Forbidden Protector Read online

  “What?”

  “Just, look at me.” She shook her head, as if she’d just tossed a baby chipmunk into our chili. “Bragging about my date, when…”

  “It’s fine.” I stopped her. “Honestly.”

  “Hrumph. Hold on.”

  She left and came back a few minutes later with a plate with a recently-cooked sausage on it.

  I eyed it dubiously. “We’re supposed to be cooking – not eating, right?”

  “Pah.” Val waved her hand. “You know Hayes was just saying that so that Loretta didn’t eat all the cupcakes before they were even served.” She thrust the plate at me. “Seriously. Someone’s got to get you some sausage somehow.”

  I threw my hand to my chest. “What would I do without you?”

  “Starve,” Val suggested.

  “Drown in my own tears?” I shot back, taking a bite of the sausage.

  “That’s my girl,” Val said. “The food’s just about ready, too.”

  We got started on setting out the food, helping the other girls stay on task.

  “Miranda, get your nose outta your phone, unless that’s the dish you’ll be serving?” Val demanded.

  Miranda, one of the old ladies with a beautifully tatted up neck and back, gave Val a cool glare, although she tucked her phone away and actually started helping.

  In less than five minutes, we had the whole thing set up on some haphazard wobbly wooden tables some TS member had brought in.

  “FOOD!” Loretta threw her head back and yelled, her voice carrying well through the compound. “COME AND GET IT!” HASHBROWNS, CHILI, SPAGHETTI SQUASH!”

  “Huh,” I commented to Val, genuinely impressed. “Loretta sure knows her squash.”

  “And how to get the boys moving faster than you can say ‘free beer’.” Val gestured to the oncoming wave of men with her head.

  I couldn’t stop myself from glancing to Chance, who was looking right at me too.

  Ripping my gaze away, I cursed myself. I’d already established that the man had crap taste in music and was probably only good for a good lay. Why couldn’t my body get the memo?

  And he was coming straight for me… Shit, shit, shit.

  Actually, he was coming for the food. Which I was standing right in front of.

  Genius, Connie.

  I looked around in vain for Annie – she and my Mom were currently hunched over one of those Early Learning Math Books.

  “Any recommendations?” Chance’s gravelly voice jolted me out of my harried self-distracting.

  Yeah, go away.

  And Val, the traitor, had conveniently disappeared to let Chance and I chat all the easier.

  I turned to eye the food myself – I’d been so involved with my conversation with Val, that I’d barely noticed the other food. “There’s chili. Looks like some spaghetti squash, yeah. Some hash browns. Some garlic hash browns. Some cheese hash browns.”

  Chance cracked a grin. “So, hash browns, basically?”

  I had to, too.

  I wrapped my cardigan around myself tighter. If only I could disappear into it…

  Why, whenever I was around Chance, did I always feel the urge to both get closer to him and run far, far away?

  A door slammed.

  My gaze snapped to where the noise had come from. Guess I didn’t need to wonder where Hayes was anymore – him and a group of the higher-ranking TS guys were striding on in.

  “Didn’t go well,” Harry said sagely to no one in particular. He added some more cheese hash browns to his plate that was already overflowing with them and a few sausages.

  “What didn’t go well?” I asked.

  “Their recon run into King’s territory.”

  “What?” I asked.

  Harry bobbed his head, popping a hash brown into his mouth. “Left just before you came back. Thought you knew. Hayes wanted it kept on the down-low, though.”

  My gaze went back to Hayes. The whole group was storming to a meeting room.

  My brother looked ready to kill. His feet slapped the floor like he wanted to hurt it, his eyes were fixed in a glare.

  My stomach dropped. The last time my brother looked that pissed, he’d just found out that I’d hooked up with Ace when I was barely eighteen.

  Whatever had happened on that recon run, it definitely wasn’t good.

  14

  Chance

  There. That wasn’t so bad.

  Connie and I had gone to separate tables after our pointless chitchat. Sure, I’d been drawn to her like a magnet, but I’d managed to get away. For now.

