Own the Wind

Prologue

You Don’t Know Me

His cell rang and Parker “Shy” Cage opened his eyes.

He was on his back in his bed in his room at the Chaos Motorcycle Club’s compound. The lights were still on and he was buried under a small pile of women. One was tucked up against his side, her leg thrown over his thighs, her arm over his ribs. The other was upside down, tucked to his other side, her knee in his stomach, her arm over his calves.

Both were naked.

“Shit,” he muttered, as he lifted and twisted himself out from under his fence of limbs. He reached out to his phone.

He checked the display and touched his thumb to the screen to take the call.

“Yo, brother,” he muttered to Hop, one of his brethren in the Chaos MC.

“Where are you?” Hop asked.

“Compound,” Shy answered.

“You busy?”

Shy lifted up to an elbow and looked at the two women passed out in his bed.

“Not anymore,” he replied.

Knowing Shy and his reputation, there was humor in Hop’s tone when he stated, “Tabby Callout.”

At this news, fire hit his gut, as it always did when he got that particular callout. He didn’t know why, it made no sense, he barely knew the girl, but always when he heard it, it pissed him way the hell off.

“You are shittin’ me,” Shy bit out.

“No, brother. Got a call from Tug who got a call from Speck. She’s out on the prowl, as usual. She’s closer to you than me, so if you can disentangle yourself from the pussy you got passed out in your room, it’d be good you go get her.”

There it was. Hop knew Shy and his reputation.

“I’m on my bike. Text me the address,” Shy mumbled, shifting from under the bodies to put his feet on the floor at the side of the bed.

“Right. Under radar, yeah?” Hop returned, telling him something he knew, and Shy clenched his teeth.

Three years they’d been doing this shit with Tabby. Three fucking years. It was lasting so damned long, he knew, unless she got a serious fucking wakeup call, that girl would never learn.

But no one was willing to do it. The Club didn’t normally have any problems with laying it out no matter who it needed to be laid out for, but Tab was different. She was the nineteen-year-old daughter of the President of the Club, Kane “Tack” Allen.

That meant she was handled with care. That also meant when they got word she was out carousing and needed someone to nab her ass and get her home before she bought trouble, they did it under radar. In other words, they didn’t tell Tack. And they didn’t tell Tack because the first time it happened he lost his shit, but worse, his old lady took off to extricate Tabby from a bad situation and nearly got her head caved in with a baseball bat.

No one wanted a repeat of that kind of mess, so the brothers kept an eye on her and took care of business without getting Tack involved.

“Under radar,” Shy muttered then finished, “Later,” and touched the screen with his thumb.

He rooted around on the floor to find jeans, tee, underwear, and socks. The women in his bed didn’t twitch when he sat down next to them to pull on his boots.

Dressed, he turned off the light to his room and headed down the hall and into the common room of the Club’s compound. The brothers’ rooms were at the back, doors opening off a long hall that ran the length of the building. A doorway in the middle of the hall led to the common area, which had a long, curved bar and a mess of couches, chairs, tables, and pool tables. Off to the side through another door was their meeting room, a kitchen, and a set of locked, reinforced storage rooms.

As he moved through the common space he saw Brick, one of Chaos’s members, flat on his back on one of the couches. He had one foot on the floor and was dead to the world. He also had a woman draped on him, dead to the world too. She had a short jean skirt on, and Shy saw that Brick was sleeping with his hand up the hem, cupped on her ass. Shy also saw the woman wasn’t wearing any underwear.

Other than that, the space was empty and currently lit only by a variety of neon beer signs on the walls.

That night, Brick’s girl had brought two friends to party.

Brick got his girl. Shy got the friends.

Shy left the Compound, went to his bike, threw a leg over, and drove the six blocks to his apartment. Once there, he didn’t bother going upstairs to his place. He never bothered to go upstairs to his place.

He wondered vaguely why he kept it. He was rarely there. He ate fast food that he ordered to go. He slept in his bed at his room in the Compound. He worked in the garage at Ride or the auto supply store attached. He drank and partied wherever there was drink or party provided. He communed with the brotherhood.

All other times, he was on his bike.

This was because Parker Cage only felt right on his bike.

It started with the dirt bike he got when he was fourteen, and it never stopped.

Five years ago, on his thirdhand Harley, he’d cruised by Ride Custom Cars and Bikes, a massive auto supply store that was attached to a garage in the back that built custom cars and bikes. He’d heard of it, hell, everyone had. The Chaos MC owned and ran it, and the garage was famous, built cars for movies and millionaires.

But it was the flag that flew under the American flag on top of the store that caught his attention. Until that day, he’d never looked up to see it. It was white and had the Chaos Motorcycle Club emblem on it with the words “Fire” and “Wind” on one side and “Ride” and “Free” on the other.

The second his eyes hit that flag, he felt his life take shape.

Nothing, not anything in his life until that time, except the first time he took off on a bike, had spoken to him like that flag. He didn’t get why and he didn’t spend time trying. It just spoke to him. So strong, it pulled him straight into the parking lot and set his boots to walking into the store.

Within months, he was a recruit for Chaos.

Now, he was a brother.

Outside his apartment, he parked his bike and moved from it to his truck. If she was in a state, Tabitha Allen wouldn’t be able to hold on to him on a bike. If she was feeling sassy, which was usually the case, she’d put up a fight he couldn’t win with her on a bike. So he hauled his ass into his beat up, old, white Ford truck, started it up and took off in the direction of the address on the text Hop sent.

As he drove, that fire in his gut intensified.

She was in college now, supposedly studying to be a nurse. Cherry, the Office Manager at the garage who also happened to be Tack’s old lady and Tabby’s stepmother, bragged about her grades and how good she was doing in school. Shy had no clue how Tab could pull off good grades when she was out fucking around all the time. He couldn’t say one of the brothers got a Tabby Callout every night but it was far from infrequent.

The girl liked to party.

