“Just another few months, Fred, and then you can die peacefully. I promise.”

I pulled into the familiar parking lot and got out of the shuddering vehicle. I’d been working at the River’s Edge for several weeks, and my life had settled into a comfortable routine. I was getting better and better at tending the bar and memorizing more of the few drink recipes that were occasionally requested. The tips were great, and enough for me to save up some money.

“That thing’s a death trap, darlin’. Shoulda been put outta its misery a year ago.”

I jumped at the loud, gravelly voice and saw Mackie shuffling across the narrow parking area.

Mackie was one of the bar’s regulars, although he was not a part of the MC. I had met him the second night I’d worked at the bar. He always came in for a few hours in the evening, and sat in the same seat at the bar. He was an older man, somewhere in his midseventies, always wearing old jeans and flannel work shirts. A baseball cap typically covered what was left of his grizzled gray hair, and he kept a bristly gray beard to match. He also had only one arm, the right sleeve of his shirt tucked neatly into the jeans pocket. The first night I met Mackie, he asked for a beer on tap.

“Which one?” I asked.

Mix’em up!” he declared, grinning at me. “Name’s Mackie. You’re new, ain’tcha?”

“Yes, sir. Started last night.”

“Darlin’, I ain’t been a sir in a coon’s age. Jus’ call me Mackie. You like workin’ here?”

“So far. I haven’t had any trouble, and everyone is really nice.”

“Yep. Good place. Good people. Gets a little rowdy every now and then, but Betsey runs a tight ship, and Mute takes care of trouble.”

I’d only seen Mute sit at the end of the bar, drink coffee, and glower at people, but I wasn’t going to argue. I went to set up a tab, as it seemed that Mackie was there to stay awhile. Mute thumped the counter next to me, and I automatically went to refill his cup. I was confused when I found it already full. I’d tried to avoid looking directly at him, so as to not make him mad, but he thumped the counter again. I raised my eyes to his hesitantly. He wasn’t mad or fierce this time, but there was a firmness to his face. He pointed to the tab area near the register and shook his head.

“N-n-no tab?” I stammered. “P-p-pay as he goes?”

He shook his head again.

“Um… I’m confused. Does he pay at all?”

He shook his head yet again.

“Um… okay.”

Betsey appeared at my side, coming from the back storage rooms with several bottles in her arms. “Hey, darlin’. No need to fret. We don’t charge him here. Mackie’s a Vietnam War vet. Lost his arm over there saving a whole platoon of soldiers when he got blown out of a tank. His tab was paid a long time ago.”

My eyes watered slightly. I may have been working for a rough MC bar, but Mackie was right. Good place, good people.

“I’m surprised that heap passes inspection,” the old man grumbled.

I laughed and waited for him to catch up to me.

“It probably wouldn’t, so I haven’t had it inspected in a while,” I quipped back. “Fred’s been with me a long time, but hopefully I can let him retire gracefully in a few months.”

He grunted as he reached me, rolling his eyes. I hugged him, and we walked in side by side.

Mackie sat at his favorite spot, and I went behind the bar. He reached out his hand as if holding a mug and gazed at it with a sad, confused look on his face. I laughed, filled a mug from a random tap, and placed it carefully in his cupped palm. His expression immediately changed to one of happy satisfaction, and he slurped at the frothy head.

I laughed again and happened to glance over at Mute, who was sitting at his usual spot. His gaze was intense, and for a moment I felt fear buzz through me. Then he nodded both in greeting and approval.

I was getting more and more relaxed around Mute. I could interpret most of his signals and the few expressions he used. I’d still never seen him laugh or even crack a smile, but it seemed he had subtle ways of making himself understood—or at least, he did to me. Almost like a private dialogue I could hear in my head. I even assigned a voice to him, deep, masculine, one that would growl out words but underneath had the power to roar.

Mute thumped the bar twice, and I heard it as two syllables.

“Co-ffee.”

I refreshed his cup and he nodded at me once, his dark eyes on mine and his mouth in its normal frown.

“Thanks,” I heard in my head.

“Don’t mention it,” I replied, as if we were having a conversation. He looked a bit surprised at my response, but I decided to let it go. I had to get along with him and stop being scared of him.

“I’m going to make a round of the floor, clear some empties, and do a drink check. Okay with you, Betsey?”