  Next time wouldn’t be so easy, I’d bet.

  I forced my attention onto the yellow spaghetti-like squash I had on the end of my fork – hadn’t Loretta yelled that it was spaghetti squash?

  “Damn good meal,” Charlie commented.

  I took one glance at his plate – laden with home fries - and laughed. “Damn good home fries, you mean.”

  Charlie waggled his fork – which had about five stabbed onto it, although it was Abe who spoke next: “Yummy.”

  He was looking at a very busty blonde, who I was pretty sure had a name that started with M.

  “Eh,” another guy said, a bit younger and with shaggier eyebrows. “I prefer strawberry flavor, myself.” His gaze snuck to another table, to Connie, who was sitting with her friend Val, her mom, and her kid.

  My fist tightened around my fork. The others, though, just laughed.

  “Don’t let Hayes hear you say that, or you’ll be served next!” another guy, Lawrence, crowed.

  “Well, why not?” the first guy demanded, crossing his scrawny arms across his chest. “I just think she needs a good man to treat her right, is all.”

  “Hooo,” Bonzo barked from end of table, his laughter rattling the whole thing. “You think… you… good man?”

  This threw everyone into another fit of laughter. Abe couldn’t stop. Smacking the guy who’d made the choice ‘strawberry flavor’ comment on the side, he declared, “Oh Jared. How’d you ever get into the Twisted Souls anyway?”

  They all quieted down after that. Thanks to Loretta, even I knew how Jared had got in – and now I could put a face to the name, too.

  Jared’s sister, Carman, had kicked the ass of someone trying to jump her two Soul friends, joined, and then went on to have a prolific career before getting thrown in jail for assaulting her ex-husband and his new girlfriend with a ceramic crock-pot. The stuff of Twisted Soul legend – a picture of her wide missing-toothed smiling face was still on the wall next to one of the booths.

  “Nah.” Abe was leaning in, his close-set eyes sparkling. “Lemme tell ya something. Girls, they don’t care much for good. Nah, bad is in.” He waggled his eyebrows like a circus magician. “Lucky for us, am I right?”

  The other men sent up murmurs of agreement or disagreement. I was already distracted.

  Connie was biting into something… hash browns.

  Forget it, Chance.

  On her other side, her kid, a cute redhead was chattering away as she munched on some squash.

  This was new. Me being attracted to a woman who had a kid. Kid seemed like a good one too.

  Not that it mattered because I wasn’t going there with Connie.

  Still, I couldn’t stop myself from heading over to her table. I was halfway there when Connie’s mom and Annie disappeared down a hallway, hand in hand.

  “Boys scare you off?” Val teased me as I approached.

  “No, just wanted to touch base about Hayes.” My gaze went to Connie, wondering if she’d caught how dumb the lie was.

  I wanted to be close to you.

  I sat across from her, studied her face.

  “Something bad’s up, has to be.” Connie bit her lip, her eyes dark. “I know Hayes, and I know that look. It can’t be good.”

  “Gonna go visit Walter!” Val chirped, sauntering off.

  “Last time Hayes had that look…” Connie continued.

  “What happened?�
�� I asked.

  “Annie.” Her smile was so light, so happy, that I almost caught it too.

  “Seems like a nice kid,” I said.

  “She is.” Connie let out a little laugh. “I suppose all moms say that, have to. Even the absolute terrors. But Annie really is a blessing, just brightens up my day. I’m really lucky.”

  What was weirder was, as I watched her face for signs of insincerity, the motherhood-ruined-my-life tic, the I’m-five-years-under-slept twitch, I found none. That was one thing being a cop did to you. It made you good at reading people, spotting the inconsistencies in their stories.

  But Connie was actually telling the truth. Hadn’t just been paying lip-service to being a mother, while nursing secret bitterness about being a single mom. Huh.

