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“To fuck with your dad by fucking with you,” Goose says.
“I don’t understand.”
Walla Walla studies me and offers a soft smile. “I think you do.”
“This is bullshit,” Coco mutters and takes out her phone. “I’m calling Suzanne to handle things.”
Walla Walla doesn’t react to my friend’s statement and instead says, “We should get you somewhere safe.”
Coco grumbles, “That’s what I just said.”
“Don’t use that tone with him,” Goose snipes at Coco.
I frown at my friend who eyeballs the redheaded biker. I don’t think Coco realizes what kind of woman she’s facing off against. I look to Walla Walla for help. He smiles at me and leans forward.
“I think they’re flirting.”
His wink cuts right through my panic. I snicker like I’m feeling casual with an old friend. I’m also very aware of how close his large body is to me right now.
That’s the moment when I start obsessively worrying over how my hair looks. Did I brush my teeth recently? How is my makeup?
My hand reaches up to check if my hair’s messy. Walla Walla’s smile shifts from amused to something more primal.
“You look beautiful,” he says like we’re alone in the world. “Just like I remember.”
I offer him a little smile, feeling as if not a single day has passed since I nearly spoke to him on the street.
The heat of this moment breaks when reality takes hold. Walla Walla is a man of McMurdo Valley. His people run the town. He will never stay here, and I can’t return to Canary Basin.
“Those assholes shot your brother,” Walla Walla says and takes my hand as he settles on the floor and sits tailor-fashion like a kid. “Erik is in the hospital. They claim he’ll never walk again.”
I think to my brother, remembering him as a cocky kid only a year older than me. Erik’s mom loved Urick with all her heart. Mira had been his mistress when our father was married to Peter’s mother. Urick finally grew bored of his wife, and Mira claimed the role of wife. I imagine she was so happy to have won his heart.
A little more than a year later, he returned from a business trip with my mother at his side. I was born eight months later. Erik and Mira lived in a guesthouse built for them on the estate. Peter and his mother lived in another guesthouse. Urick didn’t throw away his former lovers, instead keeping them nearby like reminders of his past.
Suzanne Knutsen quickly tired of ranch life. She loved my father, finding him intriguing and ruggedly handsome. But his lifestyle didn’t suit her, so she left. I think Urick loved her most of all because she didn’t submit to him. If Suzanne had been clingy like Mira and Peter’s mother, Jackie, he would have pushed her away, too.
That’s how my father viewed women. They were no more than objects to admire and enjoy before tossing aside for a new pastime.
While Urick loved his kids, he preferred his ranch hands—a never-ending array of rough and ragged men. They respected him, but never as much as he believed.
That’s why Hunter and I got hurt that night so many years ago.
And it’s why my brother will never walk again.
“Your father is sick,” Walla Walla continues when I only stare at his hand holding mine. “He doesn’t have much time. He wants you protected,” he explains before pausing and finding my gaze. “He wants you brought home.”
As much as it kills me, I slide my hand from his grip. “I’ll never go back there.”
“So, you work for her dad?” Coco asks.
Goose glares fearsome-like at my friend. “The Steel Berserkers don’t work for anyone except ourselves.”
Coco meets the redhead’s frown with her own and asks, “Then, why are you here?”
“We offered to help,” Walla Walla answers before Goose can.
Goose frowns at him and then at me and finally at Coco. “Those assholes nearly killed our friends. We’re here to get revenge, and they’ve got a hard-on for Austen.”
