Seventeen
“Be at work an hour early tomorrow,” Michael said one night, in the hot and pulsing afterglow.
Too exhausted to speak or form a rational question as to why, Holly had agreed, nodding before she’d nodded off.
But now it was an hour and fifteen minutes before her shift started and she was standing on the sidewalk outside Bell Bar, hands in her pockets, nibbling at her lip in quiet worry, wondering why he hadn’t told her the reason. This was probably another shooting lesson – he’d told her she would need practice – and she’d dressed accordingly: tall cowboy boots with jeans tucked inside, Vols sweatshirt with fraying cuffs she’d been picking at her with nails, her jacket zipped over it.
She heard Michael coming before he pulled into sight, the roar of his Harley traveling through the pavement and up the soles of her boots. It hit her in the stomach and she smiled to herself. The sound of the bike triggered a sensation a lot like the pass of his hand, a subtle tightening in the pit of her belly.
He was in his cut today, very Lean Dogs official in all his black leather and his chunky boots with the spur straps. He parked at the curb in front of her, took off his helmet, set it on the handlebars; a small, routine gesture for him that was attractive to her in a way she didn’t understand. Something about his fingers, their assuredness of movement.
“Hi.” She wished she had a pet name for him suddenly, a sweet word to offer that was just his in her vocabulary. She wanted to step off the curb and kiss him, too, but she wasn’t sure if he’d go for that.
Turned out, she shouldn’t have worried. He joined her on the sidewalk, put a hand at her waist, dropped his head to press a fast, sure kiss against her mouth. He smelled soap-and-sunshine clean. His lips were soft on hers.
Holly wanted to clutch at the front of his cut and hold him to her, but instead she said, “So what are we doing? More gun practice?”
As he stepped back from her, he gave her one of his small smiles. “No, not today.”
He took another step back, and over his shoulder, Holly saw a black truck leave the flow of traffic and pull up at the curb behind Michael’s bike. The driver door opened, and a dark-haired woman climbed down, folding the long halves of a wool coat around her middle.
Ava Lécuyer.
Holly felt the first stirrings of panic. “Michael, why is she here?”
And she was walking toward them.
“I asked her to come,” he said. “I thought–”
“You asked her–” She grabbed his hand and dug her nails into the back of it. “Michael,” she hissed, “why would you do that?”
He gave her a blank look. “So you can have lunch with her. So you can have a friend.”
“Oh my God!” Holly groaned. She clapped her free hand over her eyes, hoping that when she pulled it away, Ava Lécuyer wouldn’t be approaching them, and this would all be a bad dream. “You can’t ask someone to be my friend!”
When she peeked between her fingers, he was frowning at her. “You asked me to be your friend.”
“That was a joke! That was my bad flirting! That was…well that was me asking you. You can’t go ask one of my customers to have lunch with me. Oh my God,” she repeated, “Michael, why? Why would you do this?”
He kept frowning, but it was past the point of further argument, because there was Ava, standing beside Michael, in tall black boots and black coat, hints of makeup on her pale face, looking much more the writer than the biker wife.
She smiled at Holly, a twinkle of amusement in her dark eyes. “Holly, I just happened to be driving by, and I had this crazy idea that you might like to walk up the block and have lunch with me at Stella’s.” A quick wink. She must have heard her exchange with Michael, and was going to forge ahead anyway.
Holly was bombarded with shame, embarrassment, nervousness, but she nodded. Had Michael asked her about this before, she would have staunchly refused. But she couldn’t bear to be rude when Ava was waiting in front of her.
She managed a weak smile. “That sounds nice.”
“Let’s go get out of this cold,” Ava said, waving with her fingertips and turning to head up the sidewalk. “I’m sure Michael’s got cars to work on back at the shop anyway.” She shot a pointed look at him that Holly didn’t miss. Leave us, it said. I’ve got this. Don’t worry.
Michael nodded. “I’ll come by later.”
Then there was nothing else to do but fall into step beside Ava and walk with her to Stella’s Café on Market Square.
