Page 9 of Hero: Claimed

On day two, Hannah took me shopping. “We don’t think you should spend any more of that money,” she said as we were thumbing through the racks of the plus-size section in the local Walmart.

“Then there wasn’t any reason to come here. I’ve got no other money, and you know it.”

“Seeing as you’re in the predicament you’re in, the club gave me money to take you shopping.” She held up a super cute black-and-red fitted lumberjack-style shirt. I put it in the cart to try on. It was always a crapshoot whether the buttons would actually button over the boobage. Then we found a cute pair of black jeans.

“I can’t take the club’s money, Han. I’ll just have to save up what I’ve spent and try to get it back to Crush somehow.”

“No. The club decided. You’re staying there, Brin, you have to follow their rules.”

Since he didn’t know where I was, I really had no idea why the Lords cared, but Hannah was right. If they decided, then they’d decided. The last thing I needed was to get kicked out. So I tried on more clothing and let Hannah use the club’s money to pay for it.

When we got back to the compound after the shopping, catching a comedy at the local theater, and grabbing dinner at steak joint the next town over, we found the brothers were throwing an impromptu party just because. A few different girls showed up looking for Hero and they were none too pleased to hear that he had an old lady now. They were even less pleased to see it was me. I wanted to pull them aside to tell them don’t worry. I’m his old lady in title alone. They’ll still have their go with him if he so chooses.

I really did.

But when one of them started bitching about him “fucking fuckin’ Shamu?” I didn’t think they deserved to know. When she called me a beached whale… Well really? Which am I, Shamu the Killer Whale who had been safely tucked away in his tank in Sea World until his demise, or a beached whale?

I could have given her the trite insults. It was botching her metaphors so severely that I simply couldn’t excuse. So at least for now, as far as those women know, I’m Hero’s old lady in every sense of the word.

This morning the brothers slept in. I was sitting out on a barstool in blissful silence sipping on a steaming mug of strong coffee when a beautiful woman with curly, bouncy fire-red hair hanging down her back walked in wearing a tight-fitting long-sleeved, emerald-green T-shirt and a skintight pair of black jeans, much classier than the brand of women who showed up last night, carrying a baby in one arm and a bottle the shape of coffee creamer in her other hand.

“Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner,” she said to me, setting the bottle down on the bar top. As if I was supposed to know her or be offended that she hadn’t shown before? “I had to work. By the time I got home, ate supper and spent time with the kids, I was wiped.”

“Perfectly understandable.”

She shoved the bottle toward me. “It’s turtle, you know, chocolate and caramel. I made it myself. For you.”

For me? Well, okay then. I flipped the lid open to smell it. Definitely coffee creamer. And it smelled decadent. Why the hell not? I poured a big glug into my coffee, turning the liquid beige, and took a healthy sip.

Wow. “This is amazing,” I told her. “I’m Brinley. Hannah is my sister.”

“So I’ve heard.” She smirked. “Oh—I’m Caitlin, by the way. Duke’s wife. This rugrat here”—she then jostled the baby in her arms slightly—“is Diesel, our son. Jade’s up at the house.”

Caitlin is a doctor. Makes delicious homemade coffee creamers. And is woman enough to service the club president until death they do part. But she’s also one of the ladies who wants to see Hero settle down so badly that they actually think I should be the one to get him there.

Please. Look at me.

More than that, they don’t even know me. I could be a dominatrix. Or… Or a pigeon farmer who treats my birdies like my babies. Let them eat mashed-up worms out of my mouth and junk. That’s not right.

Though, to her credit, she was so damn likable that when she invited me up to their house to talk with her while she weeded the rose garden before the first snowfall of the season would make it impossible which would prevent her roses from growing strong and plentiful in the summer , I couldn’t sayno.

She waited for me to dress. Just a regular old pair of straight-legged blue jeans and that fitted red-and-black checker button-down, like a flannel but made of normal cotton. Since the buttons buttoned, and it actually flattered my ample figure, I bought it. Caitlin and I walked outside and across the club’s parking lot over to the most charming blue-sided house I’ve ever seen. With a giant wrap-around porch, shutters, and planter boxes all painted white.

Her rose garden was actually a sectioned-off flowerbed that followed the contour of the porch.

It made me ashamed of the dump of an apartment complex I left behind. The apartment to the left was two bedrooms but had probably twenty people hanging inside at any given time, all druggies. The unit to the right had like ten kids. The poorest of the poor, even I walked gallons of milk and boxes of cereal over to them, and I lived in a constant state of broke-ness. And then there were the permanent houseguests occupying everyone’s homes, houseguests in the form of cockroaches and rats.

My dad kept me so under thumb that I couldn’t have moved to a better complex even though I wanted to. I had to entertain his friends. I had to feed them. Clean for him because no one else was going to. Caring for him took up all my spare time. There was no way to supplement my crappy fast food job by finding a second job. The Pork Pit, that’s where I worked. I got paid shit and constantly smelled of smoke. But because everyone knew of my dad and his associations, The Pork Pit had been the only place out of the plethora of applications I filled out to hire me. That was because the Pit did a whole lot of business with my dad’s club, The Black Pythons.

The Pythons, in turn, held close affiliations with the Riot. As in Devil’s Riot. The club of the man he sold me to. I don’t know if my dad was ever a good man. He must have been at some point because he managed to land Hannah’s mom and, more than that,mymom. She was beautiful inside and out. Which means, he had to have had good in him some time or another. But all I’ve ever known was the addict. Twitchy. Violent. Willing to sell his daughter for drugs.

I got lost in gardening and conversation. So lost that four hours later I’m finally back in the club sore in all the right ways but ready for a long, hot shower.

4.

Levi

That was a long-ass three-day ride. First we took off to meet with a potential new shipping client, make themnotpotential, and get contracts signed. That came easy for us.Long HaulShippinghas a pretty solid reputation.

---