Checkmate With Bishop: A Hellions MC Novel (21 page)

So I corrected myself as I tried to speak as plainly as possible.

“We’re only here…” I began again but soon stopped again when a dark-haired girl with the most amazing aqua eyes took a place right smack-dab next to the diminutive Dallas.

“Hey, pretty girl,” the other woman, the new one at the table murmured as she nodded towards the girls that were hovering around the Honey’s idea of a bar.  “A rum and coke, please.”

Her amazing gaze hit mine and she smiled.  “I’m Ryley and am married to Dare.  Who, I’ve heard, you call ‘Josh’.”

Holy hell! 

Josh was
married
?  That was shocking enough in and by itself.  But that he was tied to one of the most striking women I’d ever seen and who epitomized the very essence of a beautiful biker-babe?  Wow!

 “That’s how I remember him,” I offered with a shrug before shooting out a palm.  “I’m Dory.  I used to be with Stan…who you guys call Bishop.”

Her head tilted even as her warm palm met mine for a one-hitch, up and down kind of movement.  “I’ve heard.”  She glanced at the women standing behind the picnic bench and increased the volume of her voice as she released my hand.  “Boy, have I heard!”  Her voice held the edge of laughter as she tilted her head before she continued.  “Funny, though.  You don’t
look
like a psycho bitch from hell!”

I was smiling as I opened my mouth to reply, but before I had a chance to speak, Lily let loose.  “She fuckin’ acts like one!  Hiding a
Hellion
kid from the club?  For fuckin’
years
?!  If that ain’t the act of a sick, civilian, psycho bitch then I don’t know what is!”

“Yeah,” Teeny jumped in.  “You always were a stuck-up fucking, stupid,
clueless
piece of ass!”  Her gaze took in the other women who were no longer even trying to hide their interest in the conversation.  “All of us wanted you gone.  We were all fucking
thrilled
when you quit the club without us having to throw your skanky ass out!”

Jay-sus.  Seriously?

There was so much hate in Teeny’s voice and Lily’s face that I found myself leaning away from where they still stood behind Dallas.

“What were the charges?” Dallas asked into the quiet that fell over the Honeys and by doing so took all the other women’s eyes off of me.  “I mean, according to what I’ve learned about how the club now runs, you have to have a reason to run off a Honey, especially if she’s damn-well married to a Hellion.  So what did you have on Dory here to throw her, ah…what did you call it?”

“Skanky ass, I think,” Carly advised.

“Oh yeah, skanky ass.  Thanks, Carl.”  Dallas’s eyes as they held mine were twinkling and I could see the corners of her mouth tighten.  Was she trying to hold back a laugh?  “So what the hell did Dory do that was so goddamn awful?”

Teeny and Lily shared a glance before Lily answered.  “She beat another Honey bloody!”

“Yeah!  This bitch took down Stormy and broke her nose!”  Teeny’s face held high spots of color as she pointed at me.  If memory served, Stormy had been Teeny’s niece.  “She threatened the rest of us too!”

Dallas brought her cup back to her mouth as she canted an eyebrow my way in question.

“Yep, I did.  Told all of you that my man was off-limits, and I’d give a beat down to any Honey that wanted to challenge my claim,” I agreed with a nod.  “But since we’re divorced and have been for a long, long time…if you want Bishop all that bad, then go for it.  I sure as hell won’t stop you.”

“Wow!”  Carly breathed from my side.  “All sorts of drama from way back when.  Damn girl, you don’t look the type.”

I shrugged, hoping the shaking in my body wasn’t noticed as I struggled to remain calm.  “I was young and full of myself.  I blamed Stormy when I should’ve lit into Stan.”  I turned my gaze to the two older women.  “I knew you hated me, that you were always looking for a reason to push me out of the club.  Like when I said I didn’t want any club members at my mom’s funeral.  That really pissed you off, didn’t it?”

“It wasn’t fucking right!  When the parent of a HMC member dies, they need to be sent off in the Hellion tradition!”  Teeny was practically crowing with self-righteousness.

I shook my head, turning my face away.  “No.  My mother wasn’t a Hellion parent.  She was a good woman but set in her ways, her ideas.  She never had a clue that Stan was in a club, only that he rode a motorcycle.”  My eyes went back to the two older women.  “What about when the Honeys jimmied the lock on our apartment and took all my clothes?”

