Ryder: MC Biker Romance (Great Wolves Motorcycle Club Book 8) (3 page)

He didn’t go for
the gun that had landed in the field. Instead, he put a hand out to me. I was
in shock, stuck to the spot on the ground where I’d fallen. I was mired in
wedding dress fabric. I was also confused by all that had happened in the last
few moments. Ryder took a deep breath and walked closer

“You are the
craziest bride I’ve ever seen. And you are trouble. For sure. But hurling that
rock? That was the ballsiest shit I’ve ever seen a woman do. Come on, I’ll help
you get out of here.” Ryder’s eyes locked onto mine.

I didn’t know what
was happening between us, but I felt a connection. I felt a desperate need to
put my hand in his and then run. I should go back. I should marry David Wexler.
I should do all those things to keep everyone around me safe.

What I should do
and what I needed to do were two different things. I wanted to be away from Devil’s
Hawks. Something had put Ryder in my path to help me do it. Daddy expected me
to tow the line. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

“I’m huge trouble.
I can’t let anyone else get hurt on my account.”

“Do I look hurt?”
he said, and I looked at him. He was leather, muscle, and handsome hero topped
with swagger and a Mohawk.

And no. He didn’t
look hurt. Three men had come at him, and he didn’t so much as have a scratch
on him.

I put my hand in his,
and he gently tugged to help me to my feet.

“Are you okay?” He
asked me in a different tone than the one he’d used on Boone just seconds ago.

“I think so.” We
were close. He put another hand out so I could stand straight. I couldn’t but
notice it was the same stance, hands in hands, that I was supposed to be in
with David Wexler right now. A sacrifice at some altar at a church I couldn’t
name. Instead, both my hands were in Ryder’s and my heart was beating a mile a
minute.

“Good.” Then Ryder
leaned in and put his lips on mine. It was as savage as the punches I’d seen
him deliver. It was unexpected. And it sent a shock through my body from lips
to toes. I yielded to his lips and felt a gasp escape mine.

Then he pulled
back.

“Let’s go.” Ryder
scooped me up, giant dress and all, and sat me on his bike.

 “What about that,
uh, mess?” I didn’t know how else to refer to the three men my Daddy had sent
who were now in various states of consciousness.

“Good news is it’s
their mess to clean up. They’ll be busy with it for a while. So we need to go.
That one’s waking up.” He pointed to Boone, and he revved the engine.

“Did you touch
Boone’s gun?” I suddenly worried that Ryder would be wanted by the cops because
of me.

“Nope, fucker shot
himself. Now hold on Princess.” I did, the bike surged forward, and I held on.

I didn’t look
back. Daddy had tried to stop me, but he failed.

I knew it was
because of Ryder. Luck or fate had put him in my path. Where that path was
leading now, I had no idea. And it might be lucky for me, but I feared it was
unlucky for him. But there was no turning back now, my ride out of town was
Ryder.

Ryder

I felt her
softness against my back. I tried not to think about how good it felt. If ever
there was a red flag about getting tangled up with a woman what had happened in
the last hour was it.

Gorgeous girl in a
wedding dress running like hell from a nasty trio of bloody bikers should have
had me riding on without so much as a wave. Anyone in their right mind would
have realized this was a bad scene, and she was a dangerous girl to know.

And I’d kissed
her. Out of the fucking blue. This day was getting weirder and weirder.

I’d never been
accused of being in my right mind all that much. She may be a cream puff in white,
but she’d clocked one guy with a rock to the head, and she’d brazenly lured the
barrel of a gun from me to her. I didn’t often look for old lady material, but
those two actions right there had to be on any resume for biker wife.

Wife? Yeah. I was
way ahead of myself. She did have a white dress on for fuck’s sake.

That said I did
have to keep my head and do a little math. I had turned the bike around and
driven the opposite direction of the campground I was headed. If one of them
was awake enough to see us drive off, I wanted them to be a little confused
about where we were headed.

We were headed
west. All the way to the big lake.

After about five
miles and no sign of the Devil's Hawks. I doubled back and headed for my
favorite campsite at Van Buren State Park. It was about a two-hour ride away.

Jules held on, and
I liked it a hell of a lot more than I should have. This chick had nearly
gotten me killed. Though I didn’t blame her. I didn’t have to stop. I didn’t
have to help her.

 “You okay back
there?”

“Don’t worry about
me. Just go.” Okay then. Go I did.

She didn’t try to
talk or act as if she wanted to stop to rest so we rode.

I’d picked Van
Buren because it was close to home. My old home anyway.

It was also just
the right drive away from Grand City to clear my head. Hopefully, it was far
enough away from whatever had Jules looking over her shoulder every few
minutes.

