Cody wanted to get close enough to see how many men were in the living room with Harley, but as soon as he took one more step, he’d be visible to whoever was in there. Twister stood next to him with his back against the wall and both hands on his gun. If Cody moved, the kid was going to move, and Cody didn’t want to be responsible for a nineteen-year-old who still had acne getting shot. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and sent Handsome a text.

“If I cover Hannah can you hailstorm the front window?”

“Yep. Give me a go sign when you’re ready.”

“Twister will text you.”

Cody handed the phone to Twister, put his finger back up to his lips, and then signaled him to stay put. Twister didn’t look happy about it but Cody didn’t have time to debate it. Without any more hesitation than that he braced himself for whatever he was going to run into and then he just ran. As soon as his feet hit the living room floor the bullet tore through his left shoulder. His eyes were on Harley, tied to a chair in the middle of the room. He threw his two-hundred-and-thirty-pound body on top of her and right at that second, all hell broke loose. It was like World War III in the middle of Dax’s living room with glass breaking, guns firing, and people screaming and yelling. Cody lay still on top of Harley, hoping that he wasn’t killing her while he was trying to save her. The whole thing lasted about three, maybe four minutes. It went from total chaos to…nothing. Another two or three seconds passed and Cody still didn’t move. He didn’t know who was still standing until he heard Handsome’s voice.

“Kid? Are you shot?”

He lifted off Harley. She wasn’t moving and the side of her face was covered in blood. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. He’d killed her. “Fuck! I suffocated her. Fuck!” Handsome reached down and felt her pulse.

“She’s alive, kid, breathe.”

“She’s all covered in blood.”

Handsome looked like he was trying to keep from laughing. Cody felt like he was going to be sick. He wondered how many years you had to do shit like this before you could find any of it funny. “It’s your blood, kid. You’ve been shot.”

Cody looked down at his shoulder. He had felt the bullet rip through it and then he’d honestly forgotten about it. Now that Handsome pointed it out, he realized that it hurt like a motherfucker. He looked back down at Harley, who was beginning to stir, and forgot about it again. “Harley? Hey…Hannah? Are you awake? Are you okay?”

“Why are you calling me Hannah?”

Cody laughed then, mostly just because he wanted to cry and there was no crying in the motorcycle club. He lifted her up and held her to his chest. They sat there like that while Handsome and the guys moved around them and Handsome talked on his phone. Cody heard him talking to Dax at one point, but he didn’t know who else he called, not until he heard the sirens. That’s when he looked up from Harley and said, “Cops? You called the cops?”

“Dax told me to.” He pointed at Harley. “She’s that Detective Brady’s girl…right?” He raised a questioning eyebrow, probably because Harley was still clutching onto Cody’s shirt.

“Yeah,” Cody said.

“Too many questions if we just take the two of you over to the doc. The cops need to see this wasn’t us. We were attacked, and if it wasn’t for you, that little girl would probably be dead. You saved her life, kid.”

“You saved my life,” Harley said, cuddling closer into his chest. She was only about half conscious, or maybe in shock. Cody knew that he needed to detach himself from her before those sirens stopped out front. Even if Kyle Brady wasn’t with them, he’d get a full report.

Whispering in Harley’s ear he said, “The ambulance is here, baby. I’m going to lay you down here on the floor so they can check you out, okay?”

“Don’t leave me.”

“I’m not going anywhere. But the cops are here, Harley. I need to let you go and lay you down, okay? I’ll be right here.”

“The cops?”

“Yeah, baby. The cops are here too.”

“Kyle?”

“Maybe.”

“Cody?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.” He brushed his lips along the side of her face and then he laid her back on the carpet. Then clutching at his shoulder, which was throbbing now and pouring blood, he lay back himself in the other direction. Twister was there with a towel that he tied around the wound, trying to stop the blood, but by that time the cops were rushing in yelling at everyone to get down. They had to go through the whole routine, as if maybe they were the attackers instead of the victims. It was only when the detective in charge saw Harley that he yelled at someone to get the EMTs inside. Cody was on the verge of passing out by that time. Everything was foggy and gray. He could hear Handsome yelling at them to tend to him, and then his world went from gray to black and he let the darkness take him.

* * *

Cody knew he was in a hospital when he woke up. The smells and sounds were unmistakable. He’d been in plenty of hospitals in his life. When he was a kid and the old man would get carried away, Keller would somehow get him into town, once in a red wagon he’d found at the dump and fixed up. He’d tell them that Cody wrecked his bike or fell down the mountain. Social services would show up, but by that time the old man would sober up enough to get down there and back up whatever story Keller had told them. Cody knew better than to tell them otherwise.

