By the time I hit middle school, all the kids knew it, too.

There was normal and then there was us.

But when I left California, I left Biker Trash Becca behind. Regina and Earl looked at me and saw who I really was—a young girl who needed help. They opened their home and their hearts to me, and the rest of Callup followed suit. For the first time in my life I really belonged. Not only that, I was safe, surrounded by layers of protection. First Regina and Earl, then my new friends at the school. Their families adopted me, too, and standing guard over all of us were the Silver Bastards, who considered the town and its inhabitants their own.

Even now, despite the weirdness with Puck, my life was good. Almost normal. I had a job, I had school, and I was still in control.

Funny how one phone call can completely fuck up everything.

—

My cell phone started blowing up around two that afternoon, but I was just starting an evaluation, so I ignored it after a quick check to see who was calling. Mom. Shit. I’d have to call her back after school . . . Then she called me four more times in ten minutes and I started to freak out. Another hour passed before I could get away and check my messages. The first was calm enough, at least on the Mom Scale.

“Baby, you need to call me right now. It’s important.”

By the second message she sounded upset. Not that my mother getting upset was anything new—she was always either in a great mood or ten seconds from losing it, not much left in between.

“Becca, I just tried calling your apartment. I don’t know why you can’t live somewhere that has better service. You really need to call me. Now.”

It was the third message that really worried me, though. This time she sounded scared. Like, scared for real. Combine that with the repeated calls and warning sirens started going off in my head.

“It’s important, Becca. Please call me. I need to get away from Teeny—it’s not safe here anymore. I know we’ve had our differences, but I really need your help now.”

My breath caught, then I forced myself to calm down. She’d said she was ready to leave him half a dozen times. Then she’d change her mind . . . Would she really go through with it? When I was younger, I’d always wondered if Teeny was a wizard, because he seemed to have a near-magical hold over my mother.

I called her back, fingers trembling. She didn’t answer and I didn’t leave a message. For all I knew Teeny would steal her phone and listen to it, so I sent her a vague text instead.

ME: Mom—ill be at school until five and then home for the evening. Call me.

I was useless after that. All I could think about was Mom and Teeny and whether she was serious this time. Well, that’s all I could think about until four thirty.

That’s when distraction arrived in hot-guy form.

News spread through the school in a flash, of course, and all the girls were whispering and giggling about him. Nothing unusual there. Stressed out or not, I was still a functioning human woman so I decided to do a discreet walk-by to the bathroom to check him out. My breath caught.

Tall. Built, with strong arms and spiky blond hair.

Fuckballs.

That was Painter, Puck’s friend. I’d recognize him anywhere, even if he wasn’t wearing his Reaper colors. Not that I knew him—not really. But he’d been in jail with Puck. The welcome-home party that changed my whole life had been half for Painter, half for Puck. We’d all ridden back to Idaho together and I’d caught Painter’s eyes following me a time or two. Speculative and assessing, like I was some kind of strange creature he couldn’t quite identify.

Now he was chatting up Anna, who was working reception, so I ducked back down the hallway and into the bathroom. Why? I have no idea. Painter’s arrival had nothing to do with me. Probably. Didn’t mean I wanted to talk to him.

But seeing him reminded me of Puck and things went downhill from there. Specifically, I pondered all the reasons I absolutely shouldn’t ever talk to or even look at him again. Biker? Check. Dangerous? Check. Scary sexy? Check.

Scary, period.

I amended my mental “fuckballs” to “flying fuckballs with caramel sauce on top.”

He’s not Teeny, but he’s still part of Teeny’s world, I lectured myself, trying to focus on the combs I was sanitizing. And in his world, sometimes they give teenage girls to men as “welcome home from prison” presents, dumbass. Did you forget that part of the story? Puck Redhouse saved you to cover his own ass. This is not a romance and it won’t end happily ever after.

No. That wasn’t fair. Puck had been doing more than covering his ass when he dragged me out of California. He’d never been in real danger—wasn’t like the SWAT team had been poised and ready to bust him for screwing a minor. Nobody at that party had cared what happened to me at all. Not until him. He’d saved me because somewhere deep inside he was a decent human being.

The romance bit, though . . . That was dead-on. If I wanted happily ever after, Joe Collins was my guy.

I didn’t share any of this with Blake, who gave me a ride home after school. He had classes down at North Idaho College on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so when our schedules aligned, he drove. The system worked, although I wished he’d let me give him gas money. Fortunately, Earl had left a message earlier in the day saying that my car was ready and he’d left it parked in the alley behind my apartment. Over the weekend I’d have to go and pick some huckleberries to make him a pie, I decided. Earl loved his huckleberry pie, and we were at the tail end of the season so it was now or never.