One More Ride (Night Riders Motorcycle Club Book 3) (4 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

Blake pushed away from her and turned all of his attention to Paul. Pushing him up from the sand, Blake brushed him off and grabbed his shoulders. “You okay, man?” Blake asked.

Paul shrugged him off, still wobbly on his legs as Callie caught him under her free arm with Grace at his back. He met the girl’s eyes and gently touched her face.

“Don’t be scared,” he sputtered. “We’re getting out of this. We…”

Paul started to fall back to his knees. Grace cried out when Blake lifted him into his arms and signaled to the rest of his crew. “Let’s get him a rack in this place,” he started. “We’ll figure it out.”

Lauren started to follow when Blake’s eyes turned over his shoulder in a sharp glare.

“Not you,” he said. “Not now.”

Feeling him slipping away from her, Laruen started to fall to the sand when a strong arm suddenly surrounded her back.

“Easy, honey,” Callie crooned.

As Blake started to slip into the shadows, Lauren watched Grace find her footing as she made her way to Paul’s back.

“I want to come,” she said in a shaky voice. “Can… can I?”

Blake smiled at her softly, the smile that Lauren wished he would turn toward he eyes when he stiffly patted her cheek and signaled the way ahead with a nod.

“At least you didn’t lie to Paul,” Blake started. “From what I hear, all your cards are on the table.

Grace took Paul’s hand is hers, and as the crew hid under a new slab of stone, Lauren fought against the tears in her eyes as Callie wrapped pressed her arm around her shoulder.

“A lot in a short time,” Callie started.  “I know that I could use a drink. You?”

Nearly dazed, Lauren let Callie lead her to her makeshift home. The pillows were gone, but a sheet of pink rested against the stone as Callie sat her down and kept her under his arm.

“Something you didn’t tell him?” Callie asked.

Lauren tried to speak when her wanted words only came out in a series of frustrated sobs. “It doesn’t matter!” she said. “Not anymore. I… I never felt those things with Drew. I never…”

She stopped short of saying that she loved him. It was too wild, and no doubt he wouldn’t believe it. Especially not now. Callie fished her bottle of vodka from her satchel along with a plastic medicine cup. Preparing the shot, she passed the cup to Lauren and kept the bottle for herself.

“Not feeling super generous, are you?” Lauren asked bitterly as she downed the shot and instantly held out the cup for another.

“Didn’t know you were looking to get hammered,” Callie said.

“Not hammered,” Lauren countered. “Just numb.”

With a small smirk, Callie topped off her cup and slowly sipped from the neck of the bottle as Lauren drank deep and asked for a third hit. Taking her time in honoring this next request, Lauren smoothed her hands across her face, tears coming to her eyes at the memory of Blake’s hands on her skin, running through her hair. How could he just take off without giving her a chance to spill her side of the story? It was only a lie of omission, and it wasn’t like he didn’t have a past. But where Blake’s loves was brutally murdered and tragically buried, Drew could come back. Hell, he might even have kicked in for the so-called reward. Did he actually want her back? And what would that mean for the club?

“One more sip,” Callie said. “Don’t need you plastered when he gets around to seeking you out.”

Turning her head around the drink, Lauren wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and sighed heavily. “He won’t come back,” Lauren said sadly.

“Honey, he—”

“He asked me flat out, okay,” she started. “Just now. Just before…”

Shuddering at the thought of Wayne and his Demon Dogs finding them so easily, she imagined all the things that could have gone wrong even as her mind fixed on Wayne’s promise. Strange sort of outlaw that would use the cops to mark his territory to dispatch his enemies.

“Don’t buy everything you hear,” Callie said. “Chances are Wayne just wants to get his hands on the green and keep us running scared.”

A small shred of hope swelled around Lauren’s heart, and she set her cup aside in the sand as she stared into the redhead’s eyes.

“So you think he’s having us on?” Lauren asked. “But we still ran. Why did we do that if—?”

“Because with or without Wayne and his boys, Paul’s girl has more to fear than a turf war. And for better or for worse, the bastard’s still calling the shots.”

And at the moment, for the first time, she thought that it was definitely for the better. Right on cue, Grace appeared with Trent at her side. Lauren shot up and started as soon as she saw her, and Callie seemed to brush off any buzz from her bottle.

Straightening her shoulders, Callie regarded Grace with a sympathetic smile and a light hand against her hair before turning all her attention to Trent. “Problem?” she asked in a steady voice.

“We need your touch to patch him up,” Trent said.

“What would you boys do without me?” Callie asked with a weary smile. Reaching into her pack again, she retrieved a small metal box and ordered Trent to lead the way.

“No worries,” she said to Grace. “I’ll make him right as rain.”

Callie appeared to expect Grace to follow quickly, but the girl managed to hold her ground as she fixed her gaze on Lauren’s eyes.

“She wants to talk to Blake’s girl,” Trent said. “Paul wanted me to walk her here. You know. Just in case.”

