Chapter One #2
Her eyes narrow. “Like the hat?”
“Like the horses.”
The kid lifts his head more. “Horse dragon?”
“August,” the woman says, warning soft but tired.
August.
Good name. Old-fashioned. Too big for a little kid with sleep creases on his face and fear sitting in his eyes like a bruise.
The woman straightens, still blocking the open door with her body.
Protective.
Good.
I like that.
I respect a woman who puts herself between danger and her kid, even when the danger is six-foot-plus of tattooed biker standing in the wash of a Harley headlight after being assaulted by her panties.
“Flat tire?” I ask.
She looks at the shredded rubber like it personally betrayed her. “Obviously.”
Mouthy, then.
That does something inconvenient to my interest.
“You got a spare?”
“Yes.”
“Jack?”
She pauses.
I glance at the boxes scattered down Hell Road. “Let me guess. The jack is under half your worldly belongings, the spare is rusted to hell, and you’ve been crying because tonight’s been one long kick in the teeth.”
Her chin lifts. “I haven’t been crying.”
Her face is wet.
I look at her.
She looks at me.
Behind her, August whispers, “Mama cried.”
The woman closes her eyes.
I bite the inside of my cheek because laughing right now feels like the sort of thing that gets a man stabbed with a tire iron.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
Her eyes open. Guarded again. “Why?”
“Because I like to know who I’m rescuing before her panties try to murder me.”
“I didn’t ask you to rescue me.”
“No, but your drawers made contact. That feels like a formal introduction.”
She hates that.
I can tell by the way her mouth tightens.
Good mouth. Full lips. Stubborn. The kind that could say mean things and make a man thank her for the abuse.
“Amelia,” she says finally.
“Amelia what?”
“No.”
I grin. “No is a strange last name.”
“It’s the last name you’re getting.”
There she is again, spine and manners tangled up with fear. She’s standing on a haunted road with a flat tire, a kid, and half her life scattered in gravel, and somehow she still sounds like she’d correct my grammar if I pushed her hard enough.
Smart woman.
Too smart to be alone on a road like this with a kid and a truck full of everything she can carry.
I glance down the road in both directions. Nothing but blacktop and trees. No other headlights. No porch lights. No help coming unless it comes wearing a cut.
That should bother her more.
It bothers me plenty.
“Where you headed, Amelia No?”
She hesitates too long.
The night seems to lean in.
“Hell,” she says.
That makes me still.
Plenty of folks say that as a curse. Around here, it’s also a destination.
“Hell, Kentucky?”
She nods.
“What business you got in Hell?”
Her fingers curl against the truck door. Nails short but pretty. One chipped. That pale missing ring mark catches my eye again. Recently gone or recently removed. Either way, it’s telling.
“I’m looking for someone.”
“Who?”
Her throat works.
August shifts in the back, whimpering now, and that sound drags her attention away from me.
She’s torn between answering and soothing, between pride and desperation.
I can practically see her weighing the risk of telling me the truth against the risk of standing here until another vehicle comes along.
Hell Road waits around us, patient as a snake.
Finally, she says, “Legendary Mike. Mike Welles.”
The name hits different.
Not hard enough to show on my face, because I’ve spent years learning not to show much of anything unless I mean to scare somebody, but hard enough that something behind my ribs gives a slow, warning knock.
Legendary Mike.
Dead president. Old wrestler. Father of the man currently running the Kings of Anarchy MC. A ghost that still walks through Hell wearing everybody else’s memories.
I study her more closely now. The shape of her eyes. The set of her jaw. That stubborn pride trying to stand upright in the middle of a wrecked night.
Well, hell.
“You know Mike?” I ask.
Her pretty mouth trembles once before she beats it into submission. “I think he’s my father.”
The frogs keep screaming down in the ditch.
Widowmaker ticks behind me. Somewhere far off, thunder rolls over the hills like God moving furniture.
And inside, I realize I’ve been fantasizing about a beautiful woman’s features, ones that look like a female version of my Prez.
My stomach churns as I take in the similarities.
I look at the broken truck. The boxes. The kid. The woman who just dropped a dead man’s name on a lonely road like it might open a door.
Then I look toward Hell, where Legend is probably sitting in the old jail, thinking the night can’t get any more complicated.
Poor bastard.
I almost smile.
Almost.
“Pack what matters,” I tell her.
She blinks. “What?”
“I’m taking you home.”
Her face closes so fast I feel it like a slammed door. “No.”
“Didn’t ask.”
“I’m not getting on a motorcycle with my son.”
I glance at August. He’s watching us with wide eyes and the kind of trust no stranger deserves.
“Not what I said.”
