Handing Ruby my credit card to pay for the groceries I’m picking up, I listen to her as I catch up on the local gossip.
“You know I love the springtime in Mustang Mountain, but my Lord, your MC clears me out every year no matter how much I stock up,” Ruby chuckles.
The first ride of the season is coming up in a week, so we have many of our friends from across the country coming to join us. It's a charity ride that helps support the women's shelter, but it's also popular because we go to Glacier National Park and ride the Going-to-the-Sun Road. It's become a favorite event.
This also means the clubhouse is packed with the other clubs, which bring tourism dollars to the shops downtown, including Ruby’s Mercantile.
“What can I say, Ruby? Us MC guys can eat all day and still be hungry. We are built differently and have to keep up our manly bodies,” I joke with her as I gather the last of my groceries for the week.
“Don't I know it?” she giggles.
As I’m paying for my groceries, I stare out the window behind the checkout counter, watching people pass by. That's when I see the one person I never expected to see walking down the street.
“What the hell? Ruby, if you'll bag those up for me, I'll be right back,” I say, bolting out the front door.
Wanting to believe that I’m not seeing what I’m seeing, I walk out to the front of the mercantile. Sure enough, I see Howler walking down the street to the café.
Immediately, I pull out my phone and call Bear, my MC brother, who worked Howler over and sent him to jail after kidnapping Bear’s girl.
“Hey man, what's up?” Bear answers the phone in an uncharacteristically cheerful mood. I hate that I'm about to cut that short.
“You took Howler to Sheriff Cade, and he was locked up, right?” I really need to know.
“Of course. When I left the jail, he was being processed. What's wrong?” Bear asks. His deadly serious enforcer voice fills the phone.
“I'm standing on the sidewalk in front of the mercantile, watching him walk into the cafe a free man,” I tell him.
Bear lets out a string of curses. “There is no way he should be walking free.”
“Agreed. Let me grab my stuff. I’m going to go talk to the sheriff and find out what's going on,” I tell him.
“Keep me posted, and once you know something, you need to tell Atlas as well,” he says, referring to our MC President.
“I will. I'll call you when I know something.” Hanging up, I go back into the mercantile.
Ruby is holding my debit card in her hand and has my groceries bagged up. She can read everyone here in town like an open book.
“What's going on?” she asks, her playful tone from earlier gone.
“Someone from Savage Bones who should be in jail is out walking free. I'm heading to over to talk to the sheriff and find out what's going on. Do me a favor and stay vigilant. Maybe call Orville over to stay with you so you aren't alone, especially when you close up tonight,” I say, referring to her husband, who also happens to be the mayor.
“Okay. Let me know what you find out and if I can do anything to help,” she says. Most people would think she was strong and fearless. Knowing her the way I do, I can see the hint of worry on her face and hear it in her voice.
She's one of the few people outside the club and law enforcement who knows how bad Savage Bones has been getting lately. Mostly because it was her niece Emerson, who was kidnapped by them over Valentine's Day. She also happens to be Bear’s girl.
Grabbing my stuff, I put it in the back of my truck and make my way to Sheriff Cade’s house. John Cade and I grew up together, and he is one of my best friends outside of my brothers and the MC club. If he's going to tell anyone what's going on, it's going to be to me.
When I get to his house, I notice the police car is not in the driveway. Since he sometimes parks it around the back or in the garage, he might be home. So, I pull in, walk up to the door and knock.
Instead of John, his daughter Adaline answers the door.
“Hey, Stone,” she says with a smile that makes my heart race. Then she steps aside, inviting me in.
I was there when this girl was born, but then I left Mustang Mountain to become a cop in the big city of Denver. I didn't like being tangled up by all the legalities involved when it came to helping people. Unfortunately, the cops were there to deal with a situation after it happened, not to prevent it from happening. I realized really quickly I wanted to be on the side to prevent crimes and bad things from happening. So, I left and came back home. But things here in Mustang Mountain have changed quite a bit, too.
The biggest surprise to me was that my best friend's daughter was no longer the girl I remembered when I left. At the time, she was a full-fledged teenager. I can’t get my brain to reconcile that the woman in front of me is the same person. Now, she's all grown up and a woman that I can't get out of my head. She haunts my dreams and thoughts of her fill every moment of my free time. Though not another soul on earth knows that.
“Hey, Addy. Is your dad here?”
“No, he just left on a call. Dinner will be ready in a minute. You'll join me, won't you? You know I hate eating alone.”
John was always big about family dinners, especially after Addy’s mom up and left them. John and Addy’s mom were high school sweethearts, but she never wanted to be a mother. Addy was a complete surprise, and John convinced her mom they could be a great, happy family. That lasted just over a year.
When Addy was six months old, he proposed. She turned him down, signed over her parental rights, and left for L.A. to become an actress, saying that she could never settle in a small town. That was the last we saw of her, other than the few small roles she played on TV every once in a while.
So, Addy grew up with family dinners. Anytime I was in town, I would eat with them. It's not very often she has to eat by herself, and since I’m here right now there’s no way I’m going to let her dine alone. An unfamiliar emotion tugs at my heart, and I’m going to take the opportunity to spend time with her.
“Yeah, I can stay,” as I kick my boots off in the entryway.
The two of us spending time together alone is a dangerous game to play, but it's only dinner.
“Perfect. I just have to set the table, and we'll be ready to eat. I'll save a plate for my dad for when he gets home,” she says.
I follow her into the kitchen. Whatever she's cooking smells mouth-watering. Addy took over the cooking role about the time she entered high school and got tired of the same old five meals that John knew how to prepare. Since then, she's become one of the best cooks that I know outside of my buddy Mack’s wife, Lily, who is a caterer, and Bear, who is pretty damn good in the kitchen for being such a huge motherfucker.
I watch Addy as she grabs plates to set the table. But when she goes to grab the cups, she has trouble reaching them since they are on the back of the shelf and slightly out of her reach, even on her tippy toes.
She stretches, and the cotton shorts she is always wearing at the first sign of warmer weather ride up, revealing the bottom curve of her ass. Her shirt rises up too, showing a couple inches of skin on her stomach. All of her on display has my cock harder than it has a right to be.
“Being short sucks,” she giggles. “Can you help me?”
When I stand up and walk over to her, she doesn't move to the side. In order to reach for the glasses, I have to crowd her in. As I’m pulling them down, my cock accidentally rubs over her ass. I swear she wiggles it against my cock. It’s so brief that I’m not sure.
Had it been anyone else, I would assume they were flirting, but not Addy. There's no way this girl who is eighteen years younger than me has any interest in me other than as her father's best friend.
“Addy? Stone? I’m home. Everything okay?” John’s voice calls from the front door and we shoot apart to opposite sides of the room.
Our eyes lock and I get a feeling we just crossed a line I had been holding myself back from.