The Biker's Secret Girlfriend Page 5

Her sisters and sisters-in-law were her friends now, and she hadn’t had time for anything more, especially after Navy came.

  “Grams, I want to ask you something,” Karly said, glancing around. Some of her siblings and their spouses had left already. Jon, Cassie, and Liam had gone into the dining room to play a board game with Kimmie, Serenity, Lars, and Kyle.

  “Sure thing, honey.” Even though Grams didn’t have a deep, bass voice like Maverick, she still thought of him when she heard the word honey.

  “Was Gramps…did he ever…?” Karly didn’t know how to phrase it. Grams was old, not stupid, and there might be a lot of questions to answer. Questions Karly couldn’t even anticipate and could quite possibly not know how to answer.

  “Did he always want the orchards?” she finally asked.

  “Well, he served in the Navy first,” Grams said, her voice shaking a little.

  “I know,” Karly said. “That’s why I named Navy what I did.” That, and Derrick’s father had served in the Navy as well. It had felt like a good way to honor a lot of people at once, and since Karly didn’t have anyone to consult with, she got to do what she wanted.

  “What about when he came back?” she asked. “Did you guys meet right away?”

  “Oh, heavens, no,” Grams said, waving her hand like Karly should know this story. “We met up in Grand Central.”

  “Across the lake.” To the west. Where the Hawks were. “How did you meet?”

  “There was a dance,” she said, a smile touching her mouth as her eyes took on a dreamy quality as if she could relive that time right now. “He was there, and so handsome. He wore this black leather jacket with a couple of patches on the shoulder. But I got him to come over to me.” She sounded very proud of herself. “And we danced the night away, and started courting, and we were married a couple of months later.”

  Karly’s heart sank right to the floor. “Was he in a motorcycle club, Grams? Is that why he had a black leather jacket with patches?”

  Grams turned toward her, her watery blue eyes confused. “A motorcycle club? Like those awful men who ride in the Valentine’s Day parade every year?” She shook her head. “No. Not Bill.”

  Karly nodded, everything inside her wobbling. “Those awful men” were led by Maverick Malone, and she now knew that just because they rode motorcycles and had ink on their skin, they weren’t awful.

  Far from it, in fact.

  “Love you, Grams.” Karly stood up and pressed a kiss to her grandmother’s head. She just had one more question for one more person, and then she was taking Navy home, where another huge decision needed to be made.

  She found Gramps at the table with her siblings and nieces and nephews. She leaned down, whispering, “Gramps, did you ever ride with the Hawks?”

  He flinched and looked up at her, his eyes wide.

  The answer was yes.

  “Who said that?” he asked.

  “No one,” she said, glancing at Jon, who was watching her intently. She’d known about his forbidden romance with his culinary arts professor and she wondered if she could trust him with this.

  But she didn’t want to put anyone in her family at risk. They couldn’t know. She and Maverick could keep their blooming relationship secret, just like he’d said. He was so strong and so sure of himself, commanding sixty-pound dogs to lay down with a simple hand gesture.

  She could be strong like him, and she smiled at Jon and said, “I’m beat. I’m headed home.”

  Her brother got up, leaving his cards on the table. “I’ll walk you out.” They’d always had a special relationship, and he put his hand on her back as she took her coat from the series of hooks by the door. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” Karly said.

  “Please,” he whispered, looking over his shoulder. “Gramps almost had a heart attack. What did you say?”

  If Karly mentioned a motorcycle club, Jon would know. Everyone had seen her walk down the aisle with the tattooed leader of the Sentinels on her arm. How she hadn’t known who he was annoyed her, but she simply pressed her lips together.

  “I’ll ask him,” Jon said simply, turning back to the dining room.

  “Jon,” she said, and he quickly came back to her. “This is like you and Cassie serious.”

  His eyes searched hers. “You’re…are you seeing someone?”

  She could barely hear the question, for which she was grateful. She nodded, and the beginning of a smile touched Jon’s mouth. “Who is he?”