“Sounds good darlin’.” Betsey was at the bar running one of the blenders, probably for the margarita concoction she was known for making. Bruiser was the other bartender/biker on duty. I didn’t know how he got his club name, but it had nothing to do with the cute little Chihuahua that Reece Witherspoon toted around in that Legally Blonde movie. He was not much taller than me, but very round. He wore a blue work shirt under his cut that strained at the buttons to hold him in. His thinning hair was pulled back in a short ponytail that wasn’t much more than a single curl. He was pulling beers as fast as he could, trying to keep up with the crowd. He grunted a “Hey, Kat” greeting with a quick tobacco-stained grin, and then went back to work.

It was a Friday night, early enough that the football game was still on, but late enough that most of the bar patrons were tanked. Stud’s band was on the stage playing loud country rock. He was the bassist and lead singer. A row of club skanks were in front of them, screaming and dancing hard, trying their best to entice the band members. I knew two of them, Nikki and Donna, and they were the biggest of the skanks, ready to go to the back rooms of the bar or do whatever they had to do to get invited to the Lair. I glanced at Stud as I skirted the dance floor to get to the tables on the back wall. Nikki was singing off-key at the top of her lungs, jumping up and down so hard on her heels I was expecting her to either fall over or her unrestrained breasts to pop out of her low-cut top. I rolled my eyes at him and he grinned through the lyrics and winked at me.

Of all the bikers, Stud was the one who remembered my name first and never failed to greet me when he came in the bar. I’d heard he lived up to his club name quite often. In the short time I’d been working at the bar, he had taken several different women either to the back room or to the Lair. I wasn’t surprised that he had his pick on a nightly basis. He was romance-book-model hot! Light golden-blond hair and icy blue eyes made him appear like a Viking warrior. All he needed was the horned helmet to complete the look. He was tall with broad shoulders, and his muscles were strongly defined under his tight T-shirts and club cut, but he wasn’t bulky. He was the polar opposite of what I’d imagined a biker was, in that he had a full-fledged college degree in law, and was the club’s accountant and lawyer. He came from a rich background and still had a ton of money, but something about the MC lifestyle called to him. He fit in perfectly. Normally someone like him wouldn’t give someone like me the time of day or even notice I was in the room, but he was friendly and made a point of talking to me whenever we were in the same place. Since he was never more than friendly, and had never invited me to the Lair, I felt easy around him.

While I was walking through the crowd, a fight broke out between two men, something about the game on the TV or a woman. Maybe both. I don’t know what it was, but it got bad pretty quick. One drunk threw a sloppy punch at the other, and then got tackled by his buddy. Soon a couple more men joined in the brawl, and before I could get out of the way, I was trapped between the back wall and the fighters. This was so not the best place to be! Fists and blood were flying. Tables were shoved out of the way; glasses and bottles crashed to the floor, covering it with leftover beer and broken glass. I pressed myself against the wall, trying to become smaller, praying to become invisible. The other people around the brawling men cleared the dance floor quickly, and I could see Stud moving off stage with his bass, his gaze searching for me as I cowered against the back wall. My eyes darted around, looking for a place to hide or a gap in the crowd to escape through, but I couldn’t move without getting near the fighters. A bottle came flying through the air and smashed against the wall just above my head, covering me in beer and bits of glass. I gave a short scream and covered my head, crouching lower and trying to watch for more flying objects at the same time.

Mute was up and making his way into the fight. His usually calm and expressionless face was twisted in fury, lips pulled back in a feral snarl, his eyes flashing fire. He pulled one of the fighters out by grabbing the back of his shirt and literally tossing him across the room, with very little effort. His corded arms flexed as he grabbed the next one, throwing him around like a sack of potatoes. He paused long enough to glance at me, and quirk his eyebrow up.

“You okay?”

I couldn’t speak, and he probably couldn’t hear me over the angry shouting. I gave him a thumbs-up even though my knees were shaking. He jerked his head toward the bar.

“Move that way and get to the bar.”

I hugged the wall as I eased my way around the twisting mass of men. The few seconds it took Mute to check on me bought him a fist in the face. He staggered back briefly before coming back at his assailant with a hard roundhouse to his jaw. The man went down and stayed down, knocked out cold. Mute spent a few more minutes jerking the fighters apart and throwing them to the side, but most of them broke off quickly after seeing that single punch.

A lot of the bar patrons had simply left when the fight started. The man on the floor woke up after his buddies poured a leftover beer on his head. They helped him to his feet and staggered out to the parking lot.

Betsey came up behind me. “You okay, darlin’?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” I answered, still buzzing from the adrenaline. I smelled like old beer now. I went to shake my head as best as I could over the trash can to get out any little glass bits, but I was sure there was something still left in there.

