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When Winona had cleared the door, Dana looked over at her father. “Daddy, who was that woman and why does she look so much like me?” she demanded.
Gunner looked over at Boone and nodded toward the door. “Stop her from leaving, I still need to talk to her.”
Boone grinned then dug into his pocket and brought out a set of keys. “She isn’t going anywhere.” Then the smile slid off his face when they all heard the growl of an engine starting up. “Son of a bitch.” Boone swore as he bolted for the door.
He burst out of the door to see her check her mirror before she began backing up. He ran for a place behind her, praying like crazy she would see him before she hit him. Then when he saw her check her rear-view mirror again, she glared at him and her window came down. “Get the hell out of my way. I told you I’m leaving.”
“And I told you Gunner wants to talk to you.” He stared hard at her.
“Gunner can forget he ever saw me. I know I’ll forget him the moment I leave here, now get the hell out of my way!” she screamed back.
In a minute flat, more than one of the MC was standing around her car. Soon, they were all lined up around her car.
Winona couldn’t move without hitting one or more of them, so she shut the motor down and just sat there for a moment before tipping her head toward the steering wheel and banging it a few times.
Boone walked around his brothers and opened her door. Holding out his hand for her, he waited for her to get out of the vehicle.
Winona huffed at him and refusing his hand, she got out of her car. When he closed the door softly behind her she held out her hand. “I want my keys back please.”
“You didn’t seem to have any problem starting it without the keys now did you?” Boone raised an eyebrow.
She just smiled but still held her hand out. When he returned the keys she turned to lock the doors then motioned for him to lead the way back inside.
The rest of the guys made a circle around her so there was no hope for escape.
Winona held her head up as she reentered the clubhouse.
Gunner watched her come forward without emotion on his face as did the other men at the table beside him. Dana had taken a stand beside him and rested her hand on his broad shoulders.
Winona sat down in a chair opposite Gunner and glared at the man. “What the hell do you want with me? I stopped at a diner for lunch on my way to a vacation, and have been accosted and kidnapped and now I’m being held prisoner. What the hell is going on here?” She looked at Gunner and no one else. “I don’t know you, and I swear I’ve never been in Texas before, so why me and why now?”
“Why do you look so much like me?” Dana demanded.
Winona ignored the other woman and simply stared at Gunner for a moment. “Well? Are you going to answer me or ignore me? You can’t keep me here against my will.”
Gunner sighed hard. “Let’s just say you showing up is a bit of a shock. You look enough like my kid that you could be her sister and I’m wondering why?”
Winona shrugged. “Well, they say everyone has a doppelganger, besides there is a difference in our appearance. She’s a little taller than I am and I weigh more than she does. I can’t help what I look like, God made me this way.”
“Well see here... first you both have the same hair color as well as eye color and as far as I know that coloring is mine and mine alone,” Gunner reminded her.
“Like I said I can’t help what I look like.” She shrugged. “Now can I go?”
“Not just yet.” Gunner stared her. “I need to see your left shoulder.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I’m told you have a birthmark there.”
“So?”
Gunner narrowed his eyes at her. Tension was emanating from him and filling the room. No one talked to him like this ever. “I want to see it.”
“No.” She shook her head.
Right then, Dana demanded, “Daddy what is going on here? And who the hell is this woman and why is she here?”
Gunner let his eyes wander to his daughter and he glared at the look on her face. “Where the hell were you this morning when you were supposed to be working at the spa? Margi had to switch things up to cover your clients again.”
“If you must know I was working on a surprise for our birthdays. I went to pick up your present and it took longer than I thought it would.” Dana pouted just a bit. She looked over at Winona and announced, “My dad’s birthday and mine are tomorrow. I’ll be twenty four years old then and he’ll be fifty five.”
Winona looked stunned by this information. She pushed her chair back and began slowly backing away from the table. Her eyes never left Gunner’s but she wouldn’t stay here any longer. She got as far as four steps away.
