Raine Falling (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) (9 page)

CHAPTER 22

I
woke the next morning to a bright, sunny day. I went from fast asleep to wide awake and felt my heart beating hard in my chest. Something had jarred me awake. For just a second I didn’t remember where I was. Two seconds after that came a hard knock at the door.

“Raine, Little Darlin’? You up?” It was Prosper and then I remembered.

I looked at the clock and it was almost noon.

“Coming!” I shouted.

I ran to the door and opened it wide. Still sleepy with tousled bed head and sleepy eyes.

“Yeah, sorry, Prosper.” I was a little breathy from having woken up literally a minute ago and running to the door.

Prosper took one look at me and cleared his throat. Jules was behind him grinning madly. He was looking at me slowly from head to toe. By the time his eyes returned to my face, that grin had turned into the closest thing I had ever seen to pure lust
ever
.

“Do you need something?” I asked Prosper.

“Oh yeah,” Jules muttered behind him.

Prosper turned to look at Jules and growled. Yes. He. Did.

He reached past me to close the door and said, “Sorry, honey. It can wait. Get dressed and come get something to eat when you’re ready.” Then the door closed on me.

“Okay,” I said to the door. I threw my hair up on top of my head and went to take a quick hot shower. I really didn’t want to delay being in the room. Prosper and Jules must have needed to get something. I was determined to be of no trouble whatsoever.

Besides, I had washed my hair just last night or really just a few hours ago. The hair thing brought back some other memories and I pushed them aside. I noticed in the mirror I was pink again. Sweet Jesus, I had to stop blushing at the mere thought of that man. I lathered on some more of that great berry lotion, then threw on a fresh pair of clean and really worn button-fly jeans. My lucky jeans. I added a soft-pink, light V-neck tee. I redid my hair, pulling it together and wrapping it around to form a loose bun at the nape of my neck. Then I quickly applied some pink lip gloss, soft black eyeliner, and mascara. Pretty silver dangling hoops and the same pair of low biker boots completed the look. I was out the door in twenty.

Diego was at me before I fully closed the door. The smile I greeted him with died on my lips when he grabbed me close to him and snarled, “Raine, you’re not in some cottage at the end of the woods anymore.”

“I know that.” His tone made my stomach hurt.

“There are thirty rooms in this bunk and at any time they’re filled with bikers. Sometimes those men are alone. Sometimes with their women. Sometimes with their whores. Depending on who. Depending on when. Sometimes brothers. Sometimes guys visiting. You hearing me, Raine?” His eyes were hard and he wasn’t talking quietly.

I nodded.

“You hearing me, Raine?” He was getting louder.

“Yes.” He was making me feel horrible.

“So now you know this, you never
ever
open that door again without having some fucking clothes on!” He was furious.

I swallowed hard. I had clothes on, but I was getting that my pretty light-blue kimono with the silver dragons on the front maybe didn’t count.

“What do you never ever do, Raine?” He was acting like a total asshole.

I glared at him and he glared back.

“Open the door without being fully clothed,” I said softly. I was humiliated, and all the sweetness from the night before had been pushed right out of me. I felt the sting of tears burn behind my eyes.

I pulled away from him and walked to the kitchen area where there were about a dozen guys sitting there, all of whom suddenly had somewhere else to look. It was dead quiet. They had heard everything. I felt sick.

Jules looked right at me and winked.

“You want some eggs, Raine?” He set a cup of coffee down on the table and pulled a chair out for me.

“No, thanks.” My lip quivered.

“Yeah, she does. Two over easy. Throw some bacon and toast on that plate.” Damn Diego again. Sitting his big bad self three seats down and across the table. Then he turned his back to me and started talking to the guy next to him. I glared at his back for a second, wishing him dead.

I looked helplessly at Prosper, who was just folding the morning paper. He had these little half-moon glasses on. Despite my growing humiliation at being treated like an infant, I noticed them as another testimony to the passing years.

Prosper was looking at me. “When was the last time you ate, Raine?”

No help there. Seems Prosper was in league with Diego the Devil.

