Chapter 1
Missoula, MT - Three Years Later
Viv.
All that to say, a fifty-dollar tip wasn’t the norm.
Viv told them.
Vivienne Matthews was the epitome of a badass biker babe—and it wasn’t merely because she was the wife and ol’ lady to the president of the Wild Stallions Missoula Motorcycle Club.
Viv held her own. Route 66 existed because of her.
She was the boss, and she was damn good at it.
Somehow, she was respected and admired in equal measure.
It was hard to describe exactly how she managed it—she just did.
She had this aura about her that made her magnetic.
I looked around front-of-house in search of her and spotted the back of her at the bar.
Her ashy-brown hair hung loose halfway to her waist. She was taller than me by a couple of inches, standing at five-eight, and I was often jealous of the way her slender legs seemed to go on for days.
She looked great in a pair of fitted jeans, which was about all she ever wore.
That day, she was in a low-cut, plain white tank top, exposing the full sleeve of ink she had down her left arm.
She told me once she didn’t have ink anywhere else. Apparently, what started as a single tattoo meant to brand her as Nighthawk’s woman turned into a mosaic of their life together, spanning more than twenty-five years.
As if she could feel my stare, she glanced back at me from over her shoulder. Our eyes met, I shook my head, and she flashed me a crooked smile before turning to head for the door that led to the kitchen.
Viv and I met by chance. When I moved back to Missoula in desperate need of a job, the diner was the first place I applied.
It was a fifteen-minute walk and a three-minute ride from the apartment I managed to lease by way of a heavy show of flirtation and a bit of strategic pouting.
Carmy loaned me the money I needed for first and last month’s rent; and, determined to pay him back rather than ask for more, I didn’t waste a second in my job hunt.
To this day, I couldn’t say what Viv saw in me when we met, but she hired me on the spot, knowing hardly anything about me. She told me I’d fit right in, and she wasn’t wrong.
I’d learned, she rarely was.
I didn’t know she was a Stallion’s ol’ lady until my first day.
Nighthawk and his VP, Cobra, were my first customers.
It was hard to forget the feeling I got in the pit of my stomach when I saw that Vice President patch on Cobra’s kutte.
He looked nothing like Twister, but he sure did flirt like him.
It was second nature to engage, but it hit different.
Not merely on account of my broken heart and wounded pride, either. I wasn’t in Gillette anymore.
I wasn’t on the compound.
I wasn’t at the Stallions’ clubhouse.
I was home—and that made things complicated.
“Lyla!”
I whipped my head to the side just in time to watch Maxine rush toward me with a huge smile on her face. If Viv was magnetic, Max was the embodiment of sunshine.
She had her dad’s thick, blonde hair, hers grown out down to her elbows.
Like her mom, she was slender with subtle curves that made her look every bit as delicate and young as she was.
We were about the same height—five-foot-six—which put her at eye-level as she came to a stop beside me.
Her hazel-green eyes were bright with excitement, and she was practically bouncing on her toes in her exuberance.
“I’ve got news! Tell me your plans tonight involve coming to the clubhouse.”
“Oh, uh…” I hesitated, tucking the little leather folder in my hands into the apron strapped around my hips. “Maybe.”
“Okay. What do I have to do to change that maybe into a definitely?”
I turned to face her directly, resting my hands on my hips. Looking at her in all her twenty-three-year-old beauty reminded me I wasn’t so young anymore. Not that I considered myself old, but—fuck. I was thirty.
Seven years ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about where I intended to party on my birthday.
The first time I ever stepped foot into a biker clubhouse, I was twenty-two, and I loved everything about it.
The people. The atmosphere. The energy. It was like entering another world—an alternate dimension where the rules were different and freedom was real.
It was visceral.
It made me feel alive.
It still did—when I felt careless enough to let myself go.
But life was so different now.
I lived off the compound, which meant someone was always watching.
On my home turf, I couldn’t be stupid and fall for a Stallion; not because I learned my lesson, but because the consequences of doing so were worse than a broken heart.
“Honestly, I haven’t really thought about what I want to do tonight,” I admitted.
She sighed and gave me the biggest eye-roll imaginable.
“We’re gonna get back to the part where you explain your anti-birthday attitude and this crisis you seem to be having over the big three-oh—still love the haircut, by the way—after I remind you that of course you wanna come to the clubhouse tonight because all your friends are going to be there.”
