Page 8 of The Grief We Hold

I open the door with the pathetically loose chain on and see Wraith, his curls and face wet. I’d almost forgotten how attractive the man is. Oh, and terrifying. Or terrifyingly attractive.

Can a man be both?

His cheekbones, sharply cut and casting shadows in the streetlight, would suggest so.

“Open the door, Blue,” he says, and I jump.

My brain utterly revolts at the idea, but I don’t want to offend my boss’s son. The two of them seemed close. When I left the diner, he was looking at the ignition for the gas ring that wasn’t working properly. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah. To get out of this fucking rain. So, can you open the door and take the pie you forgot so I can get on with it?”

“Oh,” I say, remembering that Margie had, indeed, put a second container with pie in it on the counter for us, and I’d left without it.

He offers a takeout container toward me. The tattoos all over his hands look ominous, but there’s something attractive about them. And while I’m sure the biker has done lots of bad things, bringing me pie I’d forgotten from his mom’s diner isn’t one of them

Everything in me relaxes.

I quickly remove the chain, which I’m sure he could have kicked through in half a heartbeat. “Thank you. I was in a hurry to get Fen. It was so good of you to bring it over.”

I debate whether I should invite him in but conclude that’s not what either of us need.

He tips his chin. “Night, Raven.”

By the time I close the door and reapply the chain, I hear the roar of a motorbike engine.

This is what I wanted. Some peace. A small town. Where people look out for one another.

Instead of ruining their lives.

3

WRAITH

Walking into the part-log, part-timber-framed clubhouse the following day is like being grappled in a bear hug. It’s by no means a fluffy, warm embrace. It’s loud, rough, and occasionally too much.

But tonight, it’s just what I need.

Atom’s father commissioned the build using his land on the Oakum Ridge Ranch and club funds over forty years ago. Its position means we have two layers of defense with outer and inner gates, and two concrete turrets out in the fields to view the road from two different vantage points.

The building has weathered and got a new roof last year. The interior was gutted five years ago for its growing needs, but some features we kept.

The wooden floor of the bar is old and uneven. A huge fire roars in the stone fireplace. And rock music blasts from the speakers that hang in the corners of the great room.

I see Atom—our burly enforcer, dressed in his usual plaid shirt—miss a ball on the pool table. Grudge, our vice president, whips the dollar bills stacked on the edge of the table with somuch glee that I can see a fight happening between the two of them five seconds before Atom throws the first playful punch.

“Watch the fucking furniture,” Catfish, our treasurer, calls out. The man is all olive-toned skin and green eyes that cause all the club girls’ panties to drop on demand. The all-around attractive fucker got his road name after the police came looking for him as a prospect. Some bitch thought she’d been talking to him online and was his girlfriend or some shit. She’d been sending him cash to move to live with her in Frisco. As it turned out, some scammer had been playing her for a fool using pictures from Catfish’s social media profile.

After that, Camelot, the national head of the Outlaws at the time, dictated no members were allowed to have a social media footprint at all. The man’s dead now. Buried several feet under. King, his son, took over, but he hasn’t relaxed the rule at all. And his tech guy, Vex, issued a national procedure for all new members to minimize their online presence before they get their first patch.

A firm hand slaps across my back. “Good to have you back, brother.” Butcher, my president, is a good-looking silver fox of a fucker. The guy’s hair went gray when he was still in his twenties. The urban legend is it happened after his first kill for the club. The one where he earned his name.

Feels a bit like one of those drunken stories that got a little out of hand and rewrote history, but the reputation precedes him. He’s a leader who doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty.

“Good to be home. Took care of that little problem we had in Cedar City on the ride back. Little punk didn’t know what the fuck hit him.”

We grow weed. Lots of it, if the truth be known. But sometimes our distribution network gets a little greedy. They start skimming. Or delay paying. Or worse, start using theproduct instead of selling it. That happens, we step in and remind them who they are dealing with.

“You get our cut?”

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