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“And you already know mine, too, Trip.”
He blinked in confusion, then kept his face neutral as he raked his gaze over her once more. At least the parts of her that weren’t hidden behind the bar.
Fuck. He now remembered Pete having a girl. He’d seen her more than a time or two before her mother took her and left town in a hurry when the club began to fall apart. Back then, she had long hair, but it was a light brown, not black. And, of course, no tattoos or piercings. Plus, no attitude to boot.
She’d been sort of sweet on him from what he could remember. Followed him and Sig around like a fly on shit. She always wanted to hang with them, but they had chased her away since they hadn’t been at the age yet where girls were important. Back then they had been just a nuisance.
He couldn’t remember her name, though. If the woman standing before him was even her. Pete could’ve had other kids with someone else after his ol’ lady hit the bricks.
Though, this one looked about the right age.
“Remember me, Trip?”
“No,” he lied.
“I remember you.”
I remember you.
The hair on his arms and neck stood.
Fuck. Did he do something bad to her? Did he hurt her in some way?
He might have pushed her down once in his haste to get away from her. To get her away from him and Sig. To get her to stop bothering them. He closed his eyes for a second and the cries of a little girl came back to him. In pain. In rejection.
He did that. He caused that.
He reached out and snagged the large letter “S” that hung from a long black leather cord around her neck before she could stop him. He studied the silver pendant in his palm and wracked his brain trying to remember her name. But it slipped from his hand as she quickly stepped back out of reach, putting not only the width of the bar between them but an invisible wall.
“Stella,” he whispered, lifting his gaze to hers.
She didn’t answer, but he could see it in her face he was right.
Stella, the one that used to chase him around the warehouse and the courtyard insisting she was going to marry him. And he’d yell back right in her face, “Get lost, you crazy bitch.”
Memories began to crash around him. Taking him back to that time he thought he’d forgotten.
It started when he was about ten and she was probably six. And ended that last time when he was about fifteen and she was eleven when he finally snapped. She tried to kiss him, and he shoved her away so hard, she stumbled back and cracked her head against a concrete block wall.
He didn’t mean to make her bleed like that. His intent wasn’t to hurt her. He just wanted her to stop bothering him. But it had pissed off her old man, which in turn pissed off Trip’s when he heard what happened. And Trip got his ass kicked so hard by both Pete and Buck that he couldn’t move for two days afterward.
He learned his lesson that day to never put his hands on a female in anger. The painful bruises were also a good reminder for weeks afterward.
It wasn’t long after he hurt her that the club imploded, so he never saw her again. Her mother split, taking Stella, and so did Trip’s, taking him along with her.
A twelve-year-old Sig was left behind because Trip’s mother didn’t want anything to do with him. Not surprising, but still...
It was the last time he saw Stella. The last time he saw who he discovered later was his brother.
And the last time he was in Manning Grove until recently. Until the day after he walked out of SCI Huntingdon. The day after he earned his freedom ten months ago and vowed to never be caged like a fucking animal again.
“I’m thinking you remember now,” she said softly.
Trip pushed from the stool, grabbed his cut and muttered, “Sorry your pop’s dead.”
With that, he turned and shoved his sunglasses on, not just to protect his eyes from a late April’s bright afternoon sun, but also to hide his regret from her.
He walked out of Crazy Pete’s, shrugged on his cut, mounted his bike and rode the fuck out of town.
Chapter Two
As he turned the key to cut the engine of the old Ford, the exhaust backfiring sounded like a gunshot, causing Trip to jump out of his skin and his heart to seize.
Fuck. That had brought him back to his fucked-up time in the Marines when his unit was being targeted by not-so-friendly fire.
He sat stiffly in the seat waiting for his heart to stop racing and his narrowed vision and arrested breathing to return to normal. Once it did, he glanced out of the windshield to see he’d drawn some attention.
