Chapter 3
DAKOTA
I drive through one last intersection, and my map indicates my destination is on the right. I figured it was going to be some kind of business, but now I’m looking at a church. Stiff is definitely not the kind of thing you call a priest, except maybe in that book I read last year.
There’s no one behind me, so I slow down to get a better look.
Surrounding the church is a tall wall, making it seem more like some kind of inner city fortress or monastic order.
Then I notice the big, lit up sign on the wall that says Outlaw Sons MC, and the couple of scary looking men standing near the gated entrance, watching me closely, and the pieces fall into place. Definitely not a monastic order.
Logan talking about “motorcycle men” should’ve tipped me off.
He’s been obsessed with cars and motorcycles for as long as I can remember.
I’ve seen the name of their club in the news occasionally, and it’s never good.
Gang violence, weapons, murder… The thought of my little boy inside those walls is almost as bad as him wandering the streets here alone.
But Stiff promised. He promised, and I have to believe him or I’ll drive myself crazy.
Praying that I'm not making a mistake, I turn and stop in front of the gate. The guy on the left, with striking green eyes and auburn hair slips through and taps his knuckles on the window. There’s a patch on the front of his jacket that says Savage.
He eyes me like he’s used to giving orders and having them listened to. I roll down the window.
“You Dakota?” he asks, glancing at the inside of my car.
“Hi, um, yeah. I’m here to pick up my son? Should I park on the street or…?”
“Park over there. Bones’ll show you where they are.” He backs away as they open the gate and waves me inside.
Okay, that’s normal enough, for now at least.
The church is on my right, and there’s an old parking lot and a field on the left. I pull onto the cracked asphalt next to a van and get out. There’s a house behind the church, and a couple of bikers are standing around. One takes a long drag on his cigarette, letting the smoke billow out slowly.
I tug at the edges of my jacket, wrapping it tighter and wishing I wasn’t still wearing my uniform: a dark blue, button-up cotton tunic and matching pants.
My hair’s pulled back in a practical bun, my makeup is minimal at best, and I’m wearing black, orthopedic sneakers.
It’s not like I want to impress anyone here, but looking nice can be its own sort of armor, and right now I’m feeling more than a little vulnerable.
The biker who was with Savage jogs over. His head is shaved, and dark stubble frames his square jaw. “Hey. Follow me, they’re in the garage with your boy.”
I give him a tight-lipped smile and nod. “Thanks. I really appre—” Three tight gunshots crack through the air. Pure instinct sends me to the ground, crouching low and searching for the source.
He laughs. “You’re good, relax. It’s just the firing range around the back. Bonnie’s crew are doing some target practice.”
Right. Obviously. I glare up at him, standing slowly.
“Sorry. I guess you kinda get used to it after a while,” Bones says with a shrug. “Are you a nurse?”
“No. Just an aide. I came straight from work.”
“Cool. I’m an EMT. Don’t worry, inside these walls is usually the safest place you can be.”
The ‘usually’ worries me.
We walk between the church and the house with the bikers, and into a courtyard.
There’s a second house on the other side of the church, with a staircase leading to the second floor, and across from it is what looks like an old school.
Straight ahead is a massive, high ceilinged building that’s open on one side.
Inside are more bikers, some just hanging out and others working on their bikes.
The low thrum of rock music filters out, broken up by the occasional thunder of an engine.
Gunshots still occasionally punctuate the scene, coming from somewhere behind the school, I think.
Bones leads me into the garage. “Lash!” he shouts when we’re inside.
“Back here!” a deep voice answers.
We wind our way through the maze of boxes, tools and bikes.
All the while, I can feel curious eyes watching, but I’m not brave enough to look back.
Then ahead of me, I see three big men in jeans and leather jackets with MC patches on the back of them.
They’re standing around a deep red motorcycle with orange flames detailed on the body, and perched on the seat with his arms stretched as far as they can go is a little boy that I'd recognize anywhere.
“Lo!”
Logan’s head swivels when he hears me, and his big hazel eyes light up.
He nearly falls off the bike in an attempt to get to me, but one of the men, with short, dark blond hair and heavily pierced ears snatches him up before he leans too far.
For a second Logan’s legs swing in the air but as soon as he’s on the ground, he runs straight to me.
“Mommy!”
I meet him halfway, and he stumbles right into my arms, clinging like a baby monkey.
I pull him into a tight hug, squeezing him like I haven't seen him in months. The strawberry scent of his favorite shampoo fills my lungs, and for the first time since I got Stiff’s call, I feel like I can breathe again.
I bury my face in his brown curls and let out the sob that’s been building since I got the call. “I was so worried about you!”
“I was scared, but the motorcycle men kept me safe, just like Auntie Georgia said.” Logan curls in a little on himself, hiding. “She’s not in trouble, right?” he asks guiltily.
Oh, Georgia. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out. We always do, right, buddy?”
He nods against the breaking heart in my chest.
When Logan was a baby, I was sure my sister just needed a break.
She’d done so well getting her life together before he was born, so I knew she’d do the right thing if I could give her a little time.
I was careful to call myself Auntie Dakota, and when I talked about Georgia, I said that Mommy was sick and she had to go away for a while.
He didn’t understand, but all he needed was safety, a full belly and all the love I could give.
I don’t even remember the exact day when he started calling me Mommy ‘Kota, or when it just turned to Mommy, and even Georgia agreed that it made life less complicated.
Am I doing the right thing by trying to give them as much of a relationship as she can handle?
It is. It has to be, right?
“You must be Dakota.” It’s the voice from the phone, Stiff, and the patch on his jacket over his left breast confirms his name.
“I don’t know what I could ever say or do to thank you for keeping him safe.”