“Go see to Mute. His lip’s all cut up. Joni and I will get this mess cleared up. After that, you can go home and check the rest of your head for glass. You still got some in there.”

I nodded, still in a bit of shock.

“You gonna quit?”

I blinked at the unexpected question. “Um… no?”

She smiled. “That’s my girl! Tougher than you look!”

I went over to where Mute was sitting back in his usual spot. Mackie was grinning and reliving the fight like a kid in a candy store.

“Goddamn! That was some punch! Betcha knocked out a tooth or two. That sumbitch won’t be back for a while!”

Mute fingered his bloody lip where the “sumbitch” had landed his fist, and thumped the bar sharply.

“Co-ffee.”

I brought him a fresh cup. I couldn’t quite look up, but felt I needed to say something to him.

“Thank you” was all I could manage.

He grabbed my wrist as I was turning away. I gasped and froze in surprise. His grip was warm and strong. He pulled me closer across the bar, his dark eyes deep and unreadable. He reached toward my face, and pulled out three small pieces of glass that were still caught in my hair. I swallowed at the contact, feeling an unfamiliar warmth bloom in my gut. I couldn’t look away, and for a small eternity we just stared at each other. He broke it off when he reached for the steaming mug, draining half of it.

“Top it off?” I asked, my voice a little breathy. I was sure he could hear my heart pounding. He nodded, and I refilled his mug.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Donna approach. I wasn’t sure of her status in the MC; from what Betsey told me, she wasn’t an old lady, but she had a place in the club. Donna wore the same “uniform” the other club skanks favored. Long, blonde hair that was way overbleached to the point of having a light green tint, tons of crusty makeup, supershort jean skirt with a torn hem, and a cut-off tank one size too small, showing off ridiculously large breasts. If she was wearing a bra, there wasn’t much padding, as her hardened nipples showed through easily. She could barely walk in the red spiked fuck-me pumps she had on her feet, but she managed to sidle up to Mute.

I wrapped some ice cubes in a towel and brought it over to Mute. Donna was rubbing herself against him and cooing. He sat there stoically, his face set in his normal frown.

“That was so hot!” she trilled. I gritted my teeth at her grating voice. For some reason I didn’t want her anywhere near Mute. “So strong!” She ran her hands over his arms and back, and pressed her breasts into his arm. I was surprised at how badly I wanted to slap her away from him. This wasn’t me at all, and worse, it wasn’t like there was a reason for me to feel this way.

I offered the towel-wrapped ice to Mute. “Your hand and lip are bleeding,” I whispered. He looked up into my eyes, and I was drawn into his dark gaze. I couldn’t read his expression, but I felt there was something there for me to see. My heart pounded.

Donna’s squeal broke the connection. “Oh, Mutie! You’re hurt!”

Mute didn’t move. He was still looking at me deeply, not reacting at all to the ridiculous way Donna said his name. He wrapped the dripping towel around his swollen knuckles, and brought it up to his lip.

Mackie was still chuckling and reliving the brief fight. “Set me up with one more myself, darlin’. Yessir, that was one helluva punch!”

Betsey was over in the corner where I’d been trapped, sweeping up the last of the glass and talking into the cell phone lodged between her shoulder and ear. Donna was cooing something into Mute’s ear, and still rubbing her hands all over him. Other Dragon members were back at the pool table, their game having been barely slowed by the fight. A few other diehard patrons were scattered around, but for the most part the bar was empty.

“Damn, that girl just doesn’t give up!” Betsey came up behind me, shaking her head as she put away the broom and dustpan. “She’s been teasing Mute for weeks at the clubhouse, trying to get in his bed. I’ve told her over and over again, he’s not a man to play with.”

She saw the confused look on my face and sighed. “It’s part of club life, darlin’. There are two kinds of women in the club, old ladies and club bunnies. I know that’s being real blunt, but that’s how it is. Them girls that hang around the club looking for a good time? Them’s the bunnies. They hop from one man to another faster than shit from a goose. No one treats ‘em bad or beats on ‘em. My boys ain’t that kinda men. They got the same choice everyone else does. Donna wants to be an old lady, but no one here will take her that way on account as she’s been with so many of their brothers already.”

Betsey kept cleaning up during her monologue of information. I’d figured out that Betsey was a talker. She hated silence, and all you had to do was stay quiet for a bit and she would fill the air with words.