  “I asked Gramps if he’d ever ridden with the Hawks.”

  Confusion crossed Jon’s face. “Who are the Hawks?”

  An eruption of laughter sounded behind them, and Liam called, “Jon, get in here. It’s your turn.”

  “Come on, Navy,” Karly said. “Kiss Uncle Jon good-bye.” He picked up her daughter, who squealed with delight, and kissed her sloppily on the cheek.

  “Bye, Navy-bear,” he said, and she hugged him tight around the neck.

  “When are you going to have a kid?” Karly asked.

  “Hey, we’ve been married six months,” Jon said.

  “I know,” Karly said, regretting the question. Jon was just so good with Navy, as well as Cassie’s half-brothers.

  “No one asks Phoenix this,” Jon said, obviously disgruntled. So Karly had hit a sore spot.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “And no one asks Phoenix, because one, he never stays long enough to have a real conversation with, and two, he swings an axe for a living.”

  “I swing a hammer,” Jon said darkly, and Karly laughed.

  “Love you, brother.”

  “You too,” he said, handing Navy to her. “I’m going to look up the Hawks.”

  “Just don’t say anything,” she said. “To anyone.”

  He nodded and started down the hall when Liam yelled at him again. Karly took another look down the hall, and then she kissed her daughter’s head and said, “Let’s go home.”

  My grandfather was a Hawk. Karly stared at the words. At the name at the top of the screen. Maverick Malone.

  Could someone trace her texts? She had no idea, but she wanted to talk to Maverick. Hear his voice. Feel the strength and security of his embrace.

  It was close to midnight, and she still hadn’t made the decision she needed to.

  Now that she knew the Hawks could claim her, was she still willing to be Maverick’s secret girlfriend?

  He’d said it wasn’t safe, and she had a daughter.

  She thought of all the people at the cabin two houses down from hers. Her siblings. Their loved ones. Their kids. They’d all been through harrowing things the last couple of years, and they’d survived. Come out stronger on the other side.

  “Can I?” she asked herself, her empty bedroom.

  She looked at the other side of the bed, where Derrick used to sleep. If she closed her eyes, she could still see him there. She’d lost the sound of his voice, though, and her chest squeezed, squeezed tight.

  She hadn’t actively thought about dating again, but with the gorgeous man right in front of her, she realized she didn’t want to be alone forever.

  She tapped the button and sent the text.

  How do you know? his answer came back almost immediately.

  I asked my Grams, she typed. She said they met at a dance up in Grand Central. He was home from the Navy, and he was wearing a black leather jacket with patches.

  She sent that message and immediately started typing another one. I asked him, and he looked like I’d opened a closet with ten ghosts in it. So I think it’s true.

  A dance? I’ll find out more about that.

  Karly set her phone on the bedside table and laid down, her eyes closing with exhaustion. She couldn’t remember a time since Derrick had died that she’d slept well—except last night.

  Under Maverick’s roof, with her daughter beside her in bed, she’d slept like the dead.

  Her phone buzzed, and then buzzed again, indicating a call was coming in. It too
k considerable effort for her to open her eyes, and when she finally did, she realized she’d fallen asleep.

  She swiped at the phone as it buzzed again. Maverick’s name sat on the screen, and she said, “Hey,” in the clearest voice she could.

  “I woke you,” he said.

  “It’s fine,” she said. “I fell asleep in my clothes, with all the lights on.” She suppressed a yawn and fumbled for her power cord so her phone wouldn’t die. She hadn’t plugged it in before passing out.

  “The community center in Grand Central has a dance every summer,” he said. “The Hawks are notorious for attending it, even now. It’s possible they met there.”

  “You can’t find him, can you?”

  “No.” Maverick had a special way of pouring frustration into such a simple word. “It’s driving me crazy.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t a Hawk. Don’t you guys keep immaculate records?”

  “We’re supposed to…how’d you know that?”

  “I can Google,” she said. “And my family dinner didn’t start until five.” She shrugged though he wasn’t there and couldn’t see her.

