Without thinking, Dare stepped back from Carly’s reach and did up his jeans.
“What’s wrong?” Carly said. “Dare?”
He gave her a hand up, but his eyes were all for the angel-faced beauty Joker was currently bearing down on, his walk full of swagger, his expression like he’d just won the lottery. Gut-deep protectiveness rose up inside Dare, the instinct as well-tuned as the engine on his bike. “Sorry, sweetie,” Dare said. “Duty calls.”
Carly’s expression was pure exasperation and not a little pissed off. He gave her shoulder a squeeze, then worked his way through the crowd, trying like hell not to get pulled into any storytelling or jokes or conversations along the way.
Crossing the room felt like it took forever, and by the time he got clear, Joker had the girl pinned up against a wall in the hall. Not because he’d put her there, necessarily, but because she’d retreated as he’d advanced and backed herself into a corner.
Jesus, she looked terrified. Who the hell was this woman? Or was she just a girl? He honestly couldn’t tell how old she was, but her skittishness was crystal clear.
Dare put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. The guy was as big as a mountain but as harmless as a mouse. Well, mostly. “Joker, how’s it going?”
“Goin’ good, D. I was just introducing myself to . . .” His words trailed off, encouraging her to fill in the blank. Only she looked like she was two seconds from having a full-blown panic attack.
“Hey, whoa,” Dare said, stepping closer to the blond. “You okay?”
She gave a quick nod, but the movement was jerky and forced, like she thought she was supposed to say she was fine. Dare frowned as a flush poured into her cheeks.
He eyeballed Joker and nodded for him to clear out. A concerned expression on his face, the big guy shrugged and made his way back into the thick of the party.
“I’m Dare, the club president. You’re okay here,” Dare assured her. “You know that, right?” Who the hell was she, anyway? He knew all the regulars, and she certainly wasn’t one of them. Frankly, it was usually outgoing, confident women who gravitated to an MC, not shy girls. . . .
All of a sudden, he realized who he was talking to. “Wait. Are you Haven?” One of the two women who, in the midst of the club’s fight against enemies in Baltimore, had been rescued from a gang and given refuge at the Raven Riders’ compound. In all the chaos of the past few weeks, Dare hadn’t met the women when they’d arrived at the compound, which was out of the norm for him. He’d only met the other woman, Cora, at dinner earlier in the night.
Her eyes went wide, the blue color so vivid it was almost electric. “Y-yes,” she said, closing her eyes and shaking her head like she was frustrated. “Yes. I’m Haven,” she said again, stronger, clearer.
“Haven,” Dare repeated. “Well, okay.” He held out a hand, gesturing down the hall. “Can I show you something? Something I think might help make you feel more comfortable here?”
Wariness crept into her gaze, but finally she nodded and followed him down the hall. She walked almost huddled against the wall, her body as far from his as she could make it given the width of the hallway. Anger curled into Dare’s gut. Someone had taught her that fear, had given her a good reason to keep her distance. He saw it so damn often. And even though he wouldn’t do it, her anxiety made him want to comfort her, to take her hand or put his arm around her shoulders. But he kept his distance, too.
He guided her toward the front door of the clubhouse, which had once been a mountain inn connected to the Green Valley Race Track his club owned and operated as one of their primary business ventures. Now the building housed the club’s main social spaces, a kitchen and mess, meeting room, workout room, and a dozen rooms upstairs where people could crash or fuck or otherwise find some privacy.
In the big front lounge that had previously served as the inn’s reception area, Dare paused and pointed to the wall across from the door. “See that?” he asked, pointing to one of the many pieces of work Bandit had done around the place.
Haven’s gaze followed his hand to where the club’s motto had been carved into the thick wooden molding above the old registration desk. Foot-high words inscribed permanently in the building’s very fabric:
Ride. Fight. Defend.
“Yes,” she said, the turning of her head pulling thick strands of long blond waves over her shoulder. Her hair hung to her hips over clothes so baggy Dare wondered how they stayed on. “What does it mean?”
Only everything—to him and all the Ravens. He’d built his life around those three words these past twenty years. “I don’t know what you know about motorcycle clubs, but we’re not your typical MC.” And that had been by design. Dare had grown up inside an outlaw MC, inside a group of self-proclaimed One Percenters—the nickname coming from the American Motorcycle Association having once declared that ninety-nine percent of all MCs were law abiding. Which of course meant that one percent weren’t. The son of Butch Kenyon, the Arizona Diablos’ vice-president, who was also known as The Sandman for the number of men he was responsible for sending to their final sleep, Dare had been groomed to help lead that club one day. Which meant he knew exactly what things he hadn’t wanted replicated here, thank you very much.
