I needed to keep everything in perspective. This wasn’t going to end up as some bullshit kidnapper syndrome where I fell in love with him. I didn’t know a damn thing about him other than he had fingers sent from heaven and a tongue that the Devil must have personally given to him to tease and seduce women. My thighs clenched at the memory of his head between my legs.
Macy babbled, startling me out of my dirty thoughts, and I blushed, flustered at myself.
Charlie came back into the room as I spooned another mouthful of macaroni into Macy’s mouth. The kid had made a mess of herself while I’d been daydreaming, but Charlie just laughed.
“So, Rider said you need to stay here, for today at least. He’s still working on a plan for what to do with you.” She began gathering the dishes and placing them in the sink, and I used a cloth to wipe Macy’s face and hands.
When I was done, she came and picked Macy up and smiled down at me. “It’s going to be all right. Trust Rider. He’s a good man.”
Would it be? All right? I very much doubted it. Scratch was proof of that, yet I had to hold on to some small ounce of hope that maybe things would work out okay eventually.
“Thanks for this,” I said, standing up. “You didn’t have to help me. I appreciate it so much.”
Charlie turned to face me, her kohl-lined eyes looking me up and down. “First off, yes I did. There’s only one person in this world that I answer to, and that’s my old man—and even then not always. But I trust Rider, always have and always will, and Rider said to take you in and look after you, so that’s what I’m doing. And secondly”—she pulled a carton of apple juice from the refrigerator for Macy—“he told me the deal your daddy had going on you, and that shit isn’t okay. Us women need to stick together. So either way you look at it, I did have to help you.” She winked and I smiled. “Also don’t ever tell him that I said I answer to him,” she laughed.
I’d never really had friends—not real ones anyway. My friends had always been sweetbutts or the other bikers’ old ladies, but they were just as controlled as I was. Forced to be my friend by their men and my daddy, forced to take me out dancing and hang with me. It was all a ruse, I realized. Everything I’d ever known was fake. My entire life was built on lies.
“You okay?” Charlie asked, and I nodded and swiped at my eyes. “How about you grab a shower and then we go for a dip in the pool with the monkey here?” she said.
“I don’t have a bathing suit,” I said, my voice shaking. “I don’t have anything.”
I looked up at her, my eyes wide. Fuck, I was going to cry and that was the last thing I wanted.
I was tough.
I was a Benite.
I was Penny “take-no-shit-from-anyone” Benite.
And yet my chin was trembling and my eyes were filling with salty tears.
“I’m sorry, I’m not normally this weak.” I swiped at my eyes again.
“Penny, that’s some bullshit that men say to keep their own emotions in check, and look what emotional cripples they are,” she laughed. “It’s not weak to cry, it’s strong. To admit that things are hard, to let your body accept that realization and get its relief? That’s strong. So you cry if you need to, and then you follow me into my bedroom and borrow one of my suits, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, my voice a whisper as I tried to contain my tears for a few seconds more.
She turned and left the room and I stared after her, finally letting the tears run down my face as I let everything in: Scratch’s death, losing my entire life, the fear of the unknown, but mostly the fear of my father’s wrath. And when I was done, I went after Charlie and borrowed one of her swimming suits, feeling stronger than I had before.
I may have lost everything and everyone. But the funny thing about rock bottom was that there was only one way to go after you hit it.
~ 24 ~
Fighter
I cut the engine and stepped off my bike, hanging my helmet off the handlebars, and dragged my hands through my hair. It had been a long fucking day and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and fall asleep. That was a lie. But I wasn’t ready to admit what I really wanted to do yet—even to myself.
But sleep was for the innocent and I was far from it. Rider said he had a plan to get the club, Penny, and me out of the shit, and I had to trust him on that. Battle and Quinn would be back in town that night, and the hope that we could all move on like none of the bullshit between our club and the Vipers, or the Burning Eights and Battle, had gone down was still burning fierce. Maybe it was stupidity, maybe it was hope. Either way, since meeting Penny I’d had a lot more hope than I cared to admit.
Gauge had come with us, and he’d sobered up enough to be thinking with a clear head. He still wasn’t happy about the Penny situation, but he got it. He understood. Penny could have thrown our club, and me, under the bus to save herself, but she didn’t. Still wasn’t sure why, but that sort of loyalty deserved our respect, and with our respect came our protection, whether he liked it or not. We just needed to make sure shit was squared up before Hardy found out and sent us all to ground.
Rider threw his cigarette away and stomped on it. “Come on—Charlie said she’s made dinner and she fuckin’ hates it when I’m late for dinner.”
We headed into the house, passing through the kitchen and following the music and the smell of meat cooking on the barbeque in the back yard. Rider’s home was fit for a fucking king and queen. He’d spent a lot of money getting it like that, and it showed. He had a large pool in the back yard and it had been landscaped to look like a tropical paradise. The inside of the kitchen was all granite countertops, glass tiles, and solid wood floors throughout. Charlie kept that shit looking good at all times. He’d done good to find a woman like her. Or maybe it was her that had found him. Either way, they were good for each other. Both wild as all hell, but they grounded one another.
“Where the fuck have you been?” she yelled as we stepped outside.
I pulled my shades from my cut and slipped them on, the hot Georgia sun burning down even at six o’clock.