“Being an old lady is like being married, only better. You know my man, Brick, is the club president. We’ve been together for near on forty years now. We’ve been through lots of rough and lots of good. We got kids and grandkids now. He gave me a ring years ago, but we never sealed the deal. I don’t need that paper and a preacher to know he’s mine and I’m his. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt he loves me and would die to protect me. I stay out of the club business for the most part, and do what he needs me to do to help him out. He gave me this bar to run for him and the club. I know he’s had a few other tastes over the years, but I’m still the one he comes home to every night, and will be until we leave this earth.”

She dumped the broken glass into the nearest trash can set out just for bottles.

“Mute is a challenge to them bunnies. He doesn’t party much, doesn’t drink or take a woman very often. They all want of a piece of him like he’s a big prize. Something about the strong, silent type, I reckon. I’ve seen two or three of them up at the Lair, crawling all over him, showing him their tits and such. He don’t pay no attention to none of it most of the time, but once in a while, he’ll take one back to his room. Never seen him take one a second time.” Betsey made her trademark pssht sound. “Donna needs to wake up. Mute ain’t never gonna be interested in her for more than a night, if he ever does in the first place.”

“Um… okay,” I stuttered, glancing over at Donna still pressed to Mute, running her fingers through his hair. He sat stoically, just sipping his coffee, the melting ice dripping on the counter from his wrapped hand. He seemed to be completely ignoring her, but he wasn’t exactly pushing her away.

“You all right? You ain’t thinkin’ about quittin’ now, are you?”

Betsey is really hung up on this quitting thing. “No, I’m not going to quit. I just keep thinking about this one thing.”

“What’s that, darlin’?”

Time to break the tension a bit. I grinned at her. “Mutie? Seriously?” I choked out, trying to stifle my laugh.

Betsey threw her head back and laughed, both in humor and relief. Mute glared at both of us. “I’ve been so afraid you’ll get overwhelmed and leave. I should have known better. Not everyone is cut out for this life. Even working around it can be a challenge.”

“I’m done for the evening too, ladies. See you tomorrow night!” Mackie declared, as if nothing had happened.

Betsey shooed him off with a smile. Stud appeared at the bar, his blue eyes full of worry.

“You okay, Kat? I tried to get to you, but I couldn’t see where you’d gone.”

I felt my face flush at his concern. “I’m okay. Nothing a hairbrush and shower won’t take care of.”

“I need to pack up. Are you okay to drive? I’ll take you home when I’m done, unless you want to go to the Lair. It’s probably closer, and we’ve got showers and stuff up there.”

My mouth dropped open at the coveted invitation to visit the famed private compound that so many people tried to get into. He looked into my eyes, waiting for a response, and I could feel the others looking at me. I’d heard many times about Stud and his almost nightly array of partners. I’d even seen him charm the pants off a woman, literally! Usually an invite to the Lair with Stud meant an invite to his bed, but he didn’t seem to be giving me the same act he did when he was out for a good time. I decided he was just being a concerned friend more than anything else. I was kind of relieved, as it would be too much pressure to try to live up to Stud’s image. Any of the women who were hanging around him earlier would jump at the chance to go to the Lair, especially with him. I was sitting there with a golden opportunity I was too scared to take.

Mute’s mug came crashing down on the bar hard enough that coffee dregs sloshed over the side. The noise broke my trance, and I looked over at him. Mute finally had had enough of Donna hanging on him, and had left his bar spot, walking out the door, leaving her standing in confusion.

Betsey just rolled her eyes. “Take my advice, girl. Find someone else. Mute ain’t interested, and I doubt any of the other boys will make an old lady out of a woman who has been public property so long.”

Donna pouted. “He’s probably just tired from the fight. He’ll take me to the Lair sometime soon.”

“What about you, Kat?” Stud was still waiting. “You want to come to the Lair and clean up, or go home.”

I flushed again and felt a little panic. I decided it was best to retreat and become invisible again.

“Umm… thanks for the invite up there, but I’d best go on home. I have stuff to do in the morning, and a study group tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be okay getting there on my own.”

His eyebrows came together. I got the feeling that not many women turned him down. Maybe I was wrong. “I’ll at least follow you home.”

I shook my head and laughed, trying again to break the sudden tension. “Don’t bother. I’m cleaning up and going straight to bed. You need to get up to the Lair anyway, don’t you? Your band is going to play up there for a bit, right?”

“Yeah, we are. Tell you what, hand me your phone,” he demanded.

I gave him my ancient slider with its tiny screen. He gave me a look and rolled his eyes at the old phone as he programmed his number into it. A moment later, his fancy smartphone started singing an old Def Leppard song. “Pour Some Sugar on Me” was now my ringtone in Stud’s phone.

