The Sinner’s Tribe Motorcycle Club, Books 1-3 (91 page)

Which was one of the reasons she'd agreed to go out with Viper. No chance of losing her heart to a man who looked so fierce and feral it was hard to believe he was as articulate, entertaining, and well-mannered as he had been with her—albeit, his sexual restraint was somewhat disappointing.

“What about Ty?” Connie asked. Connie and Ty were very close and she had already expressed her concern that Zane might not want to have anything to do with his son.

“I'm not sure yet. I need to give it some thought.” Her hand hovered over her purse again. “He has a right to know about his son, and I need to know the truth of what happened that night. But I don't want Ty to get hurt if Zane's not interested in being part of his life. Zane didn't come looking for me. If he hadn't been chasing Axle, he would have been content to spend his life not knowing or caring where I was.”

“Well, you probably don't have to worry about it.” Connie ran her fingers through her hair. She'd added blue and red streaks after Ty's favorite superhero character as a welcome home-from-camp surprise. “Sounds like you slapped some sense into him and now that he's got Axle, he has no reason to come back.” She paused and frowned. “What's Vipe gonna think about man getting shot by your ex at your shop? What if he thinks you're involved?”

“I'm not. And I'm definitely not interested in getting it on with a man who would shoot someone in cold blood.”

“'Cause Vipe's such a saint, is that right?”

“You're very irritating.” Evie huffed. “Did I ever tell you that? And I haven't seen any evidence that Viper is a bloodthirsty killer. He's a biker is all.”

Connie laughed. “I call 'em as I see 'em, and right now I see you still got feelings for Zane 'cause it's only eleven o'clock and you're on your second coffee of the day, which means you can't sleep. Not only that, you're already having second thoughts about the first guy who's caught your interest since I've known you. Not that I'm in Vipe's corner, but so far he's treated you good and you were all excited when Axle showed up to set up the next date.”

“Maybe he's too old for me.” Evie lowered her voice when she spotted one of Ty's friend's moms headed in their direction.

“Didn't seem to bother you until you laid eyes on the same version—intense outlaw biker, leather cut, kick-ass bike—but twenty years younger.” Connie mused. “I sense a little age discrimination going on. Lookit those fifty-plus movie stars getting hitched to women twenty or thirty years younger. You don't hear those women whining that their man is too old.”

“That's true. But when I think of Viper in bed as compared to … oh, I don't know … maybe Zane, there really is no contest.” She glanced at Connie, blushed. “Of course I've never slept with Viper and only once with Zane, and that was in a forest on some scratchy leaves and cold grass with rocks digging into my ass, so it's not really a fair comparison—more of a thought comparison—but, my God, you should see the pipes on Zane now, and that chest…”

“I'm not wearing pink to your wedding,” Connie said. “I have a closet full of pink frothy bridesmaid dresses. I want something slick and chic. Maybe black leather if you're getting hitched to a biker.”

The school bus door opened and the crowd surged forward taking Connie and Evie with them. “Nice to see you're already getting me married off,” Evie braced herself against the stampede. “If the day ever comes, I won't want a wedding. So no need to worry that I'll deck you out in flamingo pink.” She waved when Ty appeared at the top of the stairs.

“You are SO a wedding girl,” Connie said. “Some people are meant to shack up and live in sin. Like me. People like you, however, who hide a fundamentally conservative nature behind a streak of wild, are meant to wear tulle, dance to “At Last” by Etta James, and have a happily ever after.”

“You've got it backward.” Evie gave in to the tide and let the crowd push her forward. “It's the wild in me that's gone into hiding. When Zane and I were in high school, we'd do all sorts of crazy things—climb trees, walk fences, drag race … stuff like that. One Saturday night we got up on the church roof, watched the stars, smoked a joint, and talked until dawn. Then we rang the church bell and just got away before my dad and his deputy showed up. Jagger used to have fits when we told him what we did, although I think secretly he was jealous. He was just too responsible to join us.” She hesitated, bit her lip. “I always felt the most like me when I was with Zane, like I could do anything and he would be there to catch me. I still miss that feeling.”

