Chapter Seven
ZANDER CRUISED INTO the parking lot of the old brick schoolhouse that had become the Dark Knights’ clubhouse years ago and parked among the other bikes and vehicles.
Climbing off his motorcycle, he scanned the groups of guys standing out front as he locked his helmet to the bike.
He spotted Zeke and Maverick talking with their cousins Tank and Gunner and headed over.
Belleau, one of Gunner’s many rescue dogs, bounded toward him.
Gunner and his wife, Sidney, both former marines, owned an animal rescue, and he often brought one of his dogs to church, like Preacher did.
Zander petted the old chocolate Lab. “How’s it going, boy?”
“The bastard stole my beef jerky right out of my hand,” Tank, his oldest cousin, said.
The Wickeds were a tough crew, but at six four, burly, and bearded, with dark hair, coal-black eyes, a body full of tattoos, and piercings in one nostril and both ears, Tank was the most intimidating of them all.
Tank owned Wicked Ink, a tattoo parlor, and he was a loving husband and adoring father to two little girls and an adorable little boy.
“Don’t make my dog out to be a villain. You asked Belleau if he wanted any,” Gunner said, giving Tank a pointed stare.
Like his oldest brother, he had tattoos from neck to fingers, but his military-short hair was blond, like their father Conroy’s had been before it turned silver.
“Remind me to train you before you get a dog for the kids.”
Tank ignored him.
“How’s it going, Zan?” Maverick asked. “You doing okay?”
Zander tried not to let his brother’s second question get to him, but before the accident there wouldn’t have been that kind of second question, or the scrutinizing, worried look in his eyes.
“Yeah, man. I’m good,” he said, even though he wasn’t.
He was worried about Shauna. He’d been worried since he’d first heard her and Brian shouting at each other, but when he’d seen Brian earlier, the guy had been blitzed out of his mind and more belligerent than he’d been the day before.
At least she wouldn’t have to deal with Brian tonight since her shift didn’t end until morning.
“Where have you been?” Zeke asked. “I thought you finished early today.”
“I did. I stopped by the Brewster firehouse to give the woman who pulled me out of the wreck something, and I talked with her for a while.” He’d told Zeke about Shauna when he’d seen him at the shop that morning.
“I thought you were brought in by the Eastham station,” Tank said. As a former volunteer firefighter, he knew many local first responders. “They’re all guys.”
“I was, but when I was at Cumby’s, I heard a woman singing and thought I recognized her voice, and—”
“You saw her at Cumby’s, not the firehouse?” Maverick asked.
“No. I mean, at first, but we didn’t talk. Then I went to her house—”
“So you stalked her?” Gunner asked, petting Belleau.
“No. I showed up for a job Preacher sent me on, and she lived there. That’s when I told her I recognized her voice, and she said she pulled me out of the car.”
“You said you went to the firehouse,” Tank said. “How’d you know where she worked?”
What the hell was up with all the questions? “She told me she was an EMT, and I asked around.”
“He totally stalked her,” Gunner said, and the guys all cracked up.
“That’s our Zander,” Maverick said.
“Fuck you all,” Zander fumed. “I did not stalk her.”
“They’re just giving you shit, Zan,” Zeke said with a laugh. “I told them about Shauna before you got here.”
Zander glowered at the others, gritting out, “Y’all are dicks,” but he couldn’t help laughing.
“What’d you bring her?” Tank asked.
“Creamer,” he said as Belleau nudged him for more attention. He reached down and petted him.
“Dude, you went to the firehouse and creamed on her?” Gunner smirked, and the guys cracked up.
“No, you ass. I brought her coffee creamer.”
“That some kind of new kink?” Tank asked.
“Shut the hell up,” Zander said. “She saved my life, and I wanted to do something nice for her. Don’t make it weird.
And get this. Remember a few years ago when I drove that young girl who’d had too much to drink home from the Fourth of July beach bash, and I went back to check on her the next day, but she’d already moved on?
” Their families had been hosting the Fourth of July beach bash for as long as Zander could remember.
“Yeah?” Zeke said.
“That was her.”
“Seriously?” Tank asked.
“Crazy, right?” Zander said. “She was too out of it back then to recognize me now, and I didn’t recognize her, either.
She looks totally different, but she felt like she knew me, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew her.
Check this out.” He pulled out the necklace and showed them the charm.
“I found this in my cut at the hospital. I had no idea how it got in my pocket, but I felt like it was important, so I kept it. It turns out she put it there after the accident. It was her good-luck charm. She bought it the morning after I drove her home that Fourth of July. She said I changed her life that night, and she’s had it on her key chain all this time to remind her to stop drinking.
” He told them what he’d said to her back then.
“She put it in my cut because she thought I needed luck more than she did.”
“That’s some kind of fate right there. Chloe would say there’s a reason you were put back in each other’s paths,” Maverick said about his wife as the clubhouse door opened, and their cousin Baz peered out.
Like Gunner, Baz was fair-haired, but with collar-length hair, Baz looked more like a surfer than a veterinarian.
“What’re you all up to?” Baz asked.
