Undaunted: Knights in Black Leather Read online

  Dedication

  To Cynthia and Jeanette, badass ladies and former motorcycle mamas. I’d hide a body for either of you without a moment’s doubt or regret. Love you.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Acknowledgments

  An Excerpt from Unruly

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  About the Author

  By Ronnie Douglas

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  THE SCREAM OF a house alarm woke me. Again. If anyone had said that the seniors’ neighborhood in Williamsville, Tennessee, was a hotbed of crime, I’d have rolled my eyes. Unfortunately, three of the past eight nights had included alarms, sirens, or shouts, and I was starting to think that I’d moved into a horrible neighborhood.

  The clock showed 4:48 A.M. as I stumbled to my feet, sheets tangled around me like they were actively trying to keep me in my nice, soft bed. It was too early to be awake. Again. I was glad no one was getting injured in these break-ins, but I was still irritated at the repeated disruptions of my sleep. I didn’t understand why they’d started happening, and my grandmother’s theories seemed to fluctuate between “bad luck” and “bad seeds.”

  As I opened my bedroom door, my grandmother stepped into the hallway.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, more out of habit than worry. Grandma Maureen seemed impervious to harm even when she was caught off guard. It was one of the many reasons I wanted to be more like her when I eventually figured out how to grow up.

  “Always,” she said.

  Her voice was as firm as it had been when she was terrifying classrooms full of high school students. Age hadn’t worn her edges down. I sometimes thought that the popular culture images of sweet old grannies with knitting needles were her precise “what not to be” role models. If she ever hung a picture of one of those fictional grandmothers with a big red slash through it, I wouldn’t be at all shocked.

  “The sheriff needs to get off his oversized posterior,” my grandmother announced. Her robe was already belted, and her house slippers poked out from under the hem.

  “Did you already—?”

  “Call him? Of course, dear.” She patted my arm. “Go ahead and crawl back in bed. I have this under control.”

  I wanted to. I really did. Unfortunately, I am my grandmother’s granddaughter. On the upside, that meant I was far more like her than like either of my nitwit parents. They weren’t bad people. They just both seemed so caught up in their own drama that I wasn’t entirely sure they’d noticed when I’d moved from Oregon to Tennessee last month. They’d obviously figured it out by now, but they weren’t exactly dialed in on the parenting thing. They never had been.

  Grandma Maureen had been my role model when I was a kid, and even though I’d turned twenty this past summer, I still thought she was the coolest woman I’d ever met. She was fierce and organized no matter what went on around her. I almost felt sorry for the sheriff.

  Almost.

  He’d done next to nothing about the rash of break-ins and weird vandalism in the neighborhood. Most of the neighbors were senior citizens. They all lived in tiny houses and on fixed incomes. There was no reason this neighborhood would be targeted. There were wealthier areas of town—not by much, but still . . . it made no sense to target the seniors. Were the thieves in dire need of walkers, hearing aids, and discount coupons? Did they supply black-market demand for geraniums? It didn’t make sense.

  “Put the kettle on if you’re not going back to bed,” Grandma Maureen ordered when she realized I was still standing in the hallway.

  I shuffled to the kitchen to do as I was told. This whole thing was becoming a routine of late: alarms, middle-of-the-night conversations with the police, and the seniors in the kitchen drinking tea and discussing the latest event. It was getting ridiculous, but at least no one had gotten hurt. The increasing fear was that the vandalism and break-ins would escalate.

  While my grandmother was outside gesticulating wildly at the sheriff, who looked more intimidated than usual, I poured the boiling water from the kettle into the well-used teapot. As I did so, I looked out the tiny window. In the street, illuminated by the one remaining streetlight, were two bikers. One looked to be around my mother’s age, but the other appeared to be not much older than me. Both men wore the sort of black leather jackets with patches that I’d seen on most of the bikers around Williamsville. I didn’t typically pay a lot of mind to bikers, but whenever I’d visited my grandmother over the years, I’d seen them, and I’d continued to see them regularly since I moved here. They’d always seemed polite or not particularly interested in me. In all they didn’t make me nervous, but that didn’t mean I loved the idea of them—or any stranger—around my grandmother, especially with all the crimes lately.

  I put the teapot on the table, grabbed a sweater from one of the hooks by the door, and went outside. Just because she could take care of herself didn’t mean she should have to. My companionship and support were among the few things I felt like I could contribute. She took me in, supported me, loved me, listened to me, and I mostly took up space and tried not to be a burden.

  The sheriff looked at me as I approached, a question obvious in his gaze, but my grandmother didn’t introduce us. Every other time he’d been called out to the neighborhood, I’d simply obeyed her and stayed in the house while she marched off to her neighbors’ sides like a gray-haired general in a floral housecoat. Of course, every other time it was only police and seniors in the dark. The bikers changed things—and not just because they were bikers. Anyone watching my grandmother at this hour would’ve made me uncomfortable, and it was obvious that they were watching her specifically. I just didn’t know why.

