Chapter 1
Madison flipped her now-dry hair forward over her shoulders, inspecting the new platinum silver color. Deciding that she loved the color, she commenced with her makeup application for the evening.
She didn’t have to work for the next three nights. After working six nights a week for the last six months, she was more than ready for a break. The Hideaway was wonderful, and she and her friends had made more money in the last six months than ever before, but Madison was tired and running on a creative low like never before.
As a sculptor, she had made very little money, but that was her first love. There was precious little need for sculptures in the bar and night club industry so she’d found. The three days off would give her enough time to maybe re-ignite her creativity. Sculpting was her way of dealing with stress, unwinding. And it was a great form of self-expression. She’d been sculpting since high school.
Though Madison’s mother had encouraged the hobby and had enjoyed the dark subject matter, her father did not approve. He had told Madison that she needed to choose subject matter more fitting for a lady’s work. Madison had laughed the first time he said that. How far outdated were his ideals about the world?
He had made sure that his rebellious daughter didn’t laugh when he told her something again. That had been the worst whipping she’d ever had. Later that night, as Madison had lain in her bed, all her tears dried, the welts from the belt still burning, she had decided that it would be the last time a man would force her to behave a certain way just to please him.
She had cut her long hair into a short, spiked, punk-do because her father had forced her to let her hair grow long because that was his idea of how a woman’s hair should look. She had braided a thick strand to save as a memento of the occasion and that braid still hung from the rearview mirror her VW van.
So far, no man since had forced her to do anything she didn’t want to do. Not only had she continued to use dark subject matter for her sculpting, it had taken an even darker turn, she gladly suffered the consequences with her father, refusing to let him see her cry. The pieces became larger and more violent until one day, Madison’s father packed up all her sculpting tools and materials and had them locked in a storage unit on the other side of town.
Madison had moved out six months later, still unable to give a man so much power over her life. When she got into college the following fall, she had called her mother. Both parents were thrilled for her, but when she’d told them that her minor was to do with sculpting, her father had hung up his phone, breaking the happy conference call and leaving his two wayward women to chat another half-hour.
Sometimes Madison missed her father throughout her college career, but mostly she studied, partied, and sculpted whatever she took a notion to sculpt. That’s when her work took on a sexual element that accented the dark side—supernatural, demonic, folklore, and violent matters all seemed to work very well with sexual overtones.
It wasn’t long before her hobby turned into a little moneymaker. She still studied business as her major, but she didn’t enjoy it. The artsy side of anything in life always held more sway over Madison Smith. As an adult, she had found a way to incorporate both her fields of training. The Hideaway was a work of art in and of itself. Madison had helped with the creative side of the endeavor to start with and then she had put her small business degree to work in the office, running the nightclub.
Sometime between starting college and starting up the nightclub, Madison had let her creative side overflow into her personal life and started using her body as a blank canvas, a form of self-expression, a living sculpture, if you will.
Standing in front of her full-length mirror, she studied each tattoo, each piercing, and now the new haircut and new silvery dye. The overall image reflected back to her was impressive and she was happy.
Making a mental note to call her mother one day the following week, Madison dressed. She needed to run to the store and grab some essentials for sculpting. She had seen a couple things before opening the club that had interested her and she wanted to see if she could capture them in sculptures.
The sun was already warm when she walked to her car. She had grown accustomed to staying at Jayda’s place for months because they closed the club in the wee hours of the morning and then had to be back at work early the next day. Now that they had hired a couple more girls to help out, they were rotating the three-day-off schedule so that they could re-acclimate to their own homes and lives outside the club.
The neon green-and-white VW van had been the only car Madison had ever bought. Her friends had tried to shame her into buying another, more modern, vehicle, but she’d refused. She loved the sound of the VW van’s engine, the way it handled, and the room she had to haul supplies and her finished pieces. To her, that was enough of a selling point—the VW had earned its keep just by being large enough to haul her masterpieces comfortably.
Smiling, Madison maneuvered the van expertly into the parking lot of a little strip mall. The art supply store was the only one around for nearly fifty miles and the owner had offered to special order supplies for Maddy anytime. The owner, a fifty-something woman with mostly gray hair and rimless glasses, had told Maddy that her name was Tuft Williams.