I thought for a second and honestly couldn’t remember. I waved my hand away. I wasn’t real happy with him at that moment either. I went to wrap my arms around me. Prosper casually and not unkindly stopped me. He grabbed my hand and held it with his own at the table. Then he began introductions.

All the guys in the kitchen house were Hells Saints. Most, but not all, from this chapter. Some nodded, some smiled, and a couple actually unfolded themselves from their chairs and said their hellos close up. Two shook my hand and one kissed it in a sweet attempt at being charming. I blushed hot at that one. Pipe was the one who had kissed my hand. Reno gave me a chin nod.

Next I met Crow.

Crow was the poster boy for badass gorgeous. He wasn’t as big as Jules and Diego. He probably stood just about six foot. His skin was a beautiful light brown with subtle undertones of copper, not unlike my own. He had a wide bandana on his forehead and the rest of his hair hung loose way past his shoulders. It was a rich, deep sable. His nose was straight and his nostrils flared. He had a wide mouth and high cheekbones. His green eyes were like shards of emeralds, hard and sharp.

“
Yaa’ ta’ sai
,” Crow said to me in clear Apache.
You’re welcome here.

“
Aheeiyeh.
” I bowed my head, using the formal thank-you reserved for those deserving of great respect. His greeting had meant a lot to me and I wanted him to know that.

He met my eyes and honest to goodness it took my breath away. I felt Diego turn and tense across the table, and I couldn’t have cared less.

“You’re Apache,” I said to Crow.

“And you’re Lakota Sioux,” he said back at me.

I looked over at Prosper and Prosper shrugged. “He asked.”

“You asked if I was Native?” I smiled at Crow. I loved having the chance to lay claim to my mother’s heritage. I always felt complimented when it happened.

“No, I asked if you were taken.”

Wow.

His eyes left mine then and did a slow, long sweep down my body. Everywhere his eyes touched burned me. No one had ever looked at me like that, ever. I finally knew the meaning of that overused quote in romance books that said, “He raped me with his eyes.”

Wow. Wow. Oh. Wow.

Diego was halfway out of his seat. Crow looked at him, clapped a hand on his shoulder and said, “That door ever opens, Brother.” Then without sparing me another glance he was gone.

I was still sitting in stunned silence. I felt Diego’s eyes on me, but purposefully avoided them. Jules slapped a plate down in front of me. All of a sudden I had a huge appetite and it was all really delicious. Jules smirked when he saw that I had cleaned my plate. When he asked me if it was good, I told him that he had just given me the absolute best I ever had.

Diego looked my way again and growled.

Jules burst out laughing and reached out to kiss the top of my head. He replied, “Doll, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Diego looked exasperated, but this time he was looking right at Prosper. Prosper’s eyes were full of mirth. He mouthed something to him that looked like it might have been the word
complicated,
but I couldn’t imagine why he would have said that.

CHAPTER 23

F
ucking Crow. Goddamn him to hell, that Apache bastard.

For the second time in less than a couple of days Diego had half risen out of his seat to take a brother on over Raine. Never in his life had he fought over a woman. Now at fucking thirty-eight years old, he was gonna start? No fucking way.

He had been making his way down the hallway when he saw her fling open that door with nothing but that hip-length Chinese silk shit on. Christ, that belt barely held the thing together. He could see half her left tit and the bottom opened almost to her V. And there she stood totally unaware of it. Smiling and sleepy-eyed with those big blue eyes and soft pink mouth issuing an invitation to every fucking brother in the place. How was it possible that she didn’t know that? But fuck him, if she hadn’t looked hurt and embarrassed when he called her on it.

Jesus. It was going to be a full-time job keeping Raine safe. Safe from his brothers, from him, and from her goddamn self. He was going to have to make it clear who she belonged to, if just to keep her from harm’s way.

But first he had to get his woman away from all his up-in-your-face, horny, blueballed brothers. He was going to do something he had never done before. Never had to do to get a woman to share his bed.

He was gonna get Raine on the back of his bike and take her out on a fucking date.

