Page 6 of Claiming Her

“Dig deeper. My life,my freedom, depends on me being able to read a person in a second. I know when I meet a ride-or-die person—abraveperson.”

“You’re wrong. I’ve been scared my whole life.”

His eyes widened. And the brown light in his eyes burned brighter than a police drama’s interrogation lamp. “Scared of what?”

“My mother. My father.”

“Were they abusive?” His nostrils flared, and his golden skin tightened around his biceps as they bunched.

“No. Well, at least not physically. I guess I’ve been afraid of making their mistakes. My parents married young, also. My mother came from a violent home. But no one knew it. Instead, all they saw was the head cheerleader. The prettiest girl in her high school yearbook. So beautiful…”

“Like her daughter.”

Angel shrugged. She’d been called that before. But after Christian, who knew? She sure the hell didn’t.

“My father was the captain of his football team. A high school quarterback with a golden college and NFL future. Instead, came home from his college’s spring break and left behind a pregnant teen girlfriend before returning. When he found out, he married a woman he didn’t love to save me from growing up in my mother’s miserable and violent home. He thought he was doing the honorable thing.”

“But it’s never that simple, is it? Doing the right thing can kick you in the nuts as hard as doing thewrong thing.”

Didn’t she know it?“He resented the hell out of her. He finished his degree at a local community college. Working two jobs to pay for everything without his athletic scholarship.”

“So, you’re afraid of ending up in a terrible marriage?”

“No, the marriage is survivable. The aftermath is what kills you, or at least it did with my mom. She threw my dad out after years of his cheating.”

“Good for her.”

“Butbadfor me. She became agoraphobic and refused to leave the house.”

“How did she get the things she needed?”

“People are very resourceful when they don’t have a choice.”

He arched his brow at that. “Anyway, she didn’t leave the house, and she didn’t like it when I went out either. I could play in the front yard and in the neighborhood. But that meant her sticking her head out every twenty minutes to yell my name. This started when I was twelve and continued through high school When I decided I’d had enough.”

“My girl.” His whoop and fist pump made her smile. She hadn’t had a cheerleader in a while—or ever. “Where did you go? What did you do?”

“Believe it or not, I got a job at a local gas station.”

“And if I’d seen you, I’d have swept you up on my bike and rode off with you. Never looking back.” Her face blazed again, but he merely shrugged. “I guess knowing what we want runs in my family.”

“Well, not in mine. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I was sure it wasn’t in the cell I’d grown up in. I worked up the nerve to contact my father. We hadn’t spoken in a while. Too much resentment on both sides.”

Clouds brewed across his face as his eyes narrowed. “Don’t do that. Don’t give him any excuses. There are none for not being there for your kids. In my crew, we look out for family. We put our kids above everything else. Even riding.”

“Do you have kids?”

“No. Not by blood. I always use protection. That’s just part of protecting what’s mine. But the guys I ride with are family. And their children even more so. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for them. As long as I have breath, I’ll be there for them. Just like my father’s MC brothers were there for me.”

“That’s an enormous commitment.”

Hannibal had a way of holding her eyes, squeezing them so tight she couldn’t blink. Could barely breathe. “I’m not scared of commitment. And I will always take care of what is mine.”

“Yeah, well,” she swallowed hard. Not willing to look deeper at that statement. “I reconnected with him. I never found out his reasons for disappearing. My mom probably didn’t make it easy for him to keep in touch. When I found him, he was remarried.Happily, this time, to Lorraine. They made space for me in their lives. They owned this house and were using the upstairs for boarders. But they let me have it as soon as it became available. Unfortunately, I didn’t have too much time with him before he passed away from cancer.”

“Sorry to hear it. It’s rough when you lose family. How about your mom? Is she still around?”

“Yeah. I hurt her, and for a while, she tried to manipulate me with guilt and her illness. But I resisted. She has her network of helpers, and until she’s ready for therapy, I need to stay away. Her life has been a churning whirlpool for a long time, and I can’t let it suck me down anymore.”

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