Chasing Claire (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) (10 page)

Raine raised an eyebrow. “Reno and most of the other guys are staying, honey.”

Then.

“You going to talk to him again? Ever?” Glory opened another bottle of wine.

I sat on in stubborn silence.

I had, of course, shared with my girls the whole embarrassing, infuriating, stumbling-headlong-into-Reno’s-room incident.

After a lot of
no he didn’t
s, and
what did you do then
s, and
what are you gonna do now
s, I had proclaimed the subject off-limits, at least for the time being. Because there were no easy answers.

Had I seen Reno?

Yeah, I had seen him.

From a distance.

He had been at the compound working on his bike. I had glared at him and he had glared right back at me.

That about summed it up.

“What’s all this?” Changing the subject, Raine reached for the sheets of papers on the table. On those pages sat the numbers that Glory and I had spent most of the day trying to tally, and most of the evening trying to forget.

“It’s the high cost of attempting to make something of one’s life,” Glory sighed poetically.

“Glory got her first catering job,” I added.

“And Claire is starting school soon.” Glory smiled at me.

“And we’re both going to be drowning in a shitload of debt trying to make it all happen,” I grumbled.

Raine, ever a numbers girl, looked over the lists.

“Wow, eight hundred bucks for ingredients and a couple of pans?” She arched her eyebrows and looked at Glory. “Think that might be overkill?”

“No. It’s start-up money. I want to use the best ingredients, otherwise what’s the point? And if I buy in bulk, I won’t have to order again for a while. But, you’re right, it does seem like a lot for me to
spend right now.” Glory took the list and looked at it again. “And to think I used to make that in an hour.”

I sputtered the wine I was drinking back into the glass. When I looked up, I saw Raine’s eyes water from downing a gulp of hot tea.

“An hour?” Raine and I managed to croak out together.

Then Glory looked up at us. “Oh yeah. That was the average. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, but it wasn’t unusual for me to make a couple thousand a night when I worked the room.

Glory had been a nude showgirl in Vegas. She had mostly danced in elaborately costumed and professionally choreographed stage shows. As extravagant as they were, the costumes had consisted solely of tassels, bejeweled headdresses, and sparkling stilettos. Mostly, she had been separated from the customers by theatrical lights and raised platforms.

Except when she worked the private rooms by request.

With Glory’s white-blond hair, glacial blue eyes, smooth alabaster skin, and the best set of real tits that I personally had ever seen, I was not surprised when she told me that she was requested a lot. Glory was a perfect combination of Grace Kelly and Tassel Sally. Cool and unapproachable when it suited her to be, but ballsy, funny, and a whole lot of kick-ass, once you got to know her.

Glory continued.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not glamorizing it or anything. I hated being so close to those sweaty suits.”

Then she took a thoughtful sip of her wine and added, “Although, there was this one guy. Always had an entourage with him. Security, personal assistants, and God knows what else. ‘Beck and call boys’ we used to call them. Anyway, I think he was the prince of some little country. Luxembourg, maybe? He came into town about every couple of months or so. He would play big at the tables and then book the room. That prince was the kind of client every nude dancer dreams of.” Glory grinned wickedly at us. “Win big, lose big, the guy always
tipped big. Not a bad-looking man either. He wore these dark sunglasses, so I never really knew where his eyes were hitting me. At first it kind of freaked me out, but after working the room a bit, and having the beady little eyes of all those drunken fools ogling me, it was a relief. In a weird kind of way, wearing those sunglasses was almost a gentlemanly thing to do. Anyway, I’m not sure whatever happened to him, I suppose he kept going to the club after I left. I kind of wonder sometimes if he ever asked about me. Could sure use the fifteen hundred bucks he used to tip for an hour of seeing me strutting in front of him now, I tell ya.” Glory twirled her blond hair, lost in thought.

Raine and I leaned forward with our mouths hanging open.

Glory was spilling.

And I was right, it was worth the wait. Every single minute of it.

She looked at the two of us. Then she smiled like the cat who had just bagged the canary.

