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  “I remember the last time you stood here,” I purred, stroking him.

  “I do too,” he said quietly and then took my hands away, turning around and facing me. “We need to go for a walk.”

  “A walk?” I didn’t like the sound of it. He was too tense. Something was wrong. But I only shrugged and pulled my tennis shoes on, waiting for him by the door.

  He wore only a simple t-shirt and jeans and at first glance might have been taken for just an ordinary man. But as he took my hand and shouldered me out the door I gazed up at him and realized what an impossible thought that was. Orion Jackson would never be just an ordinary man.

  The sun was piercing as it made its way up the clear blue sky and reflected on the pools of water which remained from the storm. The wash still held a comfortable amount of water but would evaporate after a few dry days.

  Orion held my hand in a sweet way as he led me past the bar and beyond the trailers, to an empty square of land which rustled with the movement of ground squirrels and geckos. As we passed the bar I had squinted at the car sitting in front of it. The Corolla had been painted and the plates had been changed from California to Arizona but I was sure it was the same car I’d arrived in.

  When he stopped he dropped my hand and slowly withdrew the fat manila envelope he’d wedged beneath his arm. Nearby a pair of birds, disturbed by our proximity, chattered in the sparse brush. I ran my hands over my shorts, feeling inexplicably nervous.

  “Ruger is dead,” Orion finally said.

  My heart stopped. “What? How do you know?”

  He looked at me with those piercing blue eyes and cocked his head. “How the hell do you think I know?”

  I tried to process this news. “So that’s where you went?”

  “That’s where I went.”

  My heart was pounding. “How?” I whispered.

  Orion seemed to be considering how much information he ought to reveal. “I told you he was holed up in Colorado with some boys he took for friends. Well, some green exchanged hands and they weren’t his friends no more. So you’re safe and that’s all you need to know about it, Kira.”

  But it wasn’t all I need to know. “You’re the one who killed him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he scream?”

  Orion flexed his large hands and smiled grimly. “Yes.”

  “Good,” I whispered.

  We stood side by side and listened to the noise of the desert. Varied creatures went about their unseen business and things carried on. Curious, because I’d always thought of the desert as wasted, dead. But there was life in it everywhere if you looked for it. If you listened carefully.

  Orion shifted and lowered his head. I knew whatever he said next would not be something I would want to hear.

  “What’s in the envelope?” I finally asked.

  He wouldn’t look at me now. “You,” he answered.

  Orion didn’t stop me from grabbing it away and ripping it open. Inside were a newly made set of car keys, a driver’s license and other assorted documents. Also there was a carefully clipped pile of money.

  “It’s twenty grand,” he said. “Enough for you to get started somewhere else.” He paused. “Ruger had it on him. So I figure it’s yours.”

  My eyes narrowed as a finger of coldness penetrated my chest. “You think I’m a fucking fool, Orion? If Ruger had any cash it would have been taken by whoever was hosting him.” I swallowed painfully. “This is your money. You’re paying me off.”

  He didn’t deny it. “You should stay gone from Cali. Money won’t last as long there anyway. Try someplace with lower overhead, like Phoenix or maybe Albuquerque. And unless you want to be answering the queries of the law for the rest of your life you’ll take the name change too.”

  I looked at the other documents in the envelope. The Arizona driver’s license and forged birth certificate bore the name ‘Kira Hall’.

  “Hall,” I said, shaking my head at his odd sense of humor. His affection for Dick Wick Hall couldn’t be a coincidence.

  “It’ll be easier on you if you only change the last name.”

  I swiped at my eyes. “Fuck you. None of this is easy.”

  Orion glared at me angrily. “This is a chance, Kira. It’s what you were really asking me for the day you got here.”

  “Well,” I said quietly. “That’s before things changed.”

  “Yeah, now you’re a little tougher and a lot less innocent. And kid, you’re gonna need both those qualities out there in the nasty world your daddy tried so hard to keep you from.”

  I threw the envelope on the sand and clapped my hands loudly. “Wow, so you did me a favor. You fucked me and got me to fall for you and now you’re cutting me loose. Thank you, Orion. You’re the dipshit of the year.”

  “Hey,” he grabbed me, “quit acting like a goddamned spoiled brat.”

  When I twisted furiously away he didn’t go after me again. He muttered a low curse and looked up, seeming to glare directly into the sun.

  “I love you, Kira,” he said so softly I could barely hear him.

  With a cry I tried to hurl myself at him but he pushed me back. “Why?” I shouted. “Why would you throw this away? This isn’t something that comes around all the time.”

  He laughed without humor. “You’re telling me that like I don’t fucking know. It’s not something I’ve ever had or looked for or even wanted. Fuck, I remember when Anne Marie left your daddy. Crest fell into a three day black hole bender so bad he barely knew who he was. I had to carry him like a baby and clean him the hell up and force him to stand again.”

