Throttle MC: A Stepbrother Romance (16 page)

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ugh. How guilty did that sound?

She chuckled and let go of my hand. “Hadley.  Come on.  I’m not quite as naive as I look.  There’s more than just friendship between the two of you.”

I had been staring down at the bedspread, terrified to look at her.  When I finally raised my eyes, Randi’s face told me there was no use denying it. I looked at her in horror.

“How did you know?” I whispered.

“Honey, a mother knows.  And a
woman
knows. I can see the way the two of you look at each other.”

“I’m so sorry,” I choked out.  The dam broke and I started crying.  “I didn’t mean to... I don’t know what’s happened.  Now you know why I need to leave!”

Randi put her arm around me. “Why do you need to leave, honey?”

“He’s... he’s my stepbrother! My
brother
!  You said yourself, there’s no ‘steps’ in this family!”

“Oh, honey.” She put an arm around me and rocked me back and forth slightly as I sobbed.  “I’m so sorry.  I said that because I wanted us all to bond.  I would never have said that if I thought it would come back to hurt you.  Honey, there’s nothing wrong with this.  You two are adults.  You’re not related.  My God, how could it be your fault that your daddy and his mama got married? That shouldn’t keep you from being happy, should it?”

I could hardly believe what she was saying. She reached over and grabbed a Kleenex from the box on the windowsill, handing it to me. “But,” I sniffled, “Even so, Dad would kill me if he knew.  Hell, he’d kill Ryker first. 
Then
he’d kill me.”

Randi laughed softly. “Oh, I don’t know about that.  I’m sure it seems dark now, honey, but let me work on him.  He may not react quite as badly as you think.”

I blew my nose noisily and shook my head.  “You don’t know my dad.  He sent me away because he didn’t want me to have anything to do with the club.  Even if he wasn’t mad about the stepbrother thing, he’d completely lose it if he knew I was involved with a club member.”

“We’ll see,” Randi said.  She rubbed my shoulders as I blew my nose again.  “For now, why don’t you just sit tight? You can always choose to leave, Hadley. But once you’re gone, it’s a hell of a lot harder to come back. Something inside you told you to come back to Cheyenne.  Why don’t you wait until you’re absolutely sure before you decide to pick up and leave again?”

I nodded once, to make her happy, but it didn’t change anything.  Inside my mind was still as made up as ever.  I already was absolutely sure.  I had to leave. Nothing was going to change.  How could it?

Lon had been acting damn strange around me for the past week or so.  I couldn’t quite figure it out.  At first, I thought it was because of me punching Jimmy, but that didn’t make any sense.  Generally, any disputes between club members were handled between them -- often with fists -- and Lon didn’t get in the middle of that shit unless absolutely necessary.  I knew he was upset about Hadley leaving, but I didn’t see how that had anything to do with me.  Lon had no idea about what had happened between us, and both Hadley and I wanted to keep it that way, so I was sure she hadn’t told him anything.

Besides, even if he had any suspicions about something between us, he wouldn’t have been able to tell anything by looking at us.  No one would. I had steered completely clear of Hadley since I’d heard she was leaving.  Now that I wasn’t living at Lon and Randi’s anymore, I hadn’t even laid eyes on her in weeks.  It was torture, but if that’s what she wanted, I sure as hell wasn’t going to get in her way. 

The day before Hadley was planning to head out of town, I rode out by myself to the bluff to think. As I sat and stared out onto the valley below, I remembered taking her there to talk.  I remembered how much I had wanted her that day, and how much it had torn me apart to drive back into town and drop her off.  Hadley had changed everything for me. Everything felt different since she had crashed into my life.

I watched the sun as it made its slow way across the sky. I thought about my life, about how the club had become my family and made me into a man. I thought about how one decision led you to another, and then another, and sometimes you got so weighed down by them that it felt like you couldn’t fight yourself out of it all anymore. I thought about my past, and my future, like one long, winding highway in front of me.

I thought about how none of what was to come would matter much anymore, if Hadley couldn’t be part of it.

If Hadley was going to leave... maybe I should go with her.

