Page 17 of Heart of Stone
Duck’s truck pulls up around eight. He looks fresh, probably thanks to his old lady kicking him out early. He takes one look at my face and chuckles.
“Rough night?”
I just stare at him.
“Right.” He claps a hand on my shoulder. “The boys are following. I’ll get more coffee on.”
The rumble of bikes draws my attention to the street. Lee pulls up first, his father close behind. Stone might be president, but his son has inherited his commanding presence. At thirty, Lee is already making a name for himself as our enforcer, though most of us still remember him as the awkward teenager who grew up in the club.
“Rough night?” Lee calls out, killing his engine. He pulls off his helmet, revealing the face that has half the women in town tryingto reform him. Dark hair, cut military short, sharp cheekbones, and our president’s steel-gray eyes. The slash of a scar through his left eyebrow only adds to the danger rolling off him, and he wears hisEnforcerpatch like he was born to it.
He nods toward the passed-out prospect on my lawn.
“Yours was rougher, from what I heard.”
Lee flexes his right hand, knuckles bruised. “Fucker had a hard head.”
I raise an eyebrow.
Stone hip-checks his son. “Lee took care of it. Not bad for a freshly minted member.”
Stone moves like a man ten years younger, the only signs of age in the silver threading through his dark hair and beard. His weathered face tells stories of bar fights and hard years, but his eyes miss nothing. He might look like the kind of man you’d cross the street to avoid—all muscle and menace wrapped in leather—but those of us who know him have seen his strategic mind at work.
He knocked up his high school girlfriend at seventeen and then again at nineteen. He took over the club at twenty-five and turned us from a struggling chapter into a force. It takes a lot to be the main provider and carve your way through the club ranks to president. I can’t help but admire the fucker.
“Coffee’s inside. If you ask nicely, Duck might point you in the direction of some breakfast.”
More bikes roll in while I stand on the porch, sipping coffee. Axel, our road captain, leads the pack. He kills his engine only tostart barking orders at the barely conscious prospects sprawled across my lawn.
“Christ, Ax, let them nurse their hangovers first,” Lee calls out, returning with a steaming mug. “Boys had a rough night.”
Axel flips him off. “You baby them too much, kid.”
“Not a kid anymore,” Lee growls, but there’s no heat in it. This is an old argument, worn smooth with repetition.
Duck returns, a frown on his wrinkled face. “Someone get a prospect to go check on Andi. Ginger said her power’s out. She’ll need someone to get ice for groceries if her fridge is fucked.”
I kick myself for not thinking of that last night.
“I’ll do it.”
Lee’s head snaps around. “Who’s Andi?”
“The girl Hawk here was playing house with last night,” Ginger sings out as she emerges from the kitchen with her coffee.
“Shut it,” I warn, but the damage is done.
“Oh?” Stone’s interest sharpens. “Didn’t know you’d brought a girl around.”
“I didn’t.” I cross my arms, glowering as these fuckers henpeck, practically delirious for gossip.
They’re worse than a nursing home.
“She strolled in looking rumpled but cute as a button sometime after midnight,” Ginger says, preening to her captive audience.
“It was after two, and she needed to use the microwave,” I say flatly. “For the baby.”
“Baby?” Axel asks, rejoining us now that the prospects are busy hauling ass. “Since when do we have babies at parties?”
