Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Saint
I pause, and let my words sink the fuck in.
Then, I add, “That’s just for starters, so let the girl go. Now.”
The punks don’t need to be told twice.
Without a word, they let the girl with the wet ropes of red hair and something like spilled red juice—I know blood when I see it—on her white blouse go, and stumble back into their fucking lair.
Soon, it’s just me and her, and she looks like a half-drowned puppy or kitten. Cute, pathetic, and vulnerable. I lean against my bike, a custom build, and wait to make sure the baby thugs don’t reappear.
Sweetwood City is a way, way upstate New York city, one of those overgrown towns that spilled into industrial—this one logging—way back in the day and now chugs along.
I miss the wide-open roads of California, and I’ve been thinking once I hit the Big Apple itself, I would head back that way.
But for now, I’m here with a drowned damsel, and she’s eyeing me like maybe the thuglings are a better bet.
Then I frown, easing off the helmet.
No, she isn’t. The buttoned-down girl with the air of a librarian, not scared, she’s embarrassed. It’s in how her gaze graces the wet and broken pavement with the weeds poking through.
Her shoulders lift, and she looks at me, the kind that slams fucking hard because, yeah, she’s pretty, but the green eyes do it.
Green like emeralds in candlelight and curious. Then her generous mouth turns into a smile as she pushes back the curling mass of dark red hair. “Most knights ride a horse.”
“Like this?” I pat the saddle.
“Don’t you call it a hog?”
“She’s a chopper, and I call her Bessie, but that’s just me.” I look her up and down, and man is she soaked. Didn’t anyone tell her not to run around in a giant storm?
She holds out a slender hand. “Thank you, Mister . . .”
“Saint.”
“Mister Saint.”
“Just Saint.”
She blushes, even though her hand is wet ice as I take it in a firm shake. And there’s a buzz of awareness that runs along my nerve endings as I do so.
“Saint.” The blush turns darker, her fingers squeezing a moment before they loosen, and I let her go. “I’m Belle. Belle Rosso.”
“Belle the red-haired.”
She touches her hair and groans. “Even wet?—”
“It’s red. But I was commenting on your last name. Means red-haired.”
Belle nods, and she adjusts her bag as I try not to notice her nipples poking through the wet material plastered to her tits.
Her jacket is more office-friendly than weather, and I’m guessing she didn’t think of sudden storms hitting when she left to loiter in her library or whatever she does. But, judging from the trousers and sensible shoes, she’s giving off practical vibes.
Or practical veneer vibes.
I rub a hand over my beard as the sky rumbles again.
She glances up. “Thank you, really, Mister S—uh, Saint. I don’t usually walk this way, but it’s the fastest way home, and . . .”
What I should do is let her walk home or to wherever she’s going. I’ve got an appointment in the morning and a bar and old friend to visit tonight. I don’t need to convince a fucking wet in the most literal and G-rated of senses woman the ol’ biker’s not gonna harm her.
Not that she’s giving off vibes of fear toward me.
Her mouth tilts up at the left, and a dimple flashes. “I didn’t murder anyone.” She gestures at the stain. “Beet juice.”
“I know what blood looks like.” I wink.
Laughter lights the air. “I feel like a walking murder scene. Those kids . . . I’m sure?—”
“Don’t say didn’t mean you harm.” She’s what? Maybe twenty-two. Those kids and her are pretty much the same fucking age. “Because they sure sounded like it.”
Her mouth opens, the laughter gone, and she breathes out. “I should let you go.”
“I’ll give you a ride home.”
She looks at me like I’m crazy. I feel fucking crazy.
Then again, I can’t just leave her to keep walking. I don’t know how bad it gets from here, but looking up ahead, I’m figuring a few more blocks of desolation and industrial emptiness before she hits something approximating gentrification or at least civilization.
I’ve seen places like this before.
Prime pickings for some rich cat to come in, turf the unseemly to the edges, and spruce up the place.
I know. Guys like me are often perfect to hire to help in the turfing.
Not that I put my hands on anyone, but being around, collecting payments, that’s often enough.
Still, I haven’t decided about here. I’m booked into a motel on the edge of the city, even though I know the local charter club.