The thought hit me like a lightning bolt.  I could leave Cheyenne.  I could pick up stakes and make a new life.  With her.  I could go find work somewhere else.  Maybe find a new MC, even. Start over. With her by my side.

I couldn’t believe I was thinking it.  Hell, before her, there was no way in hell I ever would have considered giving up everything for love of a woman. Cheyenne was just about all I’d ever known, and The Throttle was all that had ever meant anything to me. Would I be able to walk away from everything I had built with the club? Could I walk away from my mother, my brothers, everything I knew?

I could. I knew I could.  If I had Hadley, nothing else would matter much.  It wouldn’t be easy, but shit.  If she’d have me, it would be worth it.

But Hadley would want me to stay. 

Wouldn’t she? Hadley would want me to keep working on the club.  She would want me to keep working on changing its direction and getting us away from the meth.  She was leaving because she felt helpless – because she didn’t want to watch Cheyenne turn to shit and not be able to do anything to stop it.  She didn’t have the power to change anything, but she thought I did. I wasn’t sure she was right, but I owed it to her to try. 

The sun began its descent toward the horizon, and still I sat there, thinking.  I didn’t want to go back and face Hadley’s leaving. I didn’t want to say goodbye. I remembered back to when I was a little kid.  When I didn’t want something to happen, I’d hide in my closet, or up in the tree in our back yard. It was like I thought that if no one could find me, time wouldn’t pass, and that dentist’s appointment, or that math test, would never come. 

I wished that I could do that now, so Hadley wouldn’t fucking leave.

A soft buzz in my pocket interrupted my thoughts, and I took my phone out to see who was calling. Lon.  “Yeah,” I said. I leaned back and stretched my aching neck and shoulders.

“Where you been, brother? Ain’t seen you around all day.”

“Just out,” I replied. “Anything up?”

“Nothin’ bad, but I need to talk to you. Come swing by the clubhouse when you got a minute.”

“Be there in fifteen,” I said. I hung up and stood, taking one last look at the setting sun.

The trip back felt good, the very first hints of the evening air cooling my skin and the bike rumbling underneath me. Too soon, I was back at the clubhouse, where it looked like things were heating up to be a wild night. Loud music blasted out of the bar area and spilled out into the parking lot.  Some of the brothers stood around drinking beer and whiskey and shooting the shit, busty blondes and brunettes hanging off of them. I remembered a time when this had looked like paradise to me.

Lon was over by himself at the other end of the parking lot.  He was leaning against his bike and having a smoke. I pulled my bike up to next to his and cut the engine. He nodded a greeting and took a puff of his cigarette.

“What’s up?” I asked as I swung my leg over the bike.

“Needed to talk to you about something.”

“Sure.  What’s on your mind?”

Lon took another drag from his smoke and threw it down on the ground, crushing it out with his foot.  “I been thinkin’ we need to take the club in a new direction. Away from the meth.”

I glanced over at him in surprise. This was pretty out of the blue. “You serious?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

Never one for many words, was Lon. “So what changed your mind?”

Lon leaned back against the bike and crossed his arms. “I been doin’ some thinkin’. About what you said.” He sighed. “About Hadley’s mom.  About Cheyenne.  About Hadley, too.  I lost her mother to drugs, and I’m about to lose Hadley to them, too.  Just in a different way.  She told me I had no conscience.” He chuckled. “It never even occurred to me that anyone would think I
did
have a conscience.  But it didn’t feel good to hear my baby girl say that to me. Especially when I knew she was right.”

“We can make money other ways, Lon,” I said. “Meth’s easy, but it ain’t the only way.”

“I know it,” he agreed.  “And it’s time we start lookin’ at those other ways. You were right, too.  We’re shooting ourselves in the foot if we destroy the harmony we have with the town. Cheyenne’s been good to us.  There ain’t no reason to fuck that up.”

“Not everyone’s gonna be happy about this,” I warned him.

“They don’t have to be,” he said.  “But they’ll come around.  ‘Specially when we tell them we’re gonna be turnin’ to booze and pussy instead,” he said.  He raised his eyebrows at me. 

