Lost Hearts (The Unknowns Motorcycle Club Book 1) (5 page)

“Wherever’s close,” Alex said. “I’m pretty sure you don’t want to go back in there, right?” he asked, hitching a thumb to the restaurant.

As if on cue, the front door opened and Slim stepped out. He looked up and down the parking lot, stopping when his eyes landed on Alex and Amanda.

“I thought you got lost,” Slim said. He didn’t come forward though. He simply called across the lot, not wanting to interfere in whatever situation Alex had found himself in. “You done for the night?”

Alex shrugged. And before he could answer, Amanda answered for him. When she did, it was with a confidence and humor he had not expected from her. It was the sort of thing that made him suddenly realize if he spent any amount of time with this woman, he might get himself into some trouble…the sort of trouble that those really bad chick flicks were made of.

“In there, he is,” she said. “He was just on his way to grab a cup of coffee, though.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Everything after that happened quickly and in a way that hot summer days on vacation tend to pass by. It happened fast but in a blur of dizzy happiness that made you already anxious for next summer.

Amanda had no idea what the hell she had been thinking agreeing to have coffee with this man. She was ten minutes removed from being on the brink of being raped or murdered by a strange man she had just met and now she was driving to a coffee shop down the road with yet another strange man in her passenger seat. Granted, this man had saved her from one hell of an ordeal, but still…

The first thing that had happened after they had gotten into her car was that she had changed her mind about the cops. She had called the police and given them her story. She simply gave them the make, model, and license plate number of the car. She also gave them Mark’s name and where he would be, probably still knocked out. She hung up not knowing if the police would actually do anything since she had said she wouldn’t be pressing charges, but it felt good to feel like she was taking some sort of action.

With all of that done, there was, of course, the strange man in her passenger seat. Had she not been nearly traumatized from her experience with Mark, she would have been painfully attracted to him. But in her current state, attraction simply wasn’t something in the cards for her.

But maybe…maybe there was
something.
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye as she neared the coffee shop at the end of the block. He had gotten a phone call just as she had been wrapping up her call with the police. He was speaking into it right now, his face not showing any real expression.

She hated that she felt there was something about him. Hell, maybe
any
woman would be interested in a man that saved her from a maniac. But she thought it was more than that. She had no idea
what
it was about Alex, but she was suddenly very sure she wanted to find out.

***

Alex couldn’t help but smile as he ended the call and slid the phone back into his coat pocket. Slim had been on the other end and while he already had the wrong idea about this situation and was giving him hell, his attitude reminded Alex why the two of them were such good friends.

“Was that your friend?” Amanda asked him from behind the wheel.

“Yeah.”

“Is he mad that you ditched him?”

“Not at all. He just wanted to make sure I’d pay him for my part of the tab.”

“You’re both bikers?”

“Yeah.”

Amanda had figured this out when they had decided to leave for coffee. When she had seen that his ride was a motorcycle, she had gladly volunteered to drive.

“Are you locals?” she asked.

“No. We’re on our way through to Chicago.”

“Oh,” she said.

And that had been their first conversation. The weight of it clung to them as she found the coffee shop, pulled into the lot and got out. It was heavier still, punctuated by their silence, when they ordered their coffee and took a seat in the otherwise dead little coffee shop.

“So for real,” Alex asked. “Are you okay?”

“I think so. I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s…well…it’s been a while since I put myself on the scene, you know? It’s a long depressing story, but I just wanted to meet someone. Not to sound easy or anything…I just wanted a man to talk to. Someone to spend time with. Does that make sense?”

Alex nodded, although it didn’t make much sense to him. Outside of sex and the comfort of knowing there might be someone to come home to, if only for a few weeks, was the only thing he had known of a relationship since the age of seventeen or so.

“Sounds like you’re coming off of a bad break up or something,” he said.

She hesitated here, running her finger along the edge of her coffee cup. “Something like that,” she said. And although it was a simple statement, Alex could tell that it was not only a lie, but there was an immeasurable amount of pain behind it.

“So what’s your story?” Amanda asked. “Why Chicago?”

“Oh,” he said, not sure if he wanted to get into that. He felt certain Amanda was the sort of woman that might not appreciate the fact that he was in a motorcycle club. What bothered him more than that, though, was that he was actually worried what she might think. That was something he usually didn’t care much about one way or the other…not even when it came to a pretty woman.

Why is she different?
He wondered.

He realized he had been quiet for a good fifteen seconds. She was looking at him strangely, surely sizing him up.

“It’s sort of like a work opportunity,” he said.

“That feels pretty thin,” she said.

“It is.”

“Is it something you don’t really want to talk about?” she asked.

“Bingo.”

“I understand that,” she said. “But I’ll make a deal with you.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll tell
you
something that I never want to talk about if you’ll tell me what’s really going on in Chicago.”

Alex felt himself wanting to get instantly defensive, but he reined it in. What was the harm in telling her the bare bones of what was going on? After they finished their coffee, he’d be on his way to the hotel and then, tomorrow, to Chicago. He’d never see Amanda or this small town again.

