Allison, Joni, and Darcy were already at the Mexican restaurant and had commandeered a table in the back.
Joni leaned against the leather booth, and Darcy sat at the end of the table.
“You know, this isn’t really fair,” I said, sliding into a chair across the table from Allison.
“What’s not fair?” Joni asked.
“I’m alone, in a restaurant, with the Blue Angels Old Ladies. Slash isn’t here. I have no buffer. And I’m not able to drink, so I have nothing that will give me liquid courage.”
“Why would you need liquid courage?” Linden asked as she took a seat.
Mia snorted, plopping down at the other end of the table. “Please, do you remember when Boxer brought you around in the beginning?”
“Oh, yeah. Moonshine.” Linden nodded. “Totally greased the wheels.”
“Brooklyn will have to settle for guacamole.” Allison winked.
“Okay, but no cilantro—I beg you,” I said.
“Thank you!” Joni stated. “It tastes like soap.”
“Does not,” Linen said with a laugh.
“Oh, it so does,” Darcy agreed.
“The cilantro debate will never cease,” Joni said. “So, let’s just get two separate orders. One with, one without.”
“Works for me,” Mia said.
A server came by and took our drink orders. Linden requested a pitcher of margaritas.
“Hell, yes,” Mia said. “I’m having a marg. Scarlett has breast milk in the fridge.”
The server was a young guy, and his cheeks bloomed with color.
Mia smiled up at him. “Sorry. I’m just really excited about tequila.”
“Where’s Tank?” I asked Allison.
“With Torque,” she said. “I left them on the couch—Tank passed out on Torque’s chest.”
“Gah, I love when Scarlett sleeps on Colt,” Mia said. “So damn adorable.”
“Hey, sorry to hear about your window,” Darcy said to me. “We would’ve reached out sooner, but Slash asked us to back off for a bit so we didn’t overwhelm you.”
“Yeah. We can be overwhelming.” Mia winked.
“Speak for yourself. I’m like a basket of kittens,” Joni said.
“Thanks.” I bit my lip. “Can I ask a question?”
“Sure,” Darcy said.
“Should I have insisted on filing a report? I mean, Slash didn’t want me to, and I kind of let him handle the situation. I saw the security feed, but there was nothing substantial to identify anyone.”
Darcy looked at Mia, and it was Mia who replied, “Did you feel steamrolled? About not filing a report?”
“No.”
“Okay.” Mia nodded. “I guess it’s pretty clear that we don’t—ah—get the cops involved unless we absolutely have to.”
“Because of the club?” I pressed.
She nodded.
Our server returned with our drinks and a few bowls of chips.
“You mind if we order?” Joni asked. “I’m starving.”
They rattled off their orders while I took a moment with the menu. When the server came to me, I asked for cheese enchiladas in blue corn tortillas.
“Good choice. My favorite.” He took our menus and departed.
I hadn’t forgotten where we’d left off on our conversation. “Slash and I sort of had a row.”
Curious eyes turned to me.
“Did you have hot make-up sex?” Joni asked eagerly.
My cheeks heated and I cleared my throat. “No. He’s out of town.”
Mia smirked. “I know what you did.”
“Oh, me too.” Linden giggled. “Boxer is king of dirty texts.”
I gulped my lemonade. “Told you I wish I had liquid courage.”
“Sorry,” Darcy said with a teasing smile. “We talk pretty openly about things.”
“I’m glad about that,” I said. “Truly.”
“So you guys had a row,” Linden repeated.
“About what?” Joni asked.
I scratched the back of my neck and then sighed. “Oh hell, I don’t know how to ask this without coming right out and saying it. Are they—the Blue Angels—do they skirt legalities to make money?”
Though the restaurant was buzzing with the hum of conversation, the table of women was quiet.
Finally, Mia cleared her throat. “What did Slash tell you?”
“Well, nothing,” I admitted. “But he bought me a car like it was nothing. Then he gave me a credit card with my name on it. When I asked him how he could afford the car he brushed it off, saying that he’s been a Nomad for years and that he hasn’t had to pay for things like a mortgage or normal living expenses. But even I’m not that naive. There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”
“Yes,” Mia said slowly. “There’s more to it than that.”
“We don’t usually have these types of conversations so out in the open,” Joni said.
“We don’t have to get into specifics,” Darcy added.
“Not that we even know specifics,” Mia said.
“You don’t?” I asked in surprise.
They shook their heads.