I laughed. “That might not make Cheyenne too happy, either.”

“That might not make the
women
of Cheyenne happy,” he grinned. “I think the men will come along just fine.”  Lon took another smoke from his pack and lit it.  “You and me will move the meth out of Cheyenne together. As a united front.  And we’ll keep the Warriors from moving in.”

We sat in silence, looking at our brothers laughing and shoving each other around. It made me happy, seeing them like that.  My family.

“There was somethin’ else I wanted to talk to you about,” Lon continued. 

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s about you and Hadley.”

Holy fucking shit
.  “What about me and Hadley?” Jesus, even hearing him say our names out loud in the same sentence triggered something inside me. I waited half-paralyzed for what was coming next. I wondered if Lon was gonna punch me.

Lon coughed once and cleared his throat.  “I uh... just wanted to say... if there’s somethin’ between the two of you, it’s all right with me.”

“Something... between us?” I repeated dumbly.  I couldn’t move.  I could barely breathe.  This was seriously dangerous fucking territory.

“Yeah.” He took a puff and blew out a plume of smoke.  “See, Randi took me aside a few days ago. Told me she’d been thinkin’ there was something up.  Said when she talked to the two of you separately, it was as obvious as hell you were crazy about each other, but you were both too scared to admit it.” He turned to me slowly.  “That true?”

What could I say? There was no use denying it. And as I stood there with him looking at me, I realized I didn’t
want
to deny it.  Fuck it, I loved Hadley.  If Lon was calling my bluff so he could beat the shit out of me, get my colors taken away, well, so be it. I nodded.  “Yeah. It’s true.”

He looked away and grunted. “Randi, she’s a smart woman. She saw it a long time ago.  I don’t mind tellin’ you, Ryker, I was pretty hot when she told me.  That’s my little girl.  My only daughter. I want what’s best for her. I’ve always tried to do what’s best for her.”

“I know, Lon.”

He took a long drag and tossed the butt away. “You think that’s part of why Hadley’s leavin’? That she feels like this thing between you two... like it can’t work?”

I nodded. “I think so.”

“Well, then,” he rumbled, “You better go find her, tell her what’s what. Tell her she ain’t got no reason to leave town anymore.” He looked at me. “You’ll do that?”

God damn it if I didn’t trust my voice right then.  I cleared my throat.  “Yes sir, I will.”

He clapped me on the back.  “All right, then.” Lon stood up, stretched his back, and took a step toward the clubhouse.  Stopping for a moment, he turned back to look at me.  “Ryker.”

“Yeah, Lon?”

“You got a fuckin’ conscience,” he smiled wryly.  “That’s why I’m trusting you with her.”

I grinned.  “Understood.”

He walked back toward the clubhouse to rejoin my brothers. I watched him go. For a second, I thought about joining them. 

But I had somewhere else I needed to be.

My last day at the clinic had turned out to be more emotional for me than I thought it would be. I had done as Barbara had asked and waited before giving her my final decision, but I had never wavered from what I knew I had to do.  When the week was over, I went back to her office and stood in the doorway.  She motioned me in without a word.

“Have you changed your mind?” she asked me without preamble.

I shook my head.

“Are you sure this is the right decision, Hadley? I hate to see you leave us.”

“No,” I admitted. “I’m not.  But it’s the one I have to make.”

Nothing had changed in a week.  Nothing would change in two weeks, or three weeks, or a year. The Throttle was still involved with meth, and nothing I could do would fix that. And the way I felt about Ryker hadn’t changed.  If anything, my feelings for him had grown stronger the more I kept my distance from him. Even though Randi had tried to talk me out of leaving, even though she told me it would be okay – that somehow, Lon could be brought around to the idea of me and Ryker together – I knew it wasn’t true.  I loved Randi for believing it, and for not hating me for falling in love with her son, but I just couldn’t stay here and spend my life pining for someone I could never have. I just had to hope that by leaving town, his memory would eventually fade, and I’d learn to live my life without the constant ache of knowing I would never be his.