The Outlaw Stakes His Claim (4 page)

“God, are you okay?” the waitress asked and got down
on her haunches in front of her.

Hope looked down at her arm. The pain had been
instant when the glass had cut her, but then adrenaline had pumped through her
veins—still was—and she hadn’t been focusing on it. But now, as she watched the
blood slide down her arm and drip down the floor, all of that fear, uneasiness,
and pain finally caught up with her and slammed into her body like a
sledgehammer.

“Bobby, get me something for her arm. She’s bleeding
pretty badly,” Mara called out. A second later she had a rag in her hand
courtesy of Bobby and had it pressed to Hope’s arm. Mara lifted the rag after a
minute later. “It doesn’t look deep, but do you want me to call an ambulance
just to make sure you don’t need stitches?”

Hope got onto her feet and placed her hand over the
rag. She lifted it and looked at the wound, but could tell it wasn’t very deep.
“I think I’ll be okay, but I’d rather just go back to my room.” She looked at
the waitress and saw a worried look on her face. “Thanks for helping, though.”
Hope turned and faced the front of the bar, and saw that all eyes were on her.
Her stomach roiled with nausea, and a cold sweat lined her spine and covered
her forehead. She swayed and had to brace her hand on the wall so she didn’t
fall. Endorphins and residual adrenaline still pumped through her veins.

“Hey, sit down.”

Hope heard Mara speaking, but her focus was on Frank
lying on the floor. Blood continued to flow from his nose, and the side of his
face was swelling even further with every second that passed. She slowly looked
at the waitress and saw her mouth moving, but couldn’t hear anything but the
pounding of her heart in her ears. A presence beside Hope had her looking in
the other direction. Dallas stood right in front of her. This very hard
expression was on his face, and although he had just been in a fight—albeit an
extremely short one—there wasn’t a mark on his face. His mouth started moving,
but he kept his focus right on her. She started to sweat harder, felt the
nausea intensify, and saw the darkness start to creep toward the edges of her
vision. If this wasn’t the very last thing that could push her over the edge
and warn her that moving here had been a very bad idea, she didn’t know what
else could.

Chapter Four

Dallas sat in one of the stained tweed chairs in the
corner of the human female’s motel room. She had passed out at the bar, and
although he didn’t know her, and knew he should have let Mara and Bobby handle
her, Dallas couldn’t have left her. He didn’t know what it was about her that
made him feel like this. Maybe it was curiosity more than anything, but when he
had seen her parked across from him on the side of the road and heard her ask
him if he needed help, there was this sensation that moved through him and
grabbed hold of his inner animal. It had been very stupid for her to talk to
him. Her instincts should have told her that he was dangerous, even from the
short distance that had separated them.

He should have left as soon as he had put her in her
bed, but then he had found himself sitting down and just watching her chest
rise and fall. It hadn’t been difficult finding out what room she had been in,
not when Mara had gone with him to the front desk of the motel office and
explained what had happened. That might not have been the way Dallas would have
gotten the information because truth be told he liked violence over
conversation to get his way; but he had taken a step back and let Mara do her
thing. Five minutes later and they were in her room. He had shown Mara out,
smoked himself a joint outside of the female’s door, and then found himself
back inside.

She made a small noise, and he snapped out of his
thoughts and sat up straighter in the chair. Her long blonde hair was spread
across the pillow, and his pulse picked up. Whatever it was about this woman
had his bear pacing inside of him, his body breaking out in a cold sweat, and
his dick hard as steel. It had been a couple of hours since she had passed out,
but after checking her wound and seeing that it had closed, he knew she had
checked out from shock most likely. Dallas didn’t say anything, but watched her
silently as she opened her eyes, blinked a few times, and stared at the
ceiling. She turned her head to look at him, and then her bright blue eyes
slowly widened. After she looked around the room and pushed herself up in bed,
she threw her legs over it and sat there for a few minutes.

“You brought me back to my room?” She spoke, but was
staring at her feet.

“Yeah.”

She looked up and stared at him. “Thank you. I think
it was culture shock.” She laughed, but it was anything but humorous. “And how
sad is that.” She didn’t phrase it like a question, and lifted her uninjured
arm up and ran her hand over her forehead.

“That would have made anyone that wasn’t used to
that situation a little shell-shocked.”

She dropped her arm and looked at him with this
surprised expression on her face. Yeah, he surprised himself for even saying
anything, but the words had just come out.

“That bar isn’t the classiest, and that asshole I
laid out flat had that coming to him.” A moment of silence stretched between
them.

Peeling the bandage Mara had put on her wound, she
looked at the cut. “At least it’s not deep.”

“Mara cleaned it with a first aid kit from the front
desk. You still might want to get it checked out.” Since being in her room he
had asked himself over and over again why in the fuck he was still here. She
wasn’t his concern, she’d live, and he was fairly confident that fucking Frank
would learn his lesson this time.
And if not?
Then
Dallas would make sure to teach him how to respect a female, and Dallas’s
future teachings would include a hell of a lot more pain than they did this
time.

“Thank you.” She looked at him again. “I’m Hope
Richards by the way.”

Dallas should have left, shouldn’t have stayed until
she woke up, but here he still was, sitting in front of her like he actually
gave a fuck. But he did, in a way, and that knowledge scared the shit out of
him. When he didn’t respond (because he was a bastard and didn’t make any
excuses for it) she licked her lips, and the scent of her uncertainty filled
the room.

“You’re, uh, Dallas, right? Mara told me you are
with the local biker gang.”