CHAPTER 24

P
rosper and I took off after breakfast. We talked about ordinary things, trying to find our way back there, I guess. Or really establish a new ordinary. There was still a lot to be settled, but we had done a hell of a lot of that already and we both needed to put that away for a while. As we walked arm in arm, I remembered how much I loved being with Prosper. That hadn’t changed and as the day wore on, it cemented itself in. He made me laugh remembering little things about Claire and me . . . And about my mom and dad. Funny little things that not another living soul knew about us. Family things.

It was a perfect day. Blue skies and white, fluffy clouds. We sat down on a big boulder in the sun. Prosper took out two beers he had brought along in a backpack. As a surprise, he had also packed some of the cookies that Pinky had made before she left to see her family. I was still full, but we had been hiking a couple of miles. The beer and cookies went down easy. The cookies tasted like that summer at the lake. I brought my head down to Prosper’s shoulder, remembering. We sat like that in the warm sunshine. My head on his shoulder and his arm around me.

I wanted to give him something, so I took out my little harp. The look of pleasure in his eyes when he saw it made my heart sing. I played a few little tunes for him, shy at first. When he clapped and cheered with suspiciously bright eyes after the first round, I really started to show off. Like he had taught me to do, he carried his own music wherever he went. He reached into his pocket, and we played together. I had never been prouder when there came a moment, on that perfect sun-filled blue-sky day, that the student became the teacher. I taught Prosper a couple of new harmonies to some old songs I knew had been his favorites. The strong, clear joining of our voices singing in perfect harmony filled me with the most perfect bit of contentment that I had ever known. For the first time in a long time, I was really happy.

It was late afternoon when we walked back into the compound. Diego was sitting with a bunch of the guys in the yard. When he saw Prosper and me walk in from the woods, he raised his head and watched us approach. It had been a wonderful afternoon filled with good memories, homemade cookies, perfectly sung music, and well, love. A perfect day. Because I was still feeling that, and I was sick of being at the receiving end of Diego’s petal-pulling game of “I love her and I love her not,” I met Diego’s eyes from across the field and smiled big, wide, and happily at him.

Let’s see what he does with that
, I thought wickedly.

The response lifted him off his chair. I just couldn’t figure him out. But just then I wanted to be happy, so I let myself be.

Diego nodded to Prosper. He put his arm around me. “Good day, Babe?” He pulled me close.

“The best,” I answered because I was still feeling it and because he was being nice again and I wanted to go with that.

Prosper did a backhand wave as he walked away from us.

“You up for a ride?” Diego was asking me.

I nodded happily because this was definitely going to be my day. I loved motorcycles and the thought of being on the back of Diego’s excited me. He took my hand and led me to the bike. He passed me the helmet. I tried to put it on, but the heavy bun in back of my head was in the way. So I unpinned my hair and shook it out. I dipped my head back and ran my fingers through it. I pulled the heavy strands all to the side and began to weave it into a braid. I dipped my fingers into my pocket and pulled out the cloth-covered rubber band that I always kept on me for hair emergencies. I heard the sound of someone clearing his throat and looked to the picnic area where the eight guys that Diego had just left were all sitting in absolute silence staring at me.

I looked at Diego. To my surprise, he just looked at me and smirked.

“Damn fucking wet dream,” he murmured. Then he said, “You good, Raine?”

I nodded and pulled my leg over the bike and adjusted the helmet. I wrapped my arms around him.

We roared out of there and I held on tight. The beautiful day was turning into an equally beautiful dusk with red and deep-blue streaks shooting across the sky. The wind was fresh and cool against my skin. Diego was a great driver and I was an experienced rider, so our bodies dipped and straightened. Weight shifting in harmony. It felt like a dance. Along the way, he would slow down and point out little things that he thought might interest me.

Eventually we pulled into a little cantina. He took my hand and pulled me along behind him. Once inside he pushed me in front of him, his hand guiding me by the small of my back. A pretty, obviously pregnant woman smiled when she saw him. He said something to her in Spanish that made her blush and place a hand on her stomach. Her eyes were warm when she smiled at me.

She seated us at a table at the end of the room, and I noticed that Diego seated himself with his back against the wall. The woman put her hand on his shoulder. Diego grabbed it, turned it palm out, and planted a kiss right in the middle of it. The woman laughed and hit him with a towel. Her dark eyes shining.

