Angel climbed off the back of Dax’s hog and pulled off the new helmet he had recently bought for her. It was black with a purple skull on the side of it and her initials were at the bottom…well, Angel Gonzalez’s initials were on it anyways. He’d been so happy to give it to her, and just the idea of this big, tough biker being so tickled to give her a present had melted Angel’s heart. She had been happy about it until Kyle brought it up at the task force meeting a few days prior:

“So, you have your own helmet now, I see.” He was looking at the photographs from the camera that Angel had planted in the great room of the clubhouse.

“Yep.”

“Seems like he’s awfully attached to you already.” Kyle was staring at her intently as if trying to read her mind. Micah was staring at a spot on the wall behind her and her father was looking at her sadly over Micah’s head. She wasn’t sure if he was sad because she was “getting attached” or because Kyle was trying to use it against her.

“Wasn’t that why you sent me in?” she asked, sarcastically. “I mean if you didn’t want him to get attached I doubt you would have sent in someone with a vagina and boobs.”

Her dad suppressed a smile; Micah gasped. The sheriff’s deputy looked away, embarrassed, and Kyle narrowed his green eyes at her. “Don’t get smart with me.”

“Why? Are you my boss…or my father?” Their argument was cut short by the appearance of the captain. Angel had just given them the information she had that had ultimately led to the arrest of the two Sinners in the murder and arson case. Kyle didn’t apologize that day.

“Beezy’s sister lives here?” she asked Dax as he climbed off the bike. They were in front of an old blue Victorian house. It had about twenty windows in it and every one of them was lit up. Twinkling lights…ones that might have actually been Christmas lights a few months prior…were hanging from the eaves and across the wide front porch.

“Yeah, he’s going to be staying with her while he heals. She’s cool. She works for our lawyer.”

“Our lawyer?”

He grinned and took her hand. “No, babe. You and I don’t have a lawyer…yet. ‘Ours’ as in the club’s lawyer. His name is Nathan Vaughn and he handles any legal troubles we might have.”

She knew well who Nathan Vaughn was. He’d started out his career in Hanover as an ambulance chaser and had quickly realizing there was a lot of money to be made in defending high-profile criminals like the guys from the MC clubs. The DA hated the guy and cops hated him too. He was a sleazebag, worse than the criminals themselves as far as they were concerned. “Oh, that’s…convenient,” she said with a grin back. Dax led her across the wide yard that seemed to be full of people holding bottles, cans, or Red Solo cups, drinking, laughing, and smoking. The tobacco smoke hung in the air while the smell of weed assaulted her nostrils. As they headed up to the porch nearly everyone they passed greeted Dax. One kid held out a fat blunt and said:

“Hey, Dax, want a hit?”

Dax stopped and looked the kid up and down. “Michael?”

The kid smiled. He looked awfully young to Angel to be at a party like this. Dax plucked the blunt from his fingers and took a long drag. While he was still holding in the smoke he handed it over to Angel. She accepted it, took a small hit, and handed it back. Dax let out the breath he was holding, grabbed her hand, and started walking again.

“Hey Dax! What about my smoke?”

Dax stopped abruptly and turned on the kid. He dropped the blunt on the grass and ground it into the soil with his boot and then took the kid by surprise by grabbing hold of the front of his shirt. Getting close to the kid’s frightened face Dax said, “Listen to me. You’re what…fifteen?”

“In a few weeks,” the kid said in a shaky voice.

“You need to lay off the weed and the booze and stay the hell away from grown-up parties, got it? I don’t want to see you at another one of these parties until you’re twenty-one years old and then I expect you to be in a suit, defending me or whichever one of these dickheads are standing in front of a judge, you got that?”

“Dax, I…It’s Saturday night. Mom knows where I am…”

“I’ll just bet she does. Your mother probably doesn’t know where she is right now, but that’s no fucking excuse. Think about what your father wanted for you.”

The kid narrowed his sad blue eyes and said, “He’s not here to tell me any longer, though, is he?”

“That’s what I’m here for. Now get your ass home, before I kick it.” The group of kids standing with Michael had already taken off. He looked around for someone that might defend him, but everyone was too involved in their own drinking, laughing, or making out to care about a fourteen-year-old boy. Angel suspected that even if they did, none of them were going to defend him to Dax. He was liked by most, feared by some, and respected by all. They weren’t stupid. For a second Angel wondered if Michael was, but after staring at Dax for several long minutes and not coming up with something to say he took off in a huff. Dax stared after him and Angel asked:

“Are his parents friends of yours?” A dark cloud crossed Dax’s face and he said:

“His father was my best friend. He died three years ago. He was murdered.” He stopped there, pausing for a long time. Angel thought he was finished talking, so she was surprised when he went on, “His mother was a good woman but she fell apart when he died. One of my guys told me a couple years ago that she was sleeping with a dealer from Hartford. I put a stop to that.” Angel searched her brain for anything she knew about the disappearance of a dealer in Hartford. Nothing registered. Dax was still talking so she refocused on him. “By that time, she had gotten a taste for smack and she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, kick it. She’s pretty much just a waste of oxygen these days.” He sighed.

“So she doesn’t work?” Angel asked.

