The phone rang six times before it went to voice mail. I hung up and immediately dialed again. It rang over and over again and I was about to try again when his voice filled my ear. “What?” He practically snarled at me.
“Bash?” I cleared my throat, which was still clogged with tears from finding out my father was gone. “Bash, it’s Willa Blackstone.”
There was a hesitation before he finally answered me. “What’s up, Willa?”
“Lexa needs you. The Red Dragons’ compound was raided last night. Duke and Tasha…are gone.” I heard his shuddery inhale. “Your daughter is going to be put in foster care if you don’t get her.”
He was so quiet for so long that I thought at first he had hung up on me. Then I heard his groan as if he were in pain. A moment later he cursed and told me he was heading to Vegas now. “I don’t know how to take care of a kid though.”
I don’t know why I offered. Maybe it was because Lexa was all the family I had left now. Perhaps it was because I had been lonely for years now, long before my mother had died. “I’ll get the first flight out to Vegas and meet you there. I’ll help you as much as you need, Bash.”
It took a while to get a flight out to Vegas. By the time I got there Bash was already there. Honestly I didn’t know how he was able to stand. His arm was in a cast, his body black and blue. It was obvious someone had beaten the hell out of him, which only confused me. The man was a beast. A whole army had to have jumped him to have beaten him so badly. He wouldn’t talk to me about it though. Just told me to take Lexa back with me on the next flight back to Seattle and he would meet me there.
Bash Reid became my best friend. We talked about everything but Spider and Vegas. Two subjects that were completely off limits. I never did find out who had beaten him so badly, but I could guess it had something to do with Raven Hannigan.
In the beginning Bash sucked as a dad, but he found his footing and became pretty kickass. We lived in my mother’s old house and he went to work at a local garage during the day. On the weekends he was a bouncer at some club in Seattle and we lived pretty comfortably.
He assured me that he was done with the MC lifestyle but I could tell in his heart he wasn’t. So when he got the call from San Quintin I wasn’t surprised when Bash took the offer of being Angel’s Halo’s new president.
Chapter 8
Willa
Present Day…
I hated Saturday nights at Hannigans’.
I had only been working at the bar for two weeks now, but in the two Saturdays that I had worked I decided that they were the worst days of the week. When I had to work them, they were the worst days of my life.
I carried a tray of brown beer bottles to the back of the bar where seven bikers were standing around playing pool, while seven sheep rubbed themselves all over the men to the beat of the slutty rhythm of the rock music pounding through the bar. I tried to keep a neutral expression on my face as I handed out beers to the bikers.
They knew I was under Bash’s protection, but there was no rule that it was hands off. So while the bikers would keep their hands to themselves, the looks I’d been getting from the sheep was not a good sign. They didn’t like me for a mixture of reasons. One being that the Angel’s Halo MC’s sheep were loyal to Raven Hannigan and considered me a home wrecker in some way. I would admit that while Raven and I weren’t BFFs we weren’t enemies either.
I liked to think we had come a long way in the month since I’d moved into the Hannigan house with Lexa. Raven and I got along well enough even though I knew she still had misgivings about the time Bash and I had lived under the same roof. Now that I was working as a waitress at her family’s bar we got along a little better. I did it to have something to do, but also to try and relieve some of the mounting stress that was pushing down on Raven more and more with each passing day.
It had been two weeks since Flick had run away. Raven wasn’t taking it well. She blamed herself and she was beating herself up over it. The entire Hannigan clan was taking it pretty bad though. Including Jet who was in San Quintin and was the most powerless of them all.
Once everyone had their beers I walked away without saying a word. That was how I got through my nights the easiest. Keeping my mouth shut. I didn’t have to ask people what they wanted to drink, they normally just yelled it out or went to the bar to order and I would take it to them. On my way back to the bar I picked up as many empty bottles as I could so I could dump them once I got back to the bar where Colt and Raider Hannigan were busy mixing drinks and taking care of the customers seated on stools in front of the bar top.
