Chapter 12
Bear
I t was a mistake to let Betty Jo dress Roishin .
My wallet thought so. At least Roishin balked once the total topped a grand.
A set of saddle bags were already stuffed with clothes, and if I had to guess, Roishin left what she’d worn here out.
At least some of it. Hopefully , it was the frumpy shit.
I liked the new clothes much better. She stood taller in them as Betty Jo made her model them for me.
And she smiled. I hadn’t seen one of those on her before. At least not one that lasted. Without a doubt, Fin’s wife was a miracle worker.
She even convinced Roishin to leave her hair down. Albeit , braided, but after yesterday, I never wanted to see that tightly-pinned crown of braids again.
Nope . I wanted to immerse my hands in her hair, play with the strands, and slide my fingers through it. Hell , I’d even volunteer to braid it just to get that chance. But Fin saved me from making an utter fool out of myself.
“ Bear here says you don’t have a dagger. And he also thinks you got specific tastes. Enlighten me.”
Roishin’s eyes went wide.
Betty Jo butted in and told her husband, “ Think Sierra meets Edie . But darker. Much darker.”
Fin’s jaw went sideways. Mine hung open until I realized what I was doing. How had she figured all that out in just a few minutes? And , how did she get Roishin to try on all the shit she got?
But I had to play it cool. Jackson’s advice rang in my head. “ You look amazing.” It wouldn’t hurt to praise Betty Jo either. Maybe she’d give me a discount? “ Nice work.”
Her eyes narrowed on me. “ Don’t bullshit me. And most of all, don’t be such a tight ass. This woman deserves every cent in your wallet.”
She was just goading me to barter.
Fin must have seen through it, because he snorted. “ Bear already dumped a grand outside. What he ordered for her ain’t cheap.”
Roishin’s eyes widened. “ No .” She took off the coat and handed it to Betty Jo .
What did she have on underneath? Practically nothing, that’s what.
It could only be described as my fucking dream girl outfit. The leather hugged her curves and pushed her tits up into perfect half-moon mounds I wanted to taste. With her hair down, she looked feral and wild. No paint needed. I stared until she disappeared into the other room.
A slap upside the head knocked me out of my trance. “ That was testing out something to sell at the rallies. She’s not going home in what she had on, so stop gawking.” Betty Jo hustled after her.
Meanwhile , Fin doodled on a piece of paper. Every once in a while, he’d stare off into space and then doodle some more. Finally , he asked me, “ Where’d you find her?”
“ Carl’s .”
Fin was far from retired, despite his lone-wolf status in Hagerstown . He and the club went back for decades now. And he knew all about our businesses and the players.
“ No shit?” He squinted and listened to Betty Jo and Roishin argue about what she’d wear and what she wouldn’t. “ Fill me in.”
I did as succinctly as possible. “ He beat her. I have her now.”
His low swear was quiet. “ What’s her take on that development?”
“ She’ll come around. She’s a fighter.”
He laughed. “ Betty Jo was the same way.” A rare smile spanned over his grisly face. I can’t say it improved his looks much, but the lines around his eyes deepened while the ones on his forehead almost disappeared. He drew a few more lines.
Soon , Roishin came out in her jeans, leather riding chaps, and a decent coat. My thermals peeked out from the open collar. Her skin was flushed, and she’d tied her braids into a knot near the nape of her neck. They still hung to her waist, but they were out of the way enough to ride.
Betty Jo announced, “ I had to fight her on the jacket and chaps, but she’s good enough for the ride back.” She dug into a crate. “ Here’s some gloves for her, too. Fin’ll add them to the bill.”
Fin leaned to push the paper toward Roishin . “ Let me know if there’s anything there you don’t like. I’ll change it.”
She picked up the page and studied his drawing. Her hands shook.
I glanced over to see if Fin had noticed. His eyes met mine, and he raised an eyebrow. He’d noticed her nerves.
The last thing I wanted was to keep scaring her like this.
Worse ? If I didn’t do something about it, there’d be questions.
As carefully as I could, I rose and walked around to stand near Roishin .
From my vantage point, I could see what Fin had planned.
It was brilliant. Thorny ropes of rose briars twisted around the hilt creating a finger guard.
The blade would be one of his multi-layered Damascus steel masterpieces which kept an edge for years with minimal maintenance.
The scabbard had a triple moon signet embellishing the throat where the guard merged into the pattern; creating a locket to keep it from falling loose.
The design was brilliant and far beyond what I’d imagined.