This wasn’t surprising. She was nineteen. When he was nineteen, he’d liked to party too. Fuck, he was twenty-four and he still liked to party in a way he knew he’d never quit.

But he wasn’t Tabby Allen.

He was a biker who worked in a garage and auto supply store, oftentimes raised hell and kicked ass when needed.

She was studying to be a freaking nurse with her dad footing that bill, so she needed to calm her ass down.

This didn’t even get into the fact that it wasn’t a new thing she liked to party and take a walk on the wild side. Three years ago, on his first Tabby Callout, she’d been sixteen and her twenty-three-year-old boyfriend had roughed her up because she wouldn’t put out. That was the situation where Cherry nearly got her head caved in with a baseball bat, and it happened right in front of Shy. It was a miracle of quick reflexes that didn’t end in disaster. Shy liked Cherry, everyone did, the woman was the shit; funny, pretty, sexy, smart, strong, and good for Tack in every way she could be.

If you could pick the perfect old lady, Tyra “Cherry” Allen would be it. She had sass but with class, dressed great, didn’t let Tack roll all over her but did it in a way she didn’t bust his balls. She was hilarious. She was sweet. She was a member of a biker family while still holding on to the woman she always was. And, honest to Christ, he’d never seen a man laugh and smile as often as Kane Allen. He had a good life, and it wasn’t lost on a single member of the Club that Cherry made it that way.

So, during Tabby’s first callout, it would have sucked if Cherry was made a vegetable or worse because of Tab’s shit. Not to mention, if Shy had to explain why he was at Cherry’s back, watching her head get caved in with a bat, instead of taking the lead and protecting her from that eventuality, Tack was so into his old lady it was highly likely Shy would no longer be breathing.

How the fuck Tabby hadn’t learned her lesson after that mess, he had no clue, and as he drove it came crystal that she needed to get one.

And he was so pissed, he decided he was going to be the one to give it to her.

Tonight.

Shy pulled up outside the house and he wasn’t surprised at what he saw.

He knew that scene, lived it until he found the brotherhood.

In high school and out of it, the other kids had attached him to the “stoner” crowd, the “hoods,” even though his affiliation with them was loose. He didn’t connect with anyone in high school or after it, not in any real way, but that didn’t mean he didn’t find an escape. A place to drink beer and find a bitch so he could get laid. So he’d been in many houses just like this with cars and bikes outside just like the ones he saw now.

He still lived that scene but it was better.

It was family.

He saw a couple of bikes parked outside the fully lit and heaving house, and they pissed him off even more than he was already pissed. The bikes were older, the kids inside didn’t have enough money for better, but still, they didn’t take care of them.

If you had a Harley, you took care of it. You treated it like a woman, lots of attention, lots of TLC. No excuses. If you didn’t do that, you didn’t deserve to own it.

There were also a couple of new souped-up muscle cars, which meant whoever owned them put every nickel into keeping up the cool.

But there were more junkers and classic cars, the latter in the middle of restoration, all of it loving. Whoever owned them was taking their time, doing it right, saving up and taking care of their baby before they moved onto the next project in line to make their Mustang, Nova, Charger, GTO, or whatever cherry.

Those cars meant that not everyone in that house was a loser.

At least that was something.

Shy angled out of the truck and moved toward the house. Once in, he shifted through the bodies, ignoring looks from the girls and chin lifts from the guys. He was on a mission and wanted it done.

It didn’t take long to find her. She was in the living room sitting on a couch, a cup of beer in her hand, her head turned away from him, her pretty profile transformed with laughter.

When he saw her it happened like it always happened. He didn’t know why he hadn’t learned, why he didn’t brace. He always expected he’d get over it, get used to it but he didn’t.

Seeing her hit him in the chest, the burn in his gut moving up to flame in his lungs, compressing them, making it suddenly hard to catch a breath.

He didn’t get this.

She was pretty. Jesus, she was pretty. All that thick, dark hair and those sapphire blue eyes, her curvy, petite body, perfect, golden skin still tanned from the summer. Any guy, even if they didn’t get into short women with dark hair, could see she was pretty.

It was more and he knew that too, had been around her enough to see it and often. Her face was expressive, she was quick to smile and laugh. She was animated. She was just one of those chicks it was good to be around.

She could get pissed off. She could get feisty.

Most of the time, though, she was in a good mood, but her good moods were the kinds of good moods that filled a room. Even if you were having a shit day, if Tabby Allen wandered into the common room of the Compound wearing a smile, some of that shit would wear off and your day would get better.

But she was his brother’s daughter and that was reason number one not to go there. Further, she was too young and too immature. She did stupid shit, like her being with this crowd, drinking beer underage and laughing rather than home studying or hanging with kids from college. So regardless that she was fucking pretty, had a sweet little body, and could light up a room with her mood, he was never going there, but even if he could, he wouldn’t, because she was flat-out trouble.

And yet every time he saw her, it somehow rocked him.

He ignored this feeling that he didn’t want and didn’t understand, and his mouth tightened when he saw how she was dressed. Tight skirt, short. Tight top, cleavage. Lots of leg on show even if she wasn’t all that tall. Nice leg. Shapely leg. Fucking great leg.

Shit.

And fuck-me high-heeled sandals that even if she was too young and his brother’s daughter, the sight of them Shy still felt in his dick.

Damn.

He ignored this too and moved through the room, eyes on her, determined.

She must have felt his approach because she turned her head, looked up, and that burn didn’t lessen at all when her unbelievable blue eyes ringed with long, dark lashes hit his.

He was not surprised when her smile faded, the animation left her face and she snapped, “You have got to be shitting me.”

That pissed Shy off too. He fucking hated it when she cursed. Tack didn’t give a shit, even when his kids were younger. Shy, though, detested it. There was something just very wrong about words like that coming from lips as beautiful as hers.

“Let’s go,” he clipped.

“Shy—” she began but didn’t finish, mostly because Shy grabbed her beer, set it aside, then grabbed her hand and hauled her ass off of the couch.

Surprisingly, she didn’t fight.