There were more than a couple of gasps as all the other Honeys turned to watch the reaction to my accusation.  The looks of shock on Dallas, Carly and even Ryley’s face were satisfying.

Lily had the grace to look abashed while Teeny glared at me.  “You fuckin’ thought you were better than the rest of us!  Wouldn’t dress as a proper Honey should, so yeah.  We cleaned you out in the hopes you’d get with the program.”

The thud of Dallas’s cup on the plastic picnic bench seemed loud in the quiet.  “Are you freaking kidding me?  You broke into a brother’s home and stole another Honey’s clothes because she didn’t
dress
the way you think a Honey is
supposed
to?”  The smaller woman twisted in her seat to look behind her.  “Tell me you gave them back.”

The tension around the table was almost thick enough to touch.

“Erm…” Lily started on a swallow.

But Teeny had no trouble answering.  “We fucking burned them.  Burned every last goddamn scrap and danced around the fire!”

I know it was water well and truly under the bridge but Teeny’s words, offered without a shred of apology, pissed me right the hell off.  “Okay, then what about how most Honeys made a point of yanking my hair every time you got near me, no matter what was going on or where we were?  What the freak was that about?”  I don’t even remember when it had started, when it first happened.  But my heart held the memory of a scalp so sore from being jerked around by my hair that I couldn’t sleep.  Nights that I’d lie next to Stan in bed and allow the tears to silently flow.

“Fucking served you right!  Lording that rat’s nest around the rest of us, calling attention to yourself not only with the goddamn color but the length!  You were always combing it, shaking your head just to get attention from the brothers.  Shit, girl.  You’re fuckin’ lucky we didn’t do what we wanted and shave that motherfucking crap right the fuck off!”  Even Lily looked shocked by Teeny’s words and her zealous tone.

I was confused and needed clarification.  “So you wanted me to dress like a slut but didn’t want your  men to be tempted by my hair?  I don’t get it.” 

“Fucking Christ,” I heard Ryley mumble as she too twisted to look at the older Honeys.

“That is fucking whacked as shit,” Carly announced angrily.  “What?  You want to go through my closet?  Dallas’s?”  She slammed a hand down on the tabletop.  “How about my hair?  You want to crop mine, too?  Have a go at Dallas’s curls or Ryley’s head?  How about Jilly’s locks?  Are they too much for you?”

“Come near my hair and I’ll cut you from cunt to neck,” one of the pretty blonde girls warned through tight lips.  “And do it without batting an eye, bitch!”

Teeny’s eyes widened and I watched as both she and Lily finally realized that they were bearing the full scrutiny of the other Honeys as well as the other women’s censure at their antics and attitudes from the past. 

“If I were you, ladies, and I do use that term loosely,” Ryley started, her voice holding a note of caution that was impossible to ignore.  “I’d grab my man, plant my ass on their ride and get while the getting’s good.”

Dallas’s dark curls bounced as she nodded even though I couldn’t see her face since she was still looking directly at Teeny and Lily.  “It’s time for you two to leave.  And just to let you know?  Trey will be getting an earful about past doings.”  She turned back around and our eyes caught and held.  “That kind of shit, that sort of
mean
doesn’t fly in the hive anymore.”

“But…”  Understanding of just exactly what she’d admitted to was fully shown in Teeny’s face as her tone changed from challenging to wheedling in less than a heartbeat.  “It wasn’t
us
! 
She’s
the bitch that did it! 
Dory’s
the one at fault!”

Lily placed a hand on Teeny’s hand, on the finger that once again pointed at me and pulled the other woman’s arm down.  Without a word, she held onto Teeny’s hand and began to lead her away, looking neither right nor left as she walked.

“I’m thinking there’s a lot more to this story than what we’ve been hearing,” Carly said, nudging me with her shoulder.

“Agreed.”  Ryley’s face held a mixture of both curiosity and sympathy as she looked me over.  Somehow and in some way, I knew she wasn’t missing a moment of my reaction.

Dallas sighed deeply.  “Maybe you need to give us the full of it, Dory.”  Her eyes moved over the group to include all the women standing as well as the ones that were squeezed into the two tables that were pushed together. 

The looks I received then were 180 degrees different than the ones I’d been given earlier.  So I swallowed without looking away before I parted my lips.  “I was just fifteen when I met Stan,” I started and saw more than a few grins, caught more than a few nods of encouragement before I went on.

To tell them of the time when I’d started with the Missoula Honeys.

