Chapter Nine
Two days in the compound, and Nadine was going stir-crazy.
Not from boredom—there was plenty to do, plenty to see, plenty of people moving through the converted clubhouse with purpose and energy.
The problem was that none of it was her purpose.
Her shop was sitting empty. Her artisans were waiting.
And she was here, safe and protected and completely useless.
Until Beth found her reorganizing the common room bookshelf by author and subject.
"Honey." The older woman leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, amusement crinkling the corners of her eyes. "Those books haven't been organized since they got dumped there five years ago."
"I noticed." Nadine slid another paperback into its proper place. "It was bothering me."
"Uh-huh." Beth pushed off the frame, crossed to examine her work. "You're one of those people who can't sit still when there's chaos around, aren't you?"
"Is it that obvious?"
"Only to someone who recognizes the symptoms." Beth smiled. "Come with me. I want to show you something."
She led Nadine through the compound to a room she hadn't seen yet—a storage area stacked with boxes, crates, and what looked like decades of accumulated... stuff. Craft supplies, half-finished projects, fabric and yarn and tools that had clearly been donated or abandoned over the years.
"The women around here make things," Beth explained. "Or they try to. But nobody's got time to teach, and nobody's organized enough to know what we've got." She gestured at the chaos. "Think you could do something with this?"
Nadine's organizational brain lit up like a Christmas tree.
"Give me two hours."
It took three, but by lunch she'd transformed the disaster into something workable.
Fabric sorted by type and color. Yarn wound and labeled. Tools cleaned, sharpened where needed, arranged by function. She'd found treasure buried in the mess—quality materials that had been forgotten, projects half-finished by women who'd moved on or given up.
Word spread fast.
Rachel appeared first, drawn by reports of the transformation. Her eyes widened when she saw the organized shelves.
"Is that the pottery wheel?" She crossed to a dusty machine in the corner, ran her fingers over it. "Someone donated this months ago and we never got it set up."
"It needs cleaning and a new belt, but it works." Nadine had tested it. "Do you throw?"
"I'd like to learn. Always thought it would be good for the clinic—something calming for patients recovering from rough nights." Rachel turned to her with an expression that was half wonder, half calculation. "Could you teach me?"
"I know the basics. My artisan Clara is the real expert, but I've watched her enough to manage beginner lessons."
"Deal." Rachel's smile was genuine. "Name your price."
"No price. Just—" Nadine hesitated. "Let me feel useful. That's all I want."
Beth had been watching from the doorway. Now she stepped forward, examining a display of basket-weaving supplies Nadine had assembled from scattered materials.
"These techniques," she said, fingering a partially-completed piece. "This is traditional Appalachian work."
"Mabel Hensley's style. I can't match her skill, but I know the basics."
"Could you make me something? A basket like the one in your shop—the double-handled kind." Beth's voice softened. "My grandmother had one just like it. I've been looking for years."
The request hit Nadine somewhere deep. This was what she'd built her shop for—connecting people to tradition, to memory, to the hands that had come before.
"I'll need materials. Real materials, not craft store substitutes."
"Make a list. We'll get whatever you need."
By the time lunch was over, Nadine had three commissions, a pottery student, and the beginning of something that felt almost like purpose.
She found Pitfall in the garage.
He was underneath a truck that had seen better decades, only his boots visible, his voice carrying from the darkness as he talked through a repair with Switchback. Grease-stained and focused, completely absorbed in the work.
Nadine leaned against a toolbox and watched.
This was the other side of him—not the fighter, not the protector, but the worker. The prospect earning his place through every grunt job the club threw at him. She'd seen him haul trash at dawn, scrub floors at noon, run errands that would have made lesser men complain.
He never complained. Never hesitated. Just put his head down and did whatever needed doing.
"You're staring."
She startled. Pitfall had rolled out from under the truck, looking up at her with an expression that made heat climb her neck.
"I was thinking."
"About what?"
"About how you volunteer for the worst jobs." She crossed her arms, suddenly aware of how close they were, how the garage seemed smaller than it had a moment ago. "Every time something needs doing, you're first in line."
"That's how prospecting works." He stood, wiped his hands on a rag that did nothing to remove the grease. "You prove yourself through the work nobody else wants."
"And what happens when you've proved yourself?"
"Then I get a patch." His eyes held hers. "And things change."
"Change how?"
He stepped closer. Not touching, but near enough that she could smell the motor oil and sweat, the particular scent that was becoming familiar in a way that made her pulse jump.
"Right now, I'm nobody. A prospect doesn't claim anything, doesn't own anything, doesn't have standing." His voice dropped, rough and low. "Once I'm patched, that changes. What's mine becomes mine for real. And everyone knows it."