She followed.

Good, he thought. He wanted this done.

He got her out of the house, down the walk and opened the door of his truck for her. He was pulling her by her hand to get her close to the cab when she finally spoke.

“Shy, I keep telling you guys that this is not what you—”

He leaned in, nose to nose with her and cut her off. “Shut it.”

She blinked even as her head jerked. This wasn’t a surprise. Brothers respected brothers, and one of the ways they did that was by showing respect to their kin. Chaos was Chaos, it was all family. Brothers, old ladies, kids. Shy had never spoken to her that way. None of the brothers had. Not to her.

“Get in the fuckin’ truck,” he went on.

Tabby rallied and started to say, “Can I just explain—?”

Shy interrupted her again. “Get in it or I plant you in it, Tab.”

Even in the shadows of night, he saw her eyes flash before he saw her clamp her mouth shut. It was with jerky movements that she yanked her hand from his, turned, and climbed into the truck.

Shy slammed her door, rounded the hood, and folded in.

They were on their way when she tried again, her voice quiet. “Shy, really, those are my friends. It’s all cool. Just a couple of beers. A few joints. I’m not smoking and I’m driving so I wouldn’t—”

“So all of those kids are nursing students?” he asked.

“No,” she answered. “They’re friends from high school.”

“You’re not in high school anymore, Tabby,” he pointed out, and felt her eyes come to him but he kept his angry ones on the road.

“You’re right,” she snapped, the quiet in her voice gone. “I’m not. That doesn’t mean they aren’t still my friends. We’ve had a lot of good times together. We’re close. What? You think I should just scrape them off?”

He didn’t glance at her when he replied, “Uh, yeah, Tab. They’re trash. You aren’t. Jesus.” He shook his head. “I do not get you. I know your mom’s a bitch, but for the last three years you’ve had Cherry in your life. It isn’t like you don’t have a good role model. Why the fuck you can’t be like her is beyond me.”

He heard her swift intake of breath before she returned, “Maybe it’s because I should be like me and, by the way, Shy, Tyra would want me to be like me too.”

The members of the Club called Tack’s woman Cherry but Tack called her Red. His kids and everyone else called her Tyra or Ty-Ty.

“Anyway,” Tabby went on irately, “they’re not trash.”

“They’re trash,” he stated firmly.

“They. Are. Not!” she stated loudly.

There it was. That gave him his opening.

“You want that life?” he asked.

“That life?” she shot back.

“Booze and bodies, booty calls and bust-ups,” he explained.

“Um… hello, Shy. That is my life.”

“So you want it,” he concluded.

She ignored his question and pointed out, “It’s your life too, you know. Nothing wrong with it. Never was, never will be.”

A nursing student.

Right.

On this path, she’d never make it. On this path, she’d end up like those bitches in his bed. On this path, Tabby was pissing her college education away, and Tack might as well be pissing that money into the wind.

“You want that life,” he said softly, “you think that’s cool, baby? Then let’s roll.”

It was perfect timing because he’d flipped on his turn signal to turn into Ride.

“What the hell? Why are we here?” she asked, but he didn’t answer.

He drove around the store and through the forecourt of the garage to park in front of the Compound. He didn’t delay in folding out of the truck, rounding the hood, and yanking open her door.

“Shy, what are you—?” she started but stopped since he leaned into her, undid her seatbelt, tagged her hand, and hauled her out of the cab. “Dammit! Shy! What are you doing?” she clipped.

Again he didn’t answer. He just tugged her into the Compound and straight behind the bar. He nabbed a bottle of tequila off a shelf at the back then pulled her in front of him.

“Ready to let go of that little-girl-beer bullshit?” he asked, holding up the bottle.

Her eyes went to it then to him. He saw the confusion and he sensed her unease.

He ignored that too.

“Tab, asked you a question. You like to party. You aren’t in high school anymore. You wanna grow up and learn how it’s really done?”

She ignored him this time and asked, “Why are you being so weird?”

He pulled her closer and tipped his chin down to hold her eyes, now ignoring that it was starkly apparent she wasn’t breathing and her body had gone still.

“Didn’t answer my question, baby,” he said softly and watched her swallow then lick her upper lip.

Jesus. Shit.

He’d never seen her do that. Definitely not this close.

The tip of that pink tongue on the perfection of that rosy lip.

Shit.

“Tab,” he prompted, his hand squeezing hers.

“I want to go home,” she replied quietly, being smart for a change.

“Too late for that,” he muttered then moved away, pulling her with him as he moved from behind the bar, through the room, and into the back hall.

She tugged at his hand and called, “Shy. Seriously. You’re more than kinda freaking me out.”

Hopefully, in about two seconds, she’d be a lot more than kinda freaked out. She’d be scared straight and out of this bullshit she kept pulling.

Therefore, two seconds later, he yanked her into his room, tugged her to a stop and flipped the light switch.

The two women were still naked, lying head to foot on the bed, having, since he was gone, tangled with each other.

Briefly, he tried to remember their names.

He stopped trying when he felt Tabby’s hand spasm in his and she gave a rough pull to try to break away but he just held her tighter and turned to her.

“Usually, we throw some back, get loose, in the mood,” he educated her, lifting up the bottle. “I’ve seen the way you look at me, baby, so if you wanna just get naked and go for it, I’m up for that too. They’re out but, we go for a while, no doubt they’ll rally and join in. Sounds extreme but, trust me, you try it, you’ll like it.”

When he started talking, her eyes were on the bed but they moved slowly to him and he saw she was pale beneath her tan. Her eyes were also wide with shock and something else he didn’t quite get, and her full lips were parted.

“What’s it gonna be?” he asked. “You wanna loosen up or you wanna just go for it?”

“Why are you doin’ this?” she whispered, and Shy shrugged.

“This is who you are or who you’re headin’ to be. Might as well quit fuckin’ around, babe, and go for it.”

Her eyes slid to the side then to him before she stated quietly, “This isn’t who I am.”