She leaned in, “And you two have been just dying to know where all that money went, and why I showed my bits for good old Benjamin Franklins in the first place.”

Raine and I both nodded, transfixed.

Glory sighed softly.

“I’m afraid after all this time, the story isn’t going to live up to your expectations. Actually, it’s so common, it’s clichéd. Living in Vegas like we did, lots of kids grew up chasing it. Bright lights, fast money, tons of action. You know the deal. All the little boys hanging around the back doors of the casinos, wanting to grow up to be the big man, the one with the juice. Maybe one in a million make it, the rest of them either wind up dead, in jail, or owing very big to some very bad men who they can’t pay. My brother fell into that last category. Which, by the way, is how I met that bastard Gino. Between what my brother sent Gino’s cousin, Vincenzo, what I made, and the little we got for inheritance, it still took a couple of years to pay off the debt that Hal owed him.”

Glory took another sip of her wine then looked at Raine.

“During my time in Vegas I got to know that smooth-talking snake better. Gino was back and forth from here to the casino a lot. He made me all kinds of promises. I think now that he must have been making lots of those promises to me and you at the same time.”

Glory looked at Raine. “Does that make sense?”

Raine nodded. “Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.”

Gino and Raine had never made sense to me, but then again, neither had Gino and Glory. Those bad Gino memories were something that my sister and my best friend had in common. They had both made the colossal mistake of being in a relationship with that psychopath. I had a few bad Gino memories myself, but those mainly consisted of seeing his brain matter splattered against my sister’s T-shirt.

I shuddered just thinking about it.

“Anyway,” Glory continued. “Long story short, I ended up striking a deal to dance at the club to pay off my brother’s debt. See? The whole thing is a stupid cliché.”

Glory shrugged her shoulders, but her eyes got damp when she did. That could not have been an easy time for our friend. No wonder it had taken her this long to share.

Raine’s eyes met mine.

“There’s nothing clichéd about what you did, Glory. I think it was an unselfish act that took a lot of love and courage. Your brother’s a lucky guy to have you.” Raine squeezed her hand.

I nodded in agreement.

“Anyway, it took me a long time, but I paid them up. And here I am.” Glory smiled a little then.

“Where’s your brother now?” I asked.

“He’s in the military. The Marines. I made a deal with him. I would pay up if he joined up. It was the only way I could think to keep him out of trouble. Maybe not the safest solution, but better
than the alternative. He’s doing great! He’s already gotten a couple of promotions and now he is with some special operations division, I think. But, he puts half the money he earns in an account that he set up just for me, so he’s trying to make it right. I didn’t ask him to do that, but he’s doing it and honestly it helps.” Glory shrugged.

“So that’s that. The mystery of Glory Thomas solved.” She smiled at us.

“Somehow I doubt that,” I answered ruefully, grinning at her. “Somehow, I think the prince of Luxembourg and the gambling Marine are just teasers. They are just the tip of the iceberg of the mystery that is you.”

Glory laughed then. The effects of being kidnapped, tied up for several days, and beaten savagely by Gino had wrought havoc on Glory’s vocal chords.

Screaming in fear and pain for a very long time can do that.

Most of the damage from that nightmare had been mended by time, love, and sisterhood. But the harm to Glory’s vocal chords had remained. The result had left Glory with a low, throaty rasp to her voice. It made her sound like she was always just getting out of bed. Diego had once told Raine that the sound of Glory’s voice gave all the brothers instant hard-ons. I had to admit, despite the horrible circumstances that led to the damage, Glory’s voice was as sexy as hell.

But her laughter was a gift.

Sadly, tonight, it also heralded the end of the spilling.

Raine and I both knew it would do no good to ask questions; we both had tried and failed that route before.

“Night, all.” She waved at us. Then she winked at our open-mouthed stares.

Just like that. Glory stopped sharing just as quickly as she had started and left us hungry for more. Apparently the show-stopping side of our friend had not been left in that flashy casino.

Raine and I looked at each other and smiled.

Because we knew that there would be more to come. The mystery of our very own Vegas showgirl, our Glory, would absolutely be solved.