“Ah! Diego, when are you going to get a woman of your own and stop making my wife blush?” A smiling man had come upon us quickly. He put his hand protectively and more than a little proudly over his wife’s baby bump and stated, “All this excitement is not good for my son.”

He had a long dark ponytail, a rosary hanging around his neck, a silver wedding ring on his left hand, and a detailed scripted tattoo on his neck that read
Alejandra
. The pretty pregnant woman, whom I assumed was Alejandra, looked lovingly into her husband’s eyes. She nodded at me. She said something softly in Spanish. Her husband turned to me in an exaggerated display of surprise. I knew he had noticed me and was up for giving Diego a hard time.

“Well, well, well! Who do we have here?” He smiled at me.

I extended my hand and introduced myself. “My name is Raine. Nice to meet you. I’m a friend of Diego’s.”

At “friend” Diego lost a little of the mirth that danced behind his eyes, but just a little.

Alejandra’s husband took my hand, then turned it palm
down
and placed a kiss upon it. His wife shook her head, smiling, and Diego actually rolled his eyes. Someone called him from the kitchen. He winked at me and said, “Unfortunately, duty calls. But I’m very pleased to meet the new
friend
of Diego Montesalto.”

He turned to Diego. “Anything you want, Brother.”

He slapped him on the shoulder and they did a thing where they shook each other’s hand, but they extended themselves way up so they were grasping each other’s arms. That thing that guys do.

Diego ordered for us. The food was cheesy, spicy, and perfect. I had a margarita and Diego had a Dos Equis. Diego Montesalto, the most interesting man in the world. I smiled into my margarita thinking of the ad for beer. Diego was relaxed and entertaining. He told me how he had met Alejandra and her husband, Rafe. It was a good story and made me laugh.

It was late when we started back and the night had turned really cool. Diego reached into the leather bag on the bike and took out a big thick sweatshirt. He stood close and raised my hands over my head. He slipped the sweatshirt on and pulled my braid out. He bent down and touched his lips to mine briefly, then full-on kissed me. I pulled away when I heard a shrill whistle coming from the cantina and turned to see Rafe standing in the shadows smoking a cigarette and wagging his finger. Diego good-naturedly flipped him the bird, and we were off.

When we pulled into the MC compound there was music playing, loud conversation, and firelight. The Hells Saints were gathered around the fire pit with their women. They were casting long shadows, and it made me uneasy.
Something wicked this way comes
. I hadn’t liked these gatherings as a child, and I still didn’t like them. I wanted to go inside. I turned away from Diego to undo my helmet and saw her. The woman who had flashed me the superior smile and had plastered herself against Diego when I first arrived. Had that only been a couple of nights ago? It seemed like a lifetime.

She was staring at me and not looking happy. At all. She looked mean. Crazy and mean. I stared back, a chill running up my spine. I had had enough of crazy to last a lifetime. I knew this kind of crazy and where it was coming from. If she thought she had a claim on Diego, so be it. I barely knew him, and if it came down to that, that’s what I would say.
Have. At. It.

I wasn’t the kind of woman who fought over men. I never got that. There were so many other things you had to fight to keep in this life, a man should not be one of them. But I knew there were some that didn’t see it that way. This woman full-on worried me. I pulled my arms around me and held on tight. Diego had been talking to Reno. When he turned and looked at me, a frown crossed his brow. He looked past me and his eyes skirted the wooded edge. By then she was gone.

“Raine.”

I looked at him.

“You okay, Babe?”

I managed a smile. “Yeah, thanks for a nice night. I’m going to head in now.”

Diego shook his head. “No, Babe, you’re not. Prosper got his groove on the harp. You seriously gonna miss that?”

“What time is it?” Something had just occurred to me. All of a sudden, the time had become very important.

He looked at his phone. “11:05. Why?”

I had only fifty-five minutes left to end a day that had been just about perfect. I honestly could not ever remember having that before. Ever. And it was something I had aspired to. One day of not worrying about anything
. One whole day.
I really didn’t want anything to mess that up for me. But Diego had grabbed my hand and was pulling me along. What could possibly happen in fifty-five minutes? Then the wind tugged at my hair, loosening a tendril and whispering in my ear.
Something wicked this way comes
.

