Rough Justice (Sinner's Tribe Motorcycle Club #1)(114)
BEYOND THE CUT
Coming soon from St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Dawn bolted awake when someone banged on her door.
Heart pounding, she reached under her bed for the .22 Arianne had given her as a birthday present. Trust Arianne to give her a gun. Although she had often talked about living in the civilian world, Arianne was a biker through and through. And no American biker would ever leave his or her house unarmed.
Well, Dawn wasn’t a biker. And the two weeks of lessons at the shooting range with Arianne hadn’t changed her mind. Still, it was a comfort to know that she’d be able to defend herself from the crazy person trying to break down her door at three in the morning. Or, at least threaten them. She never loaded the gun because she wasn’t prepared to kill anyone.
Weapon in hand, she raced through the living room and stood on tip-toe to peer through the peep hole.
At first she didn’t recognize the man standing in front of her door, his face all swollen and bloody, his shirt in tatters but it was his hair, golden strands matted with blood, glinting in the semi-darkness, that made her look again.
Her breath caught. She undid the dead bolt and threw the door open.
“Oh God, Cade. What happened?”
“Jesus, Dawn. Put the gun away.” He pushed her aside and stalked into her tiny apartment, his clothes rank with blood and covered in dirt. “What the f*ck were you doing with a piece of shit like him?”
Stunned, Dawn could only stare. “You almost break down my door at three in the morning, looking like you need to get to a hospital, to ask me that?”
“Yeah.”
“If we knew each other better,” she said, her voice tight. “If we were friends, or actually seeing each other, maybe I wouldn’t be so pissed off at being pulled out of bed and ordered to explain my life choices. But we’re not. We’ve slept together twice. We’ve never had a conversation that lasted more than five minutes, four minutes of which consisted of deciding where we were going to have sex next. So you don’t have the right to ask me that question, and unless you’re in dire need of medical attention, I suggest you leave.”
By way of answer, Cade took a step forward, staggered to the side and grabbed the back of her sofa for support. “Damn. Gimme a minute.”
With a sigh, Dawn closed and locked the door, then put the gun in her purse. “I see you’ve chosen door number three, ‘dire need of medical assistance.’ You want me to call the Sinners’s doctor or take you to the local hospital?”
“No hospital.”
Dawn snorted. “Right. I forgot. Too manly for the hospital. You got a number for the club doctor?”
Cade shook his head. “No doctor. Just … water … bandages … maybe some whiskey. I’ll be fine.”
Hmmm. Fine was obviously a relative word. To her nonmedical eye, he certainly didn’t look fine. In fact, he looked like he was about to collapse, and from the way he was holding himself, he was clearly injured far beyond the cuts and bruises she could see on his face. But that was always the way with biker beatings. Why go for the small target when you could go for the big one?
“Kitchen. Now.” Dawn gestured to the small kitchen area visible through the open breakfast bar behind the couch. Living on her own, the cozy space suited her fine although the pastel décor and white rattan furniture was not really to her taste. But the rent was cheap for a two bedroom bungalow, so she really couldn’t complain, and there was an extra bedroom if … No … when the girls came home.
Cade followed her to the small kitchen, decorated in country chic pink and mint green tiles, and pulled out a white wicker chair from the breakfast nook. As he lowered himself to sit, Dawn grabbed a tea towel and threw it over the seat.
“Lotta blood on you,” she said by way of explanation. “Not sure how much is fresh.”
“None of it since I was fighting a buncha deadbeats.” Cade grimaced. “Six of them to one of me. They’d tied my hands, but your Mad Dog is quite the talker and while he was yammering on I managed to get free and suss out the weaklings in the group. Used the advantage of surprise to take them down, then went after the better fighters. When they were all moaning on the ground, I grabbed a weapon, and took off in their van. He placed a niclel-plated .38 on the table and Dawn laughed. “Barbecue gun.”
“You know your guns?”
“Just the basics, cowboy, shooters, and some of the big, scary ones. Where’s the van?”
“Parked it out front.”
“Excellent. Now the sherriff will know where to find you.” Dawn pulled out her first aid kit and washed her hands in the sink. Even though he was battered and bruised, his eyes full of questions she would never answer, his presence soothed the nervous flutter that was always in her stomach.
There was just something about him beyond his obvious physical strength … Maybe it ws the way he filled a room with his sheer, papable presence. Or maybe it was the way he looked at her: Like there was no one else in the room. Like she was his and woe betide any man who dared hurt her. Or maybe it was all in her imagination.
She eyed his bloody clothing and grabbed a plastic bag from the cupboard. “You’d better strip. I’ll throw your clothes in the wash. Looks like you get to spend the night in your undies on my couch.”