Holly watched the toes of her boots, stepping over the cracks. She tugged her hands into her sleeves, felt the breath shuddering in her lungs, and sought desperately for some inane nicety to say. She was always so good at this: polite small talk with strangers, all smiles and charm and goodwill. But this was different, because Michael had asked this woman to come on her behalf. Ava was here out of obligation. And so Holly’s tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth.
When she heard Michael’s bike start up again, and knew he couldn’t hear them, she blurted, “I’m so sorry he asked you to do this. Believe me, it wasn’t my idea. I think he thinks he’s being sweet, and helpful, but he doesn’t understand women, or social manners, or anything like that, and he’s really stepped in it. I’m so sorry, Ava.” She turned a pleading glance on the brunette beside her. “You don’t have to do this.”
Ava frowned. “Do what? Eat lunch? Trust me, I do have to do that. When the morning sickness isn’t turning me inside out, I’m starving.”
Holly took a deep breath, flustered and near tears. “You don’t have to spend time with me.”
Ava came to a halt, forcing Holly to do the same, her long coat swinging dramatically around her calves. Her frown was thoughtful. “Do you know how many times Michael’s spoken to me?”
Not sure where this was going, Holly shook her head.
“Twice.” Ava held up two fingers. “The first time probably doesn’t count, because I think he was trying to ask me the same thing he did the second time he spoke to me.” Small smile. “The man doesn’t talk. He isn’t friendly – not even out of basic politeness. I think he even hates me. But he came to me and asked me to reach out to you. That’s how much he cares and worries about you.” Her smile became more serious. “I think, even if we never talk to each other again, that we ought to at least honor the fact that he’s so madly in love with you that he’s trying to find friends for you, just so you’ll be happy.”
Holly opened her mouth – and could say nothing. For a moment, she couldn’t even breathe.
Madly in love with her?
She shook her head.
Ava’s grin widened. “Oh yes. You grow up with this bunch, you learn how to speak Biker.” She leaned forward, preparing to take a step. “So, lunch? Stella’s the best cook in the city.”
Holly finally swallowed. “Sure. I could eat.”
“The car’s registered to Abraham Jessup.” Ratchet glanced up at him, brows tucked together. A silent question about what the hell Michael was doing investigating Jessup on his own, since Ghost had said the club would maintain relations with him, for now.
Michael ignored the look. “Address?”
On his laptop, Ratchet pulled up a second browser window where he’d already tracked down Jessup’s house on Google Maps, and switched it to Earth mode, so they could see the street.
“According to this, he’s in Pinewood, which is west of Nashville. Middle of nowhere,” Ratchet said. He zoomed in on the property with the cursor and Michael saw the white shape of a house, empty fields, a building he guessed was the barn, and lots and lots of woods.
The place where Holly had been a prisoner for all of her life.
“That’s not where he is now,” Michael said, frustrated. “Where’s he living around here?”
Ratchet shrugged. “I know what you know. This is the address the vehicle registration gives me. I don’t have anything else to go on.”
Michael nodded. “Thanks.”
Another dead end.
“I’m gonna have the Greek salad, and the fettuccini,” Ava said, handing her unopened menu to the waiter.
Holly took one last glance at the menu. “Bruschetta chicken, please.” She handed her menu over. “And the garden salad.”
“That chicken’s fantastic,” Ava said as the waiter unclicked his pen and whisked away. “Stella has the sun dried tomatoes shipped in from Italy.”
“Wow.” Holly took another glance around the small café.
Part of a standard strip of retail space, the interior had been carefully crafted to look Old World and authentic, with golden frescoed walls, heavy ceiling timbers, bronze pendant lighting, wide floor tiles. There was a ventless gas heater inside the faux stone fireplace, and the bright flames gave off a fair amount of heat. Above, the mantel was heaped with jars of tomatoes, olives, and rich oil that fragmented the light. From where she sat, Holly could see the desserts in the bakery case, and was wondering how much the chocolate-dipped biscotti in the paper sleeves would cost, because she was probably going to have to have one as she left.
“I’ve never been in here,” she confessed.
Ava’s brows lifted. “You haven’t?”
“I cook most of the time. Or eat at the bar, if there’s not time.”