  “Ah.” He chuckled, and the sound caused the hair on her arms to prickle with delight. “You looked us up.”

  “You have a nice website,” she said. “And it’s very up-to-date. The Hawks don’t seem to have the same attention to detail.”

  “The Hawks are crooks,” he said. “My club isn’t like that.” The defensive tone in his voice wasn’t lost on Karly.

  She still wasn’t sure what she was going to do. “So now what?” she asked. “If they can’t prove he was one of them, aren’t we in the clear?”

  “Yes,” Maverick said simply.

  “Let’s go ask them,” she said.

  “One does not just ride up to a rival club and start asking questions,” Maverick said. He whistled, clearly moving the phone away from his mouth for a moment. “Sorry, King was getting too far away.”

  “Are you out walking?”

  “Yep.”

  Karly got up and moved to the window, pulling open the blinds so she could look up and out into the night. She’d kept the blinds and curtains shut tight since Derrick’s death, especially at night.

  She didn’t want anyone to be able to see inside. See her. See how she wasn’t as whole as she tried to make people believe.

  “I love the stars,” she said.

  “Me too,” Maverick said back. “The ice cream flavor this week is cherry chocolate,” he said. “Maybe you’d like to come taste test it before church on Friday.”

  Karly knew church meant their weekly club meetings, and warmth moved through her. “Do you make a new ice cream flavor every month?”

  “Every week,” he said. “Last week was rocky road with dried cherries mixed in at the end with the marshmallows. They guys liked the cherry and chocolate together, thus this week’s inspiration.”

  Karly smiled at the faint reflection of herself in the glass. She looked happy, and she let it filter through her, lighting up parts of herself that had been dark for a while now.

  “Do your flavors always have cherry in them?”

  “Not always,” he said. “But usually. We do live in the cherry capital of the world.”

  “True,” she said.

  They continued talking, and Karly should’ve mourned her loss of sleep, because Navy didn’t care about midnight conversations with gorgeous biker presidents.

  But Karly sure did, and she laughed and smiled and shared more about herself in the next hour than she had in a long, long time.

  By the time she said, “I should go, Maverick,” she felt drunk on the sound of his voice.

  “Sure thing, beautiful,” he said, his voice low too. “And baby?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Next time you come to Ruby’s, drive a different car, okay?”

  “When should I come?”

  “Whenever you want, but before dark.”

  “Okay. Bye.” She hung up, the pet names he used with her rotating through her mind. Honey. Sweetheart. Beautiful. Baby.

  She wanted to feel beautiful for him. Be his sweetheart. And she couldn’t wait to figure out when she could go see him this week. But first, she needed to sleep.

  Chapter Eight

  Maverick forced himself not to text Karly on Monday. Or Tuesday. He reminded himself she was a working single mom, and she was busy.

  But by the time Wednesday rolled around, he was almost desperate to see her. The hour when the dents-and-dings needed to be picked up and distributed inched closer, and Maverick’s ideas morphed from minute to minute.

  When Jordan walked in with Lucas, Maverick jumped up from the stool where he worked on a bike that needed a new bumper and gas tank.

  “Vice,” he said, striding across the shop before the boys could go into the front of the store. Jordan turned toward him, and Lucas seemed to sense he wasn’t part of this conversation, because he took a long look at Maverick and went through the door to the biker bar out front of the shop.

  “What’s up, Boss?” Jordan asked, glancing around the shop as if Maverick had a disciplinary council with him.

  “I want to go on the dents-and-dings tonight,” he said.

  Alarm pulled across Jordan’s face. “Why?”

  “And I want you to get me an address for a delivery,” Maverick said, ignoring the question. He knew Karly lived out near the orchards. Everyone in her family did. His connection to Declan had earned him that. But the rocker didn’t know which house specifically was Karly’s, though he thought it was the one next door to Mia’s. And she was the second one in.

  Declan had offered to ask his wife, but they were still in Europe, and Maverick didn’t want to answer any unnecessary questions. Declan had wanted to know why, and Maverick had dropped that text string pretty fast after that.

