“Wasn’t that the same chick you were seeing on Valentine’s Day? This must be some sort of record.” Rebel smirked.
Dare and Cowboy exchanged a curious glance. Doc was particular about the women he went out with, but he never saw them for more than two or three months, leaving a trail of broken hearts in his wake. Dare knew better than to give anyone hopes of a real relationship with him. How could he, when he compared them all to Billie?
Doc turned a serious stare on Cowboy and Dare. “Don’t say a word.”
“Who us?” Dare said with feigned innocence. “We’d never say she must be into pity fucks to have hung around this long.”
“Or that we’d heard there was a bet going around Hope Valley. Five hundred bucks to any woman who could last four months with you without losing their minds,” Cowboy added.
“We’d never say that shit.” Dare chuckled.
Doc glared at them. “Assholes.”
Dare and Cowboy laughed.
The meeting was over, and the room came to life with loud conversations and guys milling about, getting drinks and playing pool. Dare and his brothers’ phones chimed with texts. Dare looked at his phone and saw the SOS group text from their mother. That was how she contacted them during church if there was an emergency at the ranch. If the meeting was still going on, one of them would step out to call her back. If not, their father made the call. They looked at their father, who was standing with Manny by the head table. He already had the phone to his ear, brows knitted.
“Rebel, looks like you’re on your own for that drink.” Dare pushed to his feet. “Tell Billie I know she’s thinking of me.”
Rebel grinned. “You mean when she’s not thinking of me? That woman is one fine piece of—”
Dare shut him up with a dark stare, and Rebel held his hands up in surrender, chuckling. Dare and his brothers headed over to their father as he finished the call and pocketed his phone.
“What’s going on?” Dare asked.
“A seventeen-year-old took the neighbor’s BMW, and their fifteen-year-old daughter, out for a joyride,” their father said. “The kid’s name is Kenny Graber.”
“Shit. Did they get hurt or hurt anyone else?” Cowboy asked.
Their father shook his head. “No, they got lucky.”
“Anything happen between them?” Doc asked.
“The girl swears nothing happened and that it was her idea to take her parents’ car.”
“We’ll find out about that.” Dare knew all too well about covering for others. He, Billie, and Eddie used to do it all the time.
Their father nodded. “I know you will. You’re taking the lead on this one, Dare. The boy’s father convinced them not to press charges and to let him come to the ranch instead.”
They had several safety measures in place for teens. They lived, ate meals, and did schoolwork in the main house under Dwight’s watchful eyes, and when they worked on the ranch, it was under the guidance of Dare, Cowboy, or one of their senior barn managers. Dare was currently working with two other teens.
“What else do you know about Kenny?” Cowboy asked.
“This is his second offense. Legally he has a license, but his parents took it away last month when he took their car out at three in the morning and got pulled over. He’s a smart kid and was doing fine in school before they moved here about three months ago for the old man’s job. About a month after they moved, his grades went south, and he started skipping school. They aren’t sure if he’s doing drugs or drinking, but they suspect he might be,” their father explained. “Your mother said they’re at their wits’ end.”
Dare knew a little something about driving his parents mad with worry. “I’ll swing back to the ranch and get the company truck.” If they were picking a kid up at a detention center or an adult from jail or prison, the Dark Knights would go with them, but when they were picking up someone from a home, they tried not to overwhelm the family. “Where should I meet you?”
“At the corner of Millhouse and Western. We’ll follow you in.” His father gave them the Grabers’ address and told them the parents’ names were Carol and Roger. “I’m bringing Rebel in case the kid runs.”
Perfect.
AFTER PICKING UP the truck with the Redemption Ranch logo on the side and the child lock on the door, Dare headed out to meet the others. During the years he’d interned while he was in college, he’d gone with his parents to pick up a few teenagers. At the time, he’d felt like an impostor, which had been partially true. He’d cleaned up his act, but he hadn’t been ready to be a role model by any means. The more times he’d accompanied them, the more things he’d noticed, like how the kids would look at him in one of three ways. With detest, pleading for him to get them out of that situation, or with carefully veiled hope, because they’d gotten themselves into a situation they couldn’t find a way out of, but they wanted to. He’d been there once himself, and those looks had twisted him up inside, made him question his every decision and his future. But they also made him realize he was on the right path. They’d inspired him to work harder to be a person who could turn the hatred and those pleas around and earn the respect and knowledge to bring that hope to fruition.
His parents had later told him that they’d known he’d either fold under the pressure and realize he didn’t want to be the person bringing those kids in, or he’d step up to the plate and become the role model and therapist those kids deserved.
He pulled up next to his father’s motorcycle and watched the man who’d doled out tough love and mucked stalls with his sons while teaching them what it meant to be part of Redemption Ranch and, more importantly, to be well-respected members of the community climb off his bike and come to his window. Dare could only hope he was half the man his father was.
His father put a hand on his shoulder and said, “You’ve got this, son. We’ll be right behind you.”
The confidence in his father’s voice brought a rush of pride. He waited for his father to climb onto his bike before heading to the Grabers’. They parked out front, and Rebel headed around to the back of the house in case the kid tried to bolt. Teenagers could be fast, but Rebel ran like the wind.
As they made their way up the front walk, a woman peered out the front window. Dare recognized the fear in her eyes. He’d seen it many times from parents hoping for a miracle with their troubled kids, husbands, wives, sisters, significant others, and friends who had called the ranch as a last-ditch effort to help the people they loved.
Dare knocked on the door, with his father and brothers behind him. The door opened, and the worried faces of a woman who looked to be in her late forties, with red-rimmed, teary eyes and blond hair that brushed the shoulders of her blouse, and a balding man wearing a dress shirt and glasses who looked to be closer to fifty peered out. “Mr. and Mrs. Graber?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
Dare’s heart went out to her. “I’m Dare Whiskey from Redemption Ranch. I believed you called for some help with Kenny.”
Her gaze swept down the length of him, those worry lines deepening.
Dare was used to the surprise rising in her eyes as she looked over his shoulder at his father and brothers in their leather cuts, jeans, and boots, his father’s red bandanna firmly in place, tattoos on display. Everyone knew the ranch was owned and run by the founder of the Dark Knights, but knowing it and seeing a bunch of six-feet-plus tatted bikers up close and personal were two very different things.