Dark Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 6) (11 page)

“That’s quite a threat.”

“You know it. When we came back to Denver, Uncle Sandy talked to Trigger MacGee – he was President then, though he’s dead now – and told him everything. Trigger decided that Mom had the protection of the Fallen Angels, and that she’d never need to worry about anything again.”

Shay hated to admit it, but that was actually really nice. Sadly, she was sure that there were strings attached to the MC’s good deed, strings that could so easily double as a garrotte.

“And how’s your Mom now?” she said.

“Good. Happier than I’ve ever seen her. Ace has upheld Trigger’s commitment and still sends her money every month, and she uses it to hire a few guys to help out around the farm. She’s relaxed and safe, and she’s finally saving money for retirement.”

“And that made you a target because as long as you did what Trigger and Ace wanted, your Mom was taken care of,” Shay said, as light dawned. “You stayed quiet and toed the line and prospected with all your might, and your Mom was safe. Right?”

“Right.” Warren’s tone was resigned. “I knew within a month of coming to Denver that I’d made a huge fucking mistake… but by then, Mom was roped in and my hands were tied. I couldn’t walk away, couldn’t tell everyone that I’d messed up. Couldn’t ask to be set loose, couldn’t run. If I had, they’d have come after both of us.”

“Yeah. Yeah, they would have.” Shay tilted her head at him. “Also, I bet you knew too much even by then, huh?”

“I sure did. And now that I’m patched-in, I know even more. Too much.” He held her eyes, saw how beautiful she looked in the glow of the fire. “I’m in the club, baby. In for life. No way out for me.”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

“So, you see, this ain’t
me
. Not
me
as I really, truly want to be. But at the same time, it
is
me. I’m the one who did what had to be done to patch-in, and even though I can say that I did it for Mom, it doesn’t excuse some of the things I’ve done.” He hesitated. “You know I’ve hurt people, Shay. Killed people. You know the kinds of things that I’ve had to do in the past, and you know that I’ll do things like that again in the future.” He forced out the next words. “You know that I’m a bad guy in so many ways, and the fact that I don’t
want
to be one doesn’t take away the blackness of my sins.”

Shay was silent now. Yes, she knew all of this about Warren. As gentle and kind as he was in his heart, there was no pretending that he hadn’t done horrible things. No denying that he’d do a lot more of them. Hell, he was smack in the middle of doing a horrible thing, wasn’t he? Holding an innocent woman hostage
definitely
fell under the category of ‘Bad Shit’.

But she
also
knew all about being trapped in to the MC life because of family connections. Her saving grace was that she was a weak, stupid woman, and so she’d been spared the whole ‘patched-in-for-life’ thing. Yeah, her brother had tried to get one of his brothers to claim her as MC property, but Shay had fought
that
tooth-and-nail. Hal had finally had to back down and let her go – and she knew that he
still
resented her for that.

And hell, look at her now: kidnapped because of Hal and who he was. So yeah, Shay knew
all
about the messy, tangled web that was outlaw biker life. She knew how it could trap you, suck you in, take over your whole existence. And even if by some goddamn
miracle
you managed to extricate yourself like she had, the truth was that you weren’t totally free and clear of it. You still weren’t out. You weren’t free.

The undeniable truth was that the only way to be
really
out, to
really
be free, was to be dead.

So she nodded at Warren. “I know. I know the position you’re in.” Regret made her voice heavy. “I’d do anything to make it better for you. Make your life different.”

She was surprised when his eyes lit up, and he gave her a huge smile. Puzzled, she stared at him.

“But you
do
make it better, Shay, and because of you, my life
is
different right now.”

“I do? It is?” she faltered. “But – how?”

“Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I got to be gentle with someone?” he said. “Since I got to take care of someone?”

Stunned, she shook her head.

