CHAPTER FOUR

"Welcome home," said Kirrily Ryan, Tryg’s Australian wife, enveloping her in a hug. For Liana, as she stood outside the Prudence bus station, watching the driver hoist her beat-up suitcase out of the compartment under the seats, it all seemed kind of unreal. It was especially strange to think that this tanned, bleach-blonde woman in black leather, with her exotic accent that seemed to sing of koala bears and coral reefs, could signify "home" to Liana. But ever since her mother, Larissa, had moved to Fort Myers with her new husband, this was the closest to home Liana had left. And even though it meant sharing the house with her formidable uncle Tryg, the president of the Black Sparks M.C., she was glad to bother.

 

On the bus, she’d torn her eyes away from the brownish-green sameness of the Midwestern landscape that flew by outside. She stared down at her phone, her fingers drifting to her photo album, her old house in Ohio, the one her mother had sold after she'd finally divorced her stepfather. She'd left for a reason: because there was nothing left, nobody whose toes she hadn't stepped on, nobody to whom she didn't owe an apology, nobody she hadn't insulted in her misguided notions that everybody in Prudence, Ohio was beneath her--notions that her stepfather, Noel Richardson, had cultivated and encouraged. But Noel’s concept of his stepdaughter’s superiority only lasted so long as she remained afraid to step outside of his giant shadow.

 

“You'll come crawling back,” her stepfather had laughed when she left. “Do you know how many small-town girls try to make it New York every year? It'll chew you up and spit you out.” Thankfully, it was her stepfather who was gone now, but his sardonic laughter remained in the back of her mind, even after every audition, stepping up to give a monologue or sing a note, his face staring out at her from the darkened audience, judging her, kicking her dreams until they were as bruised as rotten fruit. “Your place isn’t here,” his voice always seemed to say. “Your place is in Prudence.”

 

Under Noel Richardson’s thumb, she’d always thought bitterly--or, if not his, somebody else’s. And given the situation she was fleeing, she knew she’d done nothing but prove her stepfather right. Again.

 

Look at the princess now.

 

She thought back to “The Goose Girl” play she'd never get to perform in now. It was just as well. She had called Rob the next day and told him she was leaving town and to tell her understudy the role was hers. At least somebody will get some good news today, she’d thought.

 

Rob had begged her to stay, of course, even offering to advance her fifty dollars out of his own pocket to cover groceries for a week. But it would only be a bandage over a wound that had long ago begun to fester, and she'd already made her decision. If she waited any longer, she’d be offering up her limbs for amputation. She’d be losing part of herself. And as much as going home to Prudence would hurt, she knew all she had left was herself.

 

"I promised I wouldn't bombard you with questions, and I'll stick to that," said Kirrily, strapping her niece’s suitcase on the back expertly, then handing her the spare helmet on the back of her Harley, which gleamed like a snorting beast in front of her. Strange that a woman whose father and grandfather had been the former presidents of the fiercest M.C. in southwestern Ohio would be so hesitant to climb aboard. But that was another thing her stepfather had expressly forbidden. He’d cut her off from her birthright, her roots.

 

Her Aunt Kirrily seemed to share no such taboo, thankfully. That didn’t mean it would be easy to adjust. "But Tryg might be another story.” Liana wasn’t sure she wanted to think about her Uncle Tryg yet. He was only around ten years older than Liana, more like a cousin than an uncle, and he was the quintessential Papa Bear, and never hesitated to get dangerous when he felt someone threatened him or his family--which included the M.C. he led.

 

During most of the time she was growing up, he'd been across the world in Australia, setting up the Black Sparks charter in Brisbane. When he'd come back with a pregnant Kirrily in tow, Liana had felt like she could finally let out a breath she'd been holding for three years. If he'd been around to defend Liana and her mother against Noel when she was seventeen, she suspected things would have never have happened the way they did. Of course, naturally, he considered all of Prudence his domain, and he was bound to ask Liana questions about what had happened to bring her inside it, the exact questions she hoped desperately not to be asked.

 

“Well?” Kirrily held out her hand, and Liana grabbed hold, swinging one leg around the back and scooting forward, hoping her aunt couldn’t sense how stiff she was as she wrapped her arms tightly around her waist. Kirrily grinned at her. “I left Kizzy playing at the neighbor’s,” she said. “I told her I was bringing back a surprise.”

 

“How disappointing for her,” Liana joked, though she was only half-kidding. “She’s probably expecting a pony. Or a Pokémon.”

 

“Probably,” said Kirrily, and Liana startled at the roar the bike sent up as it jerked forward, roaring like a wild animal, catapulting them into the heart of the town of Prudence, Ohio, population eight thousand.

 

On Main Street, budding cedar trees shaded the post office, which shared space with the armory, the community church, and the Black Sparks biker bar, all of which whizzed by so quickly Liana didn’t have much time to take them in. She was just thankful their route didn’t take them past her old house. She preferred to think that it had blown down in a tornado, though she knew it was wishful thinking.

 

“Think she’ll remember me?”

 

“How could she forget?”