Chapter Eight
Noa
I’d seen many a biker clubhouse in my day.
While bikers weren’t exactly the kind of organization that typically hired me, I always tried to know of any major players in a town I was working in, so my reconnaissance work typically meant I at least did a little drive-by to check out the headquarters.
Most clubhouses I’d seen were either in bars or in glorified garages.
These Golden Glades guys… they had a house. An actual house. With gardens overflowing with (of all things) hibiscus flowers in every shade from happy yellow to bruised red.
They had a fence and gate, but I pulled right into the driveway.
“What’s across the street?” I asked as we climbed out, my gun held in my hand because I was not being stupid about this. No matter how much this guy was scrambling my brain. And hormones.
“Yeah, that’s been a whole fucking thing. It’s a senior living community… and assisted living.”
“Why is it a thing? Do they call the cops about the music or something?”
“Worse. The wives send the husbands over to tell us to turn it down or they will call the cops. And the men see the food, booze, and half-naked women and decide to be our best friends.”
“No way. Really?”
“Yep. Can hardly go a day anymore without tripping over a walker or cane or reminding someone that they were going to have a heart attack if they eat the fried quesadillas.”
“The women never come over?”
“If by ‘over’ you mean set up their lawn chairs over on the green there,” he said, pointing, “and watch us do chores. Then yes.”
“Frisky older ladies are amazing.”
“Dixon agrees. He puts on a show for them when he catches them out there.”
“You don’t strip for them?” I teased.
“Baby, they see all this,” he said, waving down at himself, “and they might develop high blood pressure. I’m not gonna be responsible for that.”
There was no stopping the laugh that escaped me at that.
This guy had no right to be both as attractive and charming as he was. Add in his competence and protectiveness and he was basically the perfect guy.
“So, who is the gardener?” I asked as he led me toward the front path.
“Guess we all are. My brother and I are still prospects. We do most of the grunt work here.”
“I’ve never met bikers who have such abundant flower gardens.”
“It’s for the tortoise.”
“What was that?”
“There’s a club tortoise. He likes to eat those flowers, so we keep them growing for him.”
Damn him.
He took care of animals too?
I was dying to find a single flaw.
You know, aside from the lying to me and outlaw biker profession thing.
“There’s also a bird inside, just so you know.”
“I love birds.”
“Really?” he asked, pausing with his hand on the knob, shooting me a lowered brow look.
“Yeah, it happened out of nowhere. I turned thirty and boom , suddenly I’m noticing every bird. And now I feel like I owe my father an apology for always pointing them out to me when I was a kid.”
“You got layers, huh?” he asked. “This is a macaw. And he will try to eat any food you’re holding. And maybe pull your jewelry. He’s got a record for trying to rip earrings off. And once, an old man’s medical alert necklace. That was a whole clusterfuck. Ready?”
“Yep,” I agreed, feeling a little more at ease now that I knew more about these men.
Sure, they were absolutely hardened criminals. But they took good care of their animals. That said something. So did the gardening for them. And the fact that there was a trio of children’s bikes on their sides by the driveway.
The inside was, well, manly. Which was expected.
It was all bare walls and leather furniture.
There was an unnecessarily large TV (and this is coming from someone who had a too big TV myself), a few gaming consoles, an array of empty beer cans on the coffee table, and a single hot pink bra hanging from the stair banister.
The male voices were coming from the back of the house, and when Caymen led me through, we found ourselves in a sprawling kitchen complete with an island, a table to the side, and a large parrot cage.
Sitting on the open door of said cage was a gorgeous blue and gold macaw. In his big foot was a generous slice of a peach that he was picking at with his beak.
“Hi, buddy,” I cooed at him, unable to stop myself.
“F… fuck.”
“Yeah, that about covers this night,” I agreed. Then I turned to the rest of the men gathered around who had fallen silent at my entrance.
“So, you’re the one who cuffed my brother up,” one of them said. “Respect.”
“So, you’re the one who saved both our lives tonight,” I shot back. “Respect.”
There was no denying the family resemblance between Caymen and his brother.
Both were tall with dark hair and eyes. Caymen was bulkier than his brother, though, and a wider jaw, the beard, and a more brooding brow.
Dixon had a sharper jaw, gray lashes, and a lightness about him that said he smiled often.
They were both gorgeous, even if I was a little more partial to Caymen personally.
His age was doing some heavy lifting there. Dixon seemed quite a bit younger than his brother. By maybe a decade.
“Dixon,” he introduced himself, nodding. “Cider.”
It took a few beats.
Honestly, I might not have thought anything of the name at all if there wasn’t a strange pregnant pause in the room, like everyone was waiting for my reaction.
