1. Riley

one

Riley

You don't belong here.

I circled the funeral home without stopping. A legion of terrifying Harley Davidsons filled the substantial parking lot, sometimes two or three to a space.

Mom had told me about the Desert Kings. These men were the stuff of nightmares, the boogeymen that hid in the shadows, and now my only lifeline. What would Mom think of me coming here?

She'd be furious.

But she hadn't left me any other options. I glanced at the large white envelope emblazoned with a courier's bright yellow logo that sat in my passenger seat. It mocked me with cheerily curved lettering.

I'd not fully investigated its contents, hadn't opened the sealed letters from my father. Sperm donor. Whatever you wanted to call him because he certainly hadn't been a part of my life. Which was amusing since Mom had thought she'd done so well to hide us.

A lawyer had sent cash and a written summons. The gist: come to Nevada and there is more where that came from .

All it would take was a trip to the desert. The money in the envelope might be enough to keep the debt collectors at bay if I didn't spend too much of it. But nowhere near enough to give me a roof over my head, go back to college, and get the hell out of California.

Well, it had been enough for the last.

My father was a Desert King Motorcycle Club member that my mom said she barely escaped from. She blamed him for everything wrong in her life—and mine.

And still, showing up at his viewing unannounced seemed disrespectful. So would being at the funeral, but…

The lawyer will be there tomorrow and he says I have to go.

With the address the lawyer had given me keyed up on my GPS, I drove instead to my dad's home. Not like I could afford a hotel, anyway. I was clinging to what little cash I now had, like it was the last of it. As one did when you'd spent the better part of a year near to starving without a dime to your name.

It was a pretty house, painted a pale blue in defiance against the earth tones of his neighbors. The cool colors were a surprise from a man in his fifties, with no family, that ran an outlaw biker gang.

The clay tiled roof and an assortment of decorative succulents dotting the pebbled sidewalk were downright cozy.

There were worse places to spend a few days.

The keys jangled as I shook them from the envelope and made a note of the alarm code. I unlocked the door, silenced said alarm, and let myself in. I flicked on a lamp and wrestled with the feeling of wrongness, of being in someone's home unannounced.

Once my nerves settled, I ducked from room to room to ensure I was alone.

I'd wondered if he'd had a live-in girlfriend, or something…but the place was empty. Only one bedroom in use and only a man's jacket on the rack by the door.

The letter said he would leave most everything to me, including his house. I just needed to be present for the funeral and in a few weeks, for the reading of the will. In a twisted sort of way, this was mine. Who else would be here?

The place was tidy but masculine. The walls were light and the furniture dark. Political thriller paperbacks and motorcycle magazines littered the coffee table. Coffee cups displaying motorcycle logos hung on a rack by the coffeepot in the kitchen. A well-used set of socket wrenches lay open on the counter by the back door with several missing. I ran my fingers over them, as if they might somehow tell me who he was.

In the hallway, I flicked on a light to see a trail of framed images dotting the walls. Some of bikes, glossy and chrome, others of men with beards and leather vests, most smiling or joking. Even faded family photos of grandparents and others I'd never met. I recognized young Rick Bowman from some of Mom's old pictures she'd kept hidden in a drawer. That's how I'd always imagined my dad, young and vibrant, the romantic product of childhood nosiness.

I closed my eyes against the last memories of Mom, frail and dying, the exact opposite.

Several newer frames, those same men but older…but this, this would have been the man I'd known. Long hair, going gray, lean face with the same angular shape as mine. Crinkles at the corners of his eyes. Something inside me ached, wondering briefly if Mom had been wrong about him.

One of him with a teenager, a gangly boy that was more arms and legs, than anything else, caught my attention. The same young man was in several more. A warm sort of jealousy lit low in my belly for a kid I'd never met—but why?

Because he knew him and you didn't.

I shoved the unwanted emotion aside. This had never been about me. Whatever issues had been Rick's. Or Mom's. Or both.

I stalked toward the master bedroom and flicked on a light. There were other bedrooms, I'd seen them as I'd sneaked around to see if anyone was home. But something drew me here. I picked up a pillow and inhaled. The scent of spicy aftershave and mint triggered an unfamiliar ache of longing. At least when he'd been alive, I'd known he was out there somewhere. It had made losing Mom easier to stomach. I hadn't truly been alone, even if he was a stranger to me.

Now I was.

A floorboard creaked, and I tilted my head. The quiet was so consuming, that when I listened closely, my own breath drowned everything out.

I turned as a dark blur flashed in the doorway. I had enough time to squeal before I was knocked back and pinned to the mattress. I fought against the weight of my attacker, thrashing and wriggling frantically, twisting in the bedcovers, and knocking the pillows askew.

Underneath one was a pistol. I snaked one hand free and reached for it.

"Whoa, not so fast, sweetheart." The sharp, biting command from a masculine voice stopped me for the scantest second before he encircled my wrist again.

Survival instinct flared to life and I turned enough to knee him in the groin and leap for the gun.

As my attacker rolled to the floor, I jumped off the other side of the bed, clutching the gun between trembling hands. It was heavier, colder than I imagined. The way people swing pistols around in movies, you'd think they were much lighter.

He rose from the floor, still clutching his groin, red-faced and groaning. "The fuck?" he gasped out and glared at me.

I could finally make out his face. The clear blue of eyes beneath gold-tipped lashes, the shock of blond hair pushed back from his face—I recognized him. It was the kid from the pictures. Sure, he was older and filled out, with facial hair surrounding his mouth and covering his chin. Same guy, just older and significantly more handsome.

The alarm bells in my brain lessened, but I kept the pistol pointed at him.

Something in his face changed, a brief flash of recognition as the red seeped out of his cheeks. He rose to his full height and raised both hands in the air in front of him.

