“Oh, heavens, girl. That boy’s got a hard on the size of a ballistic missile for you. And the way you keep going red every time I mention him, you’ve fallen for those Irish eyes, so that’s not the problem.” She folded her hands in her lap and peered at me. “He’s not letting you in? He’s pushing you away?”
I nodded.
She put her cup down. “You realize he’s doing it to protect you?”
I gave a noncommittal shrug. Then, “I know it’s to do with what he does for the club. But...I mean, how bad can it be?”
She fixed me with a look and my stomach turned over. Pretty freakin’ bad.
What if Carrick was right not to tell me? What if he told me and I couldn’t handle it? What if it made me want to run?
But if he didn’t tell me, if he kept trying to protect me, he’d be pushing me away forever.#p#分页标题#e#
“It takes a special kind of woman to love these guys,” Mom said. “You gotta understand them. Understand the club and why they love it the way you do, because you can’t ever come between them and it. And the bad stuff they do? You gotta look inside them, where it matters, and see that the angel outweighs the demon.”
“Angel?”
Mom shrugged. “Even Satan started out as a fallen angel.” She pressed her lips together. “But it ain’t just about you and accepting what he does. Carrick’s harder than most to get to know. He’s loyal to the club—maybe too loyal. He carries a ton of weight for them but he never lets them help him. Didn’t you wonder why he rode off to Teston alone to save you?”
I blinked. I hadn’t thought of that.
“He loves these guys, but he’s afraid to lean on them,” said Mom. “I don’t know why. I know it drives Mac crazy. He’s certainly never let a woman get close...hell, he doesn’t even let girls ride on his bike. Not until you.”
Now I knew why everyone had stared when we’d rode into the compound together. My heart started to crash in my chest.
“A special kind of woman,” Mom repeated, watching me carefully.
I nodded to myself and sat there stroking Mr. Fluffy as I thought. I tried to wrap my brain around my feelings, but they were too deep and too strong to get a proper hold of. Why couldn’t this stuff be simple, like gear ratios?
Then I saw something on a kitchen shelf that I did understand. I gently lifted Mr. Fluffy off my lap and stood up. “Can I borrow this?” I asked, picking up the little glass bottle of almond oil.
“Of course you can,” said Mom. “What are you going to do? Bake him a cake?”
“Something like that,” I mumbled, flushing again.
20
Carrick
I slammed my fist down on the table. “We got to ride to Teston. Wipe the fuckers out.”
The meeting room was so quiet, I could hear the scratch as Mac rubbed at his stubble. “We can’t just wade in there,” he said slowly. “There’s too much we don’t know.”
“We know enough!” I snapped. I was leaning forward in my seat, shoulders tensed like I was about to drive my fist through the table. I could hear the Irish coming out thick in my voice. “Jesus, they came right into town, our town, and they took her like she was theirs!”
Mac gave me that sad, solemn look I’d seen so many times before when one of us gets riled. I’d never been on the receiving end, before. “I know you’re pissed,” he told me. “We’d all be pissed if it was our girl.”
“She’s not my girl,” I ground out.
Everyone just looked at me. What the fuck was the matter with them?
“They’ll be back,” I snarled. “We can’t just wait around until they try again.”
Mac held up a calming hand. “We won’t, brother,” he said softly. “But we need to know what’s going on. Something’s not right here. They took a big chance, coming into our town. They knew they might run into us—that’s why they sent so many guys. Why go to all that trouble? Why not just grab a different girl?”
Because she’s one of a kind, I wanted to say. But what Mac said rang true. Life was cheap to the Blood Spiders. A woman was replaceable. Why risk war with the Hell’s Princes to get her back? I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. “I don’t know.”
“What about the cops?” asked Hunter.#p#分页标题#e#
Everyone looked uneasy. Hunter used to be on the other side of the law—kind of—when he was a bounty hunter. He still distrusts them, but not as much as the rest of us.
“We solve our own problems,” Mac told him.