He looked her down and up and pointed out, “Short tight skirts, too-tight tops. I know it’s not lost on you that I can see most of your tits not only through the shirt but spillin’ out of it, Tab. Then we got your high heels, lots of hair, lots of makeup. You scream you got a wild side, baby. Quit fuckin’ around. You been wantin’ to explore it since you were sixteen. The time is right. The stage is set.” He pulled her closer to him and lifted the bottle again. “Let’s go.”

When he said the word sixteen, she flinched and her hand jerked at his again.

Also, the look in her eyes he couldn’t quite place came clear.

Hurt.

It sucked. He didn’t like to do this to her, but he reckoned that emotion stark in her gaze meant he was getting through.

“Take me home,” she said softly, and he shifted closer to her

She swung slightly back, but her movements were wooden.

“Come on, baby. Don’t bullshit me,” he coaxed in a gentle voice. “I’ve seen the looks you give me. Now’s your shot. You’re hot, you like to have fun, you shouldn’t waste this opportunity.”

“Take me home,” she repeated.

“If you don’t want an audience or this to be a participation sport outside us two, I can rouse those bitches—” he jerked his head to the bed “—send them on their way before we get goin’.”

“Take me home,” she said again.

“Or we can let ‘em sleep. Go to your dad’s room,” he suggested, and that did it.

With a violent wrench, she tore her hand from his, turned on her foot, and raced from the room.

Much more slowly, Shy put the bottle on a dresser, snapped off the lights, and followed her. He wasn’t alarmed. She didn’t have wheels and she was in high heels, there wasn’t far she could go.

Surprisingly, when he exited the Compound, she was sitting in the passenger side of his truck, her head turned to look out the side window.

Yeah, she was ready to go home.

He didn’t delay in moving to the driver’s side, climbing in and starting her up. Tabby didn’t look his way as he reversed out and headed toward Broadway.

They were well on their way through Denver to the foothills where Tack and Cherry lived, where Tab still lived with them and their two new boys before he spoke into the heavy air in the cab.

“You’re a good kid, Tabby. Don’t let your mother treating you like shit kick your ass. Get off that path.”

“You’re on that path,” she whispered to her window.

“Babe, I’m not. I’m a man and I got brothers. I chose a lifestyle and a brotherhood. It’s different for you and you know it. The bullshit you’re pullin’, the path you’re on, no joke, even if you wanted the life, wanted to be an old lady, that wouldn’t work for you no matter what respect we got for your dad. The path you’re on heads you straight to bein’ a BeeBee, and you know that too.”

She didn’t speak but Shy figured his point was made. Tabby knew BeeBee, everyone did. BeeBee had been banned from spreading her legs and spreading her talent throughout every member of the Club after she stupidly went head to head with Cherry. But even gone, she was not forgotten. Back then, Tabby had been way too young to know BeeBee in any real way other than seeing the way BeeBee hung on and put out. But there was no way to miss her use to the Club, even for a teenage girl.

His point made, he also kept quiet the rest of the way to Tack’s house.

He parked outside the front door and she instantly undid her seat belt and threw open the door. He turned to see she’d twisted to jump out and opened his mouth to say something, but he didn’t get it out. He had no idea how she explained it to her father when a brother brought her home, but that was her problem, not his.

She turned back and all words died in his throat when he saw by the cab’s light the tears shimmering in her eyes and the tracks left by the ones that had slid silently down her cheeks.

His body went rock solid at the evidence of the pain his lesson caused. Deserved, he knew, but it still hurt like a mother to witness. So when she leaned in, he didn’t move away.

“You don’t know me,” she whispered. “But now, I know you, and, Shy… you’re a dick.”

Even with these words, she still lifted her hands, placed them on either side of his head and angled closer. Pressing her lips against his, that sweet, pink tongue of hers slid between his lips to touch the tip of his tongue before she let him go just as quickly as she’d grabbed hold. She jumped out of the cab and ran gracefully on the toes of her high-heeled sandals up the side deck and into the house.

Shy had shifted to watch her move, his chest and gut both ablaze, the brief but undeniably sweet taste of her still on his tongue.

The light on the side of the house went off, and he was plunged into darkness.

“Shit,” he muttered before he put the truck in gear and turned around.

As he drove home, he couldn’t get her tear-stained cheeks and wet eyes out of his head.

He also couldn’t get her taste off his tongue.

Five months later…

The bell over the door of Fortnum’s Used Books rang as Shy pushed it open.

Shy came to Fortnum’s for one reason, and it wasn’t to buy used books. It was because they had a coffee counter and seating area in the front of the store, and everyone in Denver knew that the man named Tex who worked the espresso machine was a master. Shy liked beer, bourbon, and vodka, occasionally tequila, sometimes Pepsi, but with the way he lived his nights, his mornings always included a whole lot of coffee.

Tex’s eyes came to him as he moved through the tables and armchairs scattered in front of the espresso counter and he boomed a “Yo, travelin’ man! Usual?”

Shy jerked up his chin in the affirmative, but something caught his attention from the side, and he looked that way to see Tabby sitting at the round table tucked in the corner.

The fire hit his chest.

She had books and notepads stacked around, two empty coffee cups on the table, one half full. She was bent over a book, elbow on the table, hand in her mane of hair at the top of her head, holding it away from her face. Her concentration was on a book and a notepad in front of her, pencil in hand.

He hadn’t seen her since that night he gave her the lesson and took her home. She wasn’t a regular at Ride or at the Compound, but she was around. She was tight with Cherry; they went shopping together a lot, and Tabby met Cherry there when they went. Sometimes she studied in the office while Cherry worked. She was tight with some of the brothers, particularly Tack’s lieutenants, Dog and Brick, and Big Petey, one of the founding members who took a break from the Club for a few years to go be with his daughter while she was fighting cancer. He came back when she lost that fight and Tab, being how Tab could be and growing up with Big Petey, moved in to balm that hurt. So it wasn’t unheard of to see her shooting the shit with Pete opposite the counter inside the auto supply store, teasing him by his Harley Trike in the forecourt or sitting close with him and talking on one of the picnic tables outside the Compound.