There were ol’ ladies and a few sheep sitting at the bar, having just sat down because they hadn’t been there when I had gone to the back just a few minutes ago. I paid them no attention as I stepped behind the bar with Colt and Raider and started hand washing dirty glasses that were in the sink. Keeping busy made the nights go by faster and kept my mind from wandering.
As I dried the shot glasses and placed them in their designated spots, I saw that Raider was already chatting up a new conquest even though he had already taken some chick into the bathroom not forty minutes ago. I rolled my eyes at him when he glanced my way and he smirked. It only made me roll my eyes again, causing him to laugh.
Colt accidently bumped into my shoulder and I turned to apologize to him but he just grabbed my arm and guided me to the side, winking as he reached for a bottle of whisky. I had heard that Colt was the most like Jet in personality and looks, and I could honestly understand what Felicity must have felt when she fell for Jet if Colt was anything to go by. Charming, bad ass when he needed to be, and a mixture of sweet and arrogant all at the same time. I was immune to his charm just as I was immune to nearly all things male, but I could still get what all the fuss was about.
It was nearly midnight, two hours before closing, when Bash walked in. He didn’t normally come in on Saturdays unless Raven was working. Mostly he stayed glued to her side, watching her as if she would break at any second. It was kind of cute.
Bash wasn’t alone though and I had to grit my teeth to keep from cursing when I saw Spider walk in behind his best friend. I really couldn’t understand those two and their fucked up friendship. One day they were fighting, hating each other’s guts. The next they were best friends again. It was a wonder neither had whiplash the way they went back and forth so quickly.
Colt sat an unopened bottle of Patrón down on my empty tray along with two shot glasses and a salt shaker. Placing a bowl of sliced limes on it he picked up the tray and handed it over to me. “It’s their usual,” he said when I just raised a brow at him. “Spider’s favorite, actually. Beware. He has a pissed off look on his face. Normally Raven is the only one who will deal with him like that. Be careful.”
It really was a night for rolling my eyes. “I’m not scared of James Masterson.”
Colt raised a brow at that and turned his head to study me curiously. “I don’t think there is a person with balls big enough to call him James to his face. Good luck with that.”
Shaking my head I stepped around Colt and headed toward the back booth that everyone seemed to call the Original’s booth. Very few of the Originals came in on Saturday nights whereas they all came in on Fridays. I’d learned quickly that they didn’t like having ol’ ladies and sheep in the bar on Friday nights. They only let Raven serve them or one of the other Hannigans. I could understand why, since it looked like Hannigans’ was their chapel and Friday nights were when they held their official church meetings. Even if Angel’s Halo had their own warehouse that I assumed was much like The Red Dragons’ compound had been before it had been shot all to hell.
I had to weave my way through the masses of people to get to the back booth. The bar was fairly big and the layout was spacious. The pool tables in the back, the bar in the front, with about five booths and thirty or more tables with at least five chairs to each table in between. This was the only real bar for miles. Sometimes locals that weren’t ass
ociated with the MC came in, but I had noticed that they were the ones that looked a lot scarier and much braver than your usual Creswell Springs resident. Also a few college students came in from time to time, mostly females looking for a walk on the wild side.
When I reached the Original’s booth, Bash and Spider stopped talking abruptly making me wonder what they had been talking about. I felt like I was a mindless teenager with the amount of times I was rolling my eyes tonight. Placing the Patrón and everything else on the table in front of them I picked up the tray. Instead of turning to leave as I was sure they thought I was going to do I just stood there, putting a hand on one hip and frowning down at them. “So, what ya talking about?”
I saw Bash’s lips twitch with amusement. Having lived in the same house with me for fifteen months he had grown to know me fairly well. We were friends—hell, he had been my only real friend. Ever. “Club business.”
“Oh yeah? So shouldn’t you be talking to the club about it too? Or is this a president-enforcer-only chitchat?”