  Grandma Maureen glanced my way briefly, but her attention quickly returned to the sheriff, who was saying, “Let us handle this, Miz Evans. Like I said last time—”

  She cut him off. “Don’t sass me, boy. You need to listen.”

  The sheriff closed his notebook with the sort of finality that made it abundantly clear that he thought that whatever else she had to say wasn’t going to be relevant to his scribbled notes. He met her gaze and said, “The department is investigating. Like I told you last time, justice isn’t always instantaneous.”

  One of the other neighbors—Beau, or maybe his name was Joe—snorted. I had met him last week, and his accent gave new meaning to the idea of a Southern drawl. I couldn’t understand half his words, and the ones I could were laden with regionalisms and slang that seemed to mostly involve odd or graphic metaphors.

  As the sheriff walked away, Beau-possibly-Joe announced, “Dumber than a sack of half-cracked bricks, that one is.”

  Grateful that I’d understood his words and meaning this time, I nodded. He was half-right. The sheriff seemed none too bright, but then again, I had started to wonder if it was disho
nesty, not stupidity, making him so ineffectual.

  “Beau!” Grandma Maureen called, unknowingly clearing up the name question for me.

  When Beau looked her way, she gestured toward a cluster of senior citizens. “Tell the girls to meet me in the kitchen. Might as well have tea if we’re already up.”

  Then my grandmother walked toward the bikers, who were leaning on their motorcycles watching everything. They gave her the sort of look that made me think they were watching approaching royalty. It was a mix between Southern gentlemanliness and the way a fighter acknowledges an equal.

  “If I were the sheriff, I’d be sweating like a hussy in the Good Lord’s house right now,” Beau murmured from beside me.

  When I looked his way, my confusion must’ve been obvious, because he added, “Miz Maureen has influential friends. She doesn’t like to call on them, but she’s about fed up waiting on the sheriff. That man couldn’t find his ass with both hands and a map. Those boys there”—he nodded toward the street—“they get things done. Maybe not the way the law likes, but they get results.”

  “So they’re not the ones doing this?”

  Beau laughed. “Echo would dip a man in honey and stake him out for the bears to find if any one of them boys touched Miz Maureen.” Beau inclined his head toward the bikers who were talking to her. “Your grandmother has the ear of one of the most powerful men in the state. She doesn’t call on Echo for anything, so people forget that she could do so.”

  “Oh.”

  “Not a bad thing.” Beau patted my hand. “Eddie Echo would steal the stars out from under the angels themselves if Miz Maureen so much as hinted that her yard wasn’t bright enough.”

  I followed his gaze. I couldn’t make out many details about the two men standing with my grandmother. They were both, obviously, riding Harleys. I didn’t know enough about bikes to be more specific than that. One of the guys lifted his gaze and looked my way. Dark hair brushed the edge of a black leather jacket. Strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, and a mouth that looked made for sin, he was the sort of contrast in beauty and danger that made me think there had to be a trick of light. No man looked that good. Even as I argued with my own perception, I could tell that he was near my age, fit, and held himself with the kind of restrained energy that made sane girls look away and unhappy girls want to step a bit closer. I told myself that I was sane, that I was going to look away any moment now, that I didn’t want to find an excuse to go check on Grandma Maureen.

  I was lying.

  “Ask your gran about Echo before you go staring at the likes of those boys.” Beau paused and then added, “I’m going to head inside.”

  I glanced at him. “You go on ahead.”

  Beau and everyone else seemed to agree with me that she was tough, but she was also my grandmother. She was the only person I’d ever been able to count on in my life, and that meant that sometimes I tended to be a little overprotective of her. I didn’t know that she needed me, but I felt better being able to see her.

  “Apple didn’t fall too far from the tree after all, did it?” Beau said, and then he grinned widely, showing off his teeth. I’d known him less than a week, and I already knew that the man was inordinately pleased to still have his “own chompers.” He patted my cheek. “You’re a lot like her, Aubrey Girl. Just talk to her before you go looking too long at bikers.”

  As much as I wanted to deny looking at them, I wasn’t going to insult the grandfatherly man by doing so. Beau and a few of the others went into the house, and I admitted to myself that I also had a secondary motivation. The bikers who were talking to my grandmother intrigued me—especially the one who kept glancing my way. Men who looked like him didn’t notice girls like me. Oh, they noticed my body easily enough. I had what were politely called “curves,” so I’d spent years learning to hide them. Too much hip, too much bust. If there were ever a big call for throwback pinup girls, I’d be a shoo-in. Unfortunately, we lived in a world where stick-figure girls were considered more attractive by society at large. I just got the leers and catcalls. I had a body that invited a certain sort of thought, but I was a “good” girl. Men didn’t pay me much attention when they realized that.