  “You aren’t as tired as most moms.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I clamped it shut. Something about Connie’s proximity turned me into a babbling idiot. I didn’t usually talk that much. Or that stupidly.

  But Connie wasn’t offended, only chuckled. “You mean I don’t look as tired. Believe me, I’m tired. Though being around Annie, I forget usually. Speaking of…”

  Her head roved around. “It’s probably nothing, but Mom and she have been gone for a bit. Might be good to check in. Mom’s great, but she’s sometimes a bit lacking in sympathy and Annie can be fearful sometimes in new situations.”

  “Feel free to come along, if you like.”

  “Sure.”

  We rounded a corner and immediately were hit with familiar music – “You put your right hand in, you put your right hand out…”

  Connie and I caught each other’s eye and cracked up again. A few kids, and a bunch of full-grown Twisted Souls men and women too, were busy doing a giant game of the Hokie Pokie. Including Annie and Connie’s Mom.

  “Looks like they’re fine?” I ventured.

  Connie just grinned. “More than fine. I can see from here – Annie’s having a blast.”

  She shook her head. “I know it’s silly – we’re in a fortress and there’s even a panic room underground for the kids if need be. But still, I hear about what the Devil Kings are capable of…”

  My hand went to her forearm, squeezed. “Hayes has this under control. The Twisted Souls are no pushovers either. Believe me, I’ve seen a few MC’s, and these guys actually have their shit together.”

  The softness of her skin and our closeness was making it hard for me to concentrate on what I was trying to say.

  “Yeah?” Connie asked softly.

  “Yeah.” I squeezed her arm again, then ripped my hand away.

  If I kept it there much longer, I couldn’t be held responsible for what came next.

  “Ok.” Connie tucked a strawberry-blonde strand behind her ear, then bobbed her head with decision. “I’ll just let Annie know I’m going to go lie down.”

  She jogged over to give Annie – who was in the middle of putting her left foot in and out – a quick kiss, waved at a few of the other club members and her mom, then came back my way.

  I walked her back to her room as we chatted some more.

  “That’s another surprise,” I admitted. “Your mom.”

  Connie waved a hand. “To her credit, Mom has come around to the Twisted Souls a lot. At first, she hated the idea, freaked out when she heard Hayes had joined up. But she went to a bar night or two, saw that Hayes wasn’t strung out on heroin or having ten babies with ten different women, so she calmed down a bunch. Anyway, now she even dons the bandana from time to time.”

  “That’ s cool,” I said.

  By then, we’d reached Connie’s room.

  “Here we are,” she said.

  “Here we are,” I echoed.

  Shit.

  Her room – her and me.

  Her bed – her and me.

  She opened the door, took one step and paused. The look she gave over her shoulder slayed me.

  “Want to join me?”

  Seeing my face, she corrected herself, “I didn’t mean – just that I don’t want to be alone right now.”

  I could see her bed from here. But I had to get my head screwed on right. I was having a good time with Connie – great actually. Not the time to go fucking that up.

  “Sure.”

  15

  Connie

  This is a very, very bad idea.

  I closed the door behind Chance.

  But fuck it, it beat having my head spin to oblivion in there alone. And that was what I’d have to be if it wasn’t for Chance. Mom was busy with Annie. And I wasn’t about to yank Val away from Walter when she’d spent most of the past few hours with me. Hayes had been in an intense meeting by the looks of it too.

  “Beer?” I asked Chance, not looking at him head on.

  Yeah, this bad idea is getting worse…

  But I needed something to take the edge off. To distract me now that I was alone in a room with a bed with a man that made me want to get on it and slip under the sheets and let the rest figure itself out.

  Whoa there, Con.

  “What do you have?” Chance asked.

  Beer, right. I shook the image out of my head – his naked, toned form.

  I opened up the mini-fridge Hayes had somehow stashed in here. “Rickard’s Red. Budweiser.”

  “I’ll have a Budweiser.”

  I smirked. “Of course.”

  “What – you a Rickard’s girl?”

  “Sure am.”

