Page 2 of Bad Boy Biker's Bride
I’m not given to romantic thoughts or drama. I keep my cool in a crisis, that’s why I’m the club’s sergeant-at-arms. But one word lands in my brain, and it sets like concrete, fast and final.Mine.I've taken hits in cages that didn't knock me down the way this girl just did, looking at me from across the bar with her hand pressed to her chest, dragging air in like she ran the whole way here.
She gasps the words out. “Please. They're coming.”
I'm already moving and so is Hawk. He may be a grumpy bastard, but I trust him with my life. He doesn't waste precious time asking questions, because we all learned a long time ago not to waste time when danger’s coming. Prez taught me that.
I cross the bar in five strides, and she braces, staring up at me with her mouth open. The size of me does that, has done my whole life. Then this curvy little girl does something that knocks me sideways; she steps toward me.
I get my hand on her elbow, and her skin is too fucking cold. I steer her around the end of the bar and into the recess carved underneath, where I normally keep boxes of spare glasses.
“Stay there, princess. Don't make a sound. And you don't come up unless I tell you it’s safe.”
She nods, keeping her eyes on me the whole way down. Whatever she's running from has to be uglier than the scarred motherfucker telling her to hide under his bar.
I straighten up and wipe my hands on the towel, then resume stacking glasses. My pulse drops the way it always does before a fight, loud and slow, like a fist closing.
The cat sits up, his tail swishing back and forth. He’s the calmest creature in the county, watching the door with focus. Outside, there’s the crunch of tires on gravel.
“Hawk?”
“Got you.”
He angles himself in the corner, where the door is in his sightline and his back is against the wall. He keeps his hand loose at his side; he’s carrying.
Footsteps crunch on the gravel outside. The girl under the bar is shaking as she gathers her dress into the small space. I bend down and meet her eyes.
“Don’t worry, princess. You’re not going anywhere. Not unless it’s with me.”
I straighten up, resting my palms flat on my bar and shielding her with my lower body, as the door swings open.
Chapter Two
BETHANY
The well behind the bar smells like a mix of spilt beer and lemon polish. This enormous wedding dress is everywhere; the skirt has bunched around me in stiff white folds, and the boning of the bodice is digging into the underside of my ribs. My feet ache. They've been bare since I left those awful spindly satin shoes in the woods half a mile back. I made the executive decision that running barefoot would be faster than running in heels.
A flake of dried mascara clings to the corner of my eye. I blink it away, not wanting to move. My entire body’s shaking; I’ve been running for an hour through the forest, aiming for the road. I was trapped at that hotel, the unwilling bride at a wedding I didn't agree to. Scared as hell. Now I’m hiding behind the bar of a roadhouse with customers who all look like they've served time. The only one I trust is a six-foot-six stranger with scars on his face whose name I don't even know.
This is not what I planned.
My original plan was so naive that it makes me want to crawl under the floorboards and stay there. I needed to pay my student loans. So off the back of an email, I signed with what I thought was a modeling agency run by a woman with a New York address and a website full of testimonials.
I have a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology and I’m not, generally, a stupid person. I’d done plus-size modeling as a teenager, so it made sense. All expenses paid, flight and travel arranged. Everything was going great right up until the moment I arrived at the High Vale Lodge for the modeling shoot. There was a flinty-eyed woman waiting at reception with a clipboard who calmly informed me my dress fitting was at three. A scary-looking guy took my bag, demanded my phone, and led me to a small room where he stood outside with his arms folded.
Once I met my groom, Rico Taylor, I knew this had all gone horribly wrong. He had very white teeth and looked at me like I was livestock. Ten minutes before the ceremony, after I’d been forced to put on the wedding dress, I pretended the helicopter flight had upset my stomach and started moaning about diarrhea. Rico’s nose wrinkled as the receptionist whisked me away to a bathroom. I broke a window and squeezed myself out, running for the woods.
I’m not going to think about my brother. He’ll be in his federal contractor office two states away with no idea what’s happening to me. These criminals must know he’d sacrifice his entire career to protect me; this was all a setup, with me as the leverage.
I try to stop shivering as the creaky door to the bar opens. The barman’s strong legs are pressed up against the recess where I’m hiding. His face is etched into my brain. He has a long pale scar that runs from his cheekbone to the edge of his jaw, and the bridge of his nose has been broken and reset at least twice. A bad boy, definitely. Handsome, though.
I suck in my breath and try to stop shivering. His boots are visible from here, black and well-worn, planted shoulder-width apart on the duckboard mat. He hasn't moved since he tucked me into this recess.
A persistent voice in my head, which sounds like my old roommate Alana, points out:you don't even know him, Beth.It continues:you didn't know the agency woman either, and look how that went.It says:if you trust the wrong person twice in twelve hours, that's a pattern.
I press my forehead against my knees and breathe through my nose. The voice has a point. I hate that for me. Right now, I’ve just escaped one underworld and ended up under the bar of another.
Why here? I didn't head for the gas station, which had its lights on. I ran for the bar, because it looked like a place where men who knew how to fight would be inside.
The door scrapes across the threshold, followed by the heavy, unhurried steps of men who are confident no one is going to stop them.
