The Outlaw Stakes His Claim (2 page)

He slowly turned and looked at her over his
shoulder. Even through the distance and the horrid weather, she could see the
big droplets flatten his blond hair to his head, and slide down his big,
muscular body. His clothes were soaked, and she realized that the vest he wore
wasn’t just an article of clothing, but a declaration of the MC he was in. She
may be from an even smaller town than Steel Corner and may not have been able
to fully see it before because of the weather, but she knew enough about
motorcycle clubs to see a cut when it was a few feet from her. It felt like
they stared at each other for long minutes.

“Are you okay?”

Again, he didn’t answer her, and instead turned back
around and shoved his hands in his jeans.

Okay.

She rolled up her window, locked the doors, and
reached in her backseat for a rag. Once she had most of the water cleaned off her
face, she glanced at him once more. He was in the same position, but the
awkward encounter—or lack thereof—had her rather braving the roads and weather
than idle so close to him. He clearly didn’t want help, and so she’d be on her
way. Hope started her Jeep and pulled back onto the road. She hoped the weather
and the strange interaction with the biker weren’t some big red sign that fate
was shoving in her face that she needed to turn around.

****

Dallas didn’t care that it was cold as fuck, that he
was soaked to the bone, or that he probably looked like some kind of dumb
asshole for standing out in the rain on the side of the road. None of that
mattered, and he didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of him.

It had been months since he lost
Maddix
and Meghan in that car accident, and although he had been estranged for the
most part from his ex-wife and son, it still hurt like hell. He was a bastard
for not taking more of an active role in
Maddix’s
life, and a shit father on top of that. Dallas stared out at the lake and
watched at the murky, grey overcast skin rained down. It looked like a veil
from this distance, like this dirty, cold, and heartless veil trying to cover
up the beauty. That was how Dallas felt inside, how he had felt inside for a
long time. Even before their deaths he had always felt this inky darkness deep
in the pits of his body. To say he tried to fuck it out of himself, to use
alcohol and drugs to release it, would have been an understatement because he
had tried that tenfold and it never helped.

He wanted a joint, wanted the sweet burn of marijuana
filling his lungs and numbing his body. But it was a shit time to try to smoke
one. Water covered him until his bones felt like ice, ready to snap in half
without any kind of provocation. Since hearing about what happened to Meghan
and
Maddix
he had tried to act normal in front of the
other MC members. Hiding behind the farce that everything was fine seemed like
a far better plan than trying to talk that shit out. He was dead inside, this
cold bastard that was a pro at playing it off like everything was okay. But
then there had been that shit with Diesel and his old lady, and Dallas telling
the first and only person about what had really happened.

Short pieces of hair feel into his eyes, but he
didn’t bother pushing them away. He just didn’t care. What he was going to do
was get on his bike and go to the nearest bar. There he would drink enough
liquor to make sure he didn’t care about anything, that he didn’t think about
anything, and that black oblivion took him away.

Dallas stood there for another ten minutes until the
rain let up. It was nearing dusk, and he turned and headed toward his bike.
Once on he got back on the road he headed into Steel Corner. Although it was a
small town there were several bars and one that catered to the MC and any
Grizzly passing through. But he didn’t want to be around anyone that he was
close with, and he knew no one he knew would want to be around him when he was
in this volatile mood either.

Chapter Two

Hope walked over to the motel window and pulled the
curtains away. There was a little bar and restaurant across the street and the
neon sign flashed off and on letting patrons know it was open. It looked like a
little hole-in-the-wall kind of place, but Hope’s stomach grumbled, despite the
fact she was exhausted from the five hour drive. Turning and grabbing her purse
and jacket off the bed, she left her room and walked across the parking lot.
The smell of the fresh rainfall clung in the air. She had stopped at this
motel—one that was quaint, small, but kind of homey. There would probably not
be a more known hotel in town, at least not one she noticed when she had been
researching the place.

A few cars drove by and she hurried across the
street once they passed. A few Harleys were parked in front of the bar, along
with some trucks and a couple beat-up cars. She tightened her jacket around
herself, and although it wasn’t really cold outside the fresh storm and the
wind blowing by had a chill in the air. Hope couldn’t help but think about that
man she had seen on the side of the road. He had been so big, and even from the
distance had looked so powerful standing there with the rain pelting him. But
he hadn’t cared, and she had seen that in his eyes when he had looked at her.
She pushed all of that away, because it wasn’t her concern, and honestly she
should have been smarter than to ask him if he was okay and if he needed
anything. It was dangerous, foolish, and clearly he was unstable to just be
standing out there like that. Shaking her head and pushing all of that away was
harder than it should have
been,
which she found odd
and disconcerting.

She reached for the handle of the front door, but it
slammed open and hit the brick wall. Hope moved back a few steps when a clearly
drunk couple came stumbling out. The woman was hanging off of the guy and
giggling.

“I think you are trying to take advantage of me,
Duke.” Her words were slurred together, and the man was obviously holding her
up.

He grunted. “Doll,
ain’t
no one
got to take advantage of you. Everyone knows you
spread that pussy for free.” The guy stopped and looked over at Hope. He eyed
her up and down and his smile spread across his face. His beard was greasy
looking, long, and littered with white hair. He wore a dirty bandana, and it
looked like he hadn’t bathed in a while. “
Ain’t
never
seen you here before.”

“
Dukie
, come on. I’m
horny.”

The guy grinned, and he flashed his yellowing teeth
once more. “Duty calls, but maybe you and I will see each other again.”

