Page 9 of Strider's Misstep

“Er,” she starts, hesitantly. “I’ve got some ideas if you don’t mind giving me a few days to see if I can get some help for you?”

“Honey, I’d give you a year if you thought it would help.” Internally, I feel a buzz of excitement begin to grow. Sheri, a woman I admire and who shares my love of the MC genre, actually likes my book. Actually, she thinks it could be published.

“I’ll be in touch,” she tells me. “Take care of yourself.”

“Take care of you,” I respond automatically.

As it turned out, though, it was she who took care of me. God knows how she found time with a baby, but she joined Facebook groups, became friendly with PAs and authors, and found me aneditor whom I could afford. Having read the book, she knew my description of the hero and looked through all the stock photo sites to find a cheap photo that matched him to a T. And then, somehow, she found a cover designer.

Before I knew it, I had a formatter, and a book that I could load up and send off into the big bad world. I swear I felt as nervous as any mother bidding farewell to their firstborn on the first day at school.

Book one wasn’t a bestseller or anything like that, but the sales and reviews were enough to encourage me. Once I’d started writing, I found it addictive and hard to stop, so more books flowed. As each added to the series, I started to make a few bucks. And hey, to my amazement, I soon found I was turning a profit.

I owe so much to Sheri. I swear she knows my books better than I know them myself and always points out inconsistencies between the stories.

Fast forward six months, and I’ve just published my third book.

Even more exciting, Sheri encouraged me to get on the waitlist for the next Motorcycle, Mobsters and Mayhem signing, and I’ve just received an invite.

Me.What the fuck?

When I first met Sheri, I was jealous she’d been to the signing that I’d have liked to have gone to myself. As a reader, of course. And now? Now I’m going to be attending as a freaking bonafide author!

Sure, there are a few ways life could be better. But this? Abused wife to club whore to author? There’s surely little that could be better than that.

Nowadays, Sheri and I communicate by sending messages, so a phone call takes me by surprise. I answer with a twin senseof anticipation and dread as I’ve just sent her the first draft of my fourth book.

Instead of answering with a polite “hello”, I dive straight in. “Is it dreadful?”

“Fuck, no.” She laughs. “But…”

“But?” I prompt when the silence stretches out.

“Oh, Jas. You broke my heart with that book. It’s you and Strider, isn’t it? Or, at least, the way you hoped it would have worked out.”

I swallow hard, and my voice is as low as a whisper. “Have I really been so obvious?”

She doesn’t reply for a moment. “I only made the connection because I know you. It won’t be to anyone else. Since no one in the club is going to read your book, there’ll be no one who’ll suss it out. It’s an amazing story—bittersweet, so suspenseful, so many ups and downs and then a happy ending. You really have an amazing imagination.”

Yeah. I have an imagination, all right. Maybe the problem is that I didn’t rely on it too much when I wrote this particular book. But as Sheri says, no one who actually knows me will read it.

My secrets are safe.

And so is my foolish admission that I fell in love with Strider.

CHAPTER THREE

STRIDER

Flanked by Shotgun and followed by the sergeant-at-arms and enforcer, I head directly back to the club. I’m riding by instinct, barely conscious of the road disappearing beneath my wheels. My emotions are all over the place.

Another man might want to shoot the balls off any men who’d organised such an intervention, but the VP, Buzz, and Tequila are not only my brothers-in-arms, but my best friends. They’ve been in my life for as long as I can remember. Initially annoyed, I’d quickly realised they wouldn’t have said anything had I not let things, and myself, get out of control. And for that, the person I’m most angry with is me. I wouldn’t have been made prez if I wasn’t levelheaded in all situations, especially those where the outcome could be that men would live or die. The last few months, though, my temper’s been short, my patience non-existent.

I’m embarrassed that they’ve identified something I’d refused to admit to myself, that my problems all harp back to my personal life, which should never have been allowed to fall back onto the club. Hell, I managed to keep it separate for years until Jasmine, who was only supposed to be a pleasant diversion in the sack.But she’d crept under my skin,and I couldn’t handle it.When, well, when she, no,we, my brothers are right, had made that mistake, inside, I was falling to pieces, and my exasperation with myself affected my performance in the club.

Now, I’ve another sentiment to contend with.Fear.At first, I was surprised but delighted for Jasmine that she’d been writing books. Good for her. I always knew she was too clever to bury herself in a life as a club girl. But my officers would never have brought it to my attention if it was only that she’d been working for herself on the club’s dime—she does enough for us, tending bar and keeping the other whores in line. But having been around the club for three years, she won’t have been blind to some of the more shady things that have gone down. Some of which might make excellent material for a novel.Fuck it.Did she know too much? Has she stepped over the line?

What do I do if she has? If she was a man telling tales on us, she’d pay with her life. If she’s committed a crime, I’m the prez, and I can’t be weak if punishment needs to be meted out.

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