  “Who?” Jordan asked, his eyes narrowed.

  “Karly Lydell,” he said.

  “All right,” Jordan said.

  “I’ll put the trailer on my motorcycle,” Maverick said. “And I’ll take Rosco’s tonight.”

  “Boss, I swear I’m not wasting too much time with Felicia.”

  “That’s not it at all,” Maverick said, clapping Jordan on the shoulder.

  “Then what’s this about?”

  “It’s personal,” Maverick said, club code for conversation over. “Text me the address. I’m not heading out until later, and I’ve already called Rosco’s.”

  “All right,” Jordan said again. “And Lucas? He should still come with me to Market Fresh?”

  “No, I need him behind the bar tonight,” Maverick said. “I’ll talk to him.” He started for the door, his hands still feeling grimy from the oil change he’d done earlier. He’d hurry upstairs and shower and get all the mechanical smells off before leaving for the grocery store.

  “Mav,” Jordan said, and he paused. “This isn’t dangerous, is it?”

  “Why would it be dangerous?”

  “There’s a hog down the street,” Vice said. “Just sitting there in the trees just past the convenience store. He’s got a bird on his back.”

  “Bulldog.” Maverick’s heart fell all the way to his boots, rebounding painfully back to its spot in his chest. “I’ll deal with him.”

  “Be careful,” Jordan said. “They don’t normally come down this far, and it’s broad daylight still.”

  Maverick clenched his jaw, well-aware of why Bulldog had come—and what he’d have to do to get the guy off his back.

  But first, he was going to deliver groceries to shut-ins, needy families, and single moms. Since Karly fit the last category, it shouldn’t cause a blip on the Hawks’ radar.

  Right, he told himself as he skipped the shower and simply put the trailer on this bike and got ready to go.

  When he left, there was no motorcycle in the trees, and Maverick spent the next couple of hours looking in his rearview mirror. He didn’t see anything, and he delivered everywhere but out to Sunshine S
hores Orchards to hopefully arrive at Karly’s late at night, under the cover of darkness, after Navy had gone to bed.

  Finally, he wasn’t able to prolong the trip any longer, and he texted her. I have some extra food tonight. I’m bringing it to you. Be there in twenty.

  He deliberately stuck his phone in his back pocket, completely on silent so it wouldn’t even buzz. That way, he could claim he hadn’t seen her request to please not come.

  He wanted to go.

  Needed to see her.

  Breathe in the cherry-rosy scent of her skin. Kiss those lips. Tell her he thought the Hawks were lying to him, and there was no reason they couldn’t be together.

  According to Vice, her house was the third one in, and he pulled into the driveway and killed the engine quickly, as Jordan had also texted to say the grandparents lived right next door.

  Maverick swung his leg over the bike and looked next door, as if Gramps would have a huge hawk painted on the front door.

  Of course, he didn’t.

  Maverick swept the area with his sharp eyes as he turned toward the trailer, not even a flicker of light out here. No headlights had followed him. Nothing. Why Bulldog was tormenting him, he wasn’t sure.

  If Jordan had seen the bird on Bulldog’s back, it was because Bulldog wanted him to.

  He filled the reusable grocery bags with cans and fresh produce and started for the front door. It opened before he got there, and he climbed the steps to Karly’s beautiful form, his eyes raking down her body.

  “I don’t need food,” she said.

  “I’m coming in,” he responded, and she stepped back to let him pass. He felt the whisper of her fingers against his shoulder, where he wore his patches and his president’s armband. She closed the door behind him and followed him into the kitchen.

  “I have plenty of money.”

  “I didn’t come because you couldn’t afford food,” he said, setting the bag on the counter. He turned toward her, feeling brash and apprehensive at the same time. “I came to see you. You haven’t texted or stopped by.”

  “I know.” She sighed and undid the topknot in her hair. Her curls fell in waves around her shoulders, and Maverick almost moaned with the need to touch her hair. Hold her close. Kiss her.