“I don’t know a lot,” Haven said in a quiet voice.
He walked to the side of the room, where a collection of framed photographs hung in a tight cluster on the wall. The club’s patched members. Almost forty in total, not including a few older members who’d retired from active status, the two prospective members they currently had, and the extended family of all their wives and girlfriends and kids. “We live by our own rules and values, just like most clubs do. And we protect our own, whatever it takes. This MC is a brotherhood. It’s a family,” he said, crossing his arms. “But a long time ago we also made it our mission to be something more. To serve the community we live in. And we do that by fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves, and by defending those who can’t defend themselves.” Dare looked Haven in the eye, wanting her to believe what he was saying. “Sometimes that means that we give people who need it a safe haven here, and sometimes that means that we provide protection for people in their lives. But either way, we intend to make it clear that in our backyard, there is no tolerance for bullying the weak, and absolutely no intention to fear those who think they’re powerful.”
“Okay,” Haven said. She lowered her chin and nodded. “Thank you.”
He appreciated the sentiment, but he didn’t need it. None of this had started to stroke his own ego, anyway. Just the opposite, in fact. No matter how many people he and the Ravens helped, it never made up for the first two people he’d failed and let die—while he’d run for his life. Hell if twenty-plus years had done a damn thing to take the sharp edges off that reality. “Hey,” he said, his voice suddenly full of gravel. He reached out a hand to nudge her chin up, but pink flooded her cheeks at the near touch, so he stepped back and folded his arms. “You don’t owe me any thanks.”
Eyes on the photographs, she hugged herself. “I . . . I do.” Something about the way she said the words made Dare think she didn’t often put herself out there by contradicting people, which made him even more curious about why she was doing it now. “Kindness isn’t common, in my experience. Which means it’s something to acknowledge.” She brought her gaze back to his.
What the hell had happened to her to lead her to that conclusion? Not that he disagreed. Her words resonated inside Dare for a reason. He’d seen so damn much ugliness in his life. But why had she? And who the hell did he have to beat the shit out of for teaching her that particular lesson? “Well, you’re welcome,” he managed, and then he heaved a breath. “Listen, we can be a rowdy bunch, especially when we’re blowing off steam like tonight. And we aren’t angels by any stretch of the imagination. But there isn’t a single man here who wouldn’t help you. So if you need something, all you have to do is ask.”
“ASK,” HAVEN REPEATED. “Right.” Only, while her ears heard the words, the racing of her heart and the prickling on her scalp told her she wouldn’t be putting that advice into action any time soon. Assuming she even believed it.
She peered up at Dare. The man was intimidation personified. Tall. Shoulder-length dark brown hair. Muscular, but lean, like a back-alley brawler. Piercing eyes so dark they were almost black, so penetrating she felt like he could look inside her and read all her deepest fears. A scar cut a wide swath through his left eyebrow, and the crookedness of his nose said it had been broken at least once. There was a ruggedness about his face that bordered on harsh and an arrogance to the way his body moved that said he feared absolutely no one. Unlike her. Tattoos on his arms and peeking out of the neck of his black T-shirt added to the roughness of his appearance, as did the well-worn denim cutoff jacket he wore that was all decked out in black leather patches, symbols, and words.
Haven had grown up with men who looked every bit as intimidating, harsh, and rough as Dare. Men who got off on asserting their power, on toying with people’s fears, on exploiting people’s weaknesses.
Except . . .
Except Dare’s words belied the image. Didn’t they?
A lifetime of living around men, not all of whom had good intentions, had honed Haven’s instincts. Being shy meant she was an observer, and that had helped her learn to read which men she had to be vigilant around and which she could trust not to jump her when they thought her father wasn’t looking. It was in their eyes. In the way they treated those less powerful than them. In how they acted when her father wasn’t in the room.