It didn’t happen on purpose, as in—I didn’t exactly plan to move back to Missoula and link myself to the northern Wild Stallions—but after landing my job, it was kind of inevitable.
Route 66 was neutral ground. Viv insisted upon it.
Every paying customer was welcome into her establishment to enjoy the food and atmosphere she worked so hard to cultivate.
That said, it was a stone’s throw away from the compound and technically resided in Stallion territory, which meant the men who made up the Missoula chapter of the familiar club were around often.
When my co-workers wanted to hang out after hours, that usually meant a trip to the clubhouse.
So, she was right—if something was happening that night at the clubhouse, all my friends would be there.
I pinched my eyebrows together. “Tell me you didn’t plan something.”
She frowned, dropping her shoulders dramatically. “No, I didn’t. Would have if I thought I could get away with it, but this isn’t exactly about you.” Her facial expression morphed into an apologetic smile, and I couldn’t help but to laugh.
“So, are you going to tell me what’s going on or not?”
Maxine opened her mouth to reply just as the bell jingled above the front door. I saw as her eyes shifted to catch a glimpse of our latest guest, then watched as her expression sobered. Her eyes found mine again before she jerked her chin, signaling me to look myself.
I knew before I glanced over my shoulder who I’d find.
Growing up, everyone knew him as Gibbs.
Now, the kutte he wore identified him as Hotshot.
To me, he was always Carmy.
Maxine gave my arm a squeeze, but I didn’t look back at her before I heard her walk away. Route 66 was neutral ground—but that didn’t mean when a Copper King walked through the door everyone was happy about it.
Max, who got along with everybody, wasn’t particularly fond of them.
She especially hated it when Carmine showed up, which was saying something.
He’d been a chick-magnet since he hit puberty.
They didn’t call him Hotshot for nothing.
For Maxine to be so utterly repelled by him she couldn’t even appreciate the view spoke volumes.
Not that I could blame her.
He made his way toward me. Slowly. Deliberately. The clunk of his boots against the tiled floor the soundtrack behind his otherwise silent greeting. When he came to a stop in front of me, I had to tilt my head back a little to see his face.
I met his eyes, the blue of his irises the same as mine. His dark, thick, overgrown hair was tussled from his ride, but he swept it away from his face; and, like always, he sported just enough stubble to let the world know he could grow a beard if he wanted to, he just didn’t want to.
Yet, while he looked the same as the last time we spoke, I looked different than I did three or four weeks ago. I could tell he was taking in the new cut. I didn’t flinch when he reached up and flipped his fingers through the ends of my hair.
I chopped a good twelve inches, this style shorter than any I’d tried in all my life.
My hair hung a little past my chin, hovering over my shoulders in a super cute bob.
I even got bangs. I was still getting used to it myself, but there was a freedom in the weightlessness of it I loved. A freedom I craved.
“Well? Do you like it?” I asked when he continued to stare.
He dropped his hand and offered me a lazy shrug. “Don’t hate it.”
It was all he said before he glanced at the empty booth to my right and took a seat.
I nodded, understanding that was as close to a compliment as I was going to get.
There was a time in our lives when I would have dragged my big brother with me to the salon after I decided to chop off a foot of hair just to have him there for moral support; a time when such a change wouldn’t have been a surprise, but something he listened to me deliberate over for days, maybe even weeks or months; a time when, after it was all said and done, ‘I don’t hate it’ might have sounded more like—'you look great, sis.’
A time before he was inked a Copper King.
Now, he was mostly an asshole.
But he was still my brother, and it was my birthday, and I couldn’t help but hope this drop in wasn’t random.
“Are you eating or—”
“I’ll have a coke,” he interrupted, casting his gaze out the window.
I folded my arms across my chest and stared at him.
I hated when he did this. Him, dropping by my job, occupying a booth and ordering a coke was the equivalent of a dog passing by, lifting his leg, and pissing on a tree.
It didn’t matter that I was now a thirty-year-old woman.
It didn’t matter that I’d fucked more than my fair share of bikers.
So long as he and I resided in the same city, he considered it his business who was allowed between my legs.
When I was eleven, I understood he was protecting me.
Now, it was just annoying.