Spider grabbed the bottle of Patrón and poured two shots. He tossed them both back without so much as a flinch and I found my eyes locked on the sight of his throat as it moved up and down with each swallow. A knee nudged my leg and I shook my head, clearing it of the stupid desire-filled fog before anyone other than Bash noticed. No way did I want Spider to know he still affected me so completely.
It wasn’t smart to let the big man know that I’d been fighting with myself for the last month. From the day I had set eyes on him again I’d been one mass of aching female flesh. My body didn’t seem to comprehend what my mind constantly screamed at me on a daily basis. Spider had cheated on me, shredded my heart into a million pieces. And I wasn’t going to be one of those stupid girls who took her man cheating with a grain of salt and no more than a bat of an eyelash. It had been one of the things that had ended my parents’ marriage. Duke had cheated with club whores over and over again on top of a shitload of other things club related until Clara had had enough.
I was just happy to have learned early what Spider was really like—which I assumed was how all bikers were.
“It’s just a small matter.” Bash making light of whatever they had been talking about only made me more curious but I let it go. For now. I’d caught a few words of their conversation: Raven, Hannigans’, Hawk and frat boy had been the only things I had made sense of.
The frat boy I could only assume was the guy who had tried to assault Gracie Morgan at a party a month ago. Hawk was out for blood when it came to the guy as it was obvious to any and every one that he and Gracie cared about each other. I had no idea what the two had to do with Raven or even Hannigans’ but I wasn’t likely to get anything out of Bash anytime soon.
I sat down at the booth with them. My feet were starting to hurt and I hadn’t really taken much of a break all night. When neither man spoke I reached for the dish of pretzels I had set out earlier. The ones at the Original’s booth were the only ones I would eat because they hadn’t been touched by a hundred hands tonight. Gross.
Spider tossed back another shot, not bothering with the salt and limes. After a moment Bash poured himself a shot then offered me one. I shook my head. I wasn’t a big fan of drinking and I had no tolerance for it. One shot was all it was going to take for me to start acting stupid.
“Go away, Willa. It’s what you do best.”
My eyes narrowed as I turned my gaze on Spider. He was glaring at me as he tossed back another shot. “Go fuck one of the sheep, Spider. It’s what you do best.”
“Coward.”
“CHEATER.”
He flinched as if I had slapped him, but just swallowed another shot. It felt like the hundredth time tonight—maybe even in the two hundred range—but I rolled my eyes again. Damn it, he was turning me into a juvenile. This whole bar was. It felt like I was twelve instead of almost twenty-two.
“Should I leave?” Bash asked, taking a second shot of the Patrón. “I mean, if you two are going to have angry sex—which is really hot, by the way—then I don’t wanna be around for that shit. You’re like my sister, Willa. Seeing you naked is just wrong.”
I shot him the finger. “Shut up. I’m not going to have sex with him in a crowded bar…” I broke off when I realized the way that sounded. I could feel my cheeks turning pink as my face grew hot. “I don’t want to have sex with him period,” I corrected, silently cursing myself.
The bottle of Patrón was now more than a third empty, but it didn’t seem to be affecting Spider. He zeroed in on my blush and if I hadn’t been looking at him I would have sworn that there was an animal growling outside. There wasn’t; the animal was sitting across from me at the booth and he was growling in a way I remembered all too well. The sound went straight to the center of my desire and I had to cross my legs as my panties grew damp.
“Your hard nipples would suggest otherwise,” Spider assured me as he pushed the bottle of tequila away and leaned forward so he could get a closer look. “And the pulse almost pulsing at the base of your throat… Yeah, that confirms it.”
My face turned redder and I stood quickly. “Whatever. I have work to do.”
Neither attempted to stop me, but I heard Bash chuckling and increased my steps. I could feel the heat coming off my face and knew that it was going to take a few minutes at least before the blush left my face. Damn, it wasn’t like I was a virgin. I shouldn’t be able to blush like this anymore. Of course, a voice in the back of my mind reminded me, it was because of Spider that I reacted liked that. Any other man and I would have been able to walk away, cool and non-pink.