She made it to the front of the crowd just as Ty came down the steps. “And, by the way,” she said over her shoulder. “If I was going to have a wedding, my first song would be Radiohead's, ‘True Love Waits.'”

Connie laughed. “I'm definitely wearing leather.”

“Hey, bud. How was summer camp?” Evie squeezed Ty in a hug as soon as he stepped off the bus. He had grown over the last two weeks. She didn't remember his head coming up to her shoulder, or his dark hair brushing his collar, but he was thinner, and deeply tanned. Had they not given him enough to eat?

“Great.” He returned the hug and then just stood in the circle of her arms, still young enough not to be embarrassed by her affection like some of the older kids were. Her Ty was quietly affectionate, grounding himself in stillness. Just like his dad. She suspected he would never be one of the kids who pushed their parents away. After what they had been through in Stanton, they were very close.

“Hi, Tiger.” Connie ruffled his hair. “Check out my streaks. Who does that remind you of?”

Ty pulled out of Evie's embrace and frowned. “Superman?”

“No.”

“Fourth of July?”

“No again.” Connie gave an indignant sniff. “One more wrong answer and you're back on the bus for another two weeks of starvation.”

“Is Connie joking?” Ty looked to Evie for confirmation and she laughed. He was always so serious and intense, and Connie, with her sharp wit, took full advantage.

“Connie's always joking,” she said, taking his bag. “That's why I don't pay attention to anything she says.”

“I heard that, and now I'm only talking to Ty. Not you.” Connie put an arm around Ty's shoulders and led him to her car. Evie followed behind, warm in the knowledge her son was home.

He was like Zane in so many ways, and now that she knew Zane lived in Conundrum, how could she not tell Ty he was here? Over the years, she'd shared as much of the truth as she thought Ty could handle: his father left before he was born, and although she tried to find him, she'd been unsuccessful. She had been careful to make sure he understood Zane's absence wasn't a rejection. There was no point in sharing her bitterness or turning him against a father he didn't know. Maybe because she'd always hoped one day she would find Zane again.

Well, now she had found him, but things hadn't gone as she imagined they would. Her anger at his abrupt departure had paled beneath her outrage when he told he had come back and left again when he'd seen her with Mark. All those years missed with his son, and he had the audacity to be angry with her. With so much hurt and so many secrets between them, she couldn't imagine they would ever find their way back together, but she didn't want to stand in the way of a relationship between Ty and his father.

If that's what Zane wanted.

“Should we go out to lunch to celebrate?” She gave Ty's hair a tug from behind. He had been fair until he turned four, then his hair had darkened and he'd taken to wearing it long—too long for a mother's taste. But now, having seen Zane, the resemblance was unmistakable. No one could doubt he was Zane's son.

“Can we get pizza? Camp food was crap, except for campfire nights.”

“Don't swear, Ty. You know I don't like that language.” At least not from him. But at Bill's shop, swearing was a way of life, and she'd long since stopped trying to get the mechanics to curb their language.

“You swear,” he said. “All the time. You say ‘damn' when things don't go well.”

“And I put a quarter in the swear jar every time.” Good thing he had never heard her when she hung out with Zane and Jagger. They'd given her an entirely new vocabulary of swearwords that had taken a long time to shake after she became a mother and adopted a more conservative outlook—one that apparently made Connie think she was wedding material.

And yet sometimes the rebel in her broke free—the rebel Zane had fed with his own kind of wild.

What would Zane think about her dating Viper? Or would he even care?

 

FIVE

Before you start, get comfortable with your tools. You never know what you will need, and when.

—SINNER'S TRIBE MOTORCYCLE REPAIR MANUAL

Zane knew Jagger would find him.

No way would his best friend let this one slide. But he was grateful Jagger had, at least, given him a few days to get himself together after seeing Evie. Too bad he'd used that time to fall apart instead.

“I heard this has become your new home.” Jagger pulled out a chair at Zane's table and waved his hand vaguely at the room in front of him, encompassing the full expanse of Rider's Bar. The Sinners owned several legitimate businesses in Conundrum, including bars, strip clubs, nightclubs, trucking companies, and shops, all convenient for laundering money, hiding shipments of stolen goods, and turning over a profit for the club. Some members worked on the legitimate side. Others, like Zane, Jagger, and most of the Sinner executive board, handled the sale and supply of illegal arms.

