Chapter Ten #2
“I know,” Abigail assured her, though she also knew Shannon had let a little truth slip out. “My life is humble. It’s not unusual for a mother to want bigger things for her child.”
“I suppose. But I don’t know if it’s something bigger I necessarily want for Millie.
I guess I worry about her turning a hobby she does to relax and decompress into a job she has to do to live.
I mean, I love my job, but I love it as a job .
It would never be something I did for fun, you know? Is that not a problem for you?”
“Well,” Abigail began as she struggled to close her extremely manual tailgate.
Shannon looked fruitlessly for a way to help her while her own arms were full.
Finally, Abigail set the boxes on the trunk of the car beside her and freed up her hands.
Slamming the tailgate up, she made a case for herself.
“No, it’s not a problem for me. I suppose .
.. maybe living like I do, I don’t have so many obligations that I have to turn what I love into work.
I live simply, and simple doesn’t cost much.
As long as I can make or do things people find useful, I’ll have everything I need, and I work when I want.
” She put a touch of irony in her grin. “Just so happens I want to work most days.”
Shannon laughed. “Yeah, that helps.” They headed toward the clubhouse.
“Millie never wants to work. She’s so high-strung, and she just hates anybody expecting anything of her—not because she’s a brat, but because the thought of letting people down stresses her out so much.
She made herself sick every time finals came around in high school, fretting about not doing her best. I’m pretty worried about her being away at college.
Joe’s Joe, you know? We named him for Havoc Mariano, and the name came with Hav’s personality.
Joe rolled out of the womb moving to his own beat, and he’s got a self-concept like a suit of armor.
His twin sister did not get those traits. ”
Though Abigail had never been a gossip, she enjoyed learning about people, and she wanted to know more about Shannon’s kids. She also wanted to point out that maybe a small, simple life would be the happiest path for a girl like Millie.
However, they’d arrived at the clubhouse door—which swung suddenly and forcefully open just as Shannon was trying to shift the balance of her load to grab the handle.
It was Mel and Cox, and they both grabbed the women’s loads before either could say anything. Once Mel had Abigail’s boxes in his own arms, he leaned over and planted a kiss on her mouth. “Hey, beautiful.”
He called her beautiful several times a day, and her cheeks grew warm every time. Like she was a schoolgirl and not a middle-aged woman. “Hi there,” she answered, setting her hand on his cheek. His salt-and-pepper beard was soft beneath her palm.
When they drew apart, Cox, his arms loaded with Shannon’s boxes, was smiling at them.
It wasn’t a big smile, but for Cox, it was noteworthy.
That man had some real deep pain in his past, and it had made him sour and suspicious, but new love had brought a spoonful of sugar to his soul.
He was involved with the woman running the Signal Bend Pavilion project, who’d shown herself, after a rocky beginning in town, to be an excellent human as well.
Abigail smiled back as she held the door for the men. “You’re in a good mood today, Cox.”
His expression turned sheepish, and he shrugged.
“Is Autumn coming in for the weekend?” she asked. Autumn lived in St. Louis, where her Indiana-based company had recently opened a satellite office.
“Yeah,” He went into the clubhouse without another word, closing the topic by walking away.
Following Shannon in, Mel laughed and gave Abigail a wink. “That’s all the conversation you’re gonna get outta Cox. He got himself a woman, Abs. He didn’t get a personality transplant.”
Not yet , she thought as she followed him in and let the door close behind her.
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~oOo~
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O nce inside, Abigail drew up short again.
It wasn’t particularly loud, likely because no music was yet playing, but the Hall was already more crowded and bustling than she’d ever seen it.
A couple dozen—maybe more!—men in leather milled about, playing pool, drinking at the bar, standing or sitting in small groups, everybody talking and laughing.
Another couple dozen women wended around the men, serving drinks to them, or keeping them company, or trying to get work done despite them.
“You okay, Abs?” Mel asked, wrinkling his brow at her.
She smoothed her expression and smiled up at him. “Sure I am!”
His brow did not smooth. He opened his mouth—
“MEL!” shouted Shannon from halfway through the Hall. “Come bring all that to the kitchen!”
“ON IT, ONE SEC!” he called back. Then, after a glance around the leather-packed room, he set the boxes on the end of the bar and turned to Abigail.
“You look worried, and you don’t need to be. But I’m gonna do somethin’ right now that you might think is a little ... I don’t know, ape-like. Just go with it, okay? It’s for you—and yeah, for me, too.”
Without the even a hair of a notion what he planned, but in full faith that he wouldn’t do anything to hurt or embarrass her, she nodded.
Grinning, he took her hand and led her more deeply into the room, stopping at a support post near the pool table.
Still holding her hand, he turned to her and pulled her close, bringing their bodies firmly together.
