Pack Challenge (2 page)

“Sara,” Miki demanded. “The List.”

“Would you two bitches please stop. I have a migraine.”

“No. You have a hangover. Now, the List.” Sara sighed. “No cowboys. No bikers. No criminals of any kind. And no republicans.”

“And?” Miki pushed.

Sara and Angelina shrugged.

“No rodeo clowns.”

“You just added that,” Angie snapped. A rodeo clown asked her on a date that very morning.

“No. No. They were always on the List.”

“He’s a nice guy.”

“He dodges bulls for a living. He’s gonna screw you over!”

“Stop yelling.” Sara put her head in her hands. “Just let me die in peace.”

“That’s what you get for getting all liquored up,” Miki chastised.

-11-

Shelly Laurenston

Angie slipped an arm around Sara’s shoulders. “Honey, it’s been six months since your grandmother died. Maybe it’s time to stop celebrating.

Especially since you seem to become quite the whore when you drink.”

“I do not.” Yet Sara couldn’t help but smile at the faint, drunken memory of attacking some poor guy in the alley of her favorite club.

“Besides, I’m not celebrating. I’m just glad that my grandmother’s—”

“In hell?” Miki cut in.

“There’s no proof of that.” Especially since Sara felt pretty confident Satan wouldn’t take the vicious old heifer.

Sara rubbed her temples. The pain in her head would go away eventually. Besides, pain had always been part of her life. That would never change. Her right leg had been in varying states of unbearable pain for more than twenty years. She’d simply learned to ignore it. Until lately.

Lately it had been…no. She would not start feeling sorry for herself. That was what led to the drinking the night before. Stupid self-pity. Her life could definitely be worse. Hell, she could be dead.

Or, she could be like the girl stumbling through the front door of the shop, her face and biker leather covered in dirt and blood.

“Holy shit.” Sara quickly limped out from behind the counter. “Guys, call nine-one-one. Marrec!” she yelled toward the back. “Come quick!”

“No. No. I’m fine.” The girl waved Sara away.

“Really? You look like shit,” Miki observed.

“Bike crashed.” The girl stretched and Sara heard every one of the bones cracking. “Actually, that’s why I’m here. You’ve got a mechanic, right?”

Angelina looked the woman over. “Don’t you really need an ambulance?”

“Or a hearse,” Miki muttered.

Sara elbowed her friend. She did that a lot when it came to Miki.

“Nope. Just a mechanic. And a bathroom.”

“I’ll show her.” Angelina led the girl to the back of the store.

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Pack Challenge

Marrec appeared, oil and dirt smeared on his face, hands and T-shirt.

The man was supposedly in his sixties but he seemed more a prematurely graying forty-five. Shorter than Sara but powerfully built, he’d taken Sara under his wing when a self-obsessed junior varsity football player threw her head-first through Marrec’s shop door during a fight Miki still claimed wasn’t her fault.

“What’s going on?” Marrec stood next to Sara, wiping his hands on a rag.

“Some girl got into a crash.”

Miki stared out the large glass window. “Christ, look at that girl’s bike. She should be dead.”

Marrec looked at the bike and his eyes narrowed. “She’s walking?”

“Believe it or not,” Sara answered. “Angelina took her to the bathroom.”

Angelina returned to her two friends. “She’s in there now. I’m patiently waiting to hear a thud.”

“I’ll go check her bike,” Marrec mumbled while moving toward the exit.

After about ten minutes, the girl re-emerged. She had cleaned off her face and hands and rinsed the blood and dirt from her hair. A surprisingly pretty girl—who looked like she could bench press a Buick.

“Much better,” she announced. She focused on the three women who stared back. “Something wrong?”

“We’re just waiting for you to pass out,” Miki admitted.

The girl grinned. “Mechanic?”

“That’s Marrec. He’s checking your bike now.” Sara glanced out the window. “But, honey, your bike is toast.”

“Ya think?” She walked outside, Sara Miki and Angie following behind her.

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Shelly Laurenston

Sara marveled at how quickly the girl seemed to be recovering. Maybe she was on some new painkiller. Sara would have to ask. She might need it herself soon.

The girl walked over to the mangled remains of her bike. “My poor baby.”

