Page 99 of Price of Angels

Another dead end.

“I’m gonna have the Greek salad, and the fettuccini,” Ava said, handing her unopened menu to the waiter.

Holly took one last glance at the menu. “Bruschetta chicken, please.” She handed her menu over. “And the garden salad.”

“That chicken’s fantastic,” Ava said as the waiter unclicked his pen and whisked away. “Stella has the sun dried tomatoes shipped in from Italy.”

“Wow.” Holly took another glance around the small café.

Part of a standard strip of retail space, the interior had been carefully crafted to look Old World and authentic, with golden frescoed walls, heavy ceiling timbers, bronze pendant lighting, wide floor tiles. There was a ventless gas heater inside the faux stone fireplace, and the bright flames gave off a fair amount of heat. Above, the mantel was heaped with jars of tomatoes, olives, and rich oil that fragmented the light. From where she sat, Holly could see the desserts in the bakery case, and was wondering how much the chocolate-dipped biscotti in the paper sleeves would cost, because she was probably going to have to have one as she left.

“I’ve never been in here,” she confessed.

Ava’s brows lifted. “You haven’t?”

“I cook most of the time. Or eat at the bar, if there’s not time.”

“You cook? I try. And fail a lot.” She laughed. “Poor Merc has been my guinea pig. I think I only gave him food poisoning once.”

Holly grinned. “Did you really?”

Ava nodded and made a face. “Undercooked chicken. It wasn’t pretty.”

Holly winced. “Oops.”

“He cooked dinner for a whole week after that,” Ava said with a laugh. “So it turned out for the best.”

Holly grinned. “He cooks?”

“Oh, yes. He’s French, you know.” She rolled her eyes, but her smile was warm. “Never question a Frenchman’s prowess in the kitchen or the bedroom.”

“Good to know.”

“And if you do question it, be prepared for an earful and a demonstration.” Ava’s cheeks looked tinged with pink in the afternoon sunlight as she reached for her Sprite and took a sip.

Holly sighed and couldn’t seem to help it. One of those sighs that always left her lips when she watched an old romantic movie. “You guys are so sweet together,” she said, before she could stop herself, then cringed with regret.

Ava looked curious, but not offended.

Blushing, Holly said, “I didn’t mean…well, it’s the way anyone who saw you could tell that you like being together. You’re friends. I don’t guess I expected to see that…”

“Coming from a biker?” Ava guessed. “They do get a bit of a reputation, don’t they? It’s the bikes, and the cuts, and the leather.” She dropped her voice a notch. “And that whole ‘outlaw’ thing. Which” – she leaned across the table – “I gotta tell ya, that part’s not made up. They’re outlaws. Don’t get me wrong.”

Holly nodded. So she’d learned. “That doesn’t bother me.”

Ava studied her a moment, expression contemplative. “How much has Michael told you about the club?”

“Not much. I didn’t ask, either. That’s not the reason I’m…with him.”

Ava nodded, her smile approving. “There’s only two things you really have to know about it. One: the boys owe it their allegiance, their time, their livelihoods. And two: women are kept out of any and all club business. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?”

Holly nodded.

“But most women can’t hack it. That’s not an insult to them – God knows they’re better off not aligning themselves with a massive international outlaw organization. But it’s that they don’t ever understand what the club is. It isn’t like a college fraternity. It isn’t like one of those riding clubs that dentists join when they buy Honda cruising bikes. It’s for damn sure not the biker crap they tried to pass off onCSIthat time.”

Holly grinned.

“The club” – Ava pressed her lips together, thinking how she wanted to phrase it – “the club is outside of normal culture. The men who started it were returning war veterans, and when they felt ostracized and unappreciated by the people they’d fought to protect, they decided to start their own civilization, outside all the cultural norms of regular society. A counterculture. Their culture, their rules.” She lifted her brows in silent question.

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