My trip to hang
out alone had turned upside down, but this Runaway Bride needed a ride. Had I
just started a war? I wondered at how much trouble I’d stepped into with the
three amigos I’d left alongside the road.

What was the
alternative? Let her go with those assholes? Not fucking likely.

The violent start
to our ride ended quietly and as I pulled into the familiar campground offices
and general store.

“My plan is to get
a primitive campsite. I got my tent and shit here in my pack. Do you have a
plan?” Jules looked at the pack I’d been hauling.

“Are there any
cabins? I can pay. Can you check?” she said.

“Yep, I’ll ask the
man. But usually, this place is booked solid. It’s the busy season. I’d
recommend you wait here.” I told her. She nodded.

The office clerk
at the Covert Park Beach and Campsite was not going to forget a woman like
Jules walking up in a grass stained wedding dress. If she didn’t want to be seen,
she’d need to stay by the bike. As busy as the campground was, no one was
checking in at the moment. Maybe she’d catch a break and slip in without a lot
of eyeballs.

There were a fair
number of private campsites around Van Buren State Park, one of the many state
parks along Lake Michigan. Covert Park Beach and Campground was one of my favorites.
I could put up my tent, and the fire pit was always ready to go.

I paid the man for
my three nights, less than one hundred bucks, who could beat that? Then I gave
it a try for Jules.

“Any open cabins?”

“Are you kidding?
It’s June booked solid.” I wasn’t surprised by the answer.

“Thanks for
checking man.” He handed me a map to my site. I bought a few supplies, some
with Jules in mind since the office doubled as a camp store and I headed back
to my bike. Jules standing next to it with ruffled hair and wedding gown made
me want to laugh out loud. Her Chuck Taylors were the icing on a wedding cake
she’d basically smashed into the ground.

“Well?” Jules
asked.

“If you’re looking
to stay here you’ll have to stay with me. They’re booked.” Jules looked around me
and at the office. She seemed to be weighing her options. I had no idea what
her situation really was so I let her think a second.

I’d love to get
her next to me in a sleeping bag. Thinking about it was enough to have me
straining against my jeans. But I wasn’t going to push her. Something had
gotten really fucked up in her life. It was best if she made the calls without
me pushing.

“Can I stay with
you? I promise I’ll stay out of your way. I just need to figure a few things
out.”

“It does look to me
like you left in a hurry without much of a plan.” I pointed out the obvious.

“Yeah? Couldn’t be
avoided. So yes or no?” She looked at me with those gray eyes, and the fear was
gone. What I saw now was a flinty attitude. She’d made some sort of decision and
was barreling ahead. Maybe that’s exactly what running away from a wedding was.
A rash decision she’d fully committed to. I could relate to that at least.

“My pup tent is
your pup tent. As long as you don’t snore.” And I saw her pretty mouth curl a
little into a smile.

“I’ll try not to.
And here, I owe you at least this. Let me know if it’s more.” She pressed fifty
bucks into my hands. Okay. She was paying her own way. Sort of. Other than the
bike and the muscle I’d just offered for free.

We hopped back on
the bike and head to the site I’d reserved. Covert Park Beach and Campsite did
have complete facilities for anything you needed just a short walk away, but
each site was private. That’s what I liked. My own patch of beach next to Lake
Michigan. Maybe someday when I retired I’d get a cottage. Of course, the Great
Wolves didn’t have a 401K. Hell, maybe they did? Sawyer was that fucking on top
of shit.

We pulled up to
the site. It was a clearing next to the woods with a picnic table and one
electrical outlet jutting out from the ground.

“This is the
site?” She asked and gave me some side eye.

“This is it. All I
need to enjoy a few nights with nature Princess.” I supposed if I knew I was
going to spend the night with a gorgeous woman I’d have tried for a cabin. But
this was supposed to be a trip with me and the open sky, not me and this
chick’s can of worms.

“You don’t look like
a camper I gotta tell you,” she said to me and she wasn’t wrong.

“You don’t look
like a badass, but I saw you face up to those Hawks, so I’m thinking you might
be just a little bit badass.” She smiled at that.

“What can I do?”

“You ever camp
before?”

“No, never.”

“Okay well, the
first thing is you probably don’t really want to be in a wedding dress out here.”

She looked down.

“I never wanted to
be in a wedding dress anywhere.” Her dress was looking rough at this point.
Grass stained fabric combined with her now windblown hair made her look like a
tornado had hit a wedding and dropped her down in front of me.

“Down that path
and to the right is a set of wooden stairs. At the end of the stairs is a
bathroom with a shower. If you have clothes to change into now would be the
time. It’ll only take me fifteen minutes to set this up.” I had started to
unhook my gear from the bike.

“Okay.”

“And if you see a
bear yell at it, loudly.”

“What? Does that
work?”