Then, for five months, she’d disappeared. Not a sign of her. Shy wasn’t on Chaos every minute of his day but when he was, she wasn’t there.

She hadn’t been to one of the three hog roasts they’d had. She didn’t even go to the party they threw when they took on their new recruits, Snapper and Bat.

And there hadn’t been another Tabby Callout since that night.

Now here she was, studying. Business was bustling and Tex seemed to need to make as much noise as possible when forcing a coffee drink out of the espresso machine, and yet she didn’t look around or break concentration at all.

And, Shy thought, there it was. He’d made his point. She’d learned her lesson. Focus on the shit that mattered. She was taking the opportunity her father was offering to set herself up with a good life, getting control of that wild side and cleaning the trash out of her life.

He paid the knockout redhead named Indy who owned the place for his drink, got it from Tex at the other end of the counter and moved to Tab’s table.

He pulled out the seat opposite her and twisted it around to straddle it, saying softly, “Yo, babe,” before her body jerked with surprise and her head came up.

Her eyes hit him and he saw something that made him uneasy flash through them before she shut it down. Her face went blank, and her eyes slid through the room before coming back to him.

“What’re you doin’ here?” she asked quietly.

He lifted his to go cup. “Coffee. Best in town. Come here all the time.”

She looked at his cup then at the two coffee mugs on the table in front of her before her fingers slid through her hair and she straightened in her chair.

When Shy recovered from watching her thick, shining hair move through her fingers and he realized she wasn’t speaking, he asked, “Studying?”

Her gaze went to her books like she’d never seen them before, it came back to him and she answered, “Yeah. I’ve got two tests this week.”

“Harsh,” he muttered, though he wouldn’t know. He’d never studied for tests. The fact that somewhere in the junk in his apartment was a high school diploma was a miracle.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I need to get back to it.”

“What?” he asked.

She looked down at her books, turned her pencil in her hand and tapped the eraser end to her notepad before repeating, “I need to get back to it.”

“You don’t want company,” he surmised.

“Um… I have two tests. I have a lot of work to do.”

Shy nodded then asked, “You come here a lot?”

That sweet, pink tongue came out to touch her upper lip, the burn in his chest magnified before her tongue disappeared and she answered, “No, just trying out places where I can get my studying groove on. It gets a little insane at home.”

“The boys,” Shy guessed. She had two new brothers: Rider, who just turned three, and Cutter, who was one, meant home was not where she could get that particular groove on.

“Yeah, they’re little kids but they’re also Allens, so things can get rowdy,” she muttered.

He heard Tex banging on the espresso machine, and he knew Fortnum’s could get a little insane too.

Thinking that, thinking that it was cool Tabby was finally focused on the right things, and trying not to think about how much or why he’d like her at his place, he offered, “You need space, babe, I got an apartment. I’m never in it. Can’t say it’s clean but it is quiet.”

“Thanks, but I’m good.”

He pushed up from the chair, righting it at the table, saying, “Anytime, Tab, you need it, it’s yours. Just give me a call.”

She nodded, swallowed then mumbled, “Later,” to his shoulder before she looked back down to her books, curling in her chair, slouching back to her elbow, hand back in her hair.

It was the swallow, the mumbling, and the talking to his shoulder that drove Shy to round the table, lift a hand, and pull her hair away from her face.

Her head jerked back as her eyes shot to him.

“We good?” he asked.

“Sure,” she answered, too quickly.

“You sure about that?” he pressed.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked back, too casually.

“Babe, the last time I saw you was extreme.” His eyes went to the table then back to her. “I see you got my point but it’d be cool to know we’re good.”

“We’re good,” she assured him, again, quickly.

He studied her face. It was carefully vacant.

He didn’t know her all that well, but he’d been around her often enough to know Tabitha Allen was never expressionless.

Fuck.

He let it go and reiterated, “You need my place, babe, just yell.”

“I’ll do that, Shy,” she replied quietly.

He jerked up his chin.

She turned so her back was to him and slouched back over her books.

Shy walked out of Fortnum’s feeling that familiar burn. Except it wasn’t in his gut this time.

It was around his heart.

She never called to use his space.

She never called at all.

And he never again saw her at Fortnum’s.

Six months later…

Shy sat outside the Compound on top of one of the picnic tables, feet on the seat, legs spread, elbows to his thighs, bottle of beer held loosely in his hands, watching.

Tabby was on Chaos for the first time in nearly a year. She was walking out of the office and down the steps, Rider’s hand in hers as she steadied him while he struggled to get his little legs to negotiate the stairs. She had Cut on her hip, and Shy could see Cut was slamming his little fist into her cheek as she walked.

She got them safely to the bottom of the stairs but stopped, and Shy watched as she turned her head, jerked it forward, and captured Cut’s fist in her mouth.

He squealed. Tabby let his little fist go, and her peel of musical laughter shot across the forecourt and hit him straight in the gut so hard it was a fucking miracle he didn’t grunt.

Then it happened.

Rider tripped and Tabby bent to right him and on her way up, her eyes moved through the forecourt, across the Compound, straight through him.

Through him.

Like he was fucking invisible.

Jesus.

Fuck.

Jesus.

There was a time, he caught sight of her, her eyes would shift away quickly and he knew she was watching him. Anytime she’d been around before he did what he did that night, if he saw her, her eyes were on him.

Now he was invisible. It was like he didn’t exist.

She moved the kids to her car and strapped them in the car seats in the back, and Shy kept watching, his gut tight, that burn searing his heart.

She had a great ride. Her dad gave it to her when she was sixteen, and she took care of it like it was one of her little brothers. Its electric blue paint gleamed, clean and pristine, in the August sun.

Sweet ride but Tabby, wearing one of those flowy, flowery, loose dresses that went all the way to her feet, so much fucking material, you couldn’t begin to guess what lay underneath it, didn’t look like she belonged to that car. The dress was saved by being strapless, the top essentially an elasticized tube top covering her tits, but still.

It wasn’t cutoff short-shorts and rocker shirts like she used to wear.

And her hair wasn’t down and wild. It was braided in thick plaits close to her skull on either side to flare out in a mass of hair at her nape that only hinted at the dense, glossy mane Tack’s good genes had bestowed on her.

Yeah, he’d made his point.

Fuck yeah, a year ago, he’d really fucking made his point.

She got the kids strapped in and Big Petey exited the office, lumbered down the stairs, and Shy watched Pete and Tabby engage in a playful argument he couldn’t hear. Tab lost, and she faked being pissed as she handed over her keys and stomped around the car.

Pete had one child, his daughter, now under dirt. When he came back after her funeral, he was shattered. The man was not young, but after he lost his daughter and returned to the brotherhood, he looked a thousand years old.

Now, Shy saw, he was grinning as he folded his huge beer belly behind the wheel of Tab’s car and adjusted the seat.

Tab did that. Tab brought him back. Tabby put together those pieces and gave Pete something to grin about.

The Tab who looked right through Shy like he didn’t exist.

Petey pulled out and he, Tab, Rider, and Cut took off, where, Shy had no clue. Shy’d heard Cherry and Tack talking about it enough to know that Rider and Cut’s big sister doted on them and spoiled their asses rotten. So he figured ice cream, park, but whatever it was, it was filled with their sister’s love.

He watched the car until he couldn’t see it anymore.

Then he jumped off the picnic table and walked inside.

In the cool dark of the Compound, he stopped in the common room and stood, staring at the Chaos flag mounted on the wall at the back of the room.

Cool and dark while his gut still twisted and his heart burned.

He lifted his bottle and with his arm slicing through the air in a sidearm throw, he sent the bottle sailing across the room to smash in a foamy explosion of beer and brown glass on the wall opposite the door by the Club flag.

“Jesus, brother, what the fuck?” he heard rumbled from the side of the room. He turned and looked to see High sitting on a stool at the bar with Snapper behind it.

Shy didn’t answer. He prowled behind the bar and nabbed a bottle of tequila.

On his way back around the bar, heading to his room, he ordered Snapper, “Clean that shit up.”

Then he disappeared into his room.

Seven months later…

He rolled his truck to a stop behind the electric blue car on the side of the road.

Shy had gotten his first Tabby Callout in eighteen months.

She wasn’t out on the prowl.

She had a flat.

She was standing, jean-clad hips against the side of her car, thermal-covered arms crossed over the poofy vest she was wearing, low-heeled booted feet crossed at the ankles, head turned to him, eyes hidden behind a pair of mirrored, wire-rimmed shades, face vacant.

He’d seen her once since she took off with Petey and her brothers, and that was at the Chaos Christmas blowout at the Compound. He’d shown with a woman on his arm. She’d left fifteen minutes later.

That was it.

Now, as he angled out of his truck and moved toward her, she didn’t twitch. Just watched him.

When he got close, even though he hadn’t spoken a word to her since they saw each other at Fortnum’s over a year ago, she announced sharply, “I know how to change a flat, but I can’t get the lug nuts to move.”

He stopped a half a foot away from her, looked through his shades down his nose at her and growled, “I’m doin’ fuckin’ great, babe. Thanks for askin’. How the fuck are you?”

Her head jerked and her shoulders straightened like a steel rod had been jammed down her spine. “Pardon?” she asked.

“Nothin,” he muttered. “Do me a favor, step away from the car. Don’t need it sliding off the jack while I’m dealin’ with your tire because your ass is leaned into it.”

She pushed away from the car and Shy headed to the flat. She’d pulled out the spare, had the car jacked up and the lug wrench lying on the tarmac. Shy crouched to it and was grabbing the wrench when she spoke.

“Roscoe phoned. He’s ten minutes away. If this is biting into your schedule, he said he’d be able to help out.”

“Take me ten minutes. Then you can disappear again,” he muttered, putting the wrench to the nut and finding she was not wrong. Those bitches were on there tight.

Tabby fell silent. Shy worked.

He switched the tire with her spare, dumped the flat into her trunk, and was slamming it closed when he stated, “Get to the garage. You got time, now would be good. Don’t drive too far on that spare.”

“I may be a girl, but my dad’s a biker and a mechanic. I think I know enough not to ride around on a spare,” she returned. “Though,” she went on when his eyes cut to her, “you’ve given me an idea. All those silly women out there who don’t know better, I could give a helping hand, design some leaflets. Pass them out all around Denver. Explain about spare usage. How dangerous it is. I’ll be sure to put a bunch of butterflies on it and douse it with glitter so I can keep their attention while they’re reading it.”

He felt his eyes narrow as his mouth asked, “What the fuck?”

“Nothin’,” she muttered, then he felt his gut tighten when she asked, “Is a blowjob acceptable payment for a tire change or does the headboard need to rock?”

Seriously.

He hadn’t seen the bitch in months, he hadn’t spoken to her in over a year, what was with the fucking attitude?

He was too goddamned incensed to ask her that, all he could force out was a repeated, “What the fuck?”

“Payback, Shy. I certainly wouldn’t want to put you out of your way for nothing,” she explained, and he felt his jaw go tight before he forced it loose in order to respond.

“Give me five minutes, baby, hauled ass out here to take care of you, my truck’s old, the heat isn’t what it used to be. She warms up, a blowjob in the cab would be just fine.”

“Is it necessary for me to call a friend or will just me do?” she shot back.

“Hard for two bitches to get their mouths wrapped around my cock, but if you’ve got a way, sugar, I’m up for the experience.”

“Oh, you’ll be up,” she hissed, leaning in slightly.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he returned.

She stared at him through her shades, her mouth set, and he knew, he tore off those fucking sunglasses, her eyes would be flaring.

He pulled in a breath, calming the burn in his insides so he was able to request, “You wanna explain the attitude?”

“No,” she clipped.

“If you don’t, then don’t dish that shit out. You got somethin’ up your ass, you gotta have the balls to let it hang out. Not dish out shit and expect me to eat it when I don’t know your fuckin’ problem.”

“You’re right, Shy. My apologies. You walking up to my car and cursing sarcastically at me threw me off my game. You went out of your way to help me, I should be more appreciative.”

Her words were sweet. Her tone was not.

“Babe, you led with snapping out you’d have this covered if you could move those lug nuts. You didn’t even fuckin’ say hello. How, exactly, would you have liked me to respond to that, seein’ as you haven’t so much as looked at me in a long fuckin’ time.”

She threw out her hands in a bullshit gesture of apology. “Sorry, Shy, so, so sorry. I mean, it isn’t like I was on my way to do something when I got a stupid flat then I couldn’t move the stupid lug nuts and I tried for, like”—she leaned in—“ever. So when you rolled up to help out, instead of being understandably frustrated, I should have put the smile on and given you the love. I get that, you hauled yourself out here to help out and me being pissed off that my day is totally screwed, my hands are dirty, my jeans are dirty, and I have to go home and change isn’t your problem. I shouldn’t make it that way.”

Fuck, she had a point.

“Tabby—” he started, but she cut him off.

“And the blowjob crack was out of line. I apologize for that too.”

“Tab—”

“As was the friend thing and, well… everything. Now, are we good?”

There it was.

His shot.

And he was going to take it.

He took a step toward her and said quietly, “We’re good, babe, but since your day is screwed anyway, and we’re out in the middle of nowhere, we should take this time to talk.”

When he moved toward her, she held her ground. After he made his suggestion, she leaned slightly back.

“About what?” she asked.

“I got the feeling you’re avoiding me.”

“I’m not,” she stated, too quickly.

“I haven’t spoken to you in over a year,” he pointed out.

“We were never really close, Shy,” she replied.

Shy tried a different tactic. “Used to see you all the time, Tab. Now I never see you.”

“I’m busy.”

“You were busy before and I still saw you.”

“Now I’m busy… er.”

He shook his head and moved closer. She stood her ground but he saw her body go stiff. He ignored that and continued, “You’re avoiding me and have been since that shit went down a while back.”

“What shit?” she asked, and she was so obviously attempting to pull the wool, he almost smiled because it was fucking cute.

Damn.

“You know what shit,” he replied.

“Shy—” she began, moving back, but he caught her by her upper arm and she went still again.

He leaned down so their faces were close.

Jesus, she had a fantastic mouth.

“It was harsh, babe, way harsh, too harsh. I see that now, but it’s been over a year and you’re still freezing me out. This shit can’t go on, Tabby. We’re family.”

He saw that fantastic mouth of hers twist in a way that made his gut do the same before she whispered, “We’re not family.”

“We’re both Chaos,” he reminded her.

“We’re not family,” she repeated.

“Babe—”

She twisted her arm out of his hold but didn’t move away when she spoke.

“My family talked to me about the shit that went down with that guy after it happened years ago, Shy. Ty-Ty, Dad, Rush were there for me. I screwed up, things with Mom were bad, she was always all over me even when I didn’t do anything wrong. I was sixteen and stupid so, I thought, what the heck? If I was going to be in trouble anyway, I might as well do something to be in trouble for, and I was with a guy who was way too old for me. He tried it on with me, it flipped me out, and when I said no, he wasn’t cool. He hit me, hurt me, and I called Tyra to help me out. She called you to take her back. And, well, you were there. You know the rest.”

“Tab—” Shy tried again, now trying to cut in because he could tell going over the past was not somewhere she wanted to be but Tabby kept talking.

“When they confronted me about it, it wasn’t comfortable but it was honest and gentle and what I needed. Sheila took me aside and she asked me and listened to me when I had to let go of shit about Mom. Arlo took me out for a hot dog and a discussion on how to spot a good guy and when to know when a guy’s a jerk. And all of them had my back for years after that went down to make sure nothing like that went down again. It was overboard, overprotective, and annoying but at least it was loving.” She shook her head. “But you… you made assumptions. You showed you decided exactly the kind of girl I was that night when that guy took his hand to me without knowing one single thing about me. I wasn’t what you thought, Shy. I didn’t need your shit and I also didn’t deserve it. Family doesn’t make judgments. They talk. They support. You made a judgment. You acted on that judgment. You doing it hurt me so that means you are not my family.”

After gutting him, she turned on her boot, stomped to her car, folded her curvy, little body in and then she was off, leaving Shy standing at the side of the road.

Four months later…

Shy sat on his bike, pissed. Construction jacking up downtown and some show getting out at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts meant traffic was jammed every-fucking-where.

He watched three cars get through the light and didn’t budge on his bike before they were back to red and he was back to thinking he’d ride his bike up on the sidewalk to get past this shit. The cars were so jacked, jockeying for position to make it to the single lane they had to get through, he couldn’t even ride between to get the fuck out.

He sat back and turned his head, gliding his eyes through the waves of people crawling over the sidewalks, crossing the street and climbing down the stairs at DCPA, when his eyes passed through her and his head jerked back.

Tabby.

Tabby wearing a tight, strapless red dress covered in lace, the scallops skimming her knees. On her feet were high, spiked black heels that were sexy as all fuck, the same as they were classy. Her mass of hair was pulled softly back from her face, tucked in a complicated arrangement of curls at the back.

She looked like a modern-day princess. Elegant. Sophisticated. High-class.

“Jesus,” he muttered.

She was looking around like she was lost, and he was about to put his tongue to his teeth to whistle when she found what she was looking for and Shy went rock solid.

A tall, good-looking, built blond guy in a suit moved to her, smiling. She tipped her head back, not smiling.

Fucking beaming.

Shy watched as the man slid an arm around her waist, she leaned into his body, and he bent to touch his mouth to hers. He stayed bent, kept his face close to hers, as any man would do, Tabby dressed like that, looking like that, smiling like that, and her mouth moved.

