She shook her head. Olivia got inside her ride and drove to O’Riley’s. Back in her time, it used to be the place adults hit up to hook up with random strangers. Times hadn’t changed apparently. Olivia found a parking spot and walked inside. The bar was hot, like someone forgot to turn the air-conditioning on. It was also crowded. Suffocating almost. The need to fill her veins with alcohol overcame everything else.
Olivia found an empty seat on the bar. She ordered a beer. One, she reminded herself. Olivia would only have one drink tonight and then head home. She just needed a change of scenery and besides, she could never hold her alcohol. A dose of liquid courage was all she needed to forget her worries for one night.
“Oh, my God. Is that you, Olivia Hawkins?” a vaguely familiar voice asked.
Olivia grabbed the cold bottle the bartender placed in front of her. She took a quick gulp before facing the speaker. For a second, she didn’t recognize the blue-eyed blonde holding up a tray of empty beer bottles. She was tall and slender, exactly Olivia’s opposite.
In contrast, Olivia was a brunette, curvy. Her figure and insecurity had drawn all kinds of bullies to her back in high school. The opposite effect went for the other woman. Cherry Smith had been the prom queen, Redemption High’s golden girl. She’d been the little ringleader of the group of girls who constantly harassed Olivia in her senior year. To her surprise, Olivia found she no longer felt any malice or hatred for Cherry. High school was so long ago. Almost another lifetime. Maybe she did change and mature a little.
“Cherry, how’s it going?” she asked, finally remembering her name.
Cherry looked delighted Olivia remembered her at all. “You know, trying to make ends meet like everyone else. Last I heard, you finished your nursing degree and you’re working at some fancy hospital in the city. What brings you back here?”
“Where did you hear that?” she asked. Olivia only had one friend growing up, and Marsha had moved to another town with her husband and two kids five years ago.
Cherry shrugged. “The old pastor loved to brag about you.”
“Did he?” Olivia found that hard to believe. She decided to answer Cherry’s question. Gossip ran like wildfire in a town like Redemption anyway. “I’ve taken a job at the local hospital. I’m also here to settle some of Dad’s old affairs.”
“At St. Luke’s? That rundown place?” Cherry laughed.
The bartender yelled at Cherry to take orders at another table, much to Olivia’s relief. She didn’t think she could hold this particular conversation long.
“Well, good luck. We’ll probably bump into each other again. Let’s talk soon.”
More like never. Olivia might’ve forgiven her old bully but that didn’t make them fast friends. She didn’t know why she didn’t return to nursing her beer. Olivia settled her gaze on Cherry quickly weaving through the crowd of people. Her heart started on a quick rhythm as she spotted the three hulking men in leather biker jackets sitting around the table. Her gaze was only drawn on one man. A king among titans. A ruthless king.
Part of Olivia hoped the years wouldn’t be kind to Saint. That somehow, he’d gone bald or would have a beer belly. That was wishful thinking on her part because Saint looked like he hadn’t aged a day. Sure, there were more grays in his short, black hair, but everything else was the same.
Saint was more cut, if that was possible. He had more tattoos than Olivia last remembered. A vicious snake curled around his neck, its slitted jeweled green eyes staring at her. Then the man himself swiveled on his seat. Saint was about to ask a passing waitress something but his gaze caught hers. Merciless steel-gray eyes pinned her to the spot.
Olivia felt like a rabbit, a prey animal caught in a trap. She hated the fact that even now, he wielded some kind of unnamed power, some hold over her. Olivia returned to her beer, her cheeks heating up. She knew this was her opportunity to speak to him. To ask him for his help. Olivia found that she couldn’t. Once she finished her beer, she was out of there.
Chapter Two
Saint couldn’t believe his fucking eyes. For a second, he wondered if he’d conjured the image of the dark-haired curvy beauty sitting by the bar. He didn’t. Olivia looked away from his gaze.
She hunched in her seat and sipped her beer, as if that could make her invisible. She’d always been good at that. Trying to make herself small. No fault of hers. Olivia’s over-religious and overbearing father had never wanted a daughter.
Refusing her advances all those years ago had been one of the biggest mistakes of Saint’s life. Back then, Olivia had been too young, too pure and innocent for someone as dirty as him. Little Olivia’s all grown up, he mused.
Saint wondered what brought her back to Redemption. She hadn’t gone to the preacher’s funeral two years ago. Saint would know because he’d looked out for her. He couldn’t blame her. There was no love lost between her and her old man.
“Saint, what’s your take?” asked Devil, his blood brother and the MC Vice President.
Devil looked impatient to leave the bar. To get home to his pregnant old lady. Saint usually conducted all meetings at the clubhouse. Right now, that wasn’t possible. After they eliminated most of the Black Dragons MC weeks ago, their sister club, the Red Dragons MC, retaliated by wreaking havoc on their clubhouse. Their fucking home turf was shot full of bullets.
Luckily, only a couple of his men were injured and the club whores had gotten out unscathed. That was right. Saint had been downright pissed when he entered O’Riley’s tonight. His thoughts had been filled with nothing but blood and vengeance until she entered the picture. Fuck, but violence was the last thing on his mind right now.
He turned his attention back to Devil and Chains. “Give Iron the go-ahead to burn their warehouses down,” he said.
On another night, Saint would insist on being in the thick of the action. He’d ride to the Red Dragons MC’s turf with Bear and Iron. Hell, he’d gleefully pour tubs of gasoline over those buildings.
Saint would gladly put a bullet between the eyes of any Red Dragons wandering around the premises. If those bastards thought they could get away with this shit, they had another thing coming. Saint and his MC guarded their territory and those living in it with cut-throat ferocity.
Devil had convinced him to let their other MC brothers do the job. Saint had been to the hospital twice in the last six months. Devil reminded him he wasn’t getting any younger.
“Done,” Devil said, tucking his phone away. “If there’s nothing else, I’m itching to head back home.”
“I’d feel the same way if there was willing and devoted pussy waiting for me back home,” grumbled Chains.
Devil gripped Chains’s shirt across the tiny table, sending empty beer bottles and cigarette stubs crashing to the floor.
“That’s my old lady you’re talking about,” Devil hissed in Chains’s ear.
“Jesus,” he muttered in annoyance. Saint had no time for this idiotic bullshit. Devil knew Chains got all loose-tongued when he was roaring drunk. “Knock it off. The last thing I need is a damn bar fight on my hands.”
The two didn’t listen. Saint had to pry Devil off Chains.