Page 61 of Texting the Wrong Bikers

I nod in agreement. “That’s true.”

“His real name is Rhett Callahan.”

“Yeah, Chief weirdly suits him more,” I say, wrinkling my nose and smiling.

“Dash’s real name is Nash Walker, not the biggest leap to that nickname.”

I snort. “Lemme guess, he chose it because it’s short for dashing?”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “Well, yes, but it became more of a running joke between us that it’s because he’s always dining and dashing out on the ladies.”

That prompts me to sputter in surprise, and I lightly smack his arm. “That. Is. Terrible!”

He chuckles softly, pulling me closer and nuzzling me a little in an uncharacteristically playful gesture.

We lie there in comfortable silence for a while. Shadow closes his eyes, utterly relaxed, and I watch his handsome face for a moment, tracing the lines with my eyes. I look at the jagged scar running along his face and wonder how he got it. He’s so still, his chest rising and falling with each deep breath, that I think he must have fallen asleep. So I almost jump out of my skin when he asks, eyes still closed, “What are you looking at?” The corner of his mouth quirks upward in amusement at my sharp intake of breath. He opens one eye to look at me.

“I was just looking at you… I thought you were asleep.”

“You were wondering about my scar,” he astutely guesses.

“No—”

He firmly shakes his head once. “Don’t lie. It’s normal to be curious. You can ask about it. You want to know how I got it, right?”

“I was wondering… Did it happen while you were in the Army?”

He grimaces. “If only. I wouldn’t be so ashamed of it if that was the case.” He shakes his head. “No, unfortunately, my scar came from the way you’d expect in a biker.”

“A crash?”

He studies me blankly for a second before exhaling in part-laugh, part-disbelief. “You’re less judgmental than most if that’s your first guess. No, it was in a bar fight.”

“Is this the part where you say I should see the other guy?” I say, trying to lighten the mood to show I don’t care if he’s been in a few fights.

He looks at me, somber. “Yeah. Sadie…” he sighs, looking away before forcing himself to meet my eye again. “I killed him.”

I flinch, freezing, an unconscious fight-or-flight response to hearing the words, and he notices, quickly explaining.

“It was while I was overseas on deployment. My platoon was all getting pretty drunk, having fun, and there were some local guys there, too. It was all fun until one of the guys told us he knew of a better party close by. Stupidly, we followed him.” He sighs heavily. “When we got there, it wasn’t a party at all. The guy and his buddies had kidnapped some local women, wives of the Taliban, or so they said.” He meets my horrified gaze. “I’m sure you don’t need me to go into details about the shit these men were doing with these women. The things he claimed other guys in my platoon had joined in for fun, as if these women meant nothing.” A muscle in his jaw jumps as he fights to control his emotions, and he closes his eyes and breathes deeply.

I place my hand on his arm, and the gesture seems to calm him a little. He opens his eyes again and looks at me. “Me and my buddy got into a fight trying to rescue the women. The guy pulled a knife. He got me in the face, my buddy in the heart. I beat the life out of him, and when it was done, I untied the women.” He shakes his head, his voice so quiet I have to strain to hear. “They were so scared, scared of me even then, they didn’t understand I was trying to help. They ran from me. But at least they were free, safe… though for how long, I can’t say.”

“What happened to them?”

“I don’t know about the women; I never found them again. Though they wouldn’t have dared tell anyone what happened, they’d be killed for it by their own husbands if they knew. Maybe that’s what happened. I like to think they got away somehow and built a new life somewhere else, away from that hellhole.

“And what about you and your friend?”

Shadow’s eyes glisten with unshed sorrows. “He died. I was in the hospital for a while, my injuries got infected, and I was medevaced out of the combat zone. After I recovered, I requested discharge, and it was granted. My kid was dead, my wife had left me, I had no job, and my face was messed up. You can say it was a pretty dark time for me. I was drinking to forget, getting black out drunk when I met Trigger. He was beating the shit out of some guy for spiking a woman’s drink at the bar, and I stopped him before it went too far. I guess you could say we bonded after that over our scars.”

“You shouldn’t be ashamed of your scar. It’s a sign of the kind of hero you are. A man who will put his life in danger to help a woman you don’t even know, a supposed enemy.”

He smiles softly. “Doesn’t make me any less gruesome to look at.”

“I think it’s hot, scars are sexy,” I say with a smile, kissing it softly.

“Well, that explains what you see in Trigger and me then.”