Staying with one of them is always on the table for a nomad like me, but I prefer to keep myself to myself and not make any alliances I don’t mean.
City this size I’m betting the chances are there’s another motorcycle club. They’re probably fine, otherwise, I’d have heard of scuffles or wars. I’ll find out soon enough.
That’s not what I mean by alliances. I don’t want to connect with a charter in a concrete way.
I don’t plan on staying.
Anywhere.
“You don’t know where I live, Saint.”
I run a hand over my shaved head and glance at her again. “Belle, I don’t think they’re coming out again, but?—”
“It’s probably the rain.”
“Did you just call the thugs wusses?”
“Me?” Her eyes grow big, and the green sparkles like jewels as lightning flares. “Never.”
“Take my helmet and you can direct me.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t wear your helmet. I’ll get it wet.”
“Better than scrambled brains if there’s an accident.”
“What about yours?” she asks.
I push the helmet at her. “Hard fucking head, Red.”
She sucks in a breath. “I don’t know.”
“Well, if you’re scared, kid, I’ll let you walk. But I think it’ll rain again before you reach there. Unless, of course, it’s the next block.” My tone’s slightly mocking, and a drop of rain splatters down.
She doesn’t take it for anything more than a tease. “I’m not a child. And I’m not scared of your motorcycle,” Belle says, making me grin.
“I meant me.”
“You?”
“I’m a biker.” The helmet’s still held out on offer.
Another drop of rain falls and another. “A saint of a biker who saved me.” She takes the helmet. “Thank you, Saint, I’d love a ride home.”
I pull up in front of an apartment building that sits inside a high-walled fence with what was probably once a beautiful garden or courtyard of a mansion from back in the day when this was a growing industrial town.
The paint trim on the doors and windows needs a touch-up, and the yard either some new plants or less bikes and clutter. Maybe some of the pavement ripped out too, since it looks like it was an add-on years ago.
Of course, my mechanic brain likes it for good-weather open-air workshop vibes, but for a living space? Not so much.
“Are you staying in the city long?” Belle asks as the rain comes down in a light patter.
My gaze travels to the place dubbed Secret Gardens and to her as she hands me my helmet. Her long hair’s curling, and she’s a pretty little thing, buttoned-down and not at all my type.
Haven’t heard her cuss once, and I’m fucking sure this was her very first time on the back of a motorcycle.
“Trying to get rid of me?”
“Not at all.” One hand clutched her chest, right on the washed-out open wound of her stain. “I was . . . I was going to say there’s a place here, and also?—”
“I know, Miss Red. I can read.” I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone before putting it back. “Even got one of these.”
She frowns. “I was being polite and friendly. No need to mock.”
“I wasn’t.” I rest my helmet on my wet thigh. “I’m still deciding whether I’m gonna take the job here or not.” Then I grin. “Who knows, maybe we’ll be neighbors.”
“That would be great. I can show you around . . . if you want. And I’m in?—”
“You shouldn’t give strange men your fucking address.”
She frowns, and I can see curtains twitch. “You’re not strange, and you know where I live.”
We’re saved by the ringing of her phone. I give her a salute for unknown reasons, except it feels like the right thing to do.
“Get your call,” I say. “Who knows, maybe we’ll see each other around.”
I put on my helmet, and she nods, turns, and runs up to the building’s door. I gun my engine but wait until she’s inside before taking off.
It’s about a fifteen-minute ride to the Styx bar. The parking lot is a quarter full and mostly motorcycles. I pull up and head on in, the music vintage Rolling Stones.
I look around at the guys and gals playing pool. Some are civilians, most are bikers. I don’t recognize anyone there, but as I head to the bar, I grin.
“Gravel,” I say, clapping a hand on Gravel Burn’s cut. The guy’s long hair and beard are threaded with silver, and my old man’s friend raises his head and does a double take.
“Saint, as I live and breathe.” He motions with his beer to the stool beside him. “Sit.”
I slide onto the scuffed wooden seat. “You’re a little grayer, but you haven’t changed much since I saw you last,” I say.
He laughs. “You have. “What’s it been ten years?”
“Fifteen.”
The door opens with a crack of thunder, and two bikers come in, shaking off the rain that’s falling hard again.
