“I won’t put the people I care about at risk,” she said, ironclad, implacable.
“Grouch and his family caught the ferry to Victoria this afternoon,” I told her. “They’re stayin’ with a buddy’a mine who’ll keep them safe if Rooster decides to go lookin’. You don’t have any excuses left.”
The soft look she’d worn when I mentioned Grouch faded to a scoff at my last sentence. “No moreexcuses? I’m sorry, but you seem to have forgotten what I told you the other day.” She punched her chest over her heart. “I love you bone deep, Aaron Clare, and if you think I’m going to let my own father or shithead excuse for an absentee husband come after you and your family, you’re an idiot.”
She turned on her heel and stalked off to take beers over to the Raiders who’d seated themselves on the other side’a the room.
I blinked after her, wonderin’ how I’d fucked that so bad. When I wandered back to the table, Mei only shook her head at me slightly.
“You’re stayin’?” Axe-Man asked ’cause he knew I wouldn’t leave Blue when the Raiders were here.
I nodded, pulling over one’a the fresh brews even though I knew I was done drinkin’ for the night.
It was later.
The summer sun had set leavin’ the breeze cool through the opened windows and the patrons’a Eugene’s were loud with mirth. It was a great atmosphere with the country rock band puttin’ on a great show and my friends all around me. Mei had gone home to work on her latest graphic novel, and Kodiak had trailed out at some point after frownin’ furiously at his phone, but Bat, Dane, Wrath, Axe-Man, and I were still shootin’ the shit.
Blue hadn’t stopped by once.
Which was good, I knew, ’cause the Raiders had caught sight’a our crew an hour into their drinkin’ and sneered at us therest’a the night. It was easy to tell they were itchin’ to start shit, but Eugene’d brought out his shotgun for a cleanin’ up at the bar, which seemed to deter them.
In the end, it wasn’t even Blue who started the fight.
Tempest Riley, Bat’s nanny and a one-time club slut, had come into the bar on a warm breeze, the air stirrin’ her long dark red hair and liftin’ the hem’a her short white dress so it revealed the bottom curve’a her bare ass. Heckler called her ‘Bunny’ ’cause’a her not-too-distant resemblance to Jessica Rabbit, and the Raiders took notice.
Catcalls and a few barks like a dog broke through the bar. One’a the bikers fell to his knees pantin’, and another called out, “Hey, Red, you need a seat, my lap is free.”
Tempest ignored them, goin’ straight to the bar instead’a comin’ to sit with us.
I looked across the table to see Bat’s and Dane’s eyes both fixed on her back.
“You guys fightin’?” I asked.
Bat’s eyes slid slowly away from Tempest, and he took a deliberate draw from his pint. “She’s the nanny. She doesn’t have to talk to us on her time off.”
Dane’s pale blue eyes stayed locked on her, though, and I wondered if it was gonna be awkward, him datin’ Bat’s nanny if it ever came to that. Tempest avoided club shit, but we’d all heard what a fuckin’ godsend she’d been with his twins, Shaw and Steele, especially after their mum died.
“Get your hands off me.”
The cold voice cut through the din’a the bar and drew my attention again.
One’a the Raiders, the guy named Bandit, was in her space at the bar, his hand half-up her skirt high on her thigh.
Bat and Dane were up only seconds ’fore the rest’a us.
Tempest wasn’t an Old Lady, but she was still a de facto member’a our family andno onefucked with one’a ours.
Let alone scum like the Raiders.
Dane made it to them first, haulin’ Tempest off her stool to drag her behind him.
Meanwhile, Bat, war veteran with two tours in Afghanistan under his belt and Sergeant At Arms for The Fallen MC, reeled back and landed a brutal punch to Bandit’s jaw.
I could hear the crack’a bone ten feet back.
The Raider, not more than twenty really, fell to the ground with a broken whelp, jaw noticeably broken.
“Fuckin’ brphen,” he wailed inarticulately.