“Just over eight months. For just over eight months, I’ve been a sexist, violent, angry asshole. I haven’t even
touched
a woman, because I don’t like one-nighters, and that’s all that the club hellions offer. I’ve had no chances
at all
to be careful or kind or steady, since acting that way isn’t rewarded in my life now. Being loving and tender is weakness in my world, and taking care of someone else is making yourself vulnerable. But these past four days here, with you?” He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. “I’ve been able to be myself for the first time since I left Kentucky. You don’t know what that’s meant to me. You don’t know that you’ve given me something back that I thought was gone forever. You don’t know how grateful I am to you for that, baby.”

She gazed at him, so incredibly touched.

“I know I was a dickhead a few times,” he admitted. “I’m truly sorry for that. I just – I didn’t know what to do with what was happening between us.”

“What
is
happening between us?” she asked softly. “What
can
happen between us?”

“Well, maybe we need to talk about that a bit, huh?”

His voice was molten and husky; his smile was slow and hot. Right away, her breath caught and her thighs clenched. Oh,
Lord
, this man.
Why
was the most perfect man in the world for her
also
the last man on earth that she should or could be with?

“OK,” she said, fighting for calm. “We can talk about that.”

“First, though…” He touched her hair. “Can you tell me about you?”

“Me?”

“Ummm-hmmm. You.”

“Alright.” She gave him a small shrug. “But I’m not that interesting.”

“I doubt that very,
very
much. “ He ran his fingers through her blonde waves, stopped when he hit a snag. “Will you let me brush your hair while you talk?”

“Uh.” She stared up at him. “You want to brush my hair?”

“You mind? It’s all tangled.”

Her legs felt weak, even though she was sitting down. No man had ever done this for her, and she was almost overwhelmed by the sweetness of the offer.

“I don’t mind,” she managed to say.

“
Awesome
,” he said with so much enthusiasm, she laughed. He jumped to his feet. “You want something else to eat?”

“Oh, no, thanks. It was amazing, but I’m stuffed.”

“You sure now?”

“Totally. Maybe some more water, though. I’m really thirsty.”

“One water, coming up.”

Shay watched him take their dirty dishes to the kitchen, put them in the sink to soak. He had his broad back to her now, and she admired the way that his large muscles were visible even through his t-shirt. She had no idea what they put in the water over there in Kentucky, but she totally approved.

He brought her the water and then ambled off to the bathroom, came back carrying a brush still in its package. When he got to her, he oh-so-carefully lifted Shay to her feet, then sat her down again on the floor in front of the fire.

The MC boys must have either been inspired by some porno, or by a James Bond villain lair, or maybe just by the rustic cabin setting, because they had a real, actual, bear-skin rug on the floor. She settled down on it, her injured leg stuck straight out in front of her, and tried to ignore the gigantic head with eyes that seemed to stare right at her. The thing was
creepy
, was what it was.

Warren sat down right behind her, gently pulled her between his long legs. He leaned back against the chair that she’d just vacated, and she almost sighed at how
good
this all felt. Shay hesitated, just for a second, then she rested her elbows on his thighs, loving the solid bulk of his muscles under her. She longed to just curl up against his strong body, just close her eyes and fall asleep in the warmth of the fire. But he’d been open and honest with her, and now it was her turn.

Fair was fair, after all.

Warren started to brush her hair, going slowly to not hurt her when he hit a knot. His huge hands felt amazing on her, and she relaxed completely under his touch.

“This is OK?” he asked.

“This is perfect.”

“Yeah. I think so too.”

She sat silent for a minute, and he didn’t push. He just brushed her hair in long, rhythmic strokes, letting the golden strands run through his fingers like water. Her skin looked so delicate and pale against his rough, calloused hands, and he handled her like she was made of the finest bone-china. Caring for her soothed him and calmed him, but most of all, it made him happy, happy in ways that he’d never been. Not even before the MC had taken over his life and he’d gotten lost in the dark.

God
, this woman was something else, something that he’d never encountered in the whole of his existence. She was all sunshine and sugar: hot and sweet, golden and creamy. Shay was everything that he’d ever wanted and never known it, and he wasn’t about to miss his chance to be with her for as long as they had. He had no idea what time with her was going to look like, but even if it just looked like this – her leaning against him, him brushing her hair – then he’d fucking take it. He’d take
anything
that she wanted to give him.

