Page 133 of Property of Rattler

“You fuckin’ assholes.” One hand, covered in ink, sweeps over her stubbly hair while the other is raised in front of her face. Her attention is on her wristwatch, not on me. “You’ve no idea what you’ve fuckin’ done.” Her bravado seems to disappear as she slumps over the handlebars. “I’ll be too late.” Then angry eyes come up to meet mine. “Five fuckin’ years I’ve been waiting for this. Now you… You’ve…”

I expected a male rider to be scared. Hell, anyone disrespecting a one-percenter club would be wondering whether they’ll walk away alive or, at the least, be expecting serious injury. Her though? She’s more pissed than frightened. I hate to admit it, but her reaction impresses me.

“We’ve what?” I snap.

I’m watching so closely I see all emotion fade from her face as she finally deigns to answer me. “You’ve ruined everything. And if you want to give me a beatdown, go ahead.” She shrugs. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

What the fuck?

Around me, brothers are shifting awkwardly. We never take our fists to a woman. Whatever way she’d pay for her transgression, it wouldn’t be by violence.

Placing my foot on her fender, I lean over my knee. “And just where were you heading like a bat out of hell?”

Her cheeks puff out as she sucks in air, then tosses me a look of disdain. “Don’t you ever just want to push yourself and your bike for the sheer fun of it?”

Fun. Something tells me that word and this woman don’t go together, or haven’t for a very long time.

I should step back, let her off with a warning to show one-percenters, hell, any riding club more respect next time, or she might meet a club that doesn’t have the same respect for the fairer sex. Then leave her to go wherever she’s headed and never give her another thought except when brothers are sharing tales of things that have happened on the road. But something stops me. She intrigues me. While not in the first flush of youth, and with her skin weatherbeaten, she’s not unattractive.

For some fucking reason that I can’t find words to explain, I want to know her name, her history, where she’s been, where she’s headed, and maybe whether she’d like to spend the night in my bed. Which isn’t like me. I like sex easy and uncomplicated. And I suspect with this woman, it would be anything but.

Instead of shooing her off on her way, I snap, “Get off your bike.”

She raises a brow, then, taking her own damn sweet time, then, as if it had been her idea all along, swings her leg up andover the saddle and dismounts, giving me a bird’s-eye view of the way her jeans hug her ass, she reaches into the pocket of her jacket and extracts a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. After tapping one out, she lights it. Then, belatedly, in an unexpected effort to be polite, she offers the pack toward me.

I don’t often smoke, unless it’s a joint. But I accept the offer. Flicking the lighter and cupping the flame, she leans toward me. Lowering my head, I light my own cancer stick. As I breathe in, I think it might not be weed, but it does hit the spot.

Holding the cigarette in her mouth, she shrugs out of the denim jacket she’s wearing, wipes her hand across her face, then fans herself. I wonder whether she’s unused to the dry desert heat. Then my attention is caught by the full tatted sleeves she’s revealed, and I’m again intrigued. It’s professional work, obviously done years earlier due to the fading, though up toward her neck are undeniable, and more recent, amateur prison tats.

“What’s your name?” I ask, ignoring the curious audience around us who are no doubt wondering why the fuck I haven’t just instructed us to get back onto the road.

“None of your business,” she retorts.

I’m not the prez of a one-percenter club for nothing. With just a flick of my hand and a tilt of my head, Words and Genie step forward and snatch the woman’s jacket off the seat of her bike.

“What the…?” Throwing down her half-smoked cigarette, she launches at them to retrieve it.

But they dance away, holding it out of her reach, and Genie delves into her pockets. He pulls out a wallet and extracts a driver’s license. “Mhairi McDonald,” he reads out.

Her eyes darken. “It’s pronounced Vah-ree,” she emphasises.

“Definitely said Mhairi here.”

She moves fast. Her hand snakes out, retrieving her ID. “I think I know how to say my own fucking name.”

“Irish?” I ask.

“Scottish,” she snarls.

Her accent’s pure American, so I guess it’s a family name that goes generations back.VahreeI sound in my head. Then I step to her still-glowing cigarette and grind it out with the heel of my boot.

“What’s your story, Mhairi?” I ask.

“None of your business,” she repeats.

“You still live in Flagstaff?” Genie’s obviously seen her address. “You’re a long way from home.”

“And headed the wrong way,” Words adds.