“Serves him right,” was all Angel replied.
*****
Crash and Cole stood at the bar in the clubhouse.
“How’s Shannon?” Cole asked.
“When I left?” Crash smiled. “Cussing’ me up one side and down the other, I’m sure.”
Cole chuckled.
Crash took a sip of coffee from his mug. He looked over at the table where Mack sat talking with Jake and Shane. Lowering his mug, he asked Cole, “You think he’ll let ‘em prospect?”
Cole glanced over at the table, then back to Crash. “Don’t see why not.”
Crash nodded.
“Of course they’ve got to be employed first. Gotta have that legit source of income to keep the feds off our backs.”
“Yeah. Wolf said something about maybe having a spot for them. It’d be something, at least till they got settled.”
“Speaking of Wolf, he was supposed to get Shannon a seat. Angel gave me hell yesterday when she saw your girl was ridin’ the fender.” Cole glared at Crash, letting him know he blamed him for that.
Crash’s jaw clenched. “Where the hell is Wolf? He should’ve been back by now.” He glanced at the clock above the bar.
Cole grinned. “You timin’ him?”
“Hell, yeah,” Crash snapped. “And quit callin’ Shannon, my girl. She ain’t my girl.”
“You don’t like her? Here I thought you were gonna have her waiting on you hand and foot. Wasn’t that the bet? Do I get my hundred bucks yet?”
“Deals not over yet. There’s still time.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Cole tried to hold back a grin as he took a sip of his own coffee. “Thought she acted fine when she was here the other day.”
“Yeah, she’s cool, calm and pulled together on the outside—on the inside, she’s a hot mess,” Crash grumbled.
“What do you mean?”
“Shit sets her off,” he shrugged, picking up a stir-stick and putting it in his mouth, chewing on the end.
“Like what?”
“Well, like one day last week. We pulled in this parking lot, which already made her edgy, because for some freaking reason parking lots freak her out. We went into Burke’s, you know, that restaurant attached to the mall? Anyway, when we came out, we’re walking toward the bike and this panel van pulls into the spot next to the bike, and suddenly she’s freaking out. Pulling on my hand, refusing to go another step. She’s backing up like I’m trying to take her to a six-dollar hair salon.”
Crash shook his head. “Then last night, we took the boys down to Lucky’s. Anyway, the place got a little rowdy. A fight broke out in the parking lot as we were leaving. I was getting her out of there. The cops had arrived, but there was one guy they were having trouble with, so they ended up hitting him with a Taser. Shannon completely lost it.”
“How?” Cole asked with a frown.
“Froze up, started shaking like an alcoholic on a two-day dry spell. I’m telling you, she was having a full-blown panic attack. Took me a good twenty minutes just to get her calmed down enough to be able to get on the back of the bike and ride home.” Crash shook his head. “ I don’t know if it’s fear of this ex-boyfriend of hers that gets her so frightened, but, brother, I got to tell you, it tears my heart out to see her like that.”
“Jesus Christ,” Cole murmured, remembering the story Shannon had told him that day he’d had a drink with her at Marty’s years ago. He’d asked her how she’d gotten taken, how she’d ended up three years earlier in the back of that panel van they’d found her in, handcuffed and gagged, and about to be sold into white slavery, before he, Crash and four other brothers had saved her and the other five girls in that van.
He still remembered what she’d replied. How she’d confessed that day at the bar of how afraid she was, still to that day, of walking across a parking lot.
He could only imagine that a white panel van pulling up next to her was a major trigger for a panic attack. And the asshole who’d taken her had used a stun-gun on her, pulling her into the back of a panel van he’d parked next to her car.
Christ, it was her worst nightmare all over again. Cole looked over at Crash. “You need to talk to her.”