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“She was a mess when I met her, crawling around her room, eating off the floor like a discarded baby. I essentially raised her.”
“Zaja was a horrible mother.”
“Yes.”
Todd nodded at my response. He seemed to like how I didn’t sugarcoat his ex-wife’s toxic personality.
“Why don’t you want Jimbo?”
Taking a chance, I admitted, “He’s cruel. He attacked the dog and kicked Fiona. I can’t abide by anyone mistreating my family.”
“Loyal, huh?” Todd said, and I realized I might find an ally with this evil man.
After that short meeting with me, Todd must have told Jimbo to back off. The bully stopped coming to dinner. Though he still played my escort into town later in the week, he wouldn’t speak to me. Temporarily relieved, I was still very aware of what would happen if the old man kicked the bucket.
Until Todd Rogers was in the ground, Fiona and I might be able to survive in McMurdo Valley.
Remaining in town meant I could attend one of those weekly biker parties and learn if Eagle was worth all my breathless daydreaming.
“I wish I could go with you,” Fiona said the first night I planned to sneak over to the clubhouse in a rural slice of town. “I hope you have fun.”
Fiona forced herself to open her eyes in the dimly lit room and studied me. Wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, I hoped to look as slim and cool as a thirty-five-year-old woman with zero social life could manage.
“You’re so beautiful,” she said and smiled sadly.
Witnessing her melancholy over a life she’d never lead, I nearly talked myself out of going. Fiona wasn’t a child. She was a grown woman, having turned thirty-three last June. Most days, she didn’t seem to consider any other life. We were happy together, even in this new place.
However, in the dozen years we’d known each other, I’d never gone on a date. That evening, I sensed she feared I’d fall hard for a man and discard her.
Fiona still insisted I go. “It’ll be a fun story you can tell me.”
Hugging her, I promised I wouldn’t be long. I didn’t dare admit how much I feared Eagle’s rejection. How could a man like him want a woman like me? Well past my best years, I hadn’t really worried about my appearance since my teens.
That night, though, I dreamed.
My light brown hair hung loosely down my back. My bangs draped my forehead. My blue “owl eyes”—as my mother called them—were lined with black. My lips were a glossy pink. I felt dressed up after too long trying to be invisible. That night, I needed to be seen by a particular brawny man.
My plan was to get dropped off at the theater by Larry. I chose a movie with the longest show time. After Larry left, I hoped to sneak out a side door and take an Uber to the party. I’d spend an hour at the clubhouse before returning to the theater. My plan would only work if Larry didn’t stick around. To my relief, he peeled out as soon as I shut the car door.
After a short drive, the Uber driver pulled up to a building nestled in the woods. According to him, the Steel Berserkers’ current home base—dubbed the Pigsty—was formerly a lodge.
“Have fun,” said the middle-aged man before promising to return in an hour.
I found myself staring up at a wide porch filled with people. After wasting a good ten minutes, I finally willed myself toward the clubhouse. The women dancing and drinking were more than ten years my junior. They wore low-cut shirts and barely there shorts. I felt like a fool to even entertain the idea of partying with roughly handsome bikers and their sexy young girlfriends.
The arrival of a few students from the women’s college stirred my confidence. They wore school T-shirts, sweats, and a casual attitude. I hurried to walk closely behind them as if I were their chaperone rather than a horny woman out of her element.
Inside the Pigsty, past the gloriously rustic two-story foyer, under a dark wood and steel railing stairwell, and into a massive family room, I soon found myself holding a cup of booze given to me by a sexy biker. As his baby-blue eyes shined with warmth, he said his name was Tomcat.
“You’re new,” he announced as if he’d memorized the other fifty women streaming in and out of the lodge.
“I just moved to town,” I babbled as my gaze washed across the room in search of Eagle.
Tomcat possessively wrapped an arm around my shoulders. Before I could shove him off me, I remembered this forward man was a friend of my object of desire.
Unlike the Rogers boys, Tomcat was good looking with an easy smile and a thick head of short dark hair. I admittedly swooned under his charming attention.
That was when I started doubting Eagle’s specialness. Was he really just the first truly hot guy I’d seen in so long that I lost my flipping mind? Considering how sexy Tomcat was, maybe Eagle wasn’t worth the many obsessive fantasies I’d suffered over the last week.