And it would all be worth the wait.

I didn’t know about Raine, but speaking strictly for myself, I went to bed that night dreaming of swinging tassels, million-dollar payoffs and handsome princes smiling behind dark sunglasses.

CHAPTER 18

R
eno told himself he was moving on.

Oh. Yes. He. Was.

He hadn’t seen Claire since the night he came back from the West Coast, and he didn’t give a shit if he ever saw that woman again.

Or at least, that’s what he kept telling himself. And it was easy to tell himself that because she was not there. At least not anywhere he was. Or was going to be, or had been in the recent past.

And that was just fine with him. Yep. He was golden with it. Just fine.

Reno knew that Claire was about to start school soon. He knew that she was going to be taking courses at some fancy college down in the valley.

Not that he had asked.

Nope. Nobody could say he had asked one damn thing about her.

But he couldn’t help it if he had somehow managed to overhear every single drop of information coming out of Pinky or Prosper or Raine’s mouth regarding Claire.

It wasn’t as if he was eavesdropping. Not at all. It wasn’t as if he stored every single bit of information regarding Claire. It wasn’t as if he had to physically stop himself from showing up at the lake house, throwing her over his shoulder, taking her to his bed, and slamming some sense into her. Nah. It wasn’t like that at all.

Reno pulled on the last of the smoke before he stomped his cigarette out and went back to working on his bike.
Sure it is
. He thought to himself.
It is exactly fucking like that.

He was miserable.

The future stretched out in front of him like a long, dark tunnel. Thousands of nights without Claire.

Yeah, he could spend his time with lots of women, but none of them would be her.

And where would that leave Claire?

She would end up with someone that wasn’t him. She could end up with some asshole who wouldn’t get how shy she was with new people, or how she took forever to get to the point of what she was trying to say, or how she was always dropping things when she got nervous. She could end up with someone who didn’t understand that she had absolutely no sense of direction.

She might end up with a guy who wouldn’t know how easily she could get lost.

Yeah. She could wind up with somebody that was way worse than he was.

And she didn’t deserve that guy.

No. Claire deserved better than that. She deserved the guy who loved her more than life itself.

Claire deserved the kind of love that only he could give her. She was his. And he was hers. That’s just the way it was.

He could beat himself bloody, he could race across the country, he could sleep with a thousand other women, but the fact was and always would be that she belonged to him.

Now he just had to figure out how to get her to see it that way.

His whole body ached, but that was nothing, he realized, compared to his heart.

He gripped the tire and tried to get back to work. His hand was killing him. He was having trouble holding the wrench. Wincing in
pain, he wiped the grease off his hands, and then he went into the kitchen house to grab a little somethin’.

The smell of cooked bacon hit him the minute he cleared the door and Reno felt his stomach roll over. He sat down at the counter and nodded to Jules, who was mopping up the bar.

“Eggs?” Jules looked up at Reno.

“Whiskey.” Reno shot back.

Jules motioned toward the clock. “Little early to be drinking.”

Reno looked at his knuckles and stretched them out painfully. He knew the pain showed on his face.

“Fuck you, Jules,” Reno grimaced.

Jules poured Reno a cup of coffee and put a shot of Jack right next to it.

“With all the fighting, whoring, and drinking you’ve been doing lately, I’m surprised that you have any fuck-yous left, Brother.”

Reno muttered something that, lucky for him, Jules chose to ignore.

Then, pouring the whiskey into the cup, the outlaw winced as he put his big paw around the mug and carefully brought it to his lips.

“There’s a reason they banned bare-knuckle boxing, man.” Jules nodded at Reno’s swollen hand.

“Yeah, and what would that be?” Reno took another sip of the coffee and pushed it away.

“Coffee bad? Jesus, I just made it fresh.” Jules turned around to look at the full pot.

“Naw, whiskey tastes like shit in it. Give me a fresh cup, Brother?” Reno asked.

Jules let out a sigh. “Glad to do it, man.”

He poured Reno another cup of coffee, and put the bottle back under the counter. Then he reached over and shoved a plate of scrambled eggs at him.