  I had a few dim memories of that bleak time. “And you stayed at the apartment and took care of me,” I said quietly.

  His face was painful to look at. “That’s right,” he said. “I took care of you then.” He knelt to the ground with a groan and picked up the envelope. “I’m taking care of you now.”

  “You reminded me that I’m not a child. I can find my own way.” I reached up and touched his face as he closed his eyes. “I’ve found it,” I whispered.

  Orion took my hand away and opened his eyes. He shook his head and gestured to the bar, the house, the trailers. The bleak world of the Defiant Motorcycle Club.

  “This isn’t for you,” he said. “This isn’t what your daddy wanted for you and until a few days ago I’m sure as shit it isn’t what you had in mind for yourself.” He pressed the envelope into my hands. “Go back to school. Study those books you love so much. Don’t hang around this mess waiting to see if I’m gonna make it back alive every time I peel out with my boys. Because, Kira, one day I might not. Or I might. But you’ll still wake up one day like Anne Marie did and figure out how much life you’ve wasted.”

  I hugged the envelope to my chest. It had been what I was briefly afraid of. That the surrender which resided in my mother was also in me. I stepped directly in front of Orion and forced him to look me in the eye.

  “You’re not afraid that I’m going to regret the course of my life like my mother did. You’re afraid for you. That you’ll end up with Crest’s heartbreak.”

  He didn’t look away. “Maybe,” he whispered. He grabbed my face in his big hands and kissed me wildly. When he pulled back his face was anguished. “But I’d take that. I’d gladly deal with the hole you’ve ripped in my heart if it meant I’d get to keep you.” He smoothed my hair, his face crumbling. “But I’d be a selfish piece of shit to hold you here. And that’s not something I can live with. Not where you’re concerned.”

  “Because of my father.”

  “Because of your father. And because of you. Because I held you the day you were born and thought about the madness you’d been brought into and I had hope, Kira. Shit, I had hope that it would pass you by. I’d forgotten that, I think.”

  He pushed me gently away and turned his back. He had made my choice for me and the decision was final. I bit the inside of my lip until I tasted blood. It kept me from dissolving into sobs.


  I turned around and walked back toward the bar. There was no need to visit the house. I had everything I would need to begin the new life Orion was demanding that I seek. I simply didn’t have it in me to say goodbye to Rachel or anyone else. The air tasted sour and my limbs felt leaden.

  There was no need to hotwire the car. The brand new key was a little stiff in the ignition but it turned over freely and someone had filled up the gas tank. I tossed the envelope on the passenger seat and pulled the car away, wondering if I’d remember how to get to the I-10.

  There was no one outside to see me go.

  Chapter Twelve

  I found the interstate easily enough and turned unhappily east. I didn’t have a plan. I knew Phoenix wouldn’t far enough away so once I’d left it behind I planned to keep going. Out of Arizona, as far as it took for the agony in my heart to subside.

  Maybe I would have to drive forever.

  When the sign appeared for the road to Salome I cut the car to the exit so sharply I almost collided with a pickup truck. It was the inexplicable jerk of instinct. Yet when I had the opportunity I didn’t turn around. My hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly they ached.

  I drove for a while before I reached the sign. It was right where I remembered. I braked so hard the car spun to the shoulder, calling up a cloud of dust. There were no other cars in sight and I sat there for a moment, breathing hard, as I gazed up at the painted billboard for Salome “Where she danced”.

  The cartoonish stick figure illustrated on the billboard stared mysteriously back at me.

  I loosed my grip on the steering wheel, breathing hard. Everything Orion had said kept playing through my mind. If he’d offered me money and a way out the night I got here I would have taken it in a heartbeat.

  But instead he offered me something else. Perhaps his reasons were murky and perhaps he was having trouble sorting it all out. But at this point, but it didn’t matter.

  What happened has happened.

  If a hundred years ago a woman had worn shoes when walking on the hot sand this place would be called something else, or maybe it wouldn’t be a place at all.

  My father and the Warlocks would never walk the earth again because someone grew angered about money which had never rightfully belonged to them.

  And from the minute Orion Jackson touched me it was impossible for me to ever go back to being the guileless girl who idled through university lectures and always kept her knees closed.

  And this, the moment of right now, couldn’t be redone later.

  If I returned to the interstate and kept driving it would be merely part of my past. But I was still at the life’s junction where I could go either way. It could be done differently. I didn’t have to let Orion or anyone else choose my destiny for me.

  I started the car and drove furiously back to the freeway.

  It was still early in the day but Quartzsite seemed brighter and more vibrant than usual. Or perhaps it was just my imagination. I had to make a deliberate effort not to speed through the town. Now that I had made up my mind, I wanted to get things said.