Still, Haven was just starting to get a read on Dare. The fact that he’d backed off from touching her before was a good sign, but only time would tell for sure. Butterflies whipped through her belly at the thought of believing him, trusting him, actually putting herself out there enough to put his words to the test. Oh, God, why had she come downstairs? Why had she thought she could actually handle a party full of strangers? Even standing on the outside looking in to the room where most of the people were hanging out had had her feeling like all the oxygen had suddenly disappeared, until she’d been gasping, suffocating, panicking.
“Haven?”
Dare’s deep voice snapped her from her thoughts. “I’m sorry,” she rushed out, sure she’d missed something important. Muscle memory had her bracing for a blow—verbal or physical. She had experience with both.
His face was suddenly in her line of vision, revealing that he’d leaned down to make her look at him. Tension roared through her, as did the desire to put more space between them. But she forced her feet to remain planted. Showing fear in the face of aggression usually just encouraged even more of it. Back in Georgia, she’d learned never to give her father or his men the satisfaction of her fear when they got in her face about something. Pretending to be unaffected usually made her less interesting to harass.
“You don’t owe me that, either,” he said, a gruffness to his tone she didn’t know how to read.
“Sorry,” she repeated, wincing when she realized she’d done again what he told her not to do. She shook her head at herself, frustration rolling through her. Pull it together, Haven.
Dare winked. “Old habits die hard, huh?”
She met his gaze as surprise flowed through her. Surprise that he’d responded with a wry humor instead of irritation. Or worse. “Uh, yeah. Guess so.”
He just nodded as his eyes searched hers. She could barely breathe with him so close, so observant, so . . . overwhelming. Finally, he relented, straightening to his full height and putting space between them again. “That’s okay. But I need to ask something of you, Haven.”
Her stomach dropped to the floor. Here it came. She knew there’d be a catch. “What?” she said, her tone breathy with rising dread. Her brain screamed at her to get the heck out of there. But how could she? She literally lived under Dare’s roof right now and had not a cent to her name. Not to mention that she wouldn’t begin to know where to go or who to trust with her father hunting her.
“I need you to try to judge me on my actions and my words, not on the actions and words of the people who came before me in your life.”
The words were so different from what she’d expected that at first they wouldn’t sink in.
“Think you can try to do that for me?” His dark eyes blazed down at her with an emotion she couldn’t name or begin to understand.
But it had her nodding. Not because she felt she had to but because she suddenly wanted to . . . to what? To give him what he wanted, to ease whatever it was she saw shining from his eyes, to somehow thank him for surprising her. It wasn’t often that someone failed to live down to her expectations. But Dare had. By a lot. “I’ll try. I just . . .” Her throat went dry at the near admission of something she wouldn’t normally say to a complete stranger—especially someone who looked the way Dare did and on whom she was dependent.
He tilted his head to the side, his eyes locked on hers. “Just what?”
Haven swallowed around the knot of fear in her throat. “I just usually expect the worst. That way . . . it doesn’t . . .” She shrugged and rubbed her hands over her suddenly cold arms. “. . . it doesn’t hurt as much when it happens.” Her heart played like a bass drum against her breastbone.
Dare’s expression didn’t change. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t blink. It gave Haven the impression that he’d just donned a mask, or closed the blinds over the windows of his true reaction. Finally, he gave a single tight nod. “I imagine you have a good reason for feeling that way. Just try to remember that those who’ve seen the most ugliness are also most able to recognize beauty. It comes down to trusting yourself as much as other people.”
Tears pricked against the backs of Haven’s eyes. She’d never heard someone say something so powerful, so challenging, so . . . scary in her life. Not scary because it threatened her, but because of its promise. That beauty existed. That she could see it. That she could choose to see it.
And it all started with her.
It was almost hopeful. But embracing hope was one of the scariest things of all.
She couldn’t believe she was having a conversation like this, but now she was dying to know. “But how do you—”
“Oh, my God, Haven! You came down!” Cora bounded into the big lounge.
Haven spun, hand over her pounding heart. “Crap, you scared me,” she said.
Cora laughed. “Sorry. I was just excited. Actually, I was headed to the kitchen to grab you some food,” she said.
“That’s why I came down,” Haven said. She peered at Dare, and her manners suddenly kicked in. “Oh, have you met Dare? He’s the club president.”
Smiling, Cora nodded. “At dinner. I think I’ve met just about everybody now.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Haven said, giving her friend a smile. Where Haven would rather do just about anything other than meet new people, Cora thrived on it. Even back when Haven still attended school, Cora had always been the one to pull her into new things and introduce her to new people.