Then his head shot back as he burst out laughing.

Tabby watched for a beat before she dropped her chin and rested her forehead against his chest, her arms moving to curve around him and hold him while he shook with humor.

“Jesus,” Shy muttered, that burn back, in his gut, chest, heart, even up his fucking throat.

He wanted to but he couldn’t tear his eyes away when the man dipped his chin back down, cupped her jaw with a hand, lifted her face to his, and bent to touch his mouth to Tabby’s again.

But it wasn’t a touch.

He kept his mouth on hers a long fucking time. Like they weren’t on a sidewalk with hundreds of people streaming around them and waiting in cars to get through traffic. Like they were alone, just them.

Shy kept watching as the man broke the kiss. Tabby’s hand, now at the guy’s neck, moved so her thumb could stroke his jaw and she could gaze up at him like he was the only man on the planet.

It was then Shy tore his eyes away.

And it was then, ignoring the cars that honked and the shouts out the window, he maneuvered his bike through the cars, nearly jacking up his legs and his bike.

Two seconds later, when the light changed, he roared the fuck away.

Eight months later…

“Jesus, seriously, set me up,” Dog growled as he stalked into the Compound and headed toward where Shy, Arlo, and Brick were sitting, drinking beer, Bat across from them playing bartender.

“What’s up, brother?” Arlo asked, as Dog hoisted his ass on a stool.

“Our little Tabby’s engaged.”

Shy felt like he’d been sucker-punched.

“No shit?” Brick asked, sounding like he’d been sucker-punched too.

“Jesus, God, please don’t make it be that blond guy who’s built like a linebacker and looks like a cop,” Bat muttered.

Dog took a long pull from his beer but did it nodding. Then he dropped the beer to the bar and leveled his eyes on Brick.

“Good dude, I met him. Physical therapist. Played college ball, good at it but not good enough. Though that experience helped. He works for the Broncos.”

Shy looked at the beer he was holding on the bar.

Shit.

Fuck.

Shit.

“She’s over the fuckin’ moon,” Dog continued, and Shy’s gut twisted. “Cherry is too. Cherry thinks he’s the shit. Can’t say I don’t like him but he’s fuckin’ normal. Tack’s torn. The dude totally thinks our girl walks on water, what father wouldn’t like that? He’s cool too. Knows us, who we are, where she came from, does not give that first fuck. He’d take her legless and armless if she was still Tab, he don’t care where she comes from. That said, he’s not anywhere close to the life, he comes from the fuckin’ suburbs, and Tack’s strugglin’ with that.”

Shy lifted his beer and took a drag.

He swallowed and found it didn’t help the burn.

Dog, unfortunately, kept fucking talking. “They’re gonna wait until she graduates to get married. She’s bein’ funny about it. Dude wants her to move in, she says after the wedding. Don’t know why she just don’t shack up with the guy. Try before you buy, see if that shit’ll work. But she’s not down with that so… whatever.”

Tabby being theirs, his brothers could talk about this shit all night.

But Shy had had enough.

He pushed his stool back, slid off it, and muttered, “Gotta go.”

“Where you goin’?” Bat asked.

He didn’t know. He didn’t care. Anywhere just as long as he got there on his bike.

“Shit to do,” he muttered and moved around the bar, eyes to his feet, mind centered on keeping his jaw relaxed, his hands unclenched.

He walked out the door, swung on his bike, and rolled out.

He didn’t hit Chaos again for three weeks.

Six months later…

Shy was moving across the forecourt toward the Compound in order to grab a shower and head out. His hands were filthy from grease. The car he’d been working on for the last three months was finally done.

Time to celebrate.

He moved into the Compound and felt the heaviness in the air immediately. Boys were moving out, faces alert, even alarmed, the vibe bad.

“What’s goin’ on?” he asked Roscoe, who was shifting, like all the brothers, toward the door.

“Car accident,” Roscoe answered, stopping and catching his eye. “Tab’s fiancé.”

The force of that information knocked Shy so hard it was a wonder he didn’t fall to a knee.

The wedding was three weeks away.

Jesus. Tabby.

“What?” he whispered.

Roscoe shook his head. “Just got the news. She’s at Denver Health. He’s, brother, this shit is fuckin’ crazy, but the guy was DOA. Didn’t even make it to the hospital. Gone. Tack says Tab’s lost it. We’re movin’ out, takin her back, Tack’s back, seein’ if we can do anything.” His head tipped to the side. “Comin’?”

DOA.

Didn’t even make it to the hospital.

Gone.

Tab’s lost it.

Lost it.

“Anyone watchin’ the kids?” he forced out.

“Sheila’s headin’ up there.”

“I’ll go help her out,” Shy offered, turning, digging his greasy hand into his jeans for his keys.

“Help out Sheila with the kids?” Roscoe asked his back.

Shy didn’t answer. It was jacked, fucking lame, but it was doing something. Something away from Tabby.

She wouldn’t want to see him now.

She never wanted to see him.

But he had to do something.

He wasn’t her family.

But she was his.

Three days later…

Shy sat in his dark living room in his apartment, the first time he’d been there for months.

He was thinking and he was remembering.

Remembering for the first time in a long time that day when the news came.

Remembering that day when his life, at age fucking twelve, shifted and went from good, no great, to absolute shit.

Remembering the day years later when he found Chaos and he thought, finally, fucking finally, his life would no longer be shit and he was right.

And thinking that, six hours ago, probably wearing black, probably looking lifeless, just like she’d looked yesterday when he saw her walking out of the office with Cherry, Cherry’s arm around her holding her close, her head bobbing like she was agreeing to what Cherry was saying when he knew just by looking at her she didn’t hear a thing, Tabby stood in a cemetery and laid her man into the ground.

Her man was twenty-seven years old.

Shy’s age.

Shy lifted the bottle of vodka to his lips and took a deep pull.

He didn’t drop it before he took another one.