  But first, I needed to make a stop.

  Adele had been right; the house did have a meth lab sort of glow. I didn’t know if I would find her in the crumbling yellow box of a home but wanted to try there before heading to Riverbottom.

  She was surprised to see me but her face was friendly as she stepped outside. I heard a woman’s low voice cursing incoherently from within.

  Adele’s eyes widened with shock when I pressed the bundle of bills into her hand.

  “What-“ she stammered.

  “Take it,” I said, giving her the keys to the car as well. “It was told that it’s mine and so I’m giving it to you.”

  She was astounded. “Kira, I don’t understand. What the hell is this?”

  I gave her a tender smile. “It’s a chance. It’s one I don’t need. All you have to do is grab your purse and take it, okay?”

  The cursing from inside the house grew louder. Adele’s eyes flickered to the doorway with uncertainty. I could see her wavering. I thought she would refuse, that she would insist it was her lot to stay here and be whatever other people needed her to be.

  But instead she nodded. I waited while she ducked inside and returned with a small bag. Before she got into the Corolla she kissed me on the cheek and hugged me with a fierce sob.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  I closed the car door behind her. “Go.”

  The envelope, minus the cash and the keys, was tightly in my hands as I watched Adele until she was out of sight. I opened the envelope and stared at the papers inside which told me I was Kira Hall. And it seemed right that I would have a new name. Right that I be granted the opportunity to remake myself.

  Riverbottom wasn’t far. I walked quickly.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I’m looking for Orion Jackson.” They were the same words I’d spoken the first time.

  Now, however, the effect was different. I’d seen him hunched over the bar as soon as I walked in but I’d said it anyway. He turned at the sound of my voice and a soft curse came out of his mouth.

  I wasn’t strong. Especially not when compared to a tower of muscle who was six foot five if he was an inch. But I grabbed him and pulled him off the bar stool and brought him with me to the place where we’d had our first conversation in ten years. The same place where he’d made me irrevocably his.

  I slammed the door to the bedroom and crossed my arms. “No.”

  Orion looked at me as if I were a wild animal. He didn’t say anything so I started talking.

  “No, I am not going to sit in a pretty classroom and listen to some jackass drone on about Hemingway. No, I’m not going to turn into my goddamn mother and snivel about all the shit parts of life. And no I am not. Fucking. Leaving!” With the last word I ripped my shirt over my head, daring him to deny me.

  He didn’t move. Those impossible blue eyes stayed trained on my face. “What if I don’t want you here, Kira?” he asked in an icy voice.

  “Then I’ll call you a fucking liar and I’ll kneel down and suck your dick until you agree otherwise.”

  Orion glared at me and then leaned over, violently tearing the shade from the window. He dragged me over to the window and pointed sharply at the barrenness outside. “Look at that. It’s all there fucking is. It’s all there’s ever gonna be. There’s no suburban box in our future with a pretty lawn I crawl out of bed to mow early on Saturday morning.”

  I scoffed. “What the hell are you talking about? I never had that. I don’t even know what the fuck it looks like.”

  He crossed his arms and gave me a grim smile. “You know, a lady shouldn’t talk like that.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “You said the same thing to me the night you got here.”

  “And you did.”

  “And I did.”

  Slowly I pulled my shorts down and Orion couldn’t stop his eyes from slowly burning over my body.

  I changed the tone of my voice. “Crest Tolleson told me a story once,” I began. And I repeated it exactly as I’d heard it. When I got to the end I covered the distance between us. When I unzipped his pants he didn’t stop me.

  “So you see,” I told him softly, beginning to stroke him, “we are exactly where we are supposed to be. Everything that’s happened has led us here.” I stood up on tiptoe and wrapped my arms around his wide shoulders, purposely moving his hard dick against the moist cleft between my legs.

  “Well then,” he said, pushing a finger abruptly inside of me. “I guess that’s that.”

  “Almost,” I whispered. “Get on the floor.”

  He pulled me down on top of him and I guided his rock hard shaft into me. His mouth went to my breasts and I began to move rhythmically, cradling his head against me.

  “This time,” I said softly as I moved, “we’re going to finish like this. And Orion, I’m going to ride like hell.”


  “You’d better,” he answered.

  ***

  Note from the author:

  This novella was hammered out in a fiery handful of days as I took a break between my first novel and the pending sequel. It’s a little grittier than what I usually write and I was pleased to find excuses to mention some of my favorite things in my home state. The nudist bookseller in Quartzsite is real and his secondhand bookstore is an outstanding pause for any passing book lover. Dick Wick Hall was once real and Salome “Where she danced”, the town he helped found, still remains.

  I always love to hear from readers so drop me a line if you’ve a mind to.

  [email protected]

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen