Chapter 36
“Are you going to stick around or is this just a fling with Demon?” Beth asked after leaning over and watching something behind Ronnie for a moment.
“What were you watching?”
“The door close. They will be in there for a little while, we can talk.”
“Do you know what they’re talking about?” Ronnie asked. She knew on TV, that some of the women knew what was going on, some didn’t. But was it the same here?
“Nope.” Beth shook her head. “Sadist tells me what I need to know, but I don’t need to know every detail of what they’re doing.”
Ronnie frowned. She didn’t know if she could handle being kept in the dark like that.
“They’re talking about the men after you. What the options are and what they’ll have to do to keep you clear and safe,” London said, piping up.
“How do you know?” Ronnie said.
“I asked Tuck,” she said with a shrug. As if it were that easy. Maybe it was. “Do you know who’s after you?”
“Some.” She sighed. She should have known they would want to know.
Ronnie looked down at the table for a moment, then back up at each of the faces around her.
If she and Demon stayed together very long, she would be dealing with these women on a regular basis.
They might even become friends. She would have to trust them some time and her gut told her that Demon wouldn’t have brought her around them, much less left her pretty much alone with them, if they couldn’t be trusted.
“I’m not sure where to start.” She tilted her head back until it hit the back of the booth and she looked up at the ceiling, noticing for the first time what looked like industrial lighting hanging from the ceiling.
“Start wherever you want,” Beth said, reaching over to cover the hand Ronnie had sitting on the table with one hand. “Just now we’ve all had trouble of one kind or another and we won’t judge you, no matter what’s going on.”
“First, I don’t know if you’re aware, but I’m a bond recovery agent.
I work for my dad’s bond recovery company.
” She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to figure out the best way to put what she needed to say into words.
“I’ve worked for years to prove that I can do the job.
That I can do it as well as any man, so Dad would leave me the business,” she said after opening her eyes and glancing around the table at each woman’s face in turn.
Several nodded as she spoke, as if they understood what it was like for a woman trying to prove herself, and be respected, in a male dominated field.
“Anyway, last week, Dad gave me a big skip, that’s someone we paid the bail on, but they didn’t show up for their court date.
Anyway, when he gave me this big skip, he assigned one of the men to ‘help’ me.
” She made air quotes with her fingers as she said help.
“Jack is an ass. He treated my like a stupid child and I can’t decide if it’s because that’s how he actually sees me or if he’s just following my father’s lead.
Either way, I had to deal with him. I started doing research, found Demon, and started following him.
It wasn’t until I confronted him outside a convenience store, and he told me, that I figured out I was following the wrong man.
My skip is Demon’s cousin.” Ronnie shook her head, remembering how stupid she’d felt.
“Demon has family in town?” London asked.
Ronnie nodded. “He grew up around here. Anyway, my brother shows up, he works back east.” She didn’t tell them her brother worked for the DEA.
She didn’t know how they might take it or how it might make them feel about her.
“He told me he had found out about someone out to hurt me. Next thing I know, Demon is knocking on my front door. He and my brother talk, and now I’m here.
It seems like Dad is mixed up with someone, I don’t know the details, but he is either using them to get rid of a pain in his ass or is using that pain in his ass to pay them off and get them off his back.
” She didn’t want to say exactly who her father was mixed up with.
She didn’t know if these women knew about them or where the y would stand.
Plus, who liked airing their families dirty laundry to strangers?
“Pain in the ass?” Dana frowned.
“Me.”
Dana’s eyes went wide, and she stared at Ronnie for a moment before apologizing and looking away. Ronnie waved one hand in dismissal, she didn’t blame her. She might have reacted the same if this were happening to anyone else.
“Your own dad?” Beth whispered.
Ronnie nodded. “So my brother and Demon have been working together to make sure no one has a chance to get to me. Demon said someone here has a connection to the guys my dad all but sold me to, but I’m not sure who.
” She shrugged. “I know I’ve only known Demon a few days and it sounds crazy, but I trust him.