Dax rolled his eyes. “No. She doesn’t do anything but put that needle in her arm. A couple of the club girls go over and clean up that pigsty they live in once a month. Michael has pretty much raised himself for the past two years. It’s sad. That kid is the smartest person I’ve ever met. He has something like a 150 IQ. His dad never wanted him to be in the club. He wanted him to go to law school or medical school and do something with his life. But with his mother in the shape she’s in…” He trailed off and pulled open the sliding glass doors leading into the house. There was a keg sitting on the floor and a stack of liquor bottles and two ice chests. Dax reached down and grabbed two beers with one hand and offered one to Angel. She took it and they continued through the crowded living room that looked more like an orgy about to happen than a coming-home/get-well party, and then out through another glass door that led to a large wooden deck. There were a few tables set up and Angel recognized most of the people from the ranch. One of them was Beezy. It was his coming-home party. He’d spent almost a month in the hospital. The bullet damaged his spinal column and the doctors doubted that he’d be able to walk again. Beezy was taking baby steps, but proving them wrong.

“Damn, I asked those fucking doctors to fix that ugly face of yours while you were in there, but I think you got even uglier,” Dax told him.

Beezy flipped him off. “You just wish you were as ugly as me.” Dax reached out his hand and they clasped them together as he leaned down and gave Beezy a hug. None of the guys had been to the hospital to see him after that first night simply because there were too many cops around. Scar and Franklin were still locked up, unable to make bail because of the parole violation. Every time anyone brought it up, Dax went ballistic. They were the ones that got robbed. Angel never found out what it was the Sinners had taken that night, but she knew it wasn’t fertilizer.

“Hi there, Angel. You’re still hangin’ with this ugly SOB, huh?”

Angel smiled. “He kind of grew on me. How are you feeling, Beezy?”

“Like I got shot in the gut. I haven’t taken a decent shit in weeks.” Angel felt her face go hot. Even after a month she wasn’t acclimated to how crude these guys were sometimes. She’d once thought cops were the worst. Dax took the beer she was still holding out of her hand and twisted off the top. He handed it back to her and she took a long, cold drink. She hadn’t overdone the alcohol since that first night…not that it had stopped the sex. Being mostly sober had just made it all that much better. “Where’s that pretty nose-ring of yours?” Beezy asked. Angel reached up and touched her nose. She’d almost forgotten about that.

“It was making me breaking out,” she said. “I guess I was allergic to the metal in it.” Angel had tired of her brother and Micah looking over her shoulder, telling her what to say and when to say it. She’d also tired of having to figure out what to do with it every time she and Dax had sex…which was a lot. She finally resorted to desperate measures. She was deathly allergic to strawberries, so she bought some and smashed them and rubbed them all over the side of her nose and in her ear over the piercing. She let the strawberry juice sit on her skin until it stung and burned and then she washed it off. She was left with an ugly, oozing red rash. She went straight to her team and told them she had reacted to the metal in the devices and they’d have to come up with something else. So far, they hadn’t. She was still reporting anything significant she heard or discovered, so she told herself that it was just a little white lie and it wasn’t going to hurt a thing.

“Aw, that’s too bad. I thought it was hot.” Dax hit him on the shoulder and Beezy laughed. “I’d have to wear a blindfold not to notice she’s hot, man.”

Dax looked at her with that mixture of awe and lust he got in his eyes when he wanted her and said, “True story.” He stared at her for a long time, making her insides turn almost completely to mush. Finally, he let go of her hand and pulled two plastic chairs up to the table and they sat down. While he shot the shit with Beezy and a couple of the other guys, Angel looked around the deck. It was lit up with lanterns, and just down the steps to the right was a fire pit. People were gathered around it in chairs, talking and laughing. Everyone seemed so happy. She wondered if it was the freedom of their lives that made them that way…not having a 9-to-5 job, or a mortgage, or family breathing down your neck. She’d never felt that, complete happiness, at least not since she was a kid.

Suddenly she smelled the subtle woodsy scent of Dax’s aftershave as he leaned in close to her. “Are you okay?” She smiled and nodded at him. This was the Dax Marshall that her brother and Micah and everyone else that called him a worthless thug didn’t know. He was the one that brought her coffee in bed sometimes and smiled at her for no reason. He was the one that stripped her bare and set her world on fire. They’d never be able to understand her feelings, because they’d never know that man.

“I’m good. Just lost in thought.”

“About?”

She smiled again. “You.” Dax suddenly stood up and held out his hand. She took it and without saying anything to the people at the table he led her back into the house and toward the stairs. “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere quiet,” he said. “Where we can talk.” He’d been acting a little “off” all day, but Angel thought it was just about Beezy’s getting out of the hospital; now she was worried. Dax wasn’t a big talker. He didn’t do small talk well and usually when he spoke to someone in private, it was a big deal. Angel followed him with butterflies in her belly, saying a silent prayer that she hadn’t been made somehow. They climbed the stairs and stopped at the first door on the right. Dax knocked and when no one answered he pushed it open. It was a neat little bedroom with a full-size bed, a chair, and a desk. A big window with a window seat faced out to the front of the house and the moon shone in brightly.

“Should we be in their bedroom?” She had to admit that it was nice being in the soundless room. All the people downstairs overwhelmed her a little. She’d been raised to always watch for danger or trouble, and watching that many people had given her a headache in a very short time.

“It’s a guest room,” he said. “Nobody’s going to care.” He locked the door and a tickle of anticipation ran down her spine. She didn’t know what she was anticipating, exactly, but she knew that something was definitely up. Common sense told her to worry. Her emotions and intuition said otherwise. “Have a seat,” he told her. She sat down on the blue quilt covering the bed and he sat down next to her. He put his fingers under her chin and tipped her face up to his. “I want you to be my old lady. I want you to wear my patch.”