Sara caught Miki rolling her eyes. Her short friend never could understand the bikers’ love of their choppers. The passion.

Marrec, who still crouched beside the bike, slowly stood and glowered at the girl. Their eyes locked and they stared at each other. That’s all they did. Just stared. Finally, the girl turned away.

Miki nudged Sara, but Sara blew it off. She’d seen Marrec do that many times before. It was that “weird thing” he did. Sometimes even to his own sons or wife. Hell, Miki did lots of weird things so she had absolutely no room to judge.

“Where did you crash anyway?” Angelina asked.

The girl knelt down beside the mangled metal. “Don’t know. I guess about two miles back.”

The friends exchanged glances.

“How did you get your bike here?”

“Dragged it.” The girl’s head tilted to the side as Marrec turned to face the parking lot entrance.

“Wait a minute.” Miki didn’t even bother trying to hide her disbelief.

“You expect us to believe you dragged that thing here? In your condition?

Bullshit,” she finished flatly.

As always, Miki was as subtle as a brick to the head.

The girl ignored her and said, “Good.” She seemed relieved. “They’re here.” She stood and walked to the front of the parking lot as four beautiful, tricked-out choppers, all manned by women, pulled in and halted next to the girl.

“Check it out.” Angelina elbowed her friends. “Lesbians. In Texas.”

“Would you shut up.” Sara chuckled.

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Pack Challenge

“Julie, glad to see you’re not dead,” spoke the oldest of the women.

Her blonde hair was streaked with gray, her face covered in age lines.

She was probably gorgeous once. Now merely beautiful.

Sliding off her bike, the older woman hugged the battered girl. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, Casey. I’m fine.” The girl leaned in and whispered something.

Casey looked up and straight at Marrec.

“No problem.” Casey walked over to Marrec. “This your shop?” Sara watched her boss’s back straighten, his arms crossing over his large chest. “Yeah.”

The woman smiled coldly. “Got a minute?” Marrec observed the woman carefully. “Sara,” he spoke without taking his eyes off Casey. “Go inside.” A startled Sara glanced at her equally startled friends. “Are you kidding?” He
must
be kidding. Marrec rarely ordered her to do anything.

He especially never ordered her to go away like a ten-year-old child.

The expression he gave her clearly told her he was serious. But before Sara could clearly and concisely tell him to fuck off, Casey intervened.

“Julie needs to get a new bike. That one isn’t going anywhere. Could you show her what you guys have?”

Sara snorted at the lame attempt to get rid of her.

“Wow, Julie. Your ride is fucked.” That low-voiced statement from a tiny Asian woman crouching by the totaled bike.

“I know, Kelly. I know.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Casey offered. “We’ll get you a new one here.

Kelly’s got the cash and cards. I think it’s time to spend a little money.” Miki folded her arms in front of her chest. “Drug money, I assume,” she queried smugly.

Angelina’s eyes snapped open wide and Sara slapped her hand over her friend’s mouth. Casey raised one eyebrow, looking right at Sara. Like she could control Miki or something. Hell, no one could control Miki.

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Shelly Laurenston

“Why don’t you guys go in and check out our stock,” Sara quickly stated. “Some great stuff just came in.” With a nod, Casey motioned to her females and they entered the store while she and Marrec walked to the edge of the parking lot, out of hearing rage. Once they were effectively alone, Sara and Angelina let out huge sighs.

“Drug money, I assume?” Angelina ground out between clenched teeth, giving Miki a good shove.

Miki shrugged. “I was just asking.”

“Well don’t. Don’t ask. Don’t query. Don’t question.” Angelina moved toward the door, then spun around on four-inch designer heels to glare at Miki. “And try
not
to get the shit kicked out of us by biker chicks.

Think you can handle that?”

“Think you can handle that,” Miki angrily mimicked as she went to follow Angelina into the store. Sara watched as Miki grabbed the handle on the glass door, but she pushed instead of pulled and slammed into it.

“Motherfucker!”

Sara laughed and felt her headache slip away.

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Pack Challenge

“So, what happened to your face?”

Sara grabbed Miki by the back of her T-shirt and jeans before the woman could dive over the counter and wrap her hands around the throat of the Asian girl they called Kelly.