Somehow, I know he’ll do whatever it takes to make sure nothing happens to me. ”
Beth nodded. “I get it. These guys are a little rough around the edges and they might not follow the letter of the law all the time, but for the most part they follow the spirit of it. They do what they think is right, no matter what someone else might say. From what I’ve seen, once they give their word the only way they’ll break it is if they die trying.
They hate seeing a woman being hurt and will step up to make sure it never happens again.
Well, mostly. I don’t think they’d hesitate if whoever was at fault was a woman.
If a woman was hurting someone they cared about or hurting a child, then they wouldn’t hesitate to step in and take care of that situation too. ”
“Is he just keeping you safe, or is there more to it?” London asked, watching Ronnie.
Ronnie’s face heated. “I’m not sure.”
“You sleeping with him?” Dana asked.
Ronnie rolled her lips inward and bit them, her face growing even hotter.
She looked away, trying to keep her thoughts off her face.
She spotted the guy Demon had called Puck behind the bar.
Apparently, he’d seen her glance his way and thought she was looking for him because he dropped the towel he’d been using to dry glasses and headed their way.
“Can I get you ladies anything? Something more to drink? Anyone want something to eat?”
“I could use another drink,” Ronnie said. “But I don’t think food would be a good idea right now.”
“No problem, you want water, a soda or something stronger?” he asked.
“Stronger? Like alcohol?”
“What can I get you?”
She stared at him for a moment, her mind having gone blank. “Can I get a margarita?”
“Of course. Salt?”
“Yes.”
“Frozen or on the rocks?”
“On the rocks.”
Puck nodded. “Anyone else?”
“I’ll take one of those margaritas,” London said. “Add a splash of grenadine to mine.”
“I’ll have a Coke,” Dana put in.
“I’m good with water,” Beth said.
“No problem. I’ll be right back with those.” He turned and went back to the bar, leaving Ronnie hoping that the interruption had distracted the others enough that they would forget what they’d forget what they’d been talking about.
“I’m not sure it matters if she’s sleeping with him.
From what I know, I think Demon has decided you’re the one for him.
” London met her gaze. “Whether you stay or not will be up to you. No one in this club will force you to stay with someone you don’t want to be with, but if one of them claims you, the others will do everything they can to protect you and none of them will make a move on someone else’s woman. ”
Ronnie looked around the room, looking for something, anything, she needed a reason to change the subject. She had a hard time talking about herself and talking about a relationship that she didn’t know what was happening in or where it was going wasn’t something she loved.
“This place isn’t what I expected.” She continued to scan the room. She had no doubt she looked like some tourist trying to find something wild or crazy to see while she was here.
London chuckled. “Let me guess. You’ve been watching Sons of Anarchy.”
It wasn’t a question, and Ronnie didn’t say anything but knew she hadn’t been able to keep a straight face, and that her expression was giving away her guilt.
Beth leaned forward. “Who’s your favorite? I’m partial to Jax, but he is nothing like Sadist. That’s okay. I love my guy just the way he is.”
“Um.” She didn’t want to say. Her huge crush on Opie was a little embarrassing under normal circumstances, but here? It was almost horrifying.
“I have a thing for Chibs. I know he’s older, and not the best looking, but there’s just something about him I can’t explain,” Beth put in.
Well, if they were all going to admit who they liked, how could she not share too? Wasn’t that part of making friends? You told them embarrassing secrets, especially if those secrets weren’t all that secret and wouldn’t hurt anyone?
“Opie,” Ronnie said softly. It wasn’t as if she had ever kept her crush on the big man a secret.
London tilted her head to one side. “I think you might have managed to get the perfect Soul to fall for you.”
Ronnie’s face heated. She was either going to have to get over her tendency to get embarrassed so easily, or learn to live with blushing all the time.
That was if she ended up spending much time around these ladies, and from what she’d known of them so far, she wanted to know them better.
Even if things didn’t work out with her and Demon.
She liked them. She could see herself becoming good friends with them, and she didn’t have many friends.
Maybe her confusing Demon for Jim Bob hadn’t been that much of a mistake.
Maybe it had been fate. She’d never believed much in fate, but it seemed like there was something guiding what had been happening to her over the last little while.
Not the bullshit with her father, but she had to admit, at least to herself, that if he hadn’t given her the file, she never would have met Demon.