Not likely.
Fortunately he didn’t bother Hope again, and hauled the woman to one of the
rusted pick-up trucks. If she wasn’t so hungry she might have turned right back
around and gone to her room, but what would that have accomplished? This was
her home now. She would be starting her job in the next week and a half, and
she was going to have to get used to seeing this stuff. Not every place was
small and quaint like her home had been. But Hope had never been one to have
thick skin, never able to let things go, and had always been called a
“sensitive soul”. She saw that as a weakness and not
a
strength
, just like her mother had told her.

“You’re not in Kansas anymore, Hope.” She shook her
head and grabbed the handle of the door. Once inside she waited a minute for
her eyes to adjust to the dimness. The place was just as small on the inside as
it appeared on the outside. There was a bar right across from the front
entrance where a few men were sitting at the bar, and a handful of tables
scattered around. It smelled musty, like spilled beer and old cigarette smoke.
A jukebox was in one corner, and a pool table that looked like it had seen
better days in the other. Hope felt out of place, very much so, but she wasn’t
going to run away. That had never solved anything, at least not where she was
concerned.
Ugh, not now. You will not
think about Parker now.
Yeah, thinking about her ex-boyfriend was not where
she wanted her thoughts right now, but it was hard to not think about the first
guy she had
thought
she had been in
love with.

She went further into the bar, and the door shut
behind her. It was one of those situations—the ones that she only saw in
movies—where it seemed like everyone stopped what they were doing to see this
strange woman walking into
their
bar.
But just as soon as everyone glanced at her they went back to playing pool,
talking loudly and obscenely, and guzzling back the beer.

“Hi.
Table or the bar?”

Hope looked over at the young woman beside her that
had spoken. She couldn’t be more than twenty-one, but wore enough make-up to
have her appearing she was at least ten years older than that, and clothes so
tight and revealing that they left nothing to the imagination. The girl would
have been so much more beautiful without all of the crap on her
face, that
was evident.

“Are you here to eat or drink?” the woman asked
again.

“Eat, please.”

The girl nodded and smiled broadly. Her bright red
painted lips stretched across her white teeth. She led Hope toward one of the
very back tables, set a menu that looked like it hadn’t been washed in a few
years, and left. But before Hope even had her jacket off or the
menu open
the waitress was back with a glass of water set in
front of her and her little notepad out.

“You figure out what you want?”

“Mara, why don’t you come on over here and show
Pappa
some attention,” a man over by the pool table yelled
out.

The waitress turned around and lifted her hand to
give him the finger. There was a round of laughter, and then Mara was turning
back and giving her attention to Hope. “Sorry, ‘bout that. This is the type of
men that hang out at the edge of town.” She grinned widely. “They come here
from the few towns over, mainly good guys, but horny as all get-out.”

Hope slowly nodded, because she really didn’t know
what to say.

“You new in Steel Corner or
passing through?”

“New.” The sound of a bottle shattering came from
the other side of the room. Hope half expected to see a brawl break out, but
all she saw was men slapping each other on the back and throwing their heads
back to laugh.

“Well, this is a good town to live in, quiet most of
the time, but the MC pretty much keeps things in order and people in line.”

“The MC?”
Hope had read enough books and seen enough movies that she knew what the hell
happened with a motorcycle club—for the most part—but there was an actual club
in this town that controlled things?
It seemed ridiculous and
… frightening.
The waitress must have seen her uncertainty in her face.

She started chuckling. “Don’t look so scared.
Believe
me,
if they weren’t here I think a lot of
really scary shit would go down.” She shook her head and turned toward the bar.
“Rocky, put a burger on the grill and fry up a fresh basket of fries.” She
turned back to Hope and smiled again. “Trust
me,
you
might not want to eat anything else here.” She winked, took the menu, and
sauntered off.

Hope was speechless. She grabbed her water and took
a drink. Okay, so her new home would be filled with bikers, ones that were the
unofficial police of town. She could handle that. It wasn’t like she would be
dealing with them anyway. Her moving expenses would be taken care of, but she
wouldn’t get the keys for the place she would be renting until Monday. It was
Saturday, and although she could have easily waited until then to drive up, she
figured she could get acquainted with Steel Corner and
learn
the lay of the land.

While she waited for her food she grabbed her phone
out of her pocket and stared at the screen. She had called her parents as soon
as she had gotten to the motel, but had ignored the few texts that Parker had
sent her. She had broken up with him a year ago, and up until he found out she
was leaving he had kept his distance. She had thought he would be the man she
married one day, because as sad as it sounded, he had been the only guy that
had showed her attention. But when facing low self-esteem, suffering from an
eating disorder, and using a lot of energy to hide it, Hope had dealt with a
lot of inner hatred. She tried to make herself see that she was special and not
this fat and ugly girl. Parker had been that boy that had looked at her as
something more. But in reality he had never seen her as special or loved her. Turns
out her “Prince Charming” had liked to sleep around and enjoyed belittling her behind
her back because it made him feel better about himself. Overhearing him say the
things he had, things that she had told herself when she looked in the mirror
until disgust filled her, had been all it had taken for her to realize it had
all been a lie. No amount of time was going to change the fact that Parker
hadn’t been helping her, but had been keeping her at this horrible crossroads
in her life.

But he hadn’t cared that she was breaking it off. It
wasn’t until he found out she would be leaving that he had tried to rekindle a friendship
with her. At first she hadn’t understood why he even cared, but then as Parker
became needier for her time she knew that he must have some kind of jealousy
toward her. At least that was the only logical thing she had come up with.
Seeing as he was part owner of his father’s mechanic shop, he was
obligated financially and morally to stay in Silver Springs.
But she
hadn’t let him “charm” her back into his life, no matter how many times he had
said he loved her. She knew better than to believe anything Parker told her
anymore. Never again would she be another man’s doormat.