Boone came up behind her. He didn’t grab her and hold her he just stood behind her. His arms encircled her waist but not in a firm hold.
“Please just let me go. I’ll leave and never return I promise. Just let me go,” she begged him in a whisper.
Gunner looked sad for a moment then told her, “I can’t do that. Fate brought you here for a reason and we have to uncover that reason. Don’t you want to know?”
Winona tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “No, I don’t. We can’t change the past anyway, so why try?”
“Daddy what the hell is she talking about?” Dana whined.
“Where were you born?” Gunner asked as he ignored his daughter’s question.
Winona shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“What does that mean?” He frowned then looked over at Boone.
Boone remembered something and took out his phone flipping through his pictures he saw something then frowned. He left her standing there as he walked over to where Gunner was sitting and handed the other man his phone.
Gunner looked at the picture on the phone. His eyes were steady as he looked at the photo Boone had taken of her driver’s license. His eyes narrowed at her date of birth and he raised his gaze up to her. “Where were you born?” he repeated his question.
“I don’t know,” she repeated her earlier answer. “I’ve been told I was found in a box on the steps of a church in Lake Charles just hours after I was born. I never knew who my parents were or where they ended up. Like I said. I’m a nobody. I have no clue about my past and at this point, I really don’t want to find out. I learned a long time ago that life is what you make it. You can either fold or push through and own it. I chose to push through and take no shit from anyone.” She paused then added, “I also learned not to depend on anyone but myself. That way, you aren’t let down by people and their ideals of what you should do with your life.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Gunner seemed to study her.
Winona just shrugged but didn’t tell him.
His eyes held hers for a moment then he turned to find the one man who might have the answers he needed. He searched every man’s face for the one he was looking for then frowned when he didn’t see Blacky anywhere in the clubhouse. He looked to Boone. “Where the hell did Blacky go?”
Boone began looking around too, but when he didn’t see the man in question he looked back to Gunner and shrugged his wide shoulders.
“Find him,” Gunner ordered. He looked back at Winona. He motioned for her to sit and she finally sat down.
Dana growled. “Daddy what the hell is going on here?”
“There is a strong possibility this girl is your sister, your twin sister,” Gunner told her as he stared into Winona’s eyes, as if seeking the truth.
“Oh, hell no!” Dana all but shouted. “I’m an only child.” She turned to glare at Winona. “I don’t have a sister and I don’t want one.”
Gunner got to his feet and turned to face his errant daughter. His scowl echoed the rage in his voice. “You have become a spoiled brat and it’s time you fuckin grew up. I love you girl but the world revolves around more than just you, you know.”
“Daddy?” She took a step back and raised her hand to her mouth. If Dana knew anything, she knew how to play this man. She then stepped closer and tried to hug him but Gunner wasn’t playing this time. He knew exactly what she was doing and he didn’t like it one bit.
He held up his hand to stop her and continued to glare at his daughter. “You need to grow up and act more responsible for yourself. You ditch work all the time, you blow off your responsibilities here at the club and are just plain lazy because you know someone else will pick up the slack. Well, not anymore, sweet girl. Not anymore. Tomorrow, you’ll be twenty-four years old and it’s high time you grew the fuck up.’
“Daddy!” she exclaimed as she took a step backward. She wasn’t used to this, not from him. From the day he knew she was his, she’d been his little darling and always before she used that to her advantage. She turned to Winona. “And I suppose she’s taking my place here huh?”
Winona shook her head. “Don’t involve me in your shit. I’m outta here in a few minutes.”
Gunner turned his head to glare at her. “The hell you are. You’re staying right here until we have answers.”
Winona shook her head. “No one has come forward in twenty-four years, so I really doubt the answers you seek are ever going to be answered. The past is over and now it’s too late to revive it. Besides, I’m not wanted here and I have a job and a business to go back to, in two weeks.” Shaking her head, she added, “This has been my first vacation in three years and I’m taking it.”