“I’m in a mototcycle club,” he said.

“Like a gang?” she asked, with just a bit of humor.

“No,” he said, again having to ward off the defensiveness. “Like a club. We have business interests that will serve us better in Chicago. Plus, there are a lot of policemen from where we’re originally from that would cause us a lot of trouble if we stuck around.”

Amanda looked a bit hesitant, but not scared. This struck Alex as monumental because she could have very well scooted her chair back and ran for the door. But there was actual interest in her face and the hint of a smile.

“Business?” she asked. “Like illegal stuff?”

“I won’t lie…some of it is, yes. But the majority of it isn’t. Bike clubs aren’t all like what you see on TV. I mean…there’s some of that, yeah. But for the most part, we’re harmless.”

“The way you beat up Mark makes me think you’re used to fighting, though.”

“Was that his name?”

“Yeah.”

Alex shrugged. “I suppose I
am
used to fighting. But that came long before I joined the club.”

“And the entire club is just going to move to Chicago, just like that?”

“Not the whole club. Just a few of us. I think we’re leaving behind about a dozen of our twenty-two members. No hard feelings or anything. They have families and good jobs. But guys like me…no roots, no commitments. So it sort of works.”

“Oh.”

She seemed to think about it all for a moment, marveling at the sort of lifestyle he lived. If she was in any way disgusted or offended by it, she made no clear sign. In fact, she smiled at him and looked shyly to the table.

“Okay,” Alex said. “Your turn.”

“So, tonight was the first time I ever met Mark,” she said quickly, as if she might change her mind about telling him anything if she didn’t get it out right away. “I haven’t had a date in two years and I decided I was going to
make
myself meet someone. So I sat there for about an hour or so and Mark just happened to be the first man that approached me.”

“I find that very hard to believe,” Alex said. He meant it, and she could tell. The slight rosy color that rose into her cheeks was evidence of that. “Not just that he was the first one to come by,” Alex added, “but that you hadn’t had a date in two years.”

“Oh well…see, my husband died a little over two years ago. So I’m trying to get back out and play the field, I guess.”

“Oh my God,” Alex said. “I’m so sorry. You can officially renege on your end of this little deal.”

“No, no, it’s okay. I think I sort of need to get it out. Eventually…but first…Jesus, tonight was like something out of a bad movie. I told Mark to sit down and he seemed genuinely nice and respectable, you know? And I won’t lie, I have no idea how far I intended to…you know…how far I’d go. Two years. That’s a long time.”

“Sure,” Alex said, still processing that she had lost her husband and was now trying to pick her love life back up. It made him feel like he didn’t belong there at all. It should be someone else with her. She should have someone with a much more sympathetic ear to listen to her as she spilled her guts about her pain and what had just happened to her.

“He asked if I wanted to get out of there and I followed. We made it to his car and before I knew it, he was grabbing me from behind. I fought back and he punched me and—,” she trailed off here, collecting herself.

“It’s okay,” Alex said. “Really. You don’t have to—,”

But she was determined to get it out. “He had a blindfold in the back seat,” she went on. “I saw it as clear as day. I don’t know if he was planning on kidnapping me or raping me and killing me right there in the parking lot…,”

And then she did start crying. After three seconds of it, Alex did something that surprised him so much that it made his heart sink. He reached out and took her hand. He could feel it trembling in his grip.

“You’re safe now,” he said. “He’s still knocked the hell out in the parking lot. And if you want, I can hang out with you until you feel that you can drive back home.”

“I appreciate that,” she said. “But you don’t want to hang out with me. I’m a mess. This was just a horrible mistake on my part.”

“But I
do
want to hang out with you,” Alex said. “Don’t play stupid. I know you saw me looking at you in the bar.”

She nodded, smiling. The blush rose back to her cheeks. “It was nice to be noticed,” she said. “I won’t lie. But this is like some brand new thing to me. I wouldn’t know if someone was checking me out. My radar for assholes has clearly rusted since I was married eight years ago. Leaving with Mark was proof of that.”

Alex was unsure of how to follow up from that. They sat in silence for a while and he realized that he was still holding her hand. He let it go gingerly. As he did, they both heard the roaring of a motorcycle engine rolling by the coffee shop. They both looked out of the window and Alex watched as Slim rolled by, headed for the hotel.

“You should go,” she said. “Meet up with your friend. Sounds like you have a lot of driving to do tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I do,” Alex said. “But I’m not leaving until I know you’re okay to make it home.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I might double check my locks tonight but other than that, I’m good.”

“I’m going to need proof.”

“How?”

Alex shrugged but an idea came to him right away. “Give me your phone number. I’m going to call you in the morning before we head out to make sure you’re okay.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know. But I want to. And hey…it’s not just to pamper you. Believe it or not, most men enjoy getting a beautiful girl’s number.”

She smiled again and when she did, Alex was reminded of what he had seen in her at the bar that had drawn him to her. She
was
beautiful, but in that simple sort of way that was so hard to describe.

She reached into her purse and grabbed a pen. She then wrote her number down on the side of the paper cup that Alex’s coffee had been in.