Page 31 of Hunter

Chapter Ten

Mallory

Ihad yelledand screamed at his back as he entered through the door, but after ten minutes, I knew he wasn’t coming back out. The truck doors were locked, and I wasn’t getting out unless I smashed the window, and I didn’t have my nail file to get out through the floor. I didn’t think Hunter would appreciate me defiling his truck as I escaped, either. Besides, I couldn’t leave without Adair.

All in all, I was trapped.

Trapped with all the memories I had never wanted to face.

The door Noble had filled that last day I saw him was open, and the onlookers only occasionally glanced my way without much regard. They probably trusted that Hunter knew what he was doing, or figured I was another one of the annoying women who stalked the club men for the danger, sex, and drugs. In that case, it was more than okay to leave me in the truck.

Bikers were like that. But not Noble.

Noble had been kind. Noble, who I had met in a moment and crushed on for a decade. I had fallen in love in a day, and it had been every kind of gift I could ever wish. That man had given me the best thing I could ever have wished for. Yet, even as I looked at the doorway, back in the same car park, it was as if I was there again, breaking my own heart all over and destroying a man’s world with one little lie.

I regretted it. Despite what it had given me, despite the fact I would do it all over again if it meant having Adair, I wished I had never done it. The girl who never looked back, who was never ashamed of whatever she had done, had the heaviest guilt in her heart.

I felt tears well up in my eyes, and I couldn’t stop them as they poured down my face. I curled into a ball and allowed the memories to tear my heart apart again and again until there was nothing left.

* * *

Ididn’t knowhow long I sat in that truck with my heart bleeding through my fingers, but by the time I had gone silent, my mind and emotions had grown numb. I sat with my fingers interlaced around my knees, and despite everything, I couldn’t bring myself to care about much. I trusted that Hunter would look after Adair, so I kept to myself in the silence of the truck.

A knock on the window startled me.

A young, black-haired man leaned against the window with his ink-covered biceps flexing. His eyes washed over my clothes and face, and then my eyes and stopped. I probably looked like a mess, but once again, I couldn’t care.

“Now,” he said, a small hint of a southern drawl lacing his voice, “what’s a pretty thing like you doing all alone in the dusk?”

I hadn’t noticed, but he was right; it had gotten darker, with pale blues and oranges now painting the skies. We had arrived around four, and it didn’t get dark until about six this time of year, so I had been left in the truck for at least two hours. Longer than I had thought.

Deep down, a part of me was pissed that Hunter had left me out here this long without checking on me, but the rest of me was too tired to listen to it.

“Too pretty to go inside.” I shrugged. “Some men can’t handle my charms.” It was a weak attempt at sarcasm, but it made the man beam.

“Ah, you’re the baby’s momma.” He said it like it was some wayward explanation. “I thought I recognized that face.”

At that point, I realized who he was. He had been the one to drop off the truck. He wore his cut and a patch that read “Road Captain,” like the one on Hunter’s cut reading “SGT at Arms,” whatever that meant.

I quickly reached over the console and wound up the window.

His mouth dropped open as if a woman had never wound a window up on him before and stepped away from the truck. He put his hands over his chest and faked a wounded heart.

I smiled and waved before looking the other way.

When I looked back, he was by my window again, breathing air across it before sketching a number. He held up his hand to his ear like a phone and winked. Then he turned on his heels, waving as he walked into the clubhouse.

I watched him go with a sigh.

I’d had too much trouble with a sexy pair of brothers to add any more to the list, despite that hot little drawl he seemed to hide in his voice.

I shook my head and curled up on the seat, feeling lighter somehow. I reached for the console and tried to wind the window back down, but it wouldn’t budge. Yeah, I figured that little discovery wouldn’t get me far. Windows that wound up when the truck was locked, but not down. Weird.

* * *

Three hours.

Three frickin’ hours he had left me in this truck.

---