“You said you’re taking me home.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t have a home.”
That shuts me up.
Not because I don’t have an answer. I’ve got plenty. Most of them stupid. Some of them cruel by accident. But the way she says it, flat and tired, like the word home is a box she already packed and lost on the side of the road, makes something in me go still.
A gust of wind moves through the trees. The panties in her hand flutter like a pale flag. Behind us, Hell Road curves back into darkness.
“You do tonight,” I say.
Her eyes shine, and she looks furious about it.
“I don’t know you.”
“That makes two of us.”
“You could be dangerous.”
“I’m dangerous.”
Her hand tightens on the truck door. “That isn’t comforting.”
“I ain’t trying to be comforting. I’m trying to be honest.”
She stares at me, and I let her. Let her see the tattoos, the cut, the bruised knuckles from yesterday’s dumbassery, the knife at my belt, the fact that I ain’t smooth enough to lie about what I’m and not decent enough to pretend I’m harmless.
A man can be dangerous and still not be the danger in front of you.
Maybe she knows that.
Maybe she doesn’t.
“Who are you with?” she asks.
I tap the front of my cut. “Kings of Anarchy MC.”
Her eyes drop to the patch.
Recognition flickers. Not enough to mean she knows us well. Enough to mean she’s heard the name.
Most people around here have.
Some pray when they hear it.
Some pay.
Some run.
“Motorcycle club,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“Outlaws?”
I smile. “Depends who’s charging.”
“That’s a yes.”
“That’s Kentucky.”
She looks back toward the dark road as if another option might appear if she wants it hard enough.
No headlights.
No help.
Just Hell Road and the Widow’s curve behind us.
“What happened?” I ask.
Her eyes cut to mine. “Flat tire.”
“Before that.”
“Nothing.”
“Try again.”
“No.”
I look at the boxes scattered across the road. “You don’t pack like that unless you’re leaving fast.”
Her face pales.
There it is.
I hate being right.
“Did he hit you?”
Her whole body goes rigid. “That’s none of your business.”
“Means yes.”
“It means you’re rude.”
“I’m also right.”
She steps closer, anger finally giving her more spine than fear. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“No,” I say. “But I know a woman running with a kid, a missing ring, and a truck full of boxes on Hell Road ain’t out here because life got too sweet.”
Her mouth opens.
Closes.
August whispers, “Mama?”
Everything in her folds toward him. That answers more than she wants to give.
I exhale and look away because if I keep looking at her, I’m going to start wanting to kill a man whose name I don’t know yet, and tonight is already crowded with bad ideas.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I say.
Her eyes flash. “No man I just met gets to tell me what’s going to happen.”
“Fine. Here’s your options. You can stay on Hell Road with a flat tire, boxes everywhere, and a kid in the back while every drunk, sinner, preacher, and bastard with headlights gets a chance to stop.
Or I can call my brothers, get your truck moved, and take you and August to the Kings’ clubhouse so you can talk to Legend Welles about his dead daddy. ”
She swallows.
“Legend?”
“Mike’s son.”
Her hand goes to her throat.
There it is. The thing she didn’t know. Or maybe the thing she feared.
“Mike had a son?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s alive?”
“Last I checked.”
“And Mike?”
The question comes soft.
Too soft.
Damn it.
I should let Legend tell her. Shouldn’t be my mouth that drops the dead man in the dirt. But we’re standing on Hell Road with her life spilling out of cardboard boxes, and she asked.
“Mike’s dead,” I say.
The words hit her like a slap.
She doesn’t fall.
Doesn’t cry.
Just goes still.
So still that even August senses it.
“Mama?”
She turns away from me fast and leans into the truck, hand reaching for the kid. “It’s okay.”
It ain’t.
Nothing about her voice says okay.
August touches her face. “You crying again?”
“No, baby.”
Lie. Little one. Necessary maybe. I give her a second because I’m an asshole, not a monster.
The wind moves again. Far down the road, something creaks in the trees. I glance toward Dead Man’s Curve without meaning to. Fog pulls itself along the ditch, pale and low. For half a second, it looks like fabric.
White fabric.
A dress, maybe.
Then it breaks apart.
Just fog.
I look back at Amelia.
“You still want to find his family?” I ask.
She straightens slowly. “I don’t have a choice.”
“Everybody’s got choices.”
“That’s something men say when they have money, weapons, and somewhere to sleep.”
The answer is sharp enough to cut.
Good.
Let her cut.
Better than watching her crumble.
“You got me there,” I say.
She looks surprised that I admit it.
Then suspicious because I admit it.
Smart.
“I need to get to Hell,” she says.
“You’re on Hell Road, darlin’. You’re closer than you think.”