Madison couldn’t go to that store and talk to Tuft without smiling—partly because the woman was a genuinely nice and entertaining person to be around and partly because of her name. If Madison were to be completely honest, it was mostly because of the woman’s name. One day she meant to ask Tuft if her parents named her Tuft or if it was her pseudonym for her own creative works.
Pushing the door open to Tuft’s store, Maddy knew today wouldn’t be that day—she was already grinning and biting at the inside of her cheek at the thought. Tuft would think she was being cruel and mean if she asked about it while laughing.
There was always another day for idle chit-chat. Maddy could wait; her sculpting could not. Now that she was at the supply store, she wanted to hurry with her errands and get back to her studio swiftly so she could begin working.
Chapter 2
On her third and final errand stop of the morning, Madison was loading her few groceries into the van when she heard the thunder of a motorcycle long before she saw it. The black and chrome Harley that pulled off the roadway and cruised into the lot was beautiful. Madison watched as the rider parked it in the slot next to her van.
The rider turned off the metal beast and set the kickstand. As he pulled the helmet up and off his head, Madison recognized him. Trigger Daniels from the Black Mountain Bikers club. He was more beautiful than the motorcycle he was riding, with his black, wavy hair falling in to his shoulders. In the sunlight, his hair had a deep blue cast.
Forcing herself to keep her composure and not show that she was actually ogling him, Madison reached for the handles on another reusable gr
ocery bag and tugged. Why had she packed them so heavy? Because she’d been in a hurry to get back home and work on her sculpture. As she hefted the bag with both hands, the worn handles broke free of their fabric and cans of soup and vegetables spewed into the cart and onto the pavement, where they rolled scattershot in every direction.
“Whoa! You can stop the barrage; the war’s over!” Trigger laughed and stepped off his ride.
“I’m sorry. My bag…” She grinned and shrugged, standing there stupidly as Trigger bent to gather up stray cans.
“Where do you want these?” He was holding six cans out to her.
“Um…here. Just stick ‘em in here.” She held out the bag with the broken handles and he put the cans in it, his hand brushing hers lightly on the exit.
He bent to pick up more cans. Madison kicked her brain into gear and bent to help. Twice they bumped arms putting cans in the defunct bag; both times they made eye contact and laughed easily as if they’d been friends for a long time.
Lifting the bag easily, Trigger stood slowly and placed it in the van between other bags to hold it securely. He turned to Madison, flashing that superstar smile of his, making her heart jump into her throat and her palms sweat.
“There you go. They should be good ‘til you get home; I wouldn’t recommend hitting the brakes too hard, though.” He laughed again.
“Thank you; I won’t. I’ll try not to, anyway.” Madison moved to shut the doors.
“Are you an artist of some kind?” Trigger was standing so close that his body heat touched Madison’s back and his voice was right in her ear.
Stunned by his sudden closeness, she went still and stammered. His right arm appeared over her shoulder and he pointed at the art supplies. The tribal tattoo of a winged serpent wound from his wrist upward and disappeared under the rolled-up sleeve of his flannel shirt.
Madison chuckled nervously. “Yeah, I sculpt, but it’s no big deal. You know, a hobby.” She pushed the doors shut.
When she turned he hadn’t moved very far away. The invasion of her personal space wasn’t as unpleasant as she’d thought while turned in the other direction. In fact, she didn’t mind that he’d invaded her personal space; he smelled sexy and the way the sun glinted off his hair and made his dark green eyes seem like jade was breathtaking. She had the sudden urge to hug him just to get her hands on him and press her body to his. Instead, she leaned against the closed door of the van and smiled up at him.
“When someone says something isn’t a big deal, it most assuredly is a big deal. Especially if that person is a woman.” He winked at her and backed up a step.
“That was a really sexist thing to say.” Instantly offended, she sidestepped him and held out her hand for him to shake.
He took her hand in a firm, warm, strong grip. “Are you offended? I didn’t mean it to be sexist. That’s just always been my experience.” He shook her hand and shrugged. “Hey, if you say it’s no big deal, then it’s no big deal, I guess.”
“Thanks for helping me with the cans.”
“You’re welcome.”