“Gang?”
He couldn’t keep out the slight growl in his words. Over the last few months he
had been going down a slippery slope. He let all of his anger and self-hatred
eat
at him until he couldn’t hold it in any longer. It was
dangerous for him, and everyone around him. That was why he had gone to the
hole-in-the-wall bar. They might know of him, but they didn’t know him, and it
was best that way. He was just a member of The Grizzly MC, and they were his
family. “I’m not in a gang. I am in a motorcycle club.” He stood, starting to
feel itchy as fuck and needing to let his bear out. He could go to the barn for
some fighting, or maybe he just needed a whore to fuck. The latter didn’t even
sound appealing but he needed to get this wild energy out of himself. Beating
down Frank with that one hit hadn’t even touched the surface of his anger.

“I’m sorry. I meant no disrespect.” She stood, and
her face took on an ashen complexion.

He knew she was about to fall over, and he was right
there in front of her, hands on her waist, and setting her back on the bed. But
as soon as he had touched her he was backing up. His palms and fingers tingled,
and Dallas couldn’t understand why he had this kind of reaction to her. He knew
nothing about her aside from her name, and didn’t care to know anymore.

Are you sure
about that?

“I’ve got to go.” He eyed her sitting on the bed,
and the scent of her confusion and surprise probably matched his own. He knew
she had felt that … something … between them, but Dallas honestly didn’t know
how to explain it. “You’re good?”

She nodded.

“If you need anything Mara left
her cell number on the table.”
The waitress
had talked about how Hope was new in town and might need someone to help her
show her around.
If Mara wanted to take on that task, good
for her.
Besides, he was lousy company, and she didn’t need the toxic
shit that he was building up inside of him. “Take care.” He ran a hand over the
back of his neck, gave her one last look, and turned to leave. But what he
found even more uncomfortable than these strange feelings starting to rise up
from the blackness of his body was the fact he didn’t want to leave. Dallas
pushed those weak fucking feelings away, ones that would serve no purpose other
than to fuck up his life and hers, and opened the door. Once outside he grabbed
another joint from inside his cut, lit the end of that bitch, and inhaled from
it deeply.
Yeah, just walk the fuck away,
man. Walk the fuck away and don’t look back.

****

As soon as the sun had risen Hope had left the
motel.
She hadn’t been able to sleep, and instead tossed and
turned all night replaying the bar scene in her head.
Dallas had stepped
up like he had been her protector. Hope may have always been on the shy and
introverted side, but she was independent and had never had to deal with such
blatant disrespect like she had with Frank. But then Dallas had been there, and
knocked the guy out without even getting a mark on himself. He may be a bear
shifter, and therefore stronger than humans, but that hadn’t been what had been
fueling him that night, at least not from what she could tell. She had seen the
darkness Mara had talked about. Dallas had worn it like it was a second skin,
and like he wanted everyone to see that it was a part of him. She had seen it
cover his body as he stood in the rain, and again when he had been across the
bar from her. Whatever he was trying to keep buried inside of him was slowly
making its way out, and sooner rather than later it would eat him alive and
anyone near him.

For several hours all she did was drive around. She
drove through Steel Corner, learned the shops that lined either side of the
street, and realized that even classified as a small town, Steel Corner was
impressive in size. They had their own supermarket, not like the rinky-dink one
that was in her hometown. Taking a left and following that until she saw the
office where she would be working, she pulled into a spot and cut the engine.
It was Sunday and of course the office was closed but she wanted to walk anyway
to clear her mind and, she hoped, rid her thoughts of Dallas. God, how could one
man invade her mind so thickly that she felt consumed by him? Even now she
could hear his deep, baritone voice, see his big, imposing body in front of
hers, and picture the fierce rage that had been barely restrained.

She shook her head to clear those thoughts, and knew
there was no place in her life for them. She had left behind one difficult and
demanding man—Parker—and didn’t need another one. If she entertained thoughts
of Dallas then she would allow another man into her life, one who was clearly
used to getting what he wanted at all costs. That was a dangerous combination.

Once out of the car with her purse in hand, she
started walking the sidewalks that lined the square of town. There were a few
quaint little stores, ones that fit the whole small town appearance, but the
majority of Steel Corner was modernized with those big name chain stores. The
first stop she had gone to in her drive through town was to see her new place.
It was small, with only one bedroom and
close
enough
to other houses that she didn’t feel isolated; but also far enough away that
she didn’t feel strangulated by neighbors. After doing some shopping, mainly of
the window variety, she grabbed a sandwich from a little deli and found a spot
to sit under a tree. The wind was blowing, but it was a nice kind of breeze,
and hiding beneath the shade of the branches gave her the opportunity to people
watch. A few people came out of the stores across the street, broom in hand,
and started sweeping in front of their businesses. Children could be heard
laughing and screaming in glee over at the park that was just on the other side
of the buildings.

She must have sat there for ten minutes and ate half
her sandwich before she heard the very distinct sound of engines roaring.
Instantly her heart started to beat faster, because the one image that came to
mind was Dallas. A minute later a row of black and gleaming Harleys came down
the road. Several people stopped what they were doing and watched the bikers.
They pulled their bikes up to the curb and cut the engines. He was fourth down
in the line of men, and as they all removed their helmets and dismounted her
heart pounded faster. There was an entire street that separated them, but God,
his very presence was so powerful, even this far away. Suddenly her appetite
was lost, and she set the rest of her sandwich in the bag and cleaned off her
hands.

Two of the bikers went into the automotive parts
store while Dallas and a couple other guys stayed back. But the longer she
stared at him the more she noticed the little differences in him. He knew he
was being watched. He straightened, looked to both of his sides, and then
tilted his head back and inhaled. Even she could see how hard he was doing that
by the way his chest puffed out. And then he snapped his head in her direction,
and even with the dark sunglasses he wore, the few cars slightly blocking their
view of each other, Hope knew that he could see her just as well as she could
see him.