“So, what exactly do you do?” she asked, making small talk.
“I work full time for my club. We have several businesses all in a row.”
“You mean like an old-fashioned strip mall?”
“I guess that’s what it’s called.” He shrugged. “We have a garage, a coffee house, and a hair salon.”
“Your biker’s club owns a hair salon?” She sounded surprised.
“Don’t laugh,” he said, barely holding his own back. “It’s a nice little moneymaker. We own the shop and rent out the spaces to different girls who bring their own clientele.”
“It sounds like your club is pretty business savvy,” she said, sounding impressed. He liked that. He wanted her to see them as the good guys, even if they weren’t quite there yet.
“We’re trying to transition out of most of our illegal jobs,” he informed her.
“Why the change?”
“We thought about it one day and decided that, in the last few years, the drugs and guns have created more problems than they’ve solved. Why risk jail time when we can make money like everyone else?”
She hummed beneath her breath. “I’d tend to agree.”
“Hell, I want to be honest,” Ryder said, dropping his spoon and sitting back. If there was any chance in hell of them working out, she needed to know exactly what she was getting into. “We’ll probably continue to do an occasional illegal job. It’s all about risk verses reward. If the risk is low and the reward high, we might get on board.”
Her eyes held his, and if she was upset by his admission, she hadn’t yet started running. Ryder took that as a good sign.
Smiling at him, Tiffany shook her head. “It’s refreshing to hear someone being honest. You don’t realize what a rarity that is these days.”
“Don’t start thinking of me as a damned boy scout or anything,” he warned her.
“You killed a man and have a demented killer hunting you because of it,” she pointed out. “I’m not likely to forget how dangerous you can be.”
“Yea, well, we don’t grieve women. I know some clubs treat their chicks like garbage. We don’t.” He needed her to understand that too. Where he came from, women weren’t property to be used and abused. They were a partner, someone to be loved and respected.
She nodded, growing quiet for a moment before switching gears. “I noticed your tattoos. The one on your back looks like the one on your jacket. Is it your club’s logo?”
“It sure is,” he said with a proud smile. “I helped design it almost ten years ago. Got the idea from a picture I saw in a book at a tattoo parlor. That’s when the Blind Jacks MC was born.”
“I like hearing you talk about your club. Your face lights up.” She met his eyes briefly before dipping her head and digging into her own meal.
Ryder’s chest puffed, enjoying that bit of shyness about her before he tucked back into his own too.
As he shoveled food in his face, he talked about things he’d never told any living soul. “In the beginning, it was just five of us: me, my two brothers, my best friend, and another man. We grew up riding motorcycles. My father owned a tattoo parlor, so we knew all the local charters. It seemed natural to form our own. We were real badasses back then and got a reputation quicker than most. We thought we were pretty hot stuff back then.”
Smiling at him, Tiffany interjected, “I’m sure you were. Hell, you’re hot stuff now.”
Laughing, Ryder shook his head. “Wasn’t the kind of hot stuff I was referring to, doll.”
When they finished eating, they took their coffee outside and continued talking as they enjoyed the warm autumn day.
For the first time, Ryder could see himself settling down and making a family of his own. Tiffany was easier to talk to than any woman he’d ever met. That she was smart, funny, and easy on the eyes was a nice little bonus. She was also a go-getter. She’d scooped him up and made shit happen last night, instead of waiting for him to do everything. That had been pretty damn amazing.
A man like him would be lucky to score a girl like her as his ol’ lady.
Forcing Ryder to slow down was no easy task. Turned out the magical combination involved begging, bribing, and a dash of kissing. Tiffany filed away that bit of information for future reference as she went out back to chop some kindling. This was the one chore she always loved growing up. There was something relaxing about taking small pieces of wood and chopping them into even smaller pieces. Her mind drifted as she got a couple of smaller logs and her grandfather’s hatchet.
She zoned out, thinking about what Ryder had said about the shortage of nurses in his local area. If things took off between the two of them, she could see herself relocating to be with him. Most of her family was back east anyway.
Lost in her own thoughts, she failed to see the danger until it was on top of her. Her first indication of a problem was a dirty hand reaching around from behind to clamp tightly over her mouth. Suddenly, she was being dragged backward, toward the old, run-down family cemetery. Images flashed through her mind of dying and Ryder finding her body among the vintage tombstones.