He’s a striking man with a thatch of thick black hair that transitions into a short but full beard with an unruly swirl of silver in it under his chin where I spot a long healed, nasty scar stretching up from beneath his shirt collar.
From under thick black brows, a pair of steel gray eyes watch me curiously, like he's not sure what to make of me yet. The feeling is mutual. He’s not traditionally handsome, but his features are strong, and his presence has a pull to it.
In another world I could see him as a warrior in a suit of armor.
“I keep my promises.”
My fingers itch to take my hair down under his scrutiny, but it wouldn’t transform me into a supermodel like in the shampoo commercials. It would be a rat’s nest of bobby pins and hairspray. As it is, I’m not going to win any fair maiden awards, but it’s at least neat. “You did, thank you.”
“I can think of a few things you could do,” one of the others says with a low chuckle.
“That’s Lash. He’s nice,” Logan whispers. His breath smells like chocolate.
I bet he is.
It’s getting hard now that he’s bigger, but I stand up and hike Logan onto my hip. It helps that he’s still clinging to me like his life depends on it. “Do you have a suggestion?” I ask Lash innocently.
His mouth opens, snapping shut again quickly as his playful gaze darts to Logan. “A hug would be nice.”
“A hug?” I smother a laugh. Nobody who looks like him should be able to get away with boyish charm but he’s managing to pull it off.
Lash’s jacket's open, and the T-shirt under it is doing its best to keep him contained, but he’s seriously built.
The sides of his head are shaved, leaving it short and dark on top.
A black tattoo slithers up his neck behind his ear and onto the side of his head, of a thick snake that's flicking its tongue.
At first his eyes look dark and colorless, but when he steps closer, I can see hints of mossy green.
He opens his arms and wraps them around the both of us.
He’s so warm. I give myself permission to close my eyes for just a second and rest my head against his shirt, breathing in his comforting scent; a mix of leather, laundry and man.
His hand falls casually to my lower back.
I suck in a tiny breath. Most of what I know about bikers is secondhand, but I remember some of Georgia’s stories.
This might be the most male attention I’ve had in a while, but I doubt groping a frumpy mom on the outside of her jacket is the highlight of his day.
Logan starts to squirm and I pull away reluctantly.
“Thank you, really.”
“He’s a little young, but he’s not the first lost boy this club's taken in.” The third guy is the one that kept Logan from falling off the bike. His name is Jackal by the patch on his jacket. He grins and wipes his hands off on a cloth that gets tucked into his back pocket.
Jackal is probably the most conventionally handsome of the three of them, with his blond hair and honey gold eyes that crinkle at the corners.
But I saw the glimpse of a gun peeking out from under his jacket, and the sheer amount of ink and metal covering his skin makes it pretty clear he’s no angel.
Oh, I never really got the bad boy appeal before, but this ‘we’re just a bunch of lost boys looking for our Wendy’ look is making me understand, even if I barely have the energy to take care of one at the moment.
Why couldn’t Logan have been found by a friendly grandmother?
In a rom-com, this would’ve been a good setup for me to meet a cute single cafe owner who happens to be great with kids, but no, fate had to make his saviors as hot as they are completely inappropriate to consider exchanging numbers with.
“Look, I don’t mean to be telling you about your own life,” Jackal starts cautiously. “But I think you might need to reconsider who you have watching the kid. If Auntie Georgia is your sister in law or something, you—”
If only. “No, she’s my sister. I’m not… I’m not married. And don’t worry. I know. This wasn’t the plan.”
He raises his hands in apology. “Swear to God, no judgment here. Is Logan’s dad…”
“He’s, um, not part of the picture.” And if I have my way, he’ll never get close enough to touch a hair on Logan’s head. This little boy is the only good thing that man has ever done.
“He has a motorcycle, too!” Logan pipes up, beaming.
“Where did you hear that, Lo?” I ask.
“Auntie Georgia!”
The guys glance back and forth between themselves, probably confused about why my sister would know more about my son’s father than I do.
They can keep wondering, because I don’t owe them our messy life story.
I hug Logan tighter. It could be true. Georgia knows I don’t want to hear about Jay unless she’s telling me she kicked him out for good.
I’ve never met him, but I’ve seen the results of his anger on my sister.
“So, Georgia and Dakota, huh? Were your parents geography buffs?” Lash asks, tactfully changing the subject.
I smile gratefully. “Kind of. Dad moved around for work when we were little and they thought it would be cute as little mementos to where we were born. I guess South Dakota was a little too wordy, and then when Georgia showed up they decided to stick with the pattern. Cheesy, right?”
“You’re asking Lash, Jackal and Stiff if your name is cheesy? You know what I’m named after?” Lash raises an eyebrow, daring me to ask.
Jackal snorts.
In spite of my better judgment, I’m curious. “What?”
Lash’s grin turns into something a lot less innocent and his tongue steals out quickly to tap the end of his nose before he wiggles it suggestively. “Some say it’s my best attribute, but I think it’s at best top two.”
But before I can respond, my phone rings, and this time I don't recognize the number. It'd better be Georgia with a damn good explanation. “Hello?”
“Dakota Vale?” The voice is very measured, very professional, very much not my sister. A cold shiver slithers down my spine.
“Yes?”
“Is your sister Georgia Vale?”
“…yes.”
“I'm sorry, Ms. Vale, but I’m calling from Blackwell General. There’s been an accident.”
My knees go weak and it’s only through sheer will that I manage to let Logan slide down safely to the ground. “Is she okay?”
The voice hesitates, like it's delivered this message many times but it never gets any easier. “We need you to come verify her identity. I’m afraid there was nothing we could do, Ms. Vale. I'm so sorry.”