Page 3 of Her Brother's Keeper

I blinked and the guys around me started to laugh, I took it from the lanky brother and sure enough, he had an address.

“I’ll be a son of a bitch,” I muttered.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Yeah, remind me to keep as much of my shit off the internet as possible,” I muttered.

He shook his head, “That’s my job, I do what I can to keep usalloff the internet.”

“Good to know,” Rush uttered and took a swig of his beer.

“So what ‘cha thinkin’?” Dragon asked me, my gaze lingering on the stark black letters and numbers on the crisp white page.

“I’m thinkin’ I have no idea how to put together a fuckin’ charity run. Charity wasn’t exactly our thing back in AZ.”

Dragon nodded, and Rush piped up, “Man, this jailbait really got under your skin, didn’t she?”

“Bro, I couldn’t even tell you,” I said and I meant it. I literally could not stop thinking about Maren of the soulful brown eyes. I just couldn’t.

“Data, take notes,” Dragon rumbled and Data went back to his little command center.

“Ready when you are, P.”

And that’s how we ended up spending the rest of our Saturday night. Brainstorming and putting together this last-minute charity ride for Maren Tracy and her little brother I had no idea how I let myself get into this; but strangely, I didn’t regret getting involved, not one bit.

Chapter 2

Maren

I was in the kitchen, making lunch for me and my little brother, Sage. It wasn’t anything fancy, just sandwiches and some soup. It was cold out, and it just seemed like a grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup kind of day. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself. Really, we were getting down to the wire money-wise and I didn’t get paid again until after Christmas. The nice part was, at least I was current on all of the bills, thanks to the man in my checkout line the day my dad had died.

He’d crammed nearlyfour hundred dollarsinto my hands just before he’d left and I’d been stunned, staring at his back as he’d walked away, the image of the heart wrapped in barbed wire seared into my memory.The Sacred Hearts,his jacket had proclaimed, he was one of them and I’d been confused. I mean, bikers weren’t typically nice guys were they? I thought if they had those patches on their backs that they belonged to a gang or something. Of course, it wasn’t like I would ever find out orknowwithout ever talking to one of them, right? I’d found the internet as a research option less than helpful for this sort of thing because it seemed that the motorcycling community was just as divided as the rest of the world on the issue.

So, I’d kept an eye out in the intervening week, on my way to and from school, and to and from work. I hadn’t encountered anyone with the same club affiliation since; though I wondered if that was due to the cold and the snow. I raised my head from where I was pouring soup into two mugs at the roar of machines out on the street. It sounded likea lotof them. Probably more than I had ever seen in one place.

“Maren! Maren, come quick! They’re pulling intoourdriveway!” Sage called from the living room. I rinsed the grease off my hands in the sink from plating the sandwiches and I hurried out of the kitchen. I stepped quickly through the living room drying my hands on a dish towel wondering for the thousandth time,like every timeI heard a motorcycle if it was him.

Those lightly colored eyes, so pale a gray as to almost not even be there had bored into mine and… I don’t know, it was like he’d communicated with me, without having said a word.

“Sage, get back here! Don’t go out there!” I frustratedly sighed. My little brother wasn’t listening to me, hadn’t been listening to me like at all since our dad had died. Like now, he already had the front door open, a man in black leather on the other side, fist poised to knock. I swallowed hard at his appearance. Black gloves with white skeletal finger bones printed on the backs. He had one of those matte black half helmets on; his eyes indiscernible behind black wraparound sunglasses. The lower half of his face was hidden beneath a bandanna, printed much like his gloves with a leering skull that overlaid his face beneath perfectly.

He looked down at Sage and his muffled voice asked, “Is your sister home?”

“Why, you here to kidnap her?” Sage asked, “Because I wouldtotallylove that.”

“Sage!” I snapped and the man at the door lifted his gaze from my brother, pinning me where I stood halfway from the kitchen, up the hallway, into the living room. Though I couldn’t see if it was him, the man from the store, the gaze, even through the dark glasses held the same weight, it stole my breath and I swallowed hard, hoping but not expecting.

Sage looked back over his shoulder at me and rolled his eyes, stepping aside and opening the front door wider so they could see me.

“She’s right here,” he said.

“Can I help you?” I asked and the man pulled off his sunglasses with one hand and the bandana down off his face with the other.

“Do you remember me?” he asked, and itwashim, standing on my doorstep.

“Yes, of course. What can I do for you?” I asked, ghosting timidly up to the open door, blasted by the frigid air outside. More of the bikers were stepping up onto our front porch and I shifted from foot to foot, nervously.

“I’m Nox, and these are my brothers and sisters,” he said. “We wanted to come by and wish you a Merry Christmas,” he said and unzipped his jacket part way down. He pulled out a long green envelope and held it out to me.

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