Spider
My head was killing me when I woke up. Nearly an entire bottle of Patrón had been my only dinner last night, my meal of choice these days. Raven was going to kick my ass when she found out and there was little doubt that it would get back to her. I was just waiting on her to call or drop by. Or send one of her brothers over to drag my ass to her house so she could cram food down my throat until I was too full to think about alcohol.
After nearly a month of poisoning my system with good tequila I was ready to ease up on the drinking. Especially after what I had found out last night.
My body tightened as I remembered that cute blush that had filled Willa’s face and then spread lower, disappearing down her shirt. I knew from firsthand experience that the blush would be all over her body. That she was still able to blush told me she hadn’t been spending the four years we had been apart screwing everything with a dick. When I had realized that she still wanted me, all the tequila I had inhaled just minutes before had seemed to evaporate and the little buzz that I’d had going on had completely deserted me. The sight of her nipples pressed so tight and hard against her bra and outlined by the tight work shirt she had been wearing had sobered me up.
The rest of the night I had sat with Bash and watched as Willa worked. When guys would stop her to talk to her, most likely asking for a drink, I would have to swallow a few more shots to keep from going over and punching my MC brother’s teeth down his throat. By the time Bash had been ready to leave I’d been completely wasted and he’d had to call Hawk to take me home.
Cursing, I crawled out of bed and headed for the shower. By the way the sun was shining through the closed drapes in the bedroom/living room I could tell it was somewhere around midafternoon. It was Sunday and I had the day off, but there were things I needed to take care of.
Thankfully Bash had had someone drop my bike off so an hour later I turned my bike off in the Hannigans’ driveway and sat on my hog for a few minutes staring up at the huge house that was currently under renovations. Uncle Chaz’s construction boys were building on two more bedrooms to the already six-bedroomed house.
A movement at the front of the house caught my attention and I found Lexa standing in the now open doorway. The sight of my best friend’s daughter made me grin. Damn, she looked just like her father and was almost breathtakingly beautiful. Long, dark hair, big lightning-fi
lled blue eyes, and a slight tilt to her lips that would one day scare the shit out of boys when she got pissed off at them.
When she noticed that it was me she waved. “Hi, Uncle Spider. Raven, Raven. It’s Uncle Spider.”
A moment later Raven filled the doorway, lifting Lexa onto her hip. “I told you not to open the door without telling someone first, Lexa,” she gently scolded. “It isn’t safe for pretty babies to do that.”
“Sorry. I won’t do it again,” Lexa promised.
Raven kissed the top of the little girl’s head before turning her eyes on me. “Hey stranger,” she called out, a smile making her face shine even though it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
I climbed off the bike and walked toward her. “Hey, beautiful.” I pulled her and Lexa both into my arms for a tight hug.
After only a minute she pulled back, frowning up at me. “You’ve lost some weight. Are you still drinking your dinner?” I didn’t like lying to Raven, so I remained quiet. She glared up at me. “Come in and I’ll fix you something to eat.”
My stomach was growling for what felt like the first time in forever and I didn’t even attempt to stop her as I followed her inside and shut the door behind me. In the kitchen she placed Lexa in a chair at the huge breakfast table before moving to the fridge. “It’s too early for dinner—which you are staying for by the way. What would you like: ham or turkey?”
I took off my cut and hung it off one of the dining chairs before sitting down. “Both.”
Five minutes later two monstrous sandwiches with a large bag of Munchies were placed in front of me. A glass of milk was put in front of both me and Lexa and I grinned over at the little girl as I picked up my glass. “Cheers, Lexa.”
She giggled and tapped her plastic cup to my glass one. “Cheers, Uncle Spider.”
After I had inhaled the first sandwich I realized that the house sounded quieter than normal. With Raven, three of her four brothers, Gracie Morgan, Willa, Bash and Lexa living here this place was rarely this quiet unless they weren’t around. “Where is everyone?”