Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
She gestured toward the peanuts.
I looked at them and curled my nose with disgust.
I didn’t eat peanuts that’d been sitting out all day with all kinds of people reaching their gross hands into the bucket holding them.
I hung out with men all day, every day.
I knew how freakin’ gross they were.
“Dixie, what’s the holdup on the damn beer?” one of the other brothers called.
I turned and settled my glare on him.
I loved Sage like a brother, but if he ruined this for me, I’d shove his face up his ass and make him lick his colon.
He held up a placating hand, knowing damn well and good what would happen if my ire got raised.
I turned back to the woman.
She had a rag in one hand, and a wet glass in the other.
She also looked angry, like she didn’t like that I was talking to her.
Now that I was standing closer to her, I could see all the features that I’d missed earlier due to the darkness of the room around us.
She had the blonde hair of hers styled in ringlets that were a bit wild around her beautiful face.
Then there were her eyes. A honey brown that looked warm and inviting despite the scowl on her face.
Her skin was lightly tanned, or that might’ve been due to the white top she was wearing, making her appear tanner than she actually was.
The door behind the bar burst open and a haggard looking old man walked in, caught her arm, and yanked her toward him.
My heart skipped a beat, and the anger that took me over, so swift and sudden, couldn’t be healthy.
“What the fuck have I told you about being out here when there are customers?” the man snarled in her face.
I wasn’t aware of my own actions as I vaulted over the bar top.
Just that one second, I was standing on the customer side, and the next I was standing on the employee side.
“Daddy,” the woman cried out in pain. “I didn’t have a choice! Roger left!”
“Get your hands off my woman,” I growled, my voice deep and menacing.
I didn’t reach for her, though, because I didn’t want to put her into a tug o’ war with me and the man she called ‘daddy.’
“And who the fuck are you?” he snarled, thankfully letting go of the woman.
“Daddy, this is my, erm, fiancé. Remember how I was telling you about him? He travels a lot for work,” she lied.
She walked cautiously around the man and stood at my side before saying, “Um, Daddy, this is…”
“Dixie,” I offered, finishing for her, not bothering to offer my hand.
If I offered my hand, it was going to be via my fist in his face.
I didn’t like seeing women harmed.
I certainly didn’t like seeing them mistreated by family.
“So this is the motherfucker that fucked you and left you.”
My brows rose. “I most certainly did not.”
“Then what would you call the devastation you left in your absence?” he asked.
I looked at the woman who still hadn’t given me her name.
“Mary,” a man came out of the back, looking toasted. “What the fuck, man? You were supposed to come get me if you heard Dad’s truck…oh.”
Mary.
Her name was Mary.
Mary looked at me with pleading in her eyes, hoping that I’d follow along.
I reached for her hand, and she greedily took it.
“Oh, hey, um…” the man from the back, whom I assumed was Roger, her brother, said.
“Dixie.” Mary made big eyes at the brother.
“You know this clown?” the dad asked.
This motherfucker.
“Sure, I do,” Roger lied through his teeth for his sister. “He’s been coming here every time he is in town. But he, uh, travels a lot. And he comes in so randomly that sometimes I’m not here.”
The dad’s eyes traveled from me to his daughter to his son and back.
Then movement behind me caught his eye, and he stiffened.
“I don’t want no trouble from you,” he said, shoulders drooping.
That was right.
I’d taken off my cut because it’d gotten ripped earlier in the day, and I had dropped it off at the dry cleaners for repair a couple of hours ago. But just because I wasn’t wearing my cut, proclaiming me as a Dixie Wardens MC club member, didn’t mean that he couldn’t read it on my friends’ bodies that were, I knew, standing directly behind me.
They were ready to protect me with their life, just like I’d done for them countless times.
“No trouble?” I heard Sage say carefully. “It doesn’t look like you want no trouble with the way you just handled our brother’s ol’ lady.”
I liked the sound of that.
A lot.
“W-what?” He looked at me with wide eyes.
“You’re a biker?” Mary whispered under her breath to me.
“Sure am,” I confirmed.
“Very nice,” she whispered.
And why did those two words send a thrill through my body?
“I don’t want no trouble,” the dad repeated.