“You cook? I try. And fail a lot.” She laughed. “Poor Merc has been my guinea pig. I think I only gave him food poisoning once.”
Holly grinned. “Did you really?”
Ava nodded and made a face. “Undercooked chicken. It wasn’t pretty.”
Holly winced. “Oops.”
“He cooked dinner for a whole week after that,” Ava said with a laugh. “So it turned out for the best.”
Holly grinned. “He cooks?”
“Oh, yes. He’s French, you know.” She rolled her eyes, but her smile was warm. “Never question a Frenchman’s prowess in the kitchen or the bedroom.”
“Good to know.”
“And if you do question it, be prepared for an earful and a demonstration.” Ava’s cheeks looked tinged with pink in the afternoon sunlight as she reached for her Sprite and took a sip.
Holly sighed and couldn’t seem to help it. One of those sighs that always left her lips when she watched an old romantic movie. “You guys are so sweet together,” she said, before she could stop herself, then cringed with regret.
Ava looked curious, but not offended.
Blushing, Holly said, “I didn’t mean…well, it’s the way anyone who saw you could tell that you like being together. You’re friends. I don’t guess I expected to see that…”
“Coming from a biker?” Ava guessed. “They do get a bit of a reputation, don’t they? It’s the bikes, and the cuts, and the leather.” She dropped her voice a notch. “And that whole ‘outlaw’ thing. Which” – she leaned across the table – “I gotta tell ya, that part’s not made up. They’re outlaws. Don’t get me wrong.”
Holly nodded. So she’d learned. “That doesn’t bother me.”
Ava studied her a moment, expression contemplative. “How much has Michael told you about the club?”
“Not much. I didn’t ask, either. That’s not the reason I’m…with him.”
Ava nodded, her smile approving. “There’s only two things you really have to know about it. One: the boys owe it their allegiance, their time, their livelihoods. And two: women are kept out of any and all club business. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?”
Holly nodded.
“But most women can’t hack it. That’s not an insult to them – God knows they’re better off not aligning themselves with a massive international outlaw organization. But it’s that they don’t ever understand what the club is. It isn’t like a college fraternity. It isn’t like one of those riding clubs that dentists join when they buy Honda cruising bikes. It’s for damn sure not the biker crap they tried to pass off on CSI that time.”
Holly grinned.
“The club” – Ava pressed her lips together, thinking how she wanted to phrase it – “the club is outside of normal culture. The men who started it were returning war veterans, and when they felt ostracized and unappreciated by the people they’d fought to protect, they decided to start their own civilization, outside all the cultural norms of regular society. A counterculture. Their culture, their rules.” She lifted her brows in silent question.
“I’m with you so far.”
“Now all the boys vote, and they have offices, but it’s mostly a monarchy, with a president in power. Prospects have no civil rights within the club. The president is the absolute authority. The law is something to get around. It’s a way of life,” Ava explained. “Not a hobby. One that most gently-bred women with college backgrounds simply cannot wrap their heads around. Women don’t ride, you understand. They don’t vote, and they don’t make club decisions. Bitches ride bitch…and the old ladies have more power over their men than anybody can even begin to understand.”
Ava smiled. “My mom holds my father in the palm of her hand. She is the club queen. Every man in a cut shows her the utmost respect. She’s den mother and home front backbone, and Ghost Teague couldn’t live without her support.”
She sighed. “I guess this sounds very old fashioned and backward.”
Holly said, “It sounds like the men are men and the women are women.”
Ava’s eyes widened in pleased surprise. “Yes. Exactly.”
“And I think,” Holly said carefully, “that when men are really men, and men are strong, they don’t mind it when their women are even stronger.”
Ava’s smile was brilliant.
“I won’t lie to you: Mercy terrifies me. But he looks like a happy Labrador puppy when he’s around you.”
Ava laughed. “Oh, I’m so telling him that.” She sobered, still smiling softly. “I didn’t tell you all that to scare you; I wanted to prepare you, because Michael’s crazy about you and I think you ought to know what you’re getting into.”
Holly felt the sting of happy tears at the back of her eyes. “Ava, I want…I want very badly to have the chance to be a woman. That would be the best thing I’ve ever been. And Michael’s so good to me.”