“What of it?” He raised his voice over Foghat's “Slow Ride.” One thing about Rider's Bar, they always played good tunes. Too bad they couldn't do something about the smell. Usually, Zane didn't notice the thick yeasty scent of beer overlying the more pungent aroma of cigarette smoke, but tonight his belly roiled with every whiff.

“How many have you had, brother?” Jagger settled himself in the chair and pushed aside the collection of bottles Zane had asked Sherry to leave behind. Once a house mama at the Sinner's Tribe clubhouse, Sherry had been thrown out of the MC after Axle used their relationship to steal guns from the club. At the urging of the executive board, and because Sherry had been physically coerced, Jagger had partially forgiven her betrayal and agreed to let her work at Rider's Bar. Sherry had accepted her dismissal with good grace, but everyone knew she was just putting in time, hoping Jagger would let her back into the club.

“Sherry's counting. Not me.” He stared at the sea of bottles, unable to meet Jagger's gaze. This was not a conversation he wanted to have, and especially when he couldn't think straight. Jagger had a way of cutting through the bullshit and right now the bullshit was the only thing keeping his heart from spilling out of his chest.

“She says you're not fit to ride.”

“Sherry doesn't know dick all about me.”

“Apparently, neither do I.” Jagger leaned back in his chair, folded his arms behind his head. “All these years, you've been going on about the woman who betrayed you and ripped out your heart, and you never told me it was Evie.”

“She tell you that?”

“Nope. But you just did.” Any other man would have smirked, but Jagger wasn't the smirking type. He just laid it on the line.

“Didn't matter.” Zane drained his bottle and shoved it across the table as the bitter taste of beer lingered on his tongue. Usually he went for the harder stuff, whiskey or rye, bourbon if Cade, the club treasurer was pouring, but when Sherry had come to take his order, he'd asked for beer—Corona—the kind he'd dropped on the kitchen floor of Jagger's house after he saw Evie in his best friend's arms.

“I'd say from the bottle count on the table it matters a hell of a lot.”

“Fuck off, Jag. I'm not in the mood.” Zane lifted a new bottle and Jagger grabbed his wrist.

“Fair warning. We had an executive board meeting scheduled for this afternoon. When you didn't show up, I postponed the meeting and sent Shooter to hunt you down. The meeting is being reconvened right here at your table. You got ten minutes to sober the fuck up and do your job, so you might want to reach for the water I told Sherry to bring you instead of that bottle.”

They locked gazes, and tension hung in the air between them. “Get your fucking hand off me.”

Jagger released his wrist, and Zane tipped the bottle into his mouth. The vile taste of warm beer spread across his tongue. But damned if he would let Jagger tell him what to do.

“Wrong choice, brother.”

Zane snorted. “My life has just been one wrong choice after another. At least I'm consistent.”

“What happened between you and Evie that night of the party when you two ran off and left me playing vids on my own?” Jagger cut to the chase; he wasn't a man who had time to waste. As president of the MC, he had over one hundred men depending on him, a multitude of businesses to run, and politics to handle. Although the executive board helped spread the load, in the end, he was the man in charge. And he loved it. Zane had never been interested in leadership, but he did enjoy his position as vice president and Jagger's right-hand man. Power from the shadows. That was him.

“You mean the part before her dad tried to kill me and I became a wanted man? Nothin'.” He took another swig from the bottle and thudded it on the table. If Jagger kept this up, he'd be forced to leave and he didn't know if he'd be able to stand, much less walk a straight line through the bar.

“Does it have something to do with Mark?”

“Jag.” He barked the name, cutting Jagger off. He couldn't talk about Evie and the thought of her married to that no-good piece of slime made his stomach twist. Anyone who spent their study breaks getting drunk under the bleachers wasn't good enough for Evie. In his eyes, no one had been good enough for her, and he'd made sure every guy in Stanton High School knew the score.