“It’s a kind of a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy,” Joni said. “Some of us know more than others, purely by necessity, but keeping us in the dark is a way of protecting us.”
“Protecting you?” I asked in confusion. “From what?”
“The authorities,” Darcy admitted. “If they were to come calling and wanted to ask us questions, we can genuinely say we don’t know what our men are up to. There are laws that protect husbands and wives, but if we don’t know, we can’t give up information even by accident. There’s simply nothing to tell. It’s best for everyone all around.”
“And it doesn’t bother you?” I inquired. “That you don’t know?”
“Linden, you take this one,” Joni said.
“It wasn’t easy when I first got involved with Boxer,” Linden said slowly. “But I’m a good judge of character, and more importantly, I believe in judging by actions. Boxer has confided some things to me, things that sometimes I wish I didn’t know, but I can tell you this: they’re good men despite how they earn a living.”
“We give back to the community,” Darcy said. “We volunteer, we organize events.”
“We opened a free clinic using a trust fund we control, but everyone knows it’s under the protection of the Blue Angels,” Linden said. “By we I mean me.”
My eyes widened. “Seriously?”
She nodded.
How did a doctor with a trust fund get wrapped up with a motorcycle club? My curiosity was on a rampage.
“Is that all that’s on your mind?” Allison asked gently.
The quiet blonde was astute.
“I’m not sure I have the right to ask,” I admitted.
“You’re having Slash’s baby, but you guys haven’t made anything official, right?” Joni asked. “I mean, living together is a step in that direction.”
“Yeah, and when I think too hard about that I wonder what the hell I’m doing and how I was able to let him convince me to move in with him.”
“Honey,” Darcy drawled. “I’ve seen the way that man looks at you. Pretty sure he didn’t have to do that much convincing.”
I sighed. “Instead of playing hard to get, I played ridiculously easy to get.”
“What was it you wanted to ask?” Linden inquired.
“Oh, right.” Mia turned to look at me and waited.
“The shit that went down a while back,” I said, making quick eye contact with each of the Old Ladies. “That Crow and South Paw were fighting about. Everyone got all…”
“Squirrelly,” Mia finished for me. “We got all squirrelly.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“We’ve had a few hard-hitting losses the last couple of years,” Mia said slowly.
Linden fidgeted in her seat and then stood up. “Excuse me a second. Restroom.”
I frowned as I watched her walk away.
“Is she okay?” I asked.
“Linden was involved in some shit a while back,” Joni explained. “It was bad.”
“What happened?”
“That’s for Linden to divulge, and only if she wants to,” Mia said.
“Okay.” I nodded. “What kind of losses? Deaths?”
“Yes,” Darcy said baldly. “Frankly, we’re glad Slash decided to stay and become part of the Waco chapter. We need seasoned brothers. We have new brothers and prospects, but they’re so young.”
“Hotheads,” Joni stated. “A bunch of hotheads.”
“Duke? A hothead?” I asked. “He seems so easygoing and charming.”
“He is,” Mia said. “Until he’s not.”
“What’s that mean?” I demanded.
“It means, he can bring the heat,” Mia said.
Slash carried a pistol, and he’d immediately grabbed for it the night the window was broken. I didn’t doubt he could protect me. He’d shown me nothing of that world, though. But I was beginning to think I’d see it one day.
“I’m going to go to the restroom before the food comes,” I announced, needing a minute to myself. I still wasn’t clear on the specifics of what had gone down with the club, but it had cut deep, and it was still reverberating through everyone.
On my way to the restroom, I passed the bar and saw Linden sitting on a stool. Her gaze was trained on a TV screen that was playing a telenovela in Spanish. She was clutching a rocks glass with clear liquid and a squeezed lime.
I hesitated. She clearly wanted to be alone for a moment, otherwise she wouldn’t have said she was going to the bathroom and stopped off at the bar.
Her gaze slid away from the TV, and she saw me. “Hey, Brooklyn.”
“Hey.”
“Sit.” She patted the stool next to her.
“I don’t want to interrupt.”
“It’s okay, really,” she insisted. “All I’m doing is watching this telenovela. Andre has amnesia and has been sleeping with the wrong twin. The right twin just found out and hit him with her car.”
I raised my brows. “Juicy.”
“American soap operas have nothing on Spanish soap operas.”
I debated all of two seconds before I took the chair next to her.
She raised the glass to her lips. “Did they tell you?” she asked. “About what happened to me?”
