Chasing Claire (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) (6 page)

Sonofabitch.

Is that all it took for her?

He had just gone through months of self-destructive agony trying to kill the misery of being away from her. He hadn’t had one happy thought since the day he had left.

And not only that. All this time, he had imagined that Claire had been just as unhappy and miserable without him.

Now he could see it was all a lie. It was all bullshit. He had been fooling himself. Maybe she was skinny and tired-looking but who wasn’t? She couldn’t have been nearly as miserable as he had selfishly hoped she had been. Not if all it took for her to laugh and shout out with goddamn glee were the keys to a three-year-old Jeep.

And there it was. Right then and there.

Because he was flawed and fragile in the face of what he felt for her, right then and there, Reno got pissed off at Claire all over again.

CHAPTER 10

W
ell, look who finally made it the hell home.” Jules looked up from the card game as Reno pulled out a chair, turned it backwards, and plopped down at the table.

Pipe, Riker, and a prospect were already seated and nodded to him.

“Good to see you, Brother.” Jules slid the bottle over toward Reno.

“Yeah, not too sorry to see your ugly ass either.” Reno took a long grateful hit off the whiskey. “Just saw Glory. Your woman is looking pretty goddamn fine. How come you’re in here laying down a hand with these sorry looking boys ’stead of bedding her down, Brother?”

Jules took a long hard look at Reno, then he looked harder.

“You speaking about my woman, Reno?”

Reno rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, sorry man. Long ride.”

Jules nodded.

“She talking to anybody?” Jules tried for the casual.

“Who you talking about?” Reno was looking toward the door.

Jules growled.

Reno looked back at his brother. “Talking? Nope. Woman wasn’t saying a word. When I saw Glory, she was heading toward the rooms with one of the Point brothers. Her hand on his ass was doing all of the talking for her.”

Reno grinned at Jules. The brothers at the table all nodded appreciatively.

“Very fucking funny.” Jules did not look amused.

“Jesus, what do you think? That beauty hasn’t talked to anybody but you, Prosper, and her girls since the day she came here. Barely nods to me, and I saved her life,” Reno said.

“Yeah, well she ain’t so quiet any more. Especially when she’s pissed off at me,” Jules said miserably.

“Yeah, got that.” Reno nodded in commiseration.

He slid the bottle back toward his brother.

“You in?” Pipe was dealing.

“I’m in.” The last thing that Reno felt like doing was playing cards. But, in what he saw as a strategic and conciliatory move, he had parked his bike in a visible location. It shouldn’t be long before Claire saw it and came looking for him. His Irish temper had cooled down enough to want her to seek him out, but not enough for him to go looking for her again.

A little while later, Reno was about three hundred bucks down. He was still alone and getting more pissed off by the minute. He hadn’t had his eyes off the entrance for more than five straight seconds. Nobody worth anything had come through those doors.

“Just go get her, man,” Jules sighed.

“Don’t know what the hell you are talking about, Brother,” Reno snarled. “And really, man? You sitting there holding a losing hand when you could be holding your woman and you think you can give me fucking advice?”

“He’s got a point.” Pipe nodded.

“Can we stop with the soap opera shit and just play the goddamn game?” Riker picked up the cards to deal. All of a sudden, Reno decided he’d had enough. He threw down his hand and folded.

“I’m done here.” Reno took the bottle off the table and headed for the door. “You coming?” He turned around and nodded to Cherry, a regular who just happened to be there.

“You making a big mistake grabbing a bar whore ’stead of doing what you came for. Think this through, Brother.” Jules gave it one more shot.

Reno flashed Jules the finger and headed to the door with Cherry draped eagerly around him. Jules gave a nod to Pipe.

Pipe glanced in Reno’s direction, then turned back to Jules.

“Brother, you have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“I look like I’m kidding you?”

Jules had leaned forward. “He’s not the only one. Rebel brought in some West Coast porn girls last night, and shit-for-brains drove ’em over here a couple of hours ago. The girls ain’t shy about what they want, and the boys have been drooling over the chance to get at them all night. All of the old ladies are just about done. They have been shooting daggers at ’em for hours. Bad goddamn mix. Rebel just made it harder for everyone. You’re here and you’re half sober, so that puts you on deck. We gotta contain this now, before it gets damn ugly. No one needs a bitch beat-down tonight. You don’t like it, you take it up with Reb, who should have known better.”

Reno headed toward his room to do what he had been doing for way too long. He went to drink and sex the woman he loved off his mind. But goddammit, if the same shit didn’t start for him all over again. A few minutes into having a random woman in his bed, the only thing Reno could think about was Claire, the only thing he wanted was Claire. He was about two minutes into what should have been a good time when he felt himself pulling away. Reno felt his body
tense with the shock of disappointment. Redoubling his efforts, he closed his eyes and willed himself not to think about Claire.

But it was no use.

Even with all that booze and reefer raging through his system, Reno felt it. Maybe his dick couldn’t tell the difference, but what was left of his heart sure as hell could.

Revenge-fucking was definitely the wrong way to go.

Time to put his pride aside, man up, and go get his woman.

But as luck would have it, as always seemed to be the case with him and her, fate stepped in and Claire found Reno first.

CHAPTER 11

I
was feeling
it
.

And the
it
was happy. I went out into the starry night smiling, the keys to the Jeep jingling in my pocket.

