“What’s wrong?” Copper asked immediately. No teasing, no delay, just straight to it.
Shell sat on the small free space on the bench next to her ol’ man and directly across from Saint. As soon as her ass hit the seat, Copper tucked her close with a possessive arm around her shoulders, his fingers absently rubbing circles on her upper arm like he could soothe her before she even spoke.
“Beth missed our call…again.” Shell leaned heavily on her ol’ man as she spoke.
As the words left her mouth, Copper’s face darkened, worry morphing into anger with a force Saint could practically feel radiating across the table. “Fuck. Third week in a row, right?”
Shell nodded.
Saint wanted details. The urge to pry rode him hard. Beth might not be his blood, but she was club family—princess of the whole damn kingdom—and every man at that table knew what that meant. As he debated the wisdom of opening his mouth, Gator, the nosy fucker, took the decision out of his hands.
“What’s up, Prez? Need me to talk some sense into Beth’s independent ass?”
Copper’s expression turned so thunderous that Saint had to work to keep from shuddering. The man whacked the back of Gator’s head.
“You get within a hundred feet of my daughter’s ass, and I’ll peel your skin like a fucking grape.”
“Ow!” Gator’s eyes bugged, but he still grinned. “Hey now, I meant like a brother. A very respectful, not-trying-to-die kind of brother.”
“But you said ass and Beth in the same sentence. Foolish, my man,” Thunder said, snickering.
“My bad.” Gator lifted his arms in surrender, but his smirk did nothing to make the submission believable.
Saint shot him a look that, with any luck, said,Keep your trap shut, but the way Gator continued to smirk didn’t give him hope.
“Everything okay?” Thunder asked Copper as he threw his bottle cap at Gator, who tried to smack it away but failed. It bounced off his forehead and onto the table with a clink.
Shell sighed. “I have a standing weekly phone call with Beth. This is the third week in a row she’s missed it. The first two times, she texted with a flimsy excuse, but this time, she’s ignoring my texts too. She never ignores my texts.” Her voice wobbled on the last word. She lifted her chin and stared up at her ol’ man. “Something’s wrong, Cop. I can feel it.”
Copper’s arm tightened around her shoulders. His jaw flexed hard enough to crack a tooth, but his hand stayed gentle, fingers still stroking her shoulder.
Saint frowned right along with him. He didn’t know Beth well. When Makenna and Thunder had gotten together, he’d been a damaged teenager not interested in hanging around the clubhouse. By the time he’d gotten his shit together and decided to prospect in his late twenties, Beth had been off with her friends more than at the clubhouse, and at some point, she’d moved out of state. She was a good deal younger than him, so their paths rarely crossed.
But he did know the entire club loved her to pieces, and it was common knowledge that Copper would murder any member who glanced his daughter’s way with anything more than brotherly affection.
The last time Saint ran into her was Christmas, when she’d come to visit for the holiday. He’d walked into the clubhouse kitchen for coffee and found Beth laughing at something Screw said with her head thrown back and that strawberry blonde hair catching the light. She’d turned and smiled at him, a friendly smile, nothing more, and his whole chest had gone tight.
He’d made himself scarce after that. Because damn, the woman was gorgeous and exactly his type. Short, cute, sweet, and sexy as hell. The sass she’d come by honestly sealed the deal.
God, he loved a woman with reddish blonde hair. His dick liked it, too, which was why he’d stayed away rather than pop a boner in her father’s presence. Copper would have sniffed out his lust, ripped off his dick, and fed it to Screw’s new pittie puppy. Better to avoid the temptation and potential trauma altogether.
Copper didn’t respond right away. He stroked his ginger-colored beard with one hand while toying with the ends of Shell’s blonde hair with the other. When thinking, he often fell silent, atrait Saint had learned Copper hadn’t always possessed. Rumor had it, once upon a time, Copper’s temper had rivaled the most volatile of bikers, but he’d gotten smarter and more controlled as the years passed. Plus, the ladies in his life had mellowed him, or so the stories went.
“Maybe her boyfriend is causing shit,” Gator said before tipping his beer back for a chain of swallows.
Copper stiffened as rigid as a statue. A very angry, very large, very deadly biker statue carved from marble and icy to the touch. “The fuck did you just say?”
Holy shit. That tone alone could freeze a man to death.
Gator’s eyes widened. “Um…” He lowered the bottle, then swallowed once more as his gaze darted between the rest of them.
“Sorry, brother, you stepped on a landmine.” Thunder raised his hands in surrender. “Nothing I can do for you.”
“That dude. The fucking poser guy. I don’t remember his name,” Gator muttered.
“Speak fucking English, Gator,” Copper said in a low rumble that made the hair on Saint’s neck rise to attention.
Gator scoffed. “Come on, you guys know who I’m talking about. We met the fucker on that trip to Arizona last year when we stayed the night near Beth on the way. Back me up, Saint. You remember him, right?”
