Chapter 6
Ranger wasn’t stupid. He knew Lucky and Ghost were hiding something.
That part didn’t bother him. What bothered Ranger was not knowing if they were hiding it from Toni…
or him. Scar had found something in her parents’ apartment.
If it was her mother’s dead body, that wouldn’t be kept a secret.
Not unless they thought Toni killed her too.
Ranger didn’t think so. They wouldn’t be allowing him to bring her back to the club property where the ol’ ladies and club kids were, if that was the case.
Ranger wished he’d brought a cage instead of his bike.
At the time, he hadn’t been thinking about taking Toni back with him, not knowing the situation or details.
Speed had been more important than convenience.
And he certainly wasn’t putting her in the front seat of the SUV with her father’s dead body in the back.
As enforcer, it was his job to take care of something like this, but Toni was his priority.
The others seemed to sense that without it having to be spoken out loud, and since neither Starbucks nor Jigsaw was present, the task would fall to Bulldog or Scar.
He hadn’t even paid attention to which prospect Ghost had called to come with them.
It was a morose thought, knowing he wasn’t acting much like the club enforcer these days. The patch on his cut felt like a lie.
It was nearing five in the morning by the time Ranger pulled off the mountain and onto the main road. Toni was dressed, wearing his helmet, and with an oversized coat on so she couldn’t easily be identified should there be any prying eyes this early in the morning.
Toni clung to him. Even if she hadn’t told him that she’d never ridden on a motorcycle before, it was obvious by her posture and the way she didn’t take the turns smoothly with him. But that was fine. She’d get used to it soon enough.
Wouldn’t she? Or, he supposed, the better question was should she?
On the way back to the club property, they passed Demon on the Rocks. No longer a skeleton, the exterior was now fully fixed and Cage’s crew was now working on getting the inside done.
Ranger had been down this road more times than he could count.
Mount Grove only had one main drag, and the bar was on it.
He shouldn’t have looked twice at it. Shouldn’t have even done more than a passing glance.
But his eyes caught the newly constructed walls and shiny roof, and he nearly drove them up onto the sidewalk.
Thankfully Toni had her head down, and possibly her eyes closed, and didn’t seem to have noticed. Shaking his head, Ranger centered himself and kept on driving.
He’d forgotten. Well, not forgotten, but it hadn’t been on the forefront of his mind like it had been for the past five months.
He’d been distracted, which sounded good in theory, but he also knew from listening to others at AA and NA that distraction could easily lead to relapse.
Maybe not right away, maybe not a snap decision, but it could lead to complacency.
Toni made him forget. She made him want.
Ranger did not have such a martyr complex that he would fall on his sword and stay away from her.
He knew he was allowed to have relationships—the so-called one-year rule was folk wisdom, not program doctrine.
Connections, romantic or platonic, were actually encouraged.
Just because he was an addict did not mean he had to remain celibate for the rest of his life.
However, could and should were two very different things.
He was only a hundred and twenty-five days sober. He had every intention of making it to day one-twenty-six. But there was no guarantee. Over-confidence could also lead to a relapse.
But he wanted her. He wanted her more than he could ever remember wanting anything in his life.
The question wasn’t if she would be good for him. It was if he would be good for her.
She’d just murdered her father. Accidentally, but that did not change what she’d done. It was suspicious enough that she called Steel rather than calling the police. Something had happened in her parents’ place that Lucky and Ghost were keeping a secret, either from him or from her.
Could Ranger be the pillar she needed to lean on right now?
It wasn’t fair. She’d been right under his nose for years! Lucky had met her four years ago when former Sheriff Hannigan, Harper’s father, had had him unjustly arrested. Why couldn’t Ranger have met her then? Before he became…this.
How easy, how great, could it have been.
No AA or NA meetings, no restrictions, no murder…
Just him and her and the rest of their lives.
Would they have kids by now? Would they have a house on the club property in line with the others?
She wouldn’t have had to kill her father.
Even if the man had broken into her house, Ranger would have been there to protect her.
And he certainly wouldn’t have gone out with Cameron the bitch.