“So.” She sighed, shifted so the blanket fell off her shoulders a bit in the heat of the flames. “Me.”

“Yeah, baby. You.”

“Well, you know who my brother is, so I guess that’s the best place to start. With me and Hal.”

Warren just kept brushing, listening hard. He heard nothing but hurt in her voice, and he found that he was aching for her already.

“Our parents died in a car accident, back in Utah,” she said quietly. “Like I said, I was fifteen and Hal was nineteen. You need to understand that he was different then. He was – he was a good brother. A good person. He was in college on a football scholarship at the time, and he dropped out to come back home and find a job and take care of me.”

“That must have been hard.”

“It was. It was
so
hard that I didn’t want him to do it. I begged him to stay in school, begged him to not give him up his pro football career, begged him to let me move in with my aunt and uncle.”

“He said no?”

“He said no to
all
of it. He said that we weren’t close with my aunt and uncle, which was true, and that my only
real
family was him. He said that we’d need each other, and so he wanted to be with me.”

“He was trying to do right by you,” Warren said. “You were his little sister and he was trying to protect you.”

“I know. But it was the worst thing he could have done, in the end. It – it turned us against each other.”

She fell silent again, and he waited.

“Anyway… Hal couldn’t find a job. Like – nothing. He found out the hard way that if you’ve spent your entire life playing football, then that’s all that you’re qualified to do. He ended up working nights at a canning factory for absolutely shit money. We had to move in to a one-bedroom apartment, and he gave me the room, since he said I needed it to study in private. We saw each other in the mornings after he came back from work and before I left for school, and that was it. But we actually held it together for a while, which still amazes me.”

“How long?”

“Almost a year. I was doing really well in school, and was less than two years away from graduating. I wanted to get my Education degree, become a teacher, and I was told that I’d get at least a partial scholarship and that I qualified for financial aid. I really, really thought that once I’d gone, then Hal could get his life back on track.”

“He’d lost his shot at pro ball though, hadn’t he?”

“Yeah. But he had all kinds of people in his corner, people who remembered him from his football days. Coaches, fellow players, even some of his college teachers…
everyone
was trying to help him out, and he was being inundated with offers. Teaching gym, or coaching at a high school, or running some sports camps. He could have done any of that, no problem. I really thought he’d go with teaching, to be honest with you. He really liked kids, and he volunteered every Saturday at a local community centre, coaching at-risk kids. He was so happy to give back, and he loved spending time at the centre.”

Warren was having a hard time wrapping his mind around all of this. He’d met Crusher Alcott a few times, and the man hadn’t shown one ounce of compassion for anyone at all. He was a huge man, one of the biggest that Warren had ever laid eyes on, and the fact that the guy had a semi-pro football background made total sense. But nothing else did: not him caring so much for his baby sister, or him sacrificing his dreams to be there for her when she needed him, or him working with at-risk kids. He wasn’t known for his kindness, at all.

No, what Crusher was famous for was crushing grown men’s wind pipes with his bare hands. He’d come by his name honestly, and he was a scowling, lethal bastard. The idea that Shay was related to him was – literally – heart-stopping.

How
had Hal become Crusher? How had he gone from a kid with stars in his eyes to the man that Warren knew, the one with nothing but coldness in his stare? From being a generous, loving man, to being a full-blown monster?

Warren very much feared that he already knew the answer to those questions: what had happened to Hal was the Highway Hellions. Joining the MC had started the slow, inevitable, poisonous slide downwards and Warren suspected that now that the change had taken place, there was no way to come back. He thought that Hal was lost and gone, that Crusher had moved in and taken up permanent residency; he thought that Shay knew that, too.

He also feared that what had happened to Hal was going to happen to him. That it was
already
happening to him. That the metamorphosis from Warren to Derby was gaining a firmer hold every day – and Warren was sure that the man that he was becoming would soon be
all
that he was.