  The biker looking at me wasn’t catcalling, and for a rare change, I didn’t feel like I ought to tighten my robe to try to hide my body. Mostly, I felt like stepping forward to see if he looked as sin-pretty up close—but I wasn’t stupid enough to do so. My brief spell of boy-craziness had been back at the start of high school. These days, I was anti-boyfriend. I wasn’t going to throw that away because I was intrigued by the way the biker was watching me, even though I’d always had an odd fascination with motorcycles. I’d never even ridden one, but there was something about the sound of them as they roared by that had always drawn my attention.

  I shook my head at the absurdity of telling that to my friends back in Oregon. Not surprisingly, Reed wasn’t a hotbed of biker activity, and my father had always been a bit hostile about bikers. I was starting to wonder if the mysterious Mr. Echo was why. My grandmother obviously had some sort of connection to these bikers, and if Beau was to be believed, she had influence over them.

  Grandma Maureen said something, and the biker who was staring my way turned back to her. They exchanged another few words, and then she turned away from them. As soon as she began walking away, both men started up their motorcycles. The sound of the engines growling in the once-more-silent street was intense enough that I couldn’t help watching as the bikers took off in a roar of black and chrome. There was a raw beauty in that much power.

  They were at the end of the street when I realized that my grandmother was at my side. “I’m safe with them, lovie. You didn’t need to come outside.”

  I straightened my shoulders. “I was just surprised to see you chatting with bikers. Not that bikers are all bad, just . . . I worry about you.”

  “Hush. Those two were my students years back, and there’s not a one of the boys wearing that jacket in Williamsville who would harm me—or you. Any of those boys make you uncomfortable, you tell them you’re my granddaughter. You hear me?”

  “Are you going to tell me why that would matter to them?” I paused and met her eyes. “Is one of them Echo? Beau said—”

  “Beau talks too much.” Grandma Maureen tucked her arm into the fold of mine and started toward the house. She didn’t even pretend to acknowledge my other question, the more pressing one. Why did the local motorcycle club care about my grandmother? Instead, she said, “What say we pour that tea?”

  I knew my grandmother well enough to know that she’d tell me if she thought I really ought to know, but I also knew that she was going to continue omitting whatever secret Beau had been talking about unless she couldn’t avoid sharing it. For the time being, I decided that I would respect her desire to say nothing.

  I owed Grandma Maureen everything. No matter how off course my life got, she’d always been there for me. Having everything I thought I could count on yanked away would’ve been crushing if not for my grandmother. All through high school, I’d worked hard for the grades and done the extracurriculars; I’d volunteered every free hour I had. I’d taken summer jobs that demonstrated a commitment to civic service or that diversified my application strengths. For the past five years, I’d done everything I was supposed to do.

  I’d been to the letter perfect on every expectation, never stepping out of line. I’d spent four semesters at Reed College in gorgeous Portland, Oregon. The campus was picture perfect: beautiful buildings connected by meandering paths under stately trees where quirky students dedicated to knowledge studied and played in a campus that boasted a solid Honor Code, healthy dining, and a walking path to Trader Joe’s.

  Now I was in Williamsville, Tennessee, and I felt completely and utterly out of place. The only anchor I had in this world was my grandmother. I felt like everything I’d done was by the rules, and now I was starting over in a strange place where I didn’t think I’d fit in at all. My parents ha
d yanked the proverbial rug out from under me—Dad got caught embezzling, and instead of standing by him while they figured it out, my mother left him. My college fund was frozen . . . or maybe even seized by now. I wasn’t sure, and they weren’t telling me anything useful. Grandma Maureen had stepped in again to haul me to sanity, away from my parents, away from their fights and lawyers. I owed her everything, but she didn’t ask for anything in return—which meant that I would swallow my questions about her biker connections.

  I kept my silence as we walked to the house, but I slipped my hand into hers and squeezed. Whatever came, I’d face it with her. I’d try to be the person she thought I was.

  Several of the neighbors were in the kitchen when we went inside. It was an increasingly familiar scene to see them there, pouring tea and pondering crimes. I was impressed that they were refusing to be intimidated, but at the same time, it disappointed me that even at their advanced ages, they were having to deal with stress.

  “Was that little Zion?” one of the women asked as we walked in.

  “Not so little, Katie.” Beau shook his head. “Boy’s taken over as enforc—”

  “Enough,” Grandma Maureen interrupted in a stern voice. She shooed me toward the bedrooms. “Go on. Get a little more sleep. The excitement’s over, and you don’t need to sit listening to us go on about it all yet again.”

  I leaned in and kissed her cheek. Pushing her on a topic she obviously didn’t want to discuss in front of me wasn’t worth the stress it would cause her, no matter how curious I was.