Ranger pulled up to the single traffic light in town, braking slowly and lowering his feet for balance. Toni sat up a little. Not used to the helmet, she butted it into his back.
“Are you okay?”
Ranger nodded. “Yeah, fine.”
“I know you’re lying, but I’ll let it slide since you currently are my ride.”
For some reason, her words made him chuckle. “Not a lie. Not exactly. Just a longer conversation than can be done on a motorcycle.”
She lifted her hand to the center of his chest. “Then just say that, okay? But no lies. I get enough of those in my day job.”
He could imagine. He got good at reading patrons at the bar, developed an instinct for those who might cause trouble. She must have something similar with clients. Ranger nodded his understanding, specifically not turning his head so she couldn’t see his frown.
Was he lying to her now by not telling her his past?
How did someone even go about explaining what had happened to him, what he’d done?
Imagining telling her felt different than when he spoke to Cross or shared at a meeting.
There was a lot that he couldn’t say at the meetings, details that would implicate him or the club in other crimes.
He concentrated on his feelings and addiction now rather than the past.
But if he wanted something real with Toni, he would have to tell her all of it. Wouldn’t he? Maybe not the fact that he’d tortured and murdered Cameron and Ritchie, but everything else. His kidnapping, his torture, his rape, his addiction… She had a right to know.
How did he even start to tell her all that?
“Green means go,” she said over his shoulder.
Glancing up, Ranger cursed when he saw that the light was indeed green.
“I understand if you’re having second thoughts about allowing me on the property,” she shouted over the wind racing around them. “Just drop me off at my office. I have a couch I can sleep on there.”
Ranger pulled over to the side of the road, but didn’t turn off his engine. “The thoughts that are going through my head right now are most definitely about you, but don’t you ever say that I’m having second thoughts about helping you or having you in my life. Not even a consideration.”
“I wasn’t sure, because your hand’s been on my thigh since we left the mountain, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.”
Ranger glanced down, and sure enough, his left hand was cradling the curve of her thigh. He rubbed up and down the jeans he insisted she wear while on his bike. “The… The last person I had on my bike… It didn’t end well.”
Understatement, but all he was willing to say now.
Toni sat up more, loosening her hold on him. “I’m sorry. It’s not the time or the place to ask you how or why, but I’m sorry all the same.”
He was too, but no doubt for a very different reason than she thought.
“I don’t know what we are and I don’t know where we’re going, but I feel very possessive over you. But it’s like my head and my heart are moving at two different speeds. I just need some,” he paused, struggling for the right wording, “patience on your part. If that’s okay.”
“Your club is currently cleaning up my house after I murdered my father. I think patience is going to be needed on both our parts. But I’ve also had a really shitty night.
I mean, it started out a little rocky, then turned fantastic, and then spiraled quickly down from there.
How about we table any more heavy discussions, you get me to this magical mystery trailer, and fuck my brains out? ”
Ranger laughed and lifted his arms to pull her tighter against him again. “Yeah. I can definitely do that.”
* * *
Toni was not a small girl. Her waist curved inward, but she always felt like her extra-large tits and ass canceled that out as a positive feature.
And maybe she could spend more time on the treadmill she insisted on purchasing for herself, because she was going to use it all the time, listening to an audiobook instead of curled up on the couch in pajamas, braless, with a paperback book, coffee, and her favorite blanket.
But the way Ranger touched her? The way he lifted her and maneuvered her body like she weighed nothing, the way he ran his hands all over her body like he didn’t mind the roundness, made her feel more beautiful than she ever had in her life.
The man was perfection. All firm muscle, and those eyes that seemed to capture everything and hid so much.
They barely made it into the club trailer before he was on her, fulfilling his promise to fuck the memory of this night out of her.
He removed her clothes, not like they were an obstacle but like they were wrapping paper covering a most-anticipated birthday gift.
Toni almost wished she’d left the bathrobe on.
Almost. While it would have made getting undressed so much quicker, it would have been a bit awkward on the motorcycle.
Not to mention, she’d needed the excuse of changing in the bathroom to flush her father’s drugs. At this point, what was one more offense?