Thank god for that, because she could not afford a panic attack right now…but still…she could not stop the nagging feeling that something about Rooster and this situation was just wrong. It was a while before Valentina saw a sign that told them that they had just crossed the state line. About twenty minutes after that, Rooster pulled off at the exit and started on a long, winding roadway.
The safe house seemed as if it sat on the edge of nowhere. It was at the end of a narrow lane that led deep into a heavily wooded area. Rooster pulled up in front of a split-log cabin and killed the engine. Then he got off the Harley and turned to Valentina with another one of those slick smiles. He helped her off the bike and eased the helmet from her head. When she winced at lifting the heavy backpack wrapped around the sissy bar, Rooster got it for her.
“I thought we were going to the hospital. You passed right by it.” She frowned.
“Yeah, sorry about that. Did you see those two black SUV’s parked in the fire lane near the emergency room door? I think whoever ran you off the road had the place staked out after the accident, and I couldn’t take that chance. I know you’re uncomfortable, but honestly babe, no one ever died from a couple of cracked ribs.”
Although Valentina was not thrilled with his lack of sympathetic response, what Rooster said made sense. But still, she couldn’t help but think that the reasonable tenor of his voice did not quite match the deception in his eyes. Every time Rooster flashed that grin of his at her, Valentina felt as if she had just been handed a shiny red apple with a razor blade hiding inside of it.
Rooster unlocked the heavy wooden door to the cabin and waited for Valentina to step through it. No surprises here—the interior was exactly the way one would expect a rustic house in the deep woods to look. There was a large, open floor plan filled with a couple of worn couches, an older television set, and a few lamps on side tables; a breakfast bar separated the long galley kitchen from the living area. Off to the right was a hallway, which she supposed led to the bathroom and a couple of bedrooms.
“Do you think we should check in with Hal now?” Valentina turned to him.
“We’re out in the middle of the woods, darlin’. Even the good phones don’t work here.” He put her backpack on the table. When he turned to her, his eyes skimmed her body in a slow, thorough assessment. Valentina felt a shiver of fear run through her.
“Lift up your shirt,” Rooster told her.
And there was that smile again. “Or you can take it off. Up to you.”
Valentina looked at him in panicked confusion.
“You said your ribs hurt, princess.” He gave a small, nasty laugh and lifted his chin towards her torso. “I want to take a look at that pretty stomach of yours, and I can’t do it through that shirt.”
He walked over to the refrigerator and pulled a couple of trays of ice, then grabbed a dish towel from the drawer and made an ice pack. When Rooster saw that Valentina stood rooted to the spot she was in, he motioned to her shirt again.
“I said lift it up or take it off.” This time he wasn’t smiling.
When Valentina lifted her shirt just enough to show her ribcage, Rooster gave out a low whistle. “Damn, that looks painful.” She winced when he pressed his fingers along her bruised and tender skin. “Let’s see if we can’t make it all better.” Valentina stiffened as his left hand snaked around her back and held her body in place while the fingers of his right brushed against the bottom of her breast. Then he pressed the ice pack against the biggest bruise.
“There ya go, baby. Doesn’t that feel nice?”
And that’s when it hit her.
“There ya go, baby. Doesn’t that feel nice?” He had said that to the girl whose panties his fingers had been diving into at the Saints after-wedding party.
Rooster was the guy who liked blow jobs under bright lights and making girls come really loud to the cheers and jeers of bikers in a wide-open space. He was also the prospect who had barred Valentina from entering the clubhouse and had given her that openly disgusting leer. Now she was alone with him in the middle of nowhere.