Ava must have seen the wet sheen in her eyes, because her expression became fragile and sympathetic. “They love so ferociously,” she whispered. “No self-proclaimed feminist has ever made such a cherished queen of a woman as these boys will. I promise you that.”
The waiter arrived with their salads, jarring them back into the café. It was like the volume had been turned down, and suddenly the restaurant was full of the sounds of cutlery, china, and tangled voices.
“Thank you,” Holly said, dabbing at her eyes as her plate was set before her.
As they ate, they chatted about lighter things, namely Ava’s problems with getting the correct consistency in her oatmeal.
Ava paid the tab. “My treat,” she insisted. “This was fun. My best friend has this new boyfriend and I hardly ever see her anymore.”
And then, before they left the table, Ava said, “There’s a big New Year’s party the day after tomorrow at the clubhouse. Tell Michael to bring you. You ought to be there.”
“Hey, Mama.”
Ava tipped her head back for Mercy’s kiss, the slow, warm press of his lips lingering against hers. “Hi,” she said when he drew back and settled beside her on the couch. She sat leaning against one arm, reading by the lamplight as night fell beyond the window.
“Poe?” he asked, of the book in her hands.
“ ‘The Tell-Tale Heart,’ ” she said, smiling.
“How dark you are, Mrs. L.” He unwound the rawhide strip from the knot in his hair and shook out the dark lengths of it, flopping his head back against the sofa with a relieved sigh.
“More imports?” Ava set the book on the floor.
“God,” he said with a groan. “That’s all they’ll give me. I just want some American steel under my hands.” He waved them helplessly in the air to demonstrate and Ava snorted. “This is all your brother by the way.” He rolled his head toward her. “I had to take a little time off, and he’s gotten way too big-headed, thinking he runs the damn place.”
“Aidan’ll do that,” she agreed.
He sighed again, for dramatic effect, then said, “So what’d you do today?”
She smiled to herself, anticipating his reaction. “I had lunch with Holly.”
He stared at her. “With Holly?”
“Holly the waitress,” she explained, and his brows leapt. “Michael’s Holly.”
“Why the hell would you do that?”
“Michael asked me to.”
He looked well and truly shocked. “Why the hell did he do that?”
“Because…” She hesitated, feeling sure that Michael wouldn’t want her relaying anything he’d told her to a fellow Dog. But right now, in their living room, they were not Dog and old lady, but husband and wife. She never wanted to alter the openness of her relationship with him. “He thought she might need a friend and, well, you know how he is. Where was he going to run across someone her age to try and hook her up with?”
“Michael asked you to have lunch with her,” Mercy said, disbelieving. “Michael asked you to have lunch with his waitress.”
“That was the gist of it.”
“But why?”
Ava sighed. “Because he cares about her. Because he thinks she needs a friend. I don’t know.”
He glanced away from her, staring out across the floor, frowning. “He’s been acting extra strange lately.”
“The strange can only get stranger.”
His gaze came back. “Well what did you talk to her about?”
“The club, mostly – nothing major, no worries. Just telling her what I think someone on the outside looking in ought to know.”
It was cute, really, how troubled he seemed by this scenario. “Are you going to see her again?”
“I think so. She said she could help me with my tragic oatmeal making.”
“Your mom could do that. I could do that.”
“Merc.” She hitched herself up straighter against the arm of the sofa. “Why is this bothering you?”
He grew reflective. “Getting involved with someone who’s involved with Michael sounds like a dangerous idea to me.”
She lifted her brows in silent question.
“Don’t ask me to make it any more specific than that, because I can’t. Holly seems like a nice girl, from what I’ve seen, but she wouldn’t be spending time with someone like Michael if she was safe to be around.”
“And what about a girl spending time with someone like you? How safe would she be?”
His face darkened. “As safe as I can keep you.”
“I think,” she said, “that’s what Michael’s trying to do, too.”
He snorted. “Who knows.”