Blake’s girl. Lauren felt like that in the space of his arms, lingering around his cock. But now she was alone. Part of her kicked herself for believing in him; a greater part of her just wanted him back.

“Smart man,” Callie said. “Man can never be too careful.”

As she tracked off into the night, Lauren expected Trent to follow her lead. But he stayed where he stood.

“I’m here to keep watch.” He explained.

It was cold comfort if that.

“Blake ask you to do that?” Lauren asked as she pressed her hands to her hips and arched her eyebrow.

“Not you,” Trent said. “I’m looking after this one.”

Trent’s words shredded her soul, but as she focused on Grace trembling before her, Lauren shrugged off her frustration and drew the girl close to her side.

“A little privacy would be nice,” Lauren said.

Trent’s lips curled into a sharp sneer. “Got some other dirt to spill?” he asked. “What else don’t he know about you?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” Lauren said. “So why don’t you just keep an eye out a few feet away? Or play with yourself for all I care. Can you do that, or do we need to watch to get you off?”

He shuffled his feet and blushed under the weight of her insult. Stepping back into the night, Trent hissed at Lauren, and he was nearly gone when his eyes fell of Grace.

“You call when you want to go back,” he said. “I’ll be right—”

“And I won’t be long,”

Nodding his head, Trent took off, and as soon as they were alone, she clutched Lauren’s hand and dragged her deep into a dark corner.

“Grace, what is—?”

“Shhh.”

Pressing her finger to Lauren’s lips, Grace shuddered as she fell to her knees, and Lauren was quick to follow her move and grab her shaking shoulders.

“Promise me that he won’t do it,” she muttered.

“What do you—?”

“Paul swears that he won’t,” she continued, her voice a ragged whisper as she clutched Lauren’s hand, her trembles intensifying as she struggled to speak.

“Paul says we’ll be okay,” Grace managed. “All of them do. But… but I want to hear it from you.”

“I… I don’t—”

“Tell me that it’s a lie,” Grace pleaded. “That they’re not looking for you.”

Lauren started to speak, but stopped herself on the length of the lie. Grace’s eyes brimmed as she gazed up at her, pleading, and Lauren hung her head as her shoulders heaved. “You know I can’t say that,” she said. “My family… I mean… if they want me back… they—”

“They would have gone to the cops,” Grace said, her voice cracking around the words. “That’s what I thought.”

Holding her face in her hands, Lauren looked up and saw her eyes past all hope as Grace fell into Lauren’s arms.

“Then my father’s going to find me,” she said. “Take me back. Make me… make me…”

The horror in her voice mingled with shame, and as her body was racked with loud sobs, Trent remerged from the shadows with tight fists.

“You doing this to her?” he asked. “Cause she don’t need—”

“Shut up!” Lauren barked as she held Grace and let her cry. This was all wrong. Maybe not Grace being here. Given what her father was, she was bound to end up in one kind of servitude or another. But she had chanced on Paul, and when the man was at full strength, he was good to her. No. No, the glaring error was Lauren’s. She had only stumbled upon this scene, and without Blake to assure her that he was right where he wanted her: close. She was nothing more than an afterthought. She was a loose end. One pull, and the whole fabric came undone.

“Grace, don’t cry.”

Easing the sobbing girl to her feet, Lauren forced her eyes to hers and stroked her cheek as she patted her hair.

“It’s going to be okay,” Lauren leaned closer and pressed her lips to Grace’s ear, whispering quickly. “I’ll cut them off at the pass,” she promised. “Point them in a million wrong directions. And you guys keep moving come dawn.”

Grace stiffened under her hold and pulled back. “I… no,” she said. “I didn’t mean that—”

“But I do.”

“Lauren, I—”

“Stay safe,” Lauren said. “Try to be happy with Paul. And promise me that you’ll tell Blake that… that what we had was real.”

“I don’t… I don’t want you to go.”

Trent started to lurch closer. She only had one shot at this; one chance to make her desperate plan work.

“And forgive me for this,” she begged.

Slamming her fist into Grace’s gut, Lauren watched for all of a second as the girl clutched her middle and doubled over in pain.

“What the fuck?” Trent bellowed. “You totally crazy or—”

Or something.

Hitting Grace again, wanting to tear her hand from her arm as she brought down the blow, she pushed Grace into Trent’s arms. He could make one of two moves. Let Grace fall to the ground and rail against her for her rebellion.

Or…

“You okay, Grace?” Trent asked as he tried to ease her to the sand and prevent any further pain.

Good boy. Right call.

Seizing her opening, Lauren ran back into the night. Trent’s voice was at her back, ordering her to hold up and explain what she was about. Let the force of her fist be the explanation that got her away. Let Blake live on her echoed words when and if Grace was able to give them voice. He probably would scoff and label it just another in her long line of lies. Lauren hung onto the fact that she had just known him.

There!
She spied her abandoned bike, the key still in the ignition. Taking one last look back, she saw nothing, heard no one.