The words hung between them, heavy with meaning that had nothing to do with club politics.
"And what exactly are you planning to claim?" Nadine asked.
"I think you know."
She should step back. Should put distance between them, remember that she was a woman whose life had exploded three days ago and he was a man she barely knew.
She didn't step back.
"Maybe I do." Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "Maybe I want to hear you say it."
Pitfall's jaw tightened. His hands flexed at his sides, and she could see the effort it took him not to reach for her.
"Not yet." The words sounded like they cost him. "Not while I'm still earning my place. You deserve better than a prospect's promise."
"What if I don't care about patches and positions?"
"Then you don't understand what they mean." He did reach for her then—just her hand, his fingers rough against her palm. "When I claim you, Nadine, it's going to be with the full weight of this club behind it. Not just me making promises I can't keep. The whole brotherhood, standing with us."
"And until then?"
"Until then..." He lifted her hand, pressed his lips to her knuckles. The gesture was old-fashioned, almost courtly, but the heat in his eyes was anything but. "Until then, I keep you safe. And we both try not to lose our minds."
He released her hand, stepped back, and Nadine felt the loss of contact like a physical ache.
"Pitfall!" Switchback's voice cut through the moment. "You done flirting? This differential's not going to fix itself."
"Coming." Pitfall held her gaze for one more heartbeat. "We'll finish this conversation later."
"Is that a promise or a threat?"
"Both." He smiled—actually smiled, quick and devastating—and disappeared back under the truck.
The rest of the day passed in a haze of awareness.
Nadine tried to focus on her projects, on the basket she was weaving for Beth, on the pottery lesson she was planning for Rachel. But her attention kept drifting to the garage, to the distant sound of tools and male voices, to the memory of Pitfall's lips against her knuckles.
When I claim you.
Not if. When.
The certainty in his voice had been absolute. Like it was already decided, already inevitable, just waiting for the right moment to become real.
She should be terrified. A week ago, she'd been a shopkeeper with a quiet life and predictable problems. Now she was living in an outlaw compound, surrounded by men who killed people and women who'd learned to love them anyway.
But terror wasn't what she felt.
What she felt was hunger. Want. The kind of need that built in your chest and spread through your body until every nerve was screaming for release.
She watched him at dinner that night, sitting with the other prospects at a table that marked their status. He didn't look at her—kept his attention on his food, on the brothers around him, on the conversation that didn't include her.
But she saw his shoulders tense when she laughed at something Casey said. Saw his head turn, just slightly, whenever she moved.
He was as aware of her as she was of him. The knowledge made something tighten low in her belly.
After dinner, she helped clean up. Washed dishes beside Beth while Rachel dried and Casey supervised from a stool with a beer.
"He's got it bad." Casey's observation came out of nowhere. "Haven't seen Pitfall this distracted since he started prospecting."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure you don't." Casey took a long drink. "Word of advice? Whatever's building between you two, don't fight it. Life's short, especially around here. When something real shows up, you grab it with both hands."
"And if I'm not sure it's real?"
"Then you figure it out together." Casey shrugged. "That's how it works. You don't get guarantees. You just get chances."
Nadine finished the dishes in silence, turning the words over in her mind.
She found Pitfall on the back porch an hour later, alone for once, staring out at the dark shapes of the mountains.
"Hey." She settled beside him on the steps. Not touching. Close enough to feel his warmth anyway.
"Hey." He didn't look at her. "Couldn't sleep?"
"Not tired yet." A lie. She was exhausted. But something had pulled her out here, some need she couldn't name.
They sat in silence. The compound sounds had faded to a murmur, most people gone to bed or at least pretending. The stars were brilliant overhead, unpolluted by city lights.
"I watched you today," he said finally. "In the craft room. The way you organized everything, got people excited about making things. You're good at that."
"It's what I do. What I've always done."
"It matters. Building something from nothing, getting people to trust you with their work." He turned to look at her then, and the intensity in his eyes made her breath catch. "That takes a special kind of strength. Not everyone has it."
"Neither does everyone climb out of mine shafts with bleeding fingers."
"Different kinds of strength." His hand found hers in the darkness. "Yours is quieter. Doesn't mean it's less."
She threaded her fingers through his, felt the calluses on his palms, the roughness of hands that worked hard every single day.
"This thing between us," she whispered. "It's not going away, is it?"
"No." His grip tightened. "It's not."
The pressure built in her chest, in the space between their bodies, in the silence that held everything they weren't saying. She wanted to kiss him. Wanted to drag him somewhere private and find out what all that restrained intensity felt like when it finally let go.
But he was right. Not yet. Not while everything else was still unsettled.
So she just held his hand, and he held hers, and they sat together in the dark while something between them kept building toward a release that couldn't come soon enough.