“I ought to be mad at you,” Holly said as she set a steaming dinner of pub burger and French onion soup under Michael’s nose and deposited his whiskey in reach of his right hand. She hadn’t waited for him to order; she’d come straight to him from the kitchen, food-in-hand, her temper insufficient.
He sipped his drink and his eyes came to her as she slid into the booth. “Why?”
She gave him a really? face. “Lunch. With Ava.”
He frowned and picked up his spoon, punched a hole in the browned provolone seal over the crock of soup. “You don’t like her?”
“Of course I like her. She’s lovely.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Holly sighed. “Problems, several of them. For starters, she’s like biker royalty.”
He stirred his soup and gave her a pointed look. “That doesn’t make her better than you.”
She was surprised by his vehemence, the firm set of his jaw. Madly in love with you…Ava had said. Holly shivered with wanting, so wanting it to be true, sure she didn’t deserve it, afraid Ava was wrong, not willing to give voice to it.
“I’m not part of her world,” she said. “I like her, sure, but I don’t want to be a burden. I don’t want to be this girl she thinks is pathetic and lonely and who she needs to be friends with because you asked her to as a favor. I don’t want to be anyone’s favor, Michael.” A touch of vehemence of her own.
He made an exasperated sound. “Why would you be a favor? If you get along, why can’t you be friends? Why can’t it be that simple?”
“Things are never simple.”
“They ought to be.” He ate his soup quietly a moment as she watched him, managing not to dribble it off the spoon or send the slick onions flopping down onto his plate. “I didn’t know I was starting a buncha shit,” he grumbled. “Just nevermind.”
“You didn’t,” Holly assured. It was too difficult to stay mad at him in this instance. He thought he’d been helping, emotional cripple that he was. “It was a very sweet gesture.”
He shot her a dark glance.
“It was. But it–” She broke off, under the intensity of his scrutiny, struck by the notion that, though he’d never admit it, she was hurting his feelings. If she told him what she’d planned, that friendship wasn’t as simple as putting two people at the same lunch table and telling them to get along, he would read it as her rejecting a gesture that was, at its core, kind and selfless.
So instead, she smiled and said, “I was nervous, is the only thing. I still am. I don’t want to force myself on anyone.”
His expression eased, the tension going out of his jaw. His snort sounded amused. “You sure never worried about that with me.”
Her cheeks warmed. “I was trying to strike up a business deal. That was totally different.”
“It was?”
“There’s no such thing as ‘too forward’ in business.” She laughed. “At least, that’s what I got from Wall Street.”
He shook his head and bit into his burger. Crisis averted. Tension gone. Holly shoved down her fears about her miniscule social life and rose to leave the table.
“Midnight?” he asked, and she knew he meant the time her shift ended.
She nodded. And knew he’d sit right here at this table until then.
She glanced back over her shoulder once, when she was halfway back to the bar, and saw that he’d produced a book from inside his cut and was reading while he absently stirred his soup.
Waiting for her.
It was in the entombing dark of just before dawn that Holly remembered what Ava had told her that afternoon. She lay on her side, tucked back against Michael’s chest. His arm lay like a dead thing across her waist; his breathing was light, though. He was awake.
She rolled slowly onto her back, and then onto her other side, turning in his arms. His legs shifted, opened up a place for one of hers to slide between. She marveled at this warm closeness under the covers, skin-to-skin, but even more marvelous was the way Michael had never seemed conflicted about it. He’d been that way from the beginning, wanting hands and arms on her, sleeping together after, staying in bed with her, keeping her close. He liked the intimacy, and he wasn’t self-conscious about it. He’d never given her reason to question it; it was just the way things were.
“Michael,” she said, a whisper in the total dark, smoothing her hands across his chest.
“Hmm?” His hand was warm against the small of her back.
She took a deep breath. Here went nothing. “Ava said you guys were having a big New Year’s party.”
No answer, which she took to mean “yes.”
“She said I should come with you. That you should bring me.”
She cringed, waiting.
“I didn’t figure you’d want to.”
She held her breath.
“Do you want to?”
She wanted any chance to be with him, even if the idea of a big club party scared her witless, so she said, “Yes.”
His hand stirred at her back, fingers stroking lightly at her spine. “Okay.”