Chapter Seventeen

Bishop walked, shortening his strides as he and J.R. circumnavigated their way towards the grill area of the yard to where the brothers and the Hellions-Missoula council stood.  The kid’s arm bumped his a couple of times before Bishop turned to figure out the reason.  But all he could see was the top of J.R.’s head, hair flopping , which was pointed down to the skinny fingers that caressed the ‘property of’ patch.  The sight of that, of just the reverence that the kid was stroking the mark of his heritage, almost brought Bishop to his knees.

“I’m getting you dig your cut,” Bishop murmured, his heart bumping hard while his voice was bouncing off the last of the cars as they entered the area where the bikes were parked in neat rows.

“Totally,” J.R. replied, his voice sounding more of air than of speech.

There were smiles and there were
smiles
, but the one that Bishop found on his face was one of the biggest, the proudest, he knew he’d ever wore.   “Glad, then.  But we need to work a few things out before we meet up with the brothers.  Need to give you the 4-1-1 on what might happen tonight.”

J.R.’s head popped up as Bishop’s feet slowed.  “My mom told me some of it.  About the booze, weed and sex.”

Bishop felt his eyebrows lift in surprise.  “She did?”

“Yeah.  But I told her that it probably wasn’t anything that I hadn’t already seen at some of the parties I’ve been to.”  Taking in J.R.’s chin-jut and the kid’s oh-so-serious eyes, Bishop found himself swallowing the chuckle that wanted out.  “I think I can handle it, si…I mean, Bishop.”

“I’m sure you can,” Bishop offered, but the cough that followed his words was the only evidence of the humor that he allowed to escape.  “I want to talk about the language first.  You’re gonna hear a lot, and I mean a motherfucking
lot
of swearing tonight.  I don’t give a fucking rat’s ass about your goddamn language when you’re with me, but I better not
ever
fucking hear you use those kind of words around your mother, dig?”

“
She
swears,” J.R. countered with narrowed eyes, but Bishop could see the wheels in the kid’s,
his
kid’s, head turning.  “How come she can and I can’t?”

It was at that moment, Bishop could finally understand the whole cop-out answer parents used when they didn’t want to give specifics.  The complete ‘because I said so’ kind of response that meant fucking shit to kids but got the guardian’s ass off the hook in having to explain.  He and J.R. didn’t have that kind of relationship yet, one that had some built-up trust beneath its belt, so he stopped in order to think J.R.’s question through before responding.  “A lot of people judge a man by the words he uses.  And to more than a few folks, swearing is a sign of a lack of intelligence, dig?”

“I’ve heard that before,” J.R. cut in with a nod, but confusion still clouded the kid’s face.

“With your mom, though, it has to do with respect.”  Bishop wanted to make his point very clear because he’d had a helluva time with it in his own early years.  “In your lifetime, there’ll be people that you’ll need to show respect to, that’ll need to see that you’re fucking smart as hell and know how to work things.  It might be with a cop or in front of a judge.  Or in a situation that has small civilian kids that don’t need to be hearing that shit fly outta your mouth.”  He leaned towards the younger man, using a hand to grip a skinny shoulder.  “Or your mother who loves you and is the one damn person on the face of the earth who has always had your back.  To these people and in those situations, you do
not
cuss.  Not at fucking all.  You get me?”

The kid’s eyes never left Bishop’s but the older man saw the bobbing of the kid’s prominent Adam’s apple as he swallowed.  “Yes, si…, I mean, yes.”

“Good. “  Bishop nodded, before turning back towards the grill area.  “Second thing.  I don’t wanna catch you drinking until you’re sporting your Hellion recruit patch, should you decide that’s the life for you.”

“How old…” J.R. started but Bishop cut him off having already recognized that his kid, the fruit of his loins was in a hurry to get to adulthood.

“Eighteen.” Bishop glanced at the group they were just coming up on before shooting J.R. a look.  “Not a minute before.”  He bit the inside of his cheek to try and stop his smile at what he was going to add.  “But the key word, dude?  It was ‘catch’, in case you missed it.”

The stutter of J.R.’s feet was gratifying and found Bishop turning his head away sharply before the kid could see the crooked grin Bishop was fighting.  Just to keep the boy-man on his toes, Bishop let loose with the last of it.  “We’ll have a talk regarding the rules about the Hellion Honeys and you giving them the high-hard another time.”