“No idea.” She
shook her head, put her bag over her shoulder, and made off for the bathroom
facilities. I watched as she navigated the trail with her dress and attitude.
This was not an outdoor girl, but she also was not a wuss. She hiked up the
dress and soldiered on. It was sexy as hell.

I set up the tent
and started to realize I was starving as I finished the task. It didn’t take long,
and there she was again. Princess Jules had scaled way back on the hair and makeup,
and the girl in front of me looked totally different.

And she took my
breath away.

“I like this better,”
I said to her. She had on a tiny t-shirt and beat up jeans.

“Thanks. It’s all
I could grab on my way out.”

“SCAD? What’s SCAD?”

“My college, where
I went to school, Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia.”

“Long way away
from Michigan.”

“It seems like it
now. Yes.”

“What kind of job
does your SCAD degree, I guess you have a degree, get you?”

“I do. I just
graduated. It’s been less than two weeks.” She looked sad and vulnerable all of
a sudden. I wanted to kiss that look off her face.

“Well, why don’t
you pull up a chair at the picnic table while I start a fire, and you can tell
me about SCAD.”

I busied myself
getting my fire going and putting the grate over it. If there was a better meal
than fish or burgers over an open flame, I didn’t know what it was.

‘Hope you’re not a
vegetarian. I mean I’ve got some chips but mostly it’s meat out here.”

“I’m not really
hungry but thank you.”

Jules seemed about
as lost as a person could get. The attitude and swagger I’d seen as she fled in
a wedding dress were seeping away. It was like the momentum of the morning was
draining from her as the sun went down.

“So how do you go
from graduation robe in Savannah to wedding dress in Michigan in two weeks?”

“I don’t know. Well,
I do know. I just still can’t believe it.” Her chest rose and fell in a way
that made me think that she was holding back panic.

“So you obviously
left a groom at the altar, and you obviously pissed off the Devil’s Hawks. Second
thoughts about getting hitched to a Devil's Hawk?”

“No, well yes. I
was supposed to get married. But not to a Hawk. My Daddy is the Prez. He was
forcing me to marry a man who he needed.” Shit. I was sitting with a daughter
of a Prez, who’d run away. God help me.

“I see, you had no
say in it?” As clean as the Great Wolves were the Devil's Hawks were dirty. The
guns, drugs, prostitution, and crap we divested of still existed and Devil’s
Hawks were among the many trying to get in on the action we didn’t want
anymore.

“I walked at graduation,
and I was going to stay in Savannah or maybe go to Atlanta or something. But
Daddy was there the second I came off that stage. Before the ink was even dry
on Juliet Maldonado’s diploma, he had me handcuffed. He didn’t give me a
choice. We’re back here a day later. He said he’d let me go get a worthless
degree, that’s what he called it, but now I had to earn my way. That meant…”

 She stopped her
story and started crying, and it felt like a punch in my gut. I wanted to make
it okay.

I was by her side
at the picnic table and had put an arm around her. She sputtered and cried, and
I caught every third word. She felt so right in my arms.

“I tried to
convince.. he said it was payback… my degree was a joke.. that my job was for
the club.”

I had no idea what
it all meant, but it poured out of her in spurts. She held me and cried into my
leather. She was tiny in my arms, and it was clear she needed protecting from
her father. From the Devil’s Hawks and whoever this asshole was, she was
supposed to marry.

I’d volunteered
for the job. Without consciously choosing it, I felt it in my blood. She was
going to stay with me. Safe.

I stroked her hair,
and she started to settle down. She looked up at me with bloodshot eyes.

“I’m sorry. I
don’t know what came over me. It’s been a horrible few days. I didn’t have a
way out. And now I’ve snotted all over your jacket.”

“No problem. It’s
seen worse Juliet Maldonado.”

She laughed and
seemed to be slowly pulling herself back together.

“You’re the nicest
biker I’ve ever met.”

“Nice? That’s a
first. So out of curiosity what useless degree did you wind up with?”

“Ceramics.”

“Uh, what?”

“You know making
vases and bowls and even sculptures.”

“You can get a college
degree in that?”

“Yeah, I have a bachelor’s
of fine arts in Accessory Design with a minor in ceramics.”

“What?”

“I want to design
purses and jewelry and pottery.”

“Uh.” I had no
actual answer for that one.

“Yeah, I guess
Daddy was right on that one. Getting a real job with that degree isn’t exactly
a sure thing.”

“Well, you didn’t
get the chance to try did you?”

“No, I didn’t.” I
saw the light come back into her eyes so I kept the conversation going. I
wanted to grab her face in my hands as I’d done before but that was in the heat
of combat. This girl was worth more than me turning on my normal moves. She was
vulnerable but strong. Scared and bold at the same time.