"Riley?" The voice wasn't as cold or harsh now. Deep, but clear and quiet.

Something about that tone slipped in, comforted me, and my body relaxed, the gun dipping. He knew me.

"How do you know my name?" The control I had over my voice was surprising. Only marginally shrill. "And what are you doing here?"

His grin was slow to spread across his lips. Like somewhere along the way he'd decided he shouldn't and then the devil on his shoulder convinced him otherwise. "Sweetheart, I'd feel a lot more like answering your questions if you'd point that elsewhere."

"I'd feel a lot better once I know who the fuck you are."

"I live here." He lowered his hands and seemed to shift closer to the corner of the bed. "I'm a friend."

"Now you're going to tell me my estranged biker father had a younger, live-in lover?"

He snorted. "What? Hell no. I live in the apartment above the garage."

"That doesn't explain what you…" I waved the gun in a small circle. "Were about to do to me."

He recoiled with an irritated flinch. "Fuck no. You're Archer's daughter." Then he gestured with a roll of his shoulder and a wink. "Ain't never had to force no one, sweetheart. Not even one as pretty as you."

None of that explained how he knew me, why he'd come in here…or any of it. I was shaken, tired, and quickly losing patience.

"That make you my long-lost brother, then?"

"Ha. No." He laughed outright, and it wasn't until he brushed a hand over his goatee, I realized he'd come completely around the bed.

Before I could jerk away, he'd wrenched the pistol from my hands by the barrel, spun it toward the wall and pulled the trigger.

I threw my hands over my ears, but instead of a deafening boom, there were only three quiet clicks.

"Chamber a round and flick the safety off before you threaten to shoot someone." With the sure confidence of long practice, he dropped the magazine and cleared the gun.

The place between shock and humiliation is weird. My skin flushed and the room sort of faded in and out. The only thing I could see was this cute guy glaring at me like I'd just walked in and screwed up his entire world.

He hadn't had a father who never lifted a hand to help show up dead out of nowhere. Neither had I…until now. This entire thing was a shit show.

I didn't know if I could trust him, but I was literally pinned between him and a wall and trying really hard not to laugh or cry or both.

Then he surprised me. "Want a beer?"

Without waiting for a response, he turned and stalked from the room. I got a good look at the back of his vest. Desert Kings MC. He was a member of Rick Bowman's motorcycle club. Not how I envisioned my introduction to these guys.

I followed him, not so much for the beer, but propelled by some sort of enigmatic force. If he was even a little like how Mom had described these guys, I should be running the other way. Instead, I was slinking into the kitchen, looking at my feet, thankful he couldn't read my mind.

If he could, he'd be getting up close and personal with how much I'd enjoyed having him on top of me. A scuffle on the bed had been better than my sweaty, awkward, high school make out session with the neighbor.

With a guy like this, things would be very different.

My cheeks heated with the thought.

"What are you doing here, darlin?"

"Riley." I sat at the scuffed, round wooden table and took the beer he handed me. "But you already knew that."

No way was he more than five years older than me, if that. In the kitchen light, his face was younger—like he wore the goatee to hide his age. Either way, the look was disarming. Everything about him was, especially when he grabbed a pint of ice-cream and a spoon and leaned against the counter while I nursed the beer.

When he caught me staring, he saluted me with the spoon. "I need a clear head." His eyes were bloodshot, his face still flushed. Weed, alcohol, whatever it was, I doubted he'd been crying in a funeral home pew. "Now, answer my question." But there was a cool, commanding way he said it. Like he expected people to tell him everything he wanted to know.

"This is my father's house." I clutched the beer between us. Not that it was a shield against anything. I didn't relax. The way he'd taken the gun from me and skillfully unloaded it was kind of scary—and exciting.

He'd already proved that I didn't stand a chance, physically, at defending myself. I should be scared, yet I wasn't. I was too tired to calculate the risk. The adrenaline was wearing off and left me deflated and tired.

The worst part was, I had nowhere else to go.

He pulled the spoon between his lips, licking it clean. My eyes hung to every motion, no matter how hard I tried to look away. "No shit. Same father you've never been to visit."

I took a long swallow, tried not to choke on the thickness of the beer—the almost bread like taste. Anything to distance myself from the seething accusation in his voice. "Not that it's any of your business, but he didn't seem to want much to do with me. The first contact I had with him was a letter from his lawyer that he died."

He paused with a spoon full of ice cream a few inches from his lips. "When was that?"

"Fuck off." I needed to be nicer. I had the feeling that if he didn't want me here, it would be a problem. I didn't need any more of those. I had plenty already.

I never imagined my life would come down to having to ass kiss some random biker douche just to survive.

Could be worse . I gripped the bottle tight and tried not to think about the shifty truckers and drug dealers that populated the truck stop I'd slept at for months.

He didn't respond but ate his ice cream like it was the last remaining tether to his patience and waited for me to cave. Because he knew I would. Guys like him were used to always getting their way.

"Earlier this week. I have to be here for the reading of the will and the funeral." My inner independent woman groaned.

"Give you keys?"

"Yes. And the code."

He acted so at ease, so at home here, and it grated on my nerves. "My turn. Who are you?"

"Cam." He finished off the container and tossed it into the bin a few feet away with a swish of the bag, then dropped the spoon into the empty sink with a clatter.

"Let me see your phone." He pushed off the counter, hand extended. I was handing it to him before I thought better of it.

His fingers flew across the screen before he passed it back. "If you need me, call me." He headed toward the door stopping to slip the gun into his pocket. "Set the alarm, get some rest. I'll be back in the morning before the funeral."

He didn't ask why I wasn't staying at a hotel and of that, I was grateful. One humiliating moment a night was my limit.