“Where were you going on this vacation?” He stared at her.
“That’s none of your business.” Winona got up from her chair and went toward the front door.
The men of his MC began standing in front of her, blocking her way.
She turned around and glared at Gunner. “Really?”
Gunner nodded. “Really.”
“This really sucks, you know that right? I don’t want this, your daughter doesn’t want this, seems nobody here wants this but you.”
“Well, I guees I don’t really care what anyone wants do I? I need to know the truth about this. When Blacky brought Dana home, he didn’t tell me anything about you or I would have found you back then. He did tell me your mother died in childbirth but nothing else. He never even said how he found her all that time ago. I’ve had questions ever since then but now, I’ve got to know the truth.” Gunner nodded.
“You see girly, there’s more to the story than just your birth,” one of the older men told her. “DeeDee was involved in something that caused her to run without telling anyone she was carrying the Prez’s kid. We need to know what that was and if it was ever resolved. She kept secrets from the club and I have a feeling those secrets are gonna come back and bite us in the ass one of these days.”
Winona shook her head. “Well don’t count on me for answers I don’t know anything. Surely, whatever she got involved in would have happened twenty four years ago. How can that affect anyone now? Hell, I never even knew what my mother’s name was before today. I just figured she didn’t want me, so she gave me up. That’s all I was ever told about who I was back then.”
“What about the couple who adopted you?” Gunner asked. “Were they at least good to you?”
Winona tightened her lips but refused to say anything about Mike and Sheila Brewer. The less said about them the better she figured. She hadn’t seen them in years and that was just fine with her. “Look I don’t know what you guys are looking for here, but it doesn’t concern me at all.” She held up her hand to forestall any arguments from Gunner. “I know you think you have some say in this but you really don’t. You may or may not be my father, I don’t know and I don’t care. I don’t need another father figure in my life. I had one and he wasn’t a good experience for me. But that isn’t the point here. I was dumped on the steps of a church and I managed to survive. I didn’t know about you before today and yet, I survived.” She raised her hands in the air. “You have a life here but I don’t. You have a daughter and that’s great but I don’t belong here. I’m finally happy where I am in my life and I’m not going to let you ruin that. I’m finally living my dream and I’m not giving that up.” She motioned to Dana and said, “She doesn’t want me here and I don’t stay where I’m not wanted. I had a lifetime of that and I refuse to live that way ever again.” She shrugged, “Besides all that, there is no proof I’m your kid anyway.”
“Honey all you gotta do is look in a mirror.” Gunner snorted.
“Daddy, let her go if she wants to leave that bad.” Dana stomped her foot. “She’ll never fit in here and that will just make you a cranky man and we don’t need that. Besides, I’ve been here my whole life. I fit in here and she never would.”
Gunner turned to look at his daughter. “Dana, for the first time in my life, I’m so disappointed in you girl. You’ve pulled some shit in your day but this is the worst I’ve ever seen from you. Everyone here had a hand in spoiling your ass rotten, but there are levels of spoiling and this is something I never wanted to see happen. There are some changes coming for you girl and until you can apologize for your behavior, I think you need to go to your room.”
Dana gasped. “I’m an adult. Seriously, you can’t send me to my room.”
“Then fucking act like an adult,” he yelled at her. “Just get out of my sight. But don’t you dare leave this compound. If I gotta hunt you down, I will not be happy.”
Dana turned to Winona and glared at her before she stomped down the hall. Moments later, they all heard a door slam and a very female scream.
Winona shook her head at Gunner. “Now, I really don’t want to be here.”
“Too fuckin bad, you ain’t going anywhere until I get answers.” He growled as he sat down and glared at her.
“Yeah I get that, but you know something? I don’t have the answers you need. I went into the system days after I was born. I never knew anything about who my mom was or about you. I can’t help you.” She paused then added, “You need to let me go.”
“I can’t, not yet. If you are my kid, I need to know you. No, scratch that, I want to know you,” Gunner told her.