Then in prison he’d been stabbed twice—once in the stomach with a homemade shank and the other time in the back with a screw someone had taken out of the fence and fashioned into something that looked like an icepick. Both times it hadn’t amounted to much more than a few stitches, but he always did his best to drag out his stays if he could. The hospital was preferable to either the dirty trailer or the six-by-twelve-foot cell.

What he didn’t know this time when he woke up was what had happened. The old man was his first thought, but then he remembered that he was grown and the old man was gone. So, then he thought maybe he’d been hurt in prison. His head felt fuzzy and he was confused and weak. When he finally pulled his eyes open, the first thing he saw was Dax.

“Jesus, kid, you’re a pain in my ass, you know that?”

“What did I do this time?” Cody asked. He was completely serious. Dax threw his head back and laughed. While Dax was laughing at him, Cody’s memory began to return and his thoughts started to clear. “Shit—Harley!” He tried to push himself up, and pain tore through his shoulder and raced up into his neck and down into his arm. “Fuck!”

“Just lie down and be still,” Dax told him. “That little red-headed demon is fine.”

Cody lay back and fought through the pain. When he could breathe again he looked at Dax. “Really? She’s okay?”

“She’s just fine. Your big ass just knocked the wind out of her. She’s bruised but alive and well.”

“Good.”

“You saved her life, kid. I’m proud of you.”

Cody thought back to what had happened. He wondered if he had saved her life, or just caused a bunch of unnecessary chaos. Maybe they hadn’t planned on killing her. “Who were they?”

Dax shook his head, slowly. “I’m not sure who they were…exactly. I’m pretty sure that I know who sent them.”

“What did they want?”

“Now’s not the time for that. You just got out of surgery a few hours ago. You need to rest.”

“Surgery? What did they do?”

“They gave you a brain, I hope.” Cody lifted the middle finger of his good hand and Dax laughed again. “They fixed your shoulder. The bullet hit the bone and shattered it. They put some hardware in there.”

“So I’m like the Man of Steel now?”

“Go to sleep, kid, the morphine is kicking in. Harley’s downstairs, she wants to see you…and Macy’s here too.”

“Macy’s here?”

“Yeah, and Jimmy, and Kyle. It’s a regular party of girls you like to fuck and their boyfriends and exes down there. So, just keep hiding up here, and ask for more morphine. I have a feeling you’re going to need it.”

Cody was the one that laughed then. It hurt like hell.

* * *

When he opened his eyes again, Harley was at his bedside. Her hair was straightened down across her shoulders and she had on a frilly white blouse, a jean skirt, and a pair of cowboy boots. Cody’s first thought was that she looked hotter than hell. “Hey, he said.

“Hey, you. God, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“It was just a little bullet. I’m the Man of Steel, they can’t stop me with a bullet.”

“Shut the hell up,” she said with a smile. Her eyes were filled with tears, though, and she reached over and put her hand on his good arm. Her body radiated warmth and Cody closed his eyes for a second to revel in it. “I finally did it. I finally landed you in the hospital.”

“Nah, it wasn’t your fault. Those assholes had you tied up…”

“They were going to kill me, Cody. I heard them talking to someone on the phone and they told them to kill me. You saved my life.”

“Good. I was afraid I had killed you at first.”

She smiled and reached up to wipe a tear off her face. “I can’t believe you did that. You took a bullet for me. That’s like the ultimate way to prove you care. You know how people always say, ‘I’d take a bullet for her,’ but most of them don’t mean it. You actually did it.”

Cody smiled. “I’d do it again too, in a heartbeat.”

“I honestly thought we were just fooling around. I didn’t know you cared that much.”

“I don’t. I’d just take another bullet so that I could lie here in bed instead of sweeping up the goddamned clubhouse after their wild-ass parties.”

Harley started laughing. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she did. Cody didn’t know if they were happy or sad tears. When she stopped laughing and caught her breath she said, “That girl is downstairs waiting to see you.”

“Macy.”

“Yeah. She’s pretty. I remember when we were kids she was kind of around…but always on the periphery.”

“Don’t use your big lawyer words on me; I was Department of Corrections educated.”

She giggled. “Periphery?”

“No idea what that means.”

Still laughing she said, “Kind of in the background. On the outside.”

“Yeah. Macy never liked to be the center of attention. Besides, you sucked all the oxygen out of every place you went…you still do.”

“Anyways, she’s really worried about you. I’m going to go and let her come see you. But I wanted a chance to say thank you…and Cody?”

“Yeah?”

She stood up, picked up her purse, bent down and kissed him on the lips and said, “I care about you too…a lot more than I should. Get better. I’ll see you soon.” Then she turned and Cody watched her hips swivel as she left the room. It was ridiculous, but even on morphine and after two pints of blood and major surgery, his cock was filling with blood. Harley Yates was one fine, sexy woman.