“Damn,” one says, “is that you, Saint?”
“Frederick Jones.” I hold out my hands to take in the blond biker. The story of his name is one I have yet to get from him because his real name is Ben. But it’s a story I want to hear one day. “Heard you were bumming around out here.”
“Got sick of Chicago. Made an honest woman of Sin?” he asks.
Next to me, Gravel perks up. “Old lady?” He shakes his head. He’s younger than my father would be, around late forties now, but I keep forgetting being an independent, a nomad, others don’t always keep up with my life.
Which is how I like it.
“Sin is—” Frederick draws an hourglass in the air, and I half smile.
Sin would have his head for putting her down as just another babe in leather, even if she wanted to be my old lady officially. And more so, she wanted to settle down, Sin-style.
“Gonna kill you for that,” I mutter.
“How long you here for?” Gravel asks as he motions to the bartender, and she eyes me and adjusts her top, her full tits even more on display, and she hurries over.
“What’ll it be?”
“Now, settle down, Sugar,” Gravel says. “He’s got an old lady who’ll rip you to shreds. Saint, Sugar. Sugar, Saint.”
“Pity,” she says with a wink, not looking put-out even one iota. “Beer or something stronger?”
“Same as him.”
She nods and saunters off.
“My path and Sin’s have diverged,” I mutter.
After my drink arrives, we shoot shit for a while. Gravel shows me photos on his phone of his old lady and their three kids. Frederick is eyeing Sugar with a weariness that tells me he’s been around that block more than once and is willing to go around it a few more times.
Finally, Gravel leans back and glances at me as he takes a swig from his beer. “Truth be fucking told, I’d be home except Ronnie and the girls are at some ballet competition, and after last time?—”
“He got banned for thinking he was at some wrestling match.” Frederick Jones grins.
“My girls should have won. What can I say?” Then he looks at me. “You never answered. How long you here for?”
“Not sure,” I say. “There’s a job opportunity, but I’m still on the fence about it.”
“Legal?”
“Not breaking skulls or anything like that.” I take a sip of my beer. “More an enforcement kinda deal.”
“Intimidation sure sounds like illegal,” Gravel says. “Not that I care.”
“It’s more toeing the line of intimidation. Making sure rents are in on time, handing out eviction notices if people don’t pay, and,” I shrug, “being a six-foot-five biker helps.”
“So, it’s good money?”
“And cheap, short-term rent. I guess this fucker wants to play hardball with the residents, and it’s not my business.” I shrug.
“You’ll be in town for a while?” Frederick asks. “At least for the month?”
“Until after the holidays. If I take it.”
The other two bikers grin at each other. “So, you’ll be here,” Gravel says, “to do some work on bikes? Excellent.”
I check the time. It’s getting late, and if I’m going to meet this Lance tomorrow, I need to get out of here. Besides, I’m fucking hungry.
I make my goodbyes and hit the road, the rain having stopped. There’s a greasy diner not far from the motel, one of those twenty-four-hour types. So, I stop in for a burger and head back out to eat it in the cold post-storm weather.
There’s something on my bike.
Narrowing my eyes, I stalk up and come to an abrupt stop.
A cat. Black, rounded, no collar, and green eyes that gaze scornfully at me before finally blinking.
“Get off, you waste of space.”
The tail swishes hard and fast, but the cat doesn’t move. With a sigh, I unwrap my burger, and the cat’s attention zeros in.
With a move more graceful than it should, the creature leaps from the saddle to my feet, winding around my boots and rubbing on me before letting loose a plaintive meow.
“No. Go home, cat.”
It stops as I go to my bike, and the cat jumps back into the saddle. This time, it swipes, its paw hitting the burger, sending it tumbling to the ground.
Once more, the cat leaps off the saddle and starts to eat the patty. Then it stops, looks up at me, and lets out a soft, smug mew.
“Asshole.”
I wheel my bike away from the cat and my meal right as my phone starts to buzz. With a sigh, I climb on the bike and pull out my phone.
The job’s expanded if you want it .
And the too-pretty and not my type red-haired woman fills my mind, the way she pressed against me as we rode, her heat, the softness of her hand in mine when we shook.
I text back. Be there at nine.