“No. They said that was for you to divulge. I’m not asking you to share anything you don’t want to share.”
“I don’t talk about it with anyone,” she said. “Except my therapist. Sometimes Boxer, but even then…”
“Really?”
“It’s hard for him. I try to spare him the pain of my pain.” She shook her head. “So, I don’t talk about it if I can compartmentalize it. Becoming mixed up with the Blue Angels almost cost me my career.“
“Almost?”
“Either I’m really determined to heal”—she held up the three middle fingers of her right hand that were gruesomely scarred—“or someone up there”—she pointed to the ceiling—“is looking out for me. I can still perform surgery.”
“Why did you open the clinic?” I asked.
“I opened it so that if I wasn’t able to perform surgery ever again, at least I could practice medicine. I knew I could still be a good doctor, just maybe not a great surgeon.”
“Now I know why you’re sitting at the bar drinking alone.”
Two servers carting large black trays with plates of food sailed past us in the direction of our table.
“We should probably get back there,” Linden said.
“You go,” I said. “I really did need to hit the restroom.”
As I was drying my hands on a paper towel in the bathroom, my phone rang. I fished my cell out of my bag, hoping it was Slash. Disappointment curled through me for a moment when I saw it wasn’t him, but Jazz.
“Hey,” I greeted, phone to my ear.
“Hey, you gotta sec?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Horace called about the van.”
“Already?”
“Yep. He can get a new gas tank in a few days.”
“Good news, then,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“Not really.”
“I’m out right now, but I’ll be home later if you want to come by.”
“Thanks, but I think I want to wallow in private.”
“You’re really not going to tell me about it? You, who demands to know everything I’m feeling.”
“It’s stupid.”
“I doubt that.”
“Life. Just life. Weighing me down.”
“Is it your mom?”
“Yeah. She’s a part of it.” She fell silent. “But there’s other stuff too.”
“Like?” I pressed.
“Wanting what I can’t have.”
“What can’t you have?”
There was a beep on the other line.
“Jazz, that’s me. I have to take this call.”
“Is it Slash?”
“No. I think it’s another catering gig.”
“Yay! Money to fix the van…”
I snorted. “Talk to you in a bit.” I switched over to the other call. “Hello?”
“Hello, I’m trying to reach Brooklyn Palmer.”
“This is she,” I said.
“Ms. Palmer,” the man continued. “My name is Paul Thornton. I’m a branch manager at Sunrise Trust and Credit Union.”
“Yes?”
“I tried to get a hold of you a few days ago and left a voicemail, but I’m not sure you received it.”
I quickly searched my memory. I’d been getting a lot of phone calls over the last several days due to new catering prospects, and there was a very good chance his call had slipped through the cracks.
“What’s this about?” I asked, trepidation swarming in my stomach.
“Your loan repayment for the building.”
“I’m up to date on my loan payments. I just paid this month’s a few days ago.”
“We have no record of your payment in our system.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your payment for this month is overdue.”
“This has to be an oversight. A glitch in your system.”
“I’m sure it is. If you’ll come in tomorrow, we can get this sorted.”
“I’ll come in tomorrow morning. Thank you.” I hung up and stared at my phone for a moment. The door to the bathroom opened and a woman came in, looked at me in confusion, and then headed for a stall.
I shoved my phone back into my purse and left the bathroom. The Old Ladies had already dived into their plates of food.
“There you are,” Mia said. “We were about to send a search party.”
“Sorry.” I sat and picked up my fork.
“You okay?” Joni asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“I don’t know. You look flushed.” Joni raised her brows. “Did you get a phone call from Slash?”
“What? No!” I laughed.
“Valid question.” Mia shrugged. “Have you heard from him today?”
“Just a text this morning.” I blushed when I thought about it. It had been filthy and detailed, a reminder of what we’d said to one another under the cover of darkness. “He’s riding hard the rest of the way to Coeur d’Alene and won’t get there until late.”
“Okay, you’re definitely blushing now,” Darcy pointed out.
“Gee, these enchiladas are to die for.”
“Oh man, I want to know so badly what’s going through your head right now,” Mia said.
“My lips are sealed.” I took another bite of food so I couldn’t talk anymore.
“Do you miss him?” Allison inquired.
“He’s barely been gone a day,” I said after I swallowed.
“You miss him,” she teased.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I miss him. He’s just—and he’s—“
“All-consuming? Larger than life? All you can think about?” Joni supplied.
“Yup.”
She snorted. “Welcome to the club.”