He did the maneuver like a little dance move, spinning toward her, pulling her to him, sweeping one arm around her and brushing the other hand along the side of her face, sinking his fingers into her hair.
“You are totally fucking gorgeous,” he whispered at her cheek. “I love your hair down long like this, I love the way the colors you’re wearing make your eyes like a kaleidoscope. I’m gonna kiss your knees weak now.”
Right there in the middle of the Night Horde Hall, surrounded on all sides by tough men in leather, many she’d never met, Mel kissed her like he’d never yet kissed her, like she’d never been kissed by anyone ever.
He held her so strongly she had to lean back, as if he’d draped her over his arm.
His hand in her hair became a fist; the fingers of his hand at her back sank into her flesh, through her clothes.
His tongue searched her whole mouth and rolled and twisted with her tongue.
And oh, he smelled so good, felt so good, tasted do good, sounded so good. So warm and strong, so ... oh .
Her knees absolutely went weak. Stars exploded and comets flew through her head, air seemed both too thin and too rich all at once, and she thought her heart might climb straight up and fly from her mouth.
Something that had lain quiet, sleeping deep inside her, something that had been stirring for the past month or so, woke fully, stretched, and roared.
Abigail knew it at once as desire—deep, visceral, earthy physical need. All at once, surrounded by people, she was horny for this man. And she had never in her life felt it like this, not even in her dating days had she had more than the gentlest inkling of this kind of want.
Goodness, if she’d ever felt this as a young woman, she might not have thought her life alone so complete. This feeling was something she’d miss.
When he finally tipped his head back and ended the kiss, Abigail forced her eyelids up and found him looking down at her, his eyes wide under a lightly furrowed brow.
“Jesus,” he muttered.
Unbidden and unexpected, a giggle trilled from her mouth. He smiled at the sound, and she lifted her hand to set her fingers on his lips. They were still hot and slick from the kiss.
When he stood fully and steadied her on her feet, Abigail noticed that the room had gone quiet.
Not silent, a low hum of mingling voices continued, but a fair number of people had stopped to watch the show.
Abigail’s whole face went hot, but she held her head up.
She had nothing at all to be embarrassed of. In fact, she was proud.
Taking her hand again, Mel led her to a small cluster of men standing near the hallway to the dorm. Badger and Double A were talking to two men she didn’t recognize, but they were in Montana kuttes so she checked the patches on their chests.
One of the men was tall and thin, and had long, ruler-straight black hair.
He seemed a little younger than her. The flashes on the right side of his kutte read Nacto , which she assumed was his name, and Sergeant at Arms .
The other was considerably older, with longish, steel-grey hair and beard that reminded her at once of latter-day Jeff Bridges.
His flashes told her his name was Rhett, and he was the president of the Montana charter.
“’Scuse me for interrupting here, brothers,” Mel said, hooking his arm around Abigail’s shoulders.
“I’m gonna help Abigail get her amazing pies and cookies back to the kitchen, and then I’m down to take your money from you at the pool table, Nac.
Since you think you’re all that—oh, and before I get my ass beat for not bein’ a gentleman, Rhett Mackie and Nacto Washington, this is my old lady, Abigail Freeman. ”
Having lived in (well, near) a biker town her whole life, Abigail knew what ‘old lady’ meant to bikers, and she was stunned. She wasn’t the only one. Badger and Double A exchanged a look between them and briefly turned it on Mel before they reshaped it to bright grins for her.
The Montana men, Rhett and Nacto, had differing reactions. Nacto grinned at once and offered his hand to her.
“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” he said.
“Oh, no need to call me ma’am,” she answered with a smile of her own. “Just Abigail will do fine. And it’s nice to meet you, too, Nacto.”
Rhett scowled—and continued reminding her of end-of-career Jeff Bridges. Finally, he offered his hand. “Pleasure,” he said, without much conviction.
“Same,” she replied with a similar tone. She took everyone as they came, assumed everyone was doing their best, but she was not a dishrag. When she sensed a chill from someone, she measured her response accordingly.
The odd interaction completed, Mel led her back to the bar and collected her packages again.
“What was that?” she asked when they had some distance from other ears.
“I ... I guess that was me claiming you. I’m sorry, I know I took some liberties, but I don’t know all the Montana guys real well, and a couple I do know are .
..” Shaking that sentence off, he instead said, “I wanted everybody to know you’re mine and keep their hands off you.
Just in case anybody gets drunk and out of line.
But—that’s all it has to mean. Sorry I went all cave—”
He stopped because she’d put her fingers on his mouth. “Don’t apologize for acting to keep me safe, Mel. I didn’t understand it, but I liked that kiss. I think I liked it better before I knew it was for show, but I’m glad you did it even so.”
“I made a show of that kiss, Abs, but it wasn’t for show. I love kissing you. That was all real.”
Again her heart leapt and twirled inside its cage. “Then don’t apologize for kissing me like that.”