Roishin leaned into me. I steadied her with a hand on her hip. “ What do you think?”
“ It’s perfect,” she whispered. Then tacked on, “ But too much. I can’t…”
“ Sold , Fin .” I took the paper from her hands and passed it over. “ When should we come back down?”
“ How’s the twenty-third work for you?”
I pulled Roishin closer and caught the faint smell of vanilla that clung to her hair. The sweetness pulled my face closer to hers. “ Can you make do without it for that long?”
Her eyes met mine. “ It’s already been a month. I’ll? —”
Shit . “ Can you work any faster, Fin ?”
“ You want fast? You don’t get this.” He pointed a finger at Roishin . “ If you want cheap? You definitely won’t get this.” He held the paper in the air and shook it.
I gritted my teeth, waiting for Roishin’s decision.
Roishin spoke. “ I can wait. It’s more than I could hope for. Most custom smiths take months.” Under her breath she muttered to me, “ Hopefully I’ll be working soon to pay you back.”
Fin’s eyebrow rose. “ And how would you know how long it takes?”
She swallowed. “ I commissioned an athame once. It took four months.”
And Carl took that from her. My fingers longed to wrap around his throat and squeeze the life out of him.
“ Four months, that’s amateur hour. In four months, I can get half a suit of armor done.”
“ Not without your arthritis acting up, you wouldn’t,” Betty Jo muttered. “ Don’t listen to him. He’s just got a bad case of ego is all. We’ll have it ready for you when it’s ready.” She picked up the saddle bags and passed them to me. “ Your girl? Worth every damn penny. Don’t forget it.”
That was a warning, not commentary or a sales pitch.
Maybe Roishin had worked a miracle on Betty Jo ? She didn’t normally glom onto women that quickly. Unless … I glanced at Roishin’s arm. Of course. Betty Jo was firmly in her corner because she had to have seen that bruise and asked questions about it.
Which meant, Betty Jo knew more about Roishin than I did. That was a scary thought. One that bothered me all the ride home.
I pulled up to the gates of the compound at a quarter to six.
“ Where are we?” Roishin asked over the rumble of my bike.
“ A junkyard.”
“ You’re not buying anything here , are you?”
I leaned away so I could twist around to see her face. The scowl on it was funny. I laughed. “ Only a whiskey. You want one?”
“ They sell whiskey at a junkyard?”
The clatter of the gates drowned out any chance for a reply I had. But I hadn’t intended on answering her, just showing her.
I pulled up to the club’s building and shut down the bike. She wasn’t as stiff or cold now and hopped off more gracefully than back at Fin’s . I held her hand to steady her anyway.
And didn’t let it go.
Why should I ? This was the one place I needed to be the most convincing.
Rumors would fly around about the new woman Bear was with.
Hopefully , they’d get Carl angry. Even if they didn’t, a plan formed in my head that I was going to win Roishin from him.
No matter what hold he had over her, I was going to break it.
And that plan started somewhere between seeing her pretty legs that first night and seeing her rounded tits a few hours ago.
And it was the perfect time for it. We had company tonight.
A crew of wannabes from Allentown parked their bikes in the second row of machines surrounding the door.
We’d met them several times before, and rode with them occasionally.
Wolf and Jackson were eyeing them up because their presence filled the space on our club’s border with the Demons .
If they took the heat off us, we didn’t have to work as hard to keep the peace.
But other clubs were wooing them, too.
And that made them dangerous, and valuable.
If we could insure they didn’t swing to our biggest rival, the Wicked Legion , then our lives would be a lot simpler.
“ Fair warning, you’re not ready for this.
But it’s showtime . Follow my lead.” I pushed open the door and a wall of noise blasted out.
The night was kicking into high gear. A stripper stood on the bar, half-naked already.
The place was packed with hangers and brothers.
I searched for any sign of old ladies, and saw none. Not even Tits .
But Wolf was here. I beelined for him, weaving through the crowd with an occasional shove to get some idiot drunk out of the way so no one would molest Roishin .
I stopped in front of him. He’d propped up his leg on a barrel and leaned back in the fancy barstool we’d gifted to him last year.
His pose was relaxed, but his gaze wasn’t.
“ Is this Rose ?”
“ Roishin ,” I corrected.
Wolf’s eyes glittered as he studied her. “ You’ve been to Betty Jo’s .”
“ Yes .” Rose didn’t need to answer, it hadn’t been a question. And now she had Wolf’s attention. That was not a good thing.
“ She needed riding gear. It didn’t appear magically.”