“Tell ‘em,” Dad ordered with an eerie amount of calm.
Fuck my life twice. Dad had found some modicum of calm only because he knew that the shitstorm that would come at me in about ten seconds was going to be part one of my punishment.
“I’m an adult. I made a decision. As an adult.”
Rider’s head tilted. Deacon folded his arms across his chest. I flipped the piece of paper and let them see it.
I felt the energy in the room change.
“The photographer that runs this calendar saw me on TV for the charity carwash with my Harley and offered me Miss August this year as a last-minute thing. I signed a release to say I can’t back out. The money I earn is going to the Biker Big Bros charity. I would’ve told you all, but I didn’t know that things would move this quickly and that Dad would get an offer for advertising in it so early.”
Dad lifted an unopened envelope from the other side of his desk and smacked it down beside that one, hard. It was addressed to Valentine Custom Motorcycles – Rider Valentine or Spencer Valentine.
“There, boys. That’s for you.” He gestured at Spencer and Rider.
He looked at Deacon. “Lucky for you, you don’t get your own.”
Deacon’s jaw clenched. And then the geyser erupted.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Deacon roared.
“Not at all,” I said calmly.
Well, I tried to appear calm. My arms were folded across my chest to hide the fact that my hands were shaking. My armpits were also soaked with stress sweat.
“Like I said, I was approached. I considered it and then I made a decision, which I’m standing by.”
The angry testosterone in the room was like a triggered, fire-breathing monster.
“You considered it, did you?” Spencer clipped. “Did you really?”
The snark level coming from him made me jolt in shock.
“Because if you did,” he continued, “maybe you woulda thought about the fact that this was not only a stupid fuckin’ idea but it was reckless, Jojo. Fuckin’ reckless. Make it go away.”
I shook my head. “I signed off on a clause that I couldn’t back out. Someone backin’ out is why I got this last-minute offer. And further, I don’t wanna back out.”
Spencer’s eyes looked like they were gonna pop out of their sockets. He looked like he wanted to murder me. I don’t know why I was surprised; I’d seen him in alpha male asshole-mode many times in my life but never, not ever, aimed at me.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he shouted.
“Gimme that fuckin’ number,” Deacon said, ripping the flyer from the desk.
“Already called. The flyer we got was sent out to two hundred and twenty businesses,” Dad said. “So they say that along with the fact that your sister signed a contract means they won’t be able to budge.”
“She’s a fuckin’ kid.” Deacon waved his arm.
This… yep, the crux of the problem.
“I’m not,” I defended. “I could’ve signed this contract a year ago and had it be completely legally binding.”
“Who’d you talk to, Dad?” Deacon demanded, shooting eye-fire at me, too.
“Alicia Gale, marketing manager.” Dad said.
“Well, we’re goin down there to have a word with Alicia Fucking Gale,” Spencer snapped.
“She’s seven months pregnant, Spency. Don’t you go bullying her.” I pleaded.
“Who’s coming?” Spencer asked.
“I’ll come, only to get between you ‘n her,” I stood.
“You’re not invited,” Spencer pointed at me.
Rider shook his head at me. “You’ve really fuckin’ fucked us over, Joelle. Thanks.” Rider stormed out first.
Spencer and Deacon followed.
The breeze of the door slamming made papers from Dad’s desk fall off and I jerked at the slam.
Dad stared at me, fingers to his temples.
Fucked them over? This was my life here. I blew out a breath and then squatted to pick the papers up. Okay, so they’d hear digs about it, but they’d also maybe learn that I was no longer a toddler in pigtails.
“Out of my sight,” Dad snapped.
I lifted the papers and put them on the edge of his desk and then, on shaky legs, I left.
All eyes were on me in the kitchen.
“Gotta go, Lee. Sorry.”
She nodded. “It’s okay, honey.”
I didn’t know how much she heard but her face was filled with sympathy. So was the cook, Rochelle’s.
I went through the back way upstairs and threw my leather jacket on, put my boots on, then grabbed my helmet.
As I was stepping outside onto the balcony, about to descend the stairs, I saw my three brothers ride out together on their motorcycles. All of them had changed out of their work clothes and had on their patches.
I gripped the railing with both hands, thinking fuck.
I’d phoned Jackson Gale when I’d first gotten into my room. He hadn’t answered.
Still standing on the upper deck, I texted him.
“I’m really sorry but my dad and my brothers got your advertising flyer and went ballistic. I didn’t know they’d get flyers about it before I could tell them. Dad called your wife and I guess she told him you couldn’t pull my pics. I think my brothers might be on their way to try to talk you guys into it. Please know I didn’t intend to cause you any trouble and I am not trying to back out.”
I needed to ride. I needed to clear my head. I decided that the best place to do that was the family cabin. So, that’s where I rode to. Just before I got there, I stopped in the nearest town to pick up a few groceries, stowing them in my saddle bags. I didn’t bring clothes or toiletries because I kept all sorts of that stuff there. I liked that I could drop everything and go there whenever I wanted or needed. And right now, it was what I needed.
***
The temporary clubhouse above the bar in Aberdeen was a pit stop. This cabin was home to me.
Our home in Sioux Falls had been home, too, but it wasn’t ours anymore. I told Dad, when my parents got divorced and when he said he was moving to Aberdeen and that he’d sell the house when I finished school that he could sell that house any time he wanted but to please not sell the cabin. If he needed to sell it, I pleaded with him to sell it to me. I had more than forty thousand dollars put away, which was money I’d saved from any part-time jobs I’d had along with the money Dad, my brothers, and some of the brothers gave me as grad gifts when I finished high school. Dad wanted me to put it away for my future, so he’d kept me in spending money and paid my expenses while I’d been in school. He’d taught us all to save money for a rainy day.
I’d have been willing to use that money as a down payment to buy our cabin if I had to; I loved it that much. Dad promised it would stay in the family permanently.
It was the kind of place I’d want to live in and raise my kids in some day. A home surrounded by trees with a big porch, a deck to have barbeques on, a home filled with love. The place had love and memories. Dad bought it when I first hit my teens and I’d made it ours with picking all the furniture and being the only woman to take care of it. Mom was never interested in the cabin. She didn’t even know where it was, which was one of the reasons it was safe.