  I handed him the can, and as he took it our fingers brushed.

  Don’t look at him.

  I managed to turn away and grab a Rickard’s bottle, before sitting on the edge of the bed. Chance sat down beside me. Of course there were no couches or even so much as an armchair in here. Damn it.

  Bed, it was.

  “We can’t even agree on beer,” Chance finally said, thankfully breaking the silence. “This is never going to work.”

  We laughed, a little too hard. Val’s voice sounded in my head, annoyingly knowing. I think the man doth protest too much.

  Chance took another sip of his beer, slid a glance my way. “Annie’s father?”

  “Out of the picture,” I said.

  Seeing his face, I shook my head. “No – not like that. He’s as out of the picture as they come. Died in a biking accident.”

  “Oh shit, I just assumed.” He shook his head. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” I found myself saying. “He was a great dad, but…” What the hell are you saying? - “Forget it.”

  “Ok.”

  Ugh.

  There was nothing I couldn’t stand more than people who told part of a thing and then got all mysterious and wouldn’t tell you the rest of it.

  “He was just… I don’t like to speak ill of the dead or of Ace, because he really was a great father.”

  “It’s ok.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know if it is, though. I mean, he wasn’t a great husband. We were just alright together. The beginning was passionate, and he was my first love, but by the end, I think we would’ve broken up if it hadn’t been for Annie.”

  Silence.

  Oh my God, I had actually just told him that?

  I had actually just told him that.

  And how had I not noticed how very close he was until now?

  Close enough to touch.

  Kiss.

  I turned away. “See? I feel like a tool.”

  “Don’t. It was just the truth.”

  I couldn’t help it, I smiled.

  Just the truth. I liked the sounds of that.

  “Enough about me.” I smoothed out the wrinkles in my jeans. “Why’d you quit being a cop?”

  “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “Trying to even the playing field?”

  “Is that so bad?”

  His smirk gave away nothing, but his stare went to the wall. “My partner was killed.”

  I exhaled. The
pain contorted his face, almost beyond recognition. I had to look away.

  “I’m sorry. That’s terrible.”

  “It is. Was. Not sure I’ll ever get over it, but”- he shrugged – “It is what it is, I guess.”

  “Life can be unfair,” I agreed quietly.

  And when he glanced at me, the suffering still lining his face bolstered me.

  Chance wasn’t one of the faux-deep guys who tried to ‘understand’ and ‘be there for you’ when he heard about Ace and Annie. He wasn’t one of the melancholy idiots who tried to make sadness into an art form. He’d really seen some shit. It had changed him. He got me.

  “Enough of that.” He rose, paced, then sat back down, returned his gaze to me. “Tell me more about your restaurant.”

  “I already told you lots,” I said. “Lots more than I tell most people.”

  “And?”

  I smiled grudgingly. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who didn’t give up. “And I want it to be how I told you. Classy but casual. Maybe a slight biker theme – a bunch of nice bikes you can get selfies with, some ploy like that.”

  Chance was smiling too. “You can take the girl off the bike – but you can’t take the bike out of the girl.”

  “Kinda, I don’t actually have my own right now. I’m waiting until I’m better settled, but yeah. It’s something to look forward to. You ride?”

  “I have, but not in a long while.”

  He rose, clearing his throat. “Bathroom.”

  And just like that, he left me alone with my thoughts.

  And my arousal.

  My head was buzzing, and my core was throbbing.

  I actually liked this guy. I genuinely liked Chance. Liked him enough to want something more than a test drive even, maybe.

  Which could not happen.

  First off, there was Hayes, who had liked all of zero of my boyfriends over the years, even only grudgingly tolerated Ace. And who had ramped up to psycho-protective levels ever since then.

  Some bouncer my brother knew little to nothing about? Yeah, that definitely wouldn’t fly.

  Second off, there was the simple fact that Chance might just want a good lay. He could feel the chemistry between us, there was no denying that. But that didn’t mean he gave an actual shit about me.