It had been a good night. I had spent some time talking with Dolly, then I had caught up with my sister and together we went and delivered Pinky’s birthday present to her. Raine and I had searched high and low for just the right gift for the woman who meant so much to us. We finally found the perfect present in a small antique store in the valley. We bought Pinky an intricately engraved antique locket. The delicate clasp opened to reveal two miniature pictures. One was of Raine and me from that long ago summer that we had spent at the lake, and the other was of Willow.

Pinky loved it and put it on right away.

Seeing the locket around Pinky’s neck made me feel like I had finally come full circle. For the first time in a long time, I felt hopeful. I couldn’t remember the last time that I had felt that—like I had a fighting chance at normal. Like I had a plan.

I was still feeling that when I walked toward the kitchen house and saw Reno’s bike parked with all the others.

So he was back.

Reno had been gone for months.

I sighed. Just like with everything else in my life, I had avoided thinking about him.

Reno and me.

A year ago, when I had walked out of Willows Point rehab and had seen Reno leaning against the car waiting, I knew that the gods were messing with me.

Totally messing with me.

I had just spent the previous four weeks of my life explaining and examining bad boys, and exorcising them from my mind, and I had not been even five minutes out of that serious gray building. Not even five minutes out of that place of repentance, resolve, and “God grant me” prayers, when he stood before me. A beacon of black leather and badass.

Not even five minutes out.

And I tried. Lord knows, I tried to stay away from Reno McCabe.

But he did not try to stay away from me.

I had spent my first few months at the compound navigating the choppy waters of recovery and resolve. I had been determined to find my way through to the other side of the shark-infested waters of addiction. And there Reno had stood shining out, right smack in the middle of it all. A big, bad lighthouse of temptation, beckoning me forward, calling me closer, and illuminating the way.

After a whole lot of stops and gos and I can’ts and I won’ts and a bunch of
I really, really need to waits
, we had gotten to that place.

Reno and I.

And it had been a beautiful thing. Full of light and lust and full-on everything goes, no-holds-barred hot.

The first time I was in his bed, I had turned to him out of pure exhaustion, lust, and need. I had not let myself think beyond that. He had been all hands and mouth and lots and lots of hard. And it had been incredible. God, the man paid attention. I could not get enough of his hot, hard body.

In the months that followed, it had gotten even better. Jesus. That man wore me out. When I was with him, when I felt his body
slip into mine, I forgot everything. Being close to him, touched by him, kissed by him just made everything better. Being with Reno made me forget all the fear and the pain and the violence that haunted my dreams.

That’s what he had meant to me at first.

Then slowly things began to change. To change because Reno changed them. He was so loving when we were together. Caring and gentle. Patient. Reno was everything I needed and nothing I had expected. Turns out that despite the leather and the gun and the outlaw tendencies, Reno wasn’t the kind of guy that my therapist, Dolores, had warned me to stay away from.

I started to look at him differently, and to need him in a way that I had never needed anyone before. I never felt completely whole unless I was with him.

And that scared me.

And not just a little.

Then came the night when I took a chance. At first I only meant to tell him a little bit about my past. He had a plate of cookies on his nightstand that Pinky had made for him. Taking a bite of one of those cookies had brought back a flood of memories for me. Once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to. I told him everything there was to tell about myself. My childhood, my years with Jamie, my time in rehab. I told him about it all.

Everything.

Well, almost everything.

I knew that night would change things for us. I knew that it could be the beginning of something pretty wonderful. Feeling that, I fell asleep in his arms. Despite all the full-on hot we had been having, I had never spent a whole night with him.

Until that night.

And then, when the morning came, I had left his bed while he was sleeping.

Which, honestly, did not seem to me the big, huge, insulting deal that it had obviously been to him.

I had needed a minute. I had needed a minute to gather the courage it took for me to acknowledge the love that I felt for this man.

This badass biker who I knew I probably shouldn’t love.

But who I had grown to love.

And did love. A lot.

But that minute, those few friggin’ tick tocks, had been too much for Reno.

And when I thought about it, I guess I didn’t blame him.

I got that, for Reno, me leaving his bed the way I did meant something different to him than it did to me.

And in a very big way.

I got it. I just got it a little too late.

And now after months and months of being gone, Reno was back.

Because I was feeling happy, hopeful, and excited about my future, I let myself feel optimistic about what that could mean.

Silly me.

CHAPTER 12

I
snatched a bottle of wine off the bar as I made my way to the kitchen house. I had looked for Reno outside in the sea of black leather, but I hadn’t seen him. Thinking that he must be at the house, I headed in that direction.

“Hey, Claire.” Pipe was somehow standing in front of me.

“Hey, Pipe.” I nodded absently to him.

“Where to?” He wasn’t moving.

“Where to?” I repeated, confused by the question.

“Yeah. Where you heading, sweetheart?”

I didn’t really know Pipe all that well. He had been out to the lake house a couple of times to do some repair work on the deck. Aside from a vague wave in my direction, he had pretty much left me alone, and I had pretty much returned the favor. Except for tonight. Tonight he was standing in my way.

“I thought I’d head down to Reno’s room. I heard that he’s back, and I haven’t seen him in a while.”

Which, by the way, is absolutely none of your business,
I thought to myself.

Pipe nodded. He took me in slowly from head to toe. As far as I was concerned, his gaze lingered much too long on my breasts.

“Brother’s a lucky man.” Pipe smirked. “But as far as I know, you ain’t been invited, Claire.”

Really?

“Far as I know, I don’t answer to you, Pipe.” I narrowed my eyes at him.

Pipe stood about six feet three. Looking at him now, it crossed my mind that the members of the Hells Saints seemed born and bred to it. Really, they were all as big as redwoods.