Unattainable (Undeniable, #3)(4)

I felt alone. Orphaned in a way.

So I blamed Jase and Hawk, as well as the entirety of the Hell’s Horsemen Motorcycle Club and their affinity for drama, for all of it.

My mother, as confused as she was, tried to break all ties as well, but Hawk being Christopher’s father made it hard for her. Several women associated with the club, women my mother had been close to, also refused to let her go. They continued to show up for visits and call her periodically despite her protests.

They also pressured her into spending time with Jase, or Hawk, in hopes that it would help trigger a memory.

So yeah, I timed my visits alongside Hawk’s trips home. He stayed on the road mostly, but when he would return, he wanted to see his son ASAP and it was my job to ensure that happened without him intruding on my mother.

“I’ll call the airlines today,” I told her. “I should be able to take a few days off work.”

“Thank you, baby,” she whispered tearfully and I felt my eyes prick in response.

“See you soon,” I said hurriedly, needing to get off the phone before we both ended up in tears. As much progress as she’d made, it was still hard for her to think of me as an adult and seeing her cry, hearing her cry…well, it was hard for me.

She was my mother. The only parent I had, the only person in my life that had ever loved me. I would do anything for her, including make myself miserable.

Hanging up, I halfheartedly threw my cell phone across the room and it landed pathetically in a basket of dirty laundry.

“Fuck,” I muttered. “Fuck.”

“Speaking of f*ck,” the man beside me said. “And seein’ as you’re already naked…”

I glanced over at him.

ZZ.

Yet another biker in the Hell’s Horsemen Club. Sort of. He didn’t associate with anyone in the club other than Deuce West, the president, and he hadn’t set foot back in Miles City since Danny, Deuce’s prissy-ass little bitch of a daughter, had cheated on him with another Horseman, Ripper, and broken his heart around the same time my mother had been shot.

Deuce’s offspring were good at that…breaking hearts.

All the West kids looked the same no matter who their mothers were. Cage, Danny, and Ivy were all blond with identical dimpled smiles. The girls had been blessed with wide, doe-eyed baby blues and full lips, and Cage…ugh. UGH.

He was beautiful. And an *.

Like father, like son.

As for Deuce, I wouldn’t be surprised if every blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and dimpled beauty queen across all fifty states belonged to him.

My body and my looks would always be a sore spot for me. I was ridiculously skinny, and not in the graceful supermodel way, but instead awkward, all elbows and knees like a newborn foal. I had tiny breasts and no hips, my collarbone stuck out, and so did my hipbones.

I was still pale-skinned, red-haired, and freckled.

And I would always be—no matter how many times I looked in the mirror and saw someone not quite as unattractive as before—that stupid and ugly little girl that no one had wanted.

But whatever, I’d accepted the fact that I’d never be beautiful a long time ago.

After my mother’s injury, I returned to San Francisco just in time to start my sophomore year. Two months into fall semester, ZZ showed up looking for a place to crash in his downtime. Other than the Horsemen, he didn’t have anyone else. His father had been one of Deuce’s lifers but had died when ZZ was twelve. Deuce had become his surrogate father and ZZ had taken the path his own father had, into the life. When he was twenty, his mother had passed away, her body ravaged by cancer. Not wanting to return to Miles City and subsequently see Danny or Ripper, he’d tracked me down instead with Deuce’s help.

As much as I wanted to hate Deuce, I couldn’t. Even though I’d gotten a full scholarship from San Francisco University, I still needed money for living expenses. Deuce had paid my rent and all my utilities, even my cell phone service, and provided me with extra spending money throughout my college years.

And, despite my protests, he was still paying for everything. No matter what I said, pleading and begging him to stop, he always refused.

“You’re family,” he’d growl. “And I take care of family.”

It was hard not to appreciate that but I knew deep down he was only doing it for my mother, not for me. They all loved my mother, not just Jase and Hawk, but all of them—the bikers, their old ladies, their kids, even the club whores. She was a mother by nature; she cared for people and enjoyed doing it, and it was damn hard not to love her.

So, really, I was only sort of family. More like the redheaded stepchild of a family full of badass bikers…but still family.

And so was ZZ.

We hardly knew each other, but after six months of periodically rooming together when ZZ wasn’t on the road, one thing had led to another and we ended up f*cking. And had been f*cking ever since.

Occasionally, I heard ZZ on the phone with Deuce and got the impression he was doing the Horsemen’s dirty work, the kind of shit that never got talked about unless it was in some sort of biker code consisting of broken vowels and grunts. Then he’d leave for a while and the next time he’d show up, he always looked that much more damaged. I asked him once what he’d been doing and the look on his face was so utterly terrifying that I hadn’t yet gotten up the courage to ask him again. Not that it really mattered to me what he was doing while he wasn’t here.