The air was electric in the way I remembered it as a kid. But now I forced myself to look at the scene before me with adult eyes, and damn if I didn’t feel that same shiver go up my spine. It wasn’t the good kind of shiver. It was the kind of shiver that came from being a lifelong watcher and knowing that the secrets that lay deep within these shadow people were dangerous ones. They were the kind of secrets that knowing about could hurt you. Even get you killed. These might be Prosper’s people and Diego’s people, but they were not my people. These were the kind of people that scared me.

As I walked through the sea of badass outlaws and their women, I felt cold inside. No matter who my dad was or who my Prosper was or who the man I was on the arm of was, I wasn’t a part of this. A bunch of bikers and their women. Their women. Some of them were old ladies, some were girlfriends, and some were honest-to-goodness whores. They were definitely a type. They were fat and skinny, short and tall, blondes, brunettes, and redheads. Some were older, some younger, but definitely a type. Big hair, lots of makeup, and lots of tit showing. Whether those tits were large or small, they were on display. They smelled of cheap perfume, cheap booze, and desperation. They were hard women. Hard-loving, hard-living, hard-hearted women. Dangerous women wanting to be owned by dangerous men. Willing to do anything to make that happen. The men knowing that and taking that on. The air crackled with it.

I looked past all that to Prosper. Prosper definitely had his groove on. He was jamming with Crow, and they were both playing some mean guitar. I recognized some of the riffs and my fingers were itching to blow them on my harp. Prosper looked at me and crooked his finger. Oh no! No . . . no . . . nope! There was no way I was going to make a display of myself in front of a bunch of bikers. It was one thing belting out a tune in my own backyard or this afternoon with Prosper alone and soaking in the sunshine. But sharing my music with the people of the shadows seemed wrong.

Then Prosper was on me and pulling me with him. When he sat me down next to him and called out to the night, “This one is for Maggie,” I came undone. How could I refuse to sing along to a song dedicated to my mom? He had me there. Crow began to strum out the beginning chords of Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page.” I took the harp out of my back pocket and replaced the soulful sax with some sweet harmonica. I had been playing this for years by myself, and honestly playing with Prosper was a dream come true. Prosper and I sang Seger in perfect harmony, taking twists and turns that, while not in the original version, worked well for us. This had been my mother’s swan song. I was going to sing the shit out of it. And I did.

When it was over, Crow, Prosper, and I were grinning the hell out of each other, and the shadows were going wild with applause. Almost against my will, I turned my eyes to look for Diego. I saw him walking with Ellie away from me and towards the porch area. I felt a burst of jealousy that I pushed down. I turned my attention to Prosper when I realized he had been saying something. The something was that Pinky’s sister had gotten into a pretty serious car accident, and Prosper was flying down that night to be with Pinky while she sat with her sister. He had just been waiting for me so he could tell me, and the playing, I think, had taken his mind off it for a moment. I was grateful he had given me that moment and hoped with all my heart that Pinky’s sister would be okay. He thought no longer than a week and that I should stay at the compound.

I didn’t want him to go. And if he had to go, I wanted to go with him. I didn’t want to stay with people I didn’t know. Now I was really starting to miss Claire. We had never been apart this long, and I knew she missed me as much as I missed her.

But if he had to leave me, I wanted Prosper to go with a clear state of mind. So I smiled, kissed him on the cheek, and told him that I would be fine. And I would be. Because this was my perfectly happy day. He got on his bike and left for the airport. It was 11:45.

I was tired and started heading away from the crowd and back to my room. I felt Jules fall in step with me. I was glad because I didn’t want to walk alone in the dark. I also didn’t want to run into Ellie and Diego doing whatever the hell they were doing. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to help it but I couldn’t. As I walked by, my eyes searched for them. And bingo. There they were. Ellie was plastered against him
again,
but this time Diego had his hands in her hair and his mouth was moving against hers. Just great. While I watched I saw him pull her head away from him. He had a scowl on his face, and she was smiling up at him. My heart hurt. Before I could look away, he saw me.