“So, let’s go get you something to eat,” Cora said, taking her hand and tugging her toward a door next to the grouping of Ravens photographs. “See ya later, Dare.”
“Yeah,” he said.
Haven looked back over her shoulder toward him, wanting to say something, to offer something. But Cora pulled her into the dining room, where two big long tables sat in front of a large stone fireplace. Over the mantel, the Ravens’ logo hung, carved into a giant slab of wood—a black raven sitting on the handle of a knife that was buried in the eye socket of a skull. Holy creepiness. Over the tables, American and black Prisoner of War/Missing in Action flags hung straight down from the rough-hewn exposed beams that ran across the ceiling. In the two weeks since they’d arrived there, Haven had most visited this part of the clubhouse, so all this was familiar to her.
Chattering as she led them into the kitchen, Cora finally dropped her arm and turned to her. “So everybody’s really nice. You’re going to like them. I promise.”
“Okay,” Haven said, tugging the fridge door open. She’d helped work in the kitchen more than once while they’d been there, so it was probably the one place outside her room where she actually felt comfortable making herself at home. She found lunch meat and cheese for a sandwich. “You can go back to the party, you know. I don’t mind.”
A chair scraped the tile floor. “I don’t mind, either,” Cora said, sitting at the small table along the kitchen’s back wall. Like the rest of the clubhouse, the room itself was older, and its architectural details felt like they’d been inspired by a cabin—lots of wood paneling, exposed beams, and giant fireplaces, but the space had been retrofitted with a modern kitchen equipped to cook for a big group.
Haven set everything she needed on the table and put together a turkey and cheese sandwich with mustard and lettuce.
As she worked, Cora snatched a slice of American and nibbled at it. “So, what were you and Dare talking about? Seemed intense.”
“He was just telling me about the club,” Haven said. Although Cora was right, it had been way more intense than that. At least, it had felt that way to Haven. She took a bite of her dinner.
Cora nodded and waggled her eyebrows, a mischievous expression coming over her face. “He’s hot in a tall, dark, and scary kinda way.”
Haven almost choked on the food. She gulped at a glass of water until she forced the bite down. “You are so bad.”
Laughing, Cora shrugged. “Not bad, just observant. But Dare’s nowhere near as hot as Phoenix, whose butt I totally kicked in a game of pool, which he got all pouty over.” She laughed. “He’s hugely annoying, but pretty nice to look at.”
Shaking her head, Haven chuckled. At least Cora had moved on from talking about Dare’s hotness. Her stomach did a loop-the-loop because Cora . . . wasn’t wrong. It was just that he was equally intimidating, which made the hotness harder for Haven to appreciate. “Who else did you meet?” she asked to keep Cora talking—about someone other than Dare.
As her friend ticked off a long list of names—well, nicknames, mostly—of Ravens she’d met, Haven finished her food and found it easier and easier to lose the anxiety she’d felt when she’d peeked in on the party and spoken with Dare.
Finally, Haven cleaned up her mess and put everything away.
“Come meet some people,” Cora said, face expectant.
But Haven knew her limits. Tonight had been adventurous enough already. “No. The party’s just too much for me. But you should totally go back.”
Cora gave her a sad puppy face, complete with a fat bottom lip and all. “Please, I promise I’ll stay by your side the whole time.”
With a small smile, Haven shook her head. “You know I’m the worst partygoer ever. So go have fun and don’t worry about me. I’m gonna sit out on the porch for a while and then head back up.” One of her favorite things about being there was the peacefulness of the woods, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the valley vista below. And despite the fact that the darkness would keep her from appreciating the view, she could still enjoy the peacefulness and put off holing herself up in her room for a little while longer. Apparently, she was also the oldest twenty-two-year-old ever.
“Okey dokey,” Cora said. “But if you change your mind . . .”
Haven wouldn’t, and they both knew it, but she just smiled. “If I change my mind, I’ll come find you.”
Nodding, Cora winked. “Okay. Stay out of trouble.”
Haven smiled even though she wondered just how possible that actually was, for either of them. “Ha ha. Would you go already?”
Cora stuck her tongue out and left.
Haven made for the back door that led to the building-long covered back porch. Honestly, Cora was going to go party with an entire motorcycle club, and Haven was going to go sit by herself in the night air. Of the two of them, she was hardly the one who needed to worry about finding trouble. At least for tonight.