Gunner clapped a hand on Zander’s shoulder and said, “Zan was just telling us about his star-crossed connection with the woman who pulled him out of the burning car.”
Baz pushed the door open all the way and said, “Tell me about it on the way in.” Then he called to the other men standing out front. “Preacher’s about ready to start the meeting.”
Zander relayed the story to Baz while they headed inside, blending into the sea of Dark Knights. Nearly every seat in the clubhouse was taken. Zander was greeted by several other members as he and the guys made their way to a table across the room, where Blaine was sitting.
“Hey, Blaine. How’s it going?” Zander asked as he sat down.
“It’d be better if I could lock Lettie in the basement until she’s thirty,” Blaine said, thumbing out a text. Colette “Lettie” Wilder was his fiancée Reese’s sixteen-year-old sister, who lived with them.
“Is she getting into trouble?” Zander asked.
“Not yet, but boys are texting her all the time,” Blaine grumbled. “I fucking hate it.”
“That’s why I’m hoping we have another boy,” Baz said. He and his fiancée, Emerson Lockhart, a single mother and a hell of a baker, were expecting another baby in late August.
“Remember when Ash and Mads were teenagers? Guys came out of the woodwork,” Gunner reminded them as Belleau ambled over and lay at his feet.
“You have no idea what they put us through when they were Lettie’s age,” Tank said.
“Bullshit,” Gunner argued. “We all had to keep an eye on them.”
“Yeah, well, Tank and I had to watch all of you to make sure you didn’t do anything stupid and keep an eye out for the horny little asshats who had their eyes on our sisters,” Blaine said.
“I never did stupid shit,” Zeke argued.
“Yeah, that was usually me and Zan,” Gunner teased.
“Zeke might not have gotten into trouble often, but he had his moments,” Blaine said. “When he was eleven or twelve, he snuck out, and I thought he was going to see a girl, so I followed him.”
“Couldn’t even get your own girls back then, huh?” Zander teased, and the guys laughed.
Blaine flicked him off. “He rode his bike nearly five miles to a beach and walked in the pitch-dark all the way down to where a dead whale had beached itself, and then he just sat there. I was watching him from the dunes, wondering what the hell he was doing, when three older kids showed up to steal a piece of whale bone, which is illegal. Doofus over here tried to stop them, so I had to kick their asses and haul his ass back home before Dad woke up.”
“A’right, Zeke. Keeping life interesting.” Zander high-fived Zeke as Preacher and Conroy headed up to their seats at the head of the table.
The din of conversations quieted. His father, the president of the club, and his uncle, the vice president, had earned that respect with thirty-plus years of helping the community and having the backs of every single member of the club and their families.
As they discussed club finances, old business, and prospects, Zander mentally replayed his conversation with Shauna, wishing he’d asked for her number.
That was a strange thought for a guy who’d always done everything possible to keep from having attachments with women.
He tried to stop thinking about her, but she stuck with him the same way her voice still played in his mind like an old favorite.
Only now I know the gorgeous face, curvy body, and spunky attitude that go with that voice.
But his thoughts weren’t about her looks.
That felt secondary. This was something else.
Something he couldn’t identify but was impossible to escape.
“We’re happy to share that we’ve had eight middle schools sign on for the anti-drug program,” Preacher announced, drawing Zander’s attention. “If you’re interested in volunteering, the forms are on our website.”
Zander had already signed up to take part in the program in the fall, like he did every year. Preacher went over a few more items before handing the floor over to Conroy.
“Thanks, Preach,” Conroy said. With wavy silver hair that brushed his collar, warm blue eyes, and a laid-back personality, women always said he seemed more like a movie star than the badass biker he was known to be.
“The annual Bikes on the Beach event is taking place the second week of August. The club will have a table, and if you’d like to help run it, sign up online… ”
Bikes on the Beach was always a wild time, drawing bikers, and women, from near and far. As Conroy talked about the suicide prevention ride and rally in the fall and other upcoming events, Zander’s mind made a beeline back to Shauna.
When the meeting finally ended, Zander was still thinking about getting Shauna’s phone number and trying to make sense of how badly he wanted it.
She was beautiful, but she wasn’t his usual type.
He’d always gone for party girls with smoky eyes who tried to lure him in with fluttering lashes and sexual innuendos.
Women who knew the score and were cool with having a good time, knowing full well he’d walk away after and probably forget their names.
Shauna hadn’t even tried to flirt with him.
If anything, she’d called him on his shit.
And he freaking loved it.
He stuck around to talk with the guys for a while, then headed straight to the firehouse to get that number.
THE BAY DOORS were closed, so he went to the front door, but it was locked. Many fire stations on the Cape didn’t have enough funding for staff to cover them when they were out on calls. Instead, they had emergency phones by the door with a direct line to dispatch.
He eyed the phone, thinking about trying to charm a dispatcher into giving him Shauna’s number.
But even the boundary pusher he’d been before the accident had too much respect for first responders to dick around with them like that.
He thought about waiting for her to return, but the guys teasing him about being a stalker was too damn fresh in his mind.
Fuck it.
He climbed back on his bike and headed to the Salty Hog to try to get her off his mind.