“You have my number now. When you get in safely, you text me. If I don’t hear from you in the next half hour, I’m coming down the hill. Got me?”

I bit my lower lip just to have something to do. No one had looked out for me in a long time, and being cared for left a warm feeling in my belly. That scared me. I didn’t want to get used to it. When it happened, it was only a matter of time before it was ripped out from under me.

I plastered a smile on my face that I hoped looked relaxed and genuine. “I got you. Thanks, Stud. This means a lot to me.”

He still wasn’t happy, but he let me walk out the door to my car by myself. I went to where my car was parked. I could hear the burble of the river just beyond the fenced area of the lot. It startled me to see Mute sitting on his massive black bike, parked just on the other side of my car. The yellow glow of the outside safety light lit up his face, making him look predatory. A very handsome predator. That warmth in my belly clenched both in fear and fascination. He raised a cigarette to his lips and took a short drag. He looked behind me, and then back at me with his eyebrow raised in question.

“You going to the Lair with Stud?”

I shook my head and opened my car door.

“No, I’m not going to the Lair tonight. I have too much to do tomorrow, and I’d rather go home.”

He was still for a moment, then he nodded and dropped the half-smoked cigarette and crushed it out with his booted foot.

“Good,” I heard in my head.

I bit at my bottom lip again and dropped my eyes. He snapped his fingers to get my attention and then held his finger and thumb up to his mouth and ear as if using a phone. He reached his other hand with large palm open, out to me.

“Gimme your phone.”

For the second time that night, a hot biker programmed his number into my phone while frowning at its age. A moment later his phone beeped with a text to put my number in his phone. No fancy ringtone for me there.

“Text me when you get home.” His gestures and look echoed Stud almost perfectly.

“I will,” I said, taking back my phone. “Stud wants me to text him too. I’ll be fine.” His expression said nothing else.

I know he was just doing his job, but still he had come to my rescue and had gotten hurt because of it. I felt I had to say something. “Thank you again, Mute, for helping me tonight. You have no idea how much that means to me.”

His eyes glittered as they bored into mine. That belly clench bloomed with sudden heat.

I left, not trusting myself to say anything more. The night had been overwhelming, between the fight in the bar and the attention I received from not one but two of the hottest club members. I needed to get invisible, and fast.

* * *

Mute sat on his bike and watched the taillights of Kat’s rust bucket Taurus disappear. He’d overheard her refer to her car as Fred once or twice. Fuck! She actually named that firetrap! Wouldn’t be long before Fred needed to be renamed Dead Fred, by the sound of the engine. He spat on the ground, trying to get the bitter cigarette taste out of his mouth. He didn’t smoke often, mostly because Betsey didn’t want it in the bar, but also because he didn’t want anything to control him. Once in a while, though, after a really bad night, the craving got to him.

Craving. Fuck! Mute clenched his fists over and over, feeling the bruised skin tighten over his knuckles. The panic he’d felt when he’d seen Kat against the wall, terrified and covered in glass, still sat in his gut. The need to protect her was heavy, and he didn’t know where it was coming from.

Just my job. I woulda done the same for Betsey or any of the other girls.

But if it had been Betsey, she would have come out swinging herself and probably kicked some ass before he even got off his barstool. He fingered the scabbing split in his lip, unsure that he would have shown so much concern for any of the other girls, getting distracted enough to be sucker punched.

Fuck this! he thought furiously. Kat was too damn soft, not made for the life. She just needed to get the hell gone.

He cranked up his bike; its sleek power rumbled under him. He saw Stud come out of the bar, his arm around a random band groupie who had been dancing with several others around the front of the stage all night. He lifted her chin with his hand and kissed her hard. Looked like some serious tongue action was going on. Stud climbed on his bike and the groupie climbed on behind him. He grinned at her over his shoulder, and took off toward the entrance to the Lair.

Mute watched him go. Like smoking, getting laid by random women wasn’t something he did often. Most women at the bar took one look at his hard face and backed off. The regular pussy at the club was always available. Donna would fuck him in a heartbeat, but he knew she had thoughts of being his old lady, and that was something that wasn’t going to happen. He sat on the purring bike, the craving for another cigarette growing.

Fuck! Maybe I do just need to get laid, he thought, looking at the security gate that led to the Lair. Donna was still around, and had made it clear she was available. Mute grimaced. Not tonight. Don’t need that shit. Too much headache to deal with later. He spat on the ground again, turned his bike, and drove away from the bar in a spray of gravel, heading home.