She pulled Miki back to her while Angelina leaned forward and said,

“You know what they say about curiosity? That it stabbed the annoying biker girl over and over and over again until she spit up blood.” Oh, yeah. That was subtle. Sara pushed Angelina back, too. Her friends had always been protective of her. It was sweet, in its own rabid-squirrel kind of way.

People rarely just came out and asked about her wounds. Not so directly. Yet there seemed to be no malice to Kelly’s question. It was simply a question. So, Sara gave her a very simple answer. “None of your business. So are you taking those shirts?” Kelly looked down at the six T-shirts she held in her hand.

“Uh…yeah. Sure.”

As Sara rung up the sale, Marrec and Casey returned. The tension seemed to have lessened, but she could tell Marrec was still on edge as he walked around the counter, patting Sara on the shoulder. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Sara said under her breath. “And they’re buying a ton of shit.

I expect a bonus, old man.”

Marrec smiled. “Greedy bitch.”

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Shelly Laurenston

Casey stood in front of Sara, examining her closely. “Interesting scar.”

“Un-fucking-believable,” Miki bit out, looking like she might try and dive over the counter again.

“Check this out.” Casey pulled her mane of hair off her neck, and turned so Sara had a clear view.

Angelina and Miki winced.

The healed over and raised rips across the woman’s neck ran from the back of her left ear, across and down her neck, disappearing under her jacket. Sara sensed they went on well down her torso.

“Mountain lion,” Casey volunteered. “Eight years ago. A nasty fight.”

“You? You fought a mountain lion?” Clearly Miki wasn’t buying it.

“It was either him or me. And in the end it all comes down to survival.”

Sara thought about her father. He’d fought to protect her all those years ago and it cost him his life, but in the end she survived.

Julie, who seemed to be getting stronger and healthier by the minute, interrupted the moment with an announcement. “The males are here.” Four more bikes pulled up outside the shop. Sara could see the gorgeous chrome through the window. She got all tingly just thinking about having one of those bikes between her legs.

Miki turned to Casey. “Are these men
men
or chicks dressed as men?” Sara sighed and Angelina closed her eyes in exasperation. Miki grinned. “I’m just askin’.”

What walked through the shop door three minutes later, though, were clearly “men
men
.”

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Pack Challenge

“You know,” Angelina quietly stated to her two friends, “I was just thinking I need to stop by the butcher. Pick up some steak.”

“I could use some sausage,” Sara added. Then she and Angelina began giggling over the “hottie-hots” who walked into Marrec’s store.

“Aren’t you two freaked out by these people just a little bit?” Miki demanded softly.

Sara watched the group interaction. She had to admit, they didn’t act like any motorcycle club she’d ever met before. Friendly but polite.

Affectionate and playful, but not remotely sexual, except for a few.

A tall, amazing-looking man walked over to Casey. His hair was grayer than the woman’s, but it looked premature. There were only a few lines on his face. As soon as Casey saw him she broke into a huge smile.

A smile he returned. He didn’t kiss her hello. Instead, he brushed his head gently against hers. Nuzzled her under the chin, pulled her hair aside and licked the wound on the back of her neck.

Angie missed the moment, busy staring at her hands and complaining about her chipped nail polish. But Miki saw it.

“Okay. Does
that
freak you out?” Sara shrugged and answered honestly, “I think it was kinda sweet.

Weird, but sweet.” She was used to bikers grabbing their women’s crotches and shoving their tongues down their throats right in the middle of the shop. It always seemed like they were about to take them right there on the show floor. But what she’d just witnessed, that was affection. Something she herself had never really experienced with the

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Shelly Laurenston

men she had gone out with over the years. Nice men she’d only let get so close. There was never a time she didn’t have walls up or, as her friends called it, “The Armor”. She felt safer that way, but it also kept every well-meaning man at arm’s length.

Another male came in. This one blond and perhaps a little closer to her age. He was as big as a house, though. Like a blond polar bear. All muscle and strength. He actually reminded Sara of the Vikings from one of Miki's computer games. All he needed was that horned helmet. He greeted a few of the females but mostly with a pat on the shoulder or a nod. But when he saw Miki it was like someone hit him over the head with a rock. He looked stunned. He walked into the wall.