Only then did it click.
Dixon Cider.
Dicks inside her.
My head whipped over to Caymen, putting his name together too.
“Oh, come on,” I said with a shocked laugh.
“Yeah, our parents were something else. This is Noa,” he introduced me to the crowd.
“Lane,” I finished for him.
“Noa,” a hulking man greeted me. “I’m Huck.”
The president.
He was handsome too, with his square jaw and quiet authority.
But then again, all of them were.
Their ages varied, with them sort of separating themselves by it, whether they were aware of it or not. I figured it was just the cliques that came from the first members of the club and the newer guys.
“The president.”
“Yeah. Heard about the shooting. Glad you didn’t get hit. Or run off the road.”
“Because you need me to find the shipment.”
“That’s part of it, yeah.”
“I’m working on it. I could probably be making progress right now if someone didn’t insist I needed to come here and talk to you.”
“About working together,” Caymen clarified.
“I like to work alone.”
“Yeah, get that, babe, but you were almost arrested, shot, and hit by a car tonight. Think maybe it’s alright to admit you need some help on this one.” He wasn’t wrong. As much as I hated that.
“I don’t mind an extra set of eyes or hands or two, but I need everyone to stay out of my way on this.”
“Look, no one here is trying to take over for you. It’d be stupid to. You know more about this situation than we do.”
Everything about his tone suggested he was bitter about that. Because I doubted guys like this used a broker and were resentful not to have their hands in every part of the process. And were likely thinking they were validated in that mindset now that this job had gone so sideways.
There was no use insisting that this simply never happened. Were there sometimes hiccups on jobs? People who tried to fuck over the other party? Sure. But I’d never lost a shipment before.
Telling them that, though, wouldn’t change anything. And it was better to keep things moving than stand around arguing about the validity of using someone like me on tricky jobs.
“So, who am I working with then?”
“Me,” Caymen said automatically.
“You haven’t slept in a day,” Huck said, shaking his head.
“I don’t care.”
The two men shared a look, but Huck shook his head and sighed.
“Fine. Caymen. And York,” he said, nodding over toward a man who reminded me a bit of a lumberjack.
Which was kind of funny in this part of the country.
“And Velle,” he added, nodding toward a man who looked like he belonged fronting a rock band, not working at a biker club.
“What about me?” Dixon asked.
“You’re gonna get some sleep and do shifts with Coast and Kylo to give these guys breaks. That good with you?”
I’d feel better if I met Coast and Kylo. But so long as they didn’t step on my toes, I didn’t really care.
“Can they follow instructions? Or are they going to come in, dicks swinging, and give me a problem because I’m a woman?”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna be a problem,” Huck assured me. “They will take your lead unless you’re doing something stupid that might get you and them killed.”
“Alright. Good.”
“But they’re not going in blind. So you’re gonna need to be doing some talking.”
“I’ll do some talking if you do some coffee making,” I said, nodding toward the old drip coffee machine on the counter.
“Not you,” York said when Huck went to do it himself. “It’ll taste like battery acid,” he added. “I got it.”
“So, that’s going, what—”
He was cut off by the back door swinging open. And in walked a larger-built guy with a big smile and a large brown bag in one hand and a few grocery bags in the other.
“Can you believe that bakery was open already?” he asked as he moved inside. “I got us fresh-baked English muff—oh, hey, pretty lady,” he said when he spotted me.
“Eddie, this is Noa. Noa, Eddie.”
“You said something about the bakery?” Dixon asked, clearly still in that phase of life where he was a bottomless pit that always needed filling.
“Yeah, gonna make us some breakfast sandwiches. Figure it’s gonna be a long day. You like bacon or sausage?”
I was famished.
“Either.”
“Cheese?”
“Is that really a question?”
“I like her,” he decided.
I was pretty sure it would be impossible not to like someone like him.
“I like you back. And only partially because you know how to cook.”
“You don’t cook?” he asked.
“I’d starve if I didn’t have a handy dandy app on my phone to order take-out.”
Eddie clucked his tongue as he shook his head and moved behind the island. “Stick with me. I’ll never let you go hungry around here, mama.”
“Any chance you’re gonna make hash browns with the sandwiches?” Dixon asked.
“Only if you cut up some fruit to have with it too. Gotta get some fiber in you too.”
I glanced over at Caymen, already finding him watching me.
“Not what you expected, huh?”
“Not at all.”
“Alright. Coffee is brewing. Food is getting cooked. You gonna talk to us now?” Huck asked. “Or put the gun away, maybe?”
I’d forgotten I was holding it.
There was a shelf not far from where I was standing, and I reached up and placed it there.
“Alright. Let’s talk.”