Calm & Storm (The Night Horde SoCal Book 6) Page 3

  But it had taken only those few seconds for Lorraine to know that she and he needed to talk. Come what may, there were things he needed to know. Things he deserved to know.

  It was too late to be forgiven, she was sure. But not too late to let him know of her regret.

  She followed after him, trotting in her Dansko clogs.

  When she caught up with him, he was standing near a trailer, stripping off his heavy black jacket. Once again, his back was to her.

  “Eddie.”

  He sighed and turned to her. “Nobody has called me that in a long time. That’s not me. I’m Ronin now.”

  She smiled; she couldn’t help it. He’d always had a thing for Asian culture—a certain kind of Asian culture, anyway: martial arts, Bruce Lee, warring dynasties. “Ronin? Like the lone samurai?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You’re still angry.”

  “No.”

  She didn’t believe that at all. “I’m sorry, Ed—Ronin. This feels like a chance, though. Doesn’t it?”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know. To clear the air? Or closure, maybe?”

  “I found closure a long time ago, Lorraine.”

  Every time he said her full name, Lorraine felt as if he’d wielded it like a weapon. She could hear the fading echo of the sweet, singsong way he’d called her ‘Rainy’ when they were young. “Ed…Ronin. Have a drink with an old friend?”

  “We were never friends.”

  “Don’t say that.” She took a step toward him. He stood still, his eyes sharp and wary. If he wasn’t still angry, then he was definitely still hurt. “Just a drink. Please. I’m glad to see you.”

  He stared down into her eyes. They were close enough to touch, and Lorraine wanted to touch him, but she worried doing so might spook him. The thought that Eddie Drago could be spooked by a touch almost made her laugh. It did make her smile.

  When she did, he blinked twice, in rapid succession. And then he nodded. “A drink.”

  “Thank you! My friend owns a place two blocks down from the shoot site—The Oaken Barrel. Wine and spirits. I’ll meet you there right after wrap?”

  He nodded and turned back to his bag without another word or any kind of acknowledgement of her. When she understood that she had been dismissed, she headed back to her own work.

  ~oOo~

  Lorraine didn’t see Ronin again that afternoon, and when she got to The Oaken Barrel, she had calibrated her expectation to about a fifty percent chance that he’d show at all. If he didn’t, well, maybe that would be for the best. They’d managed twenty-five years without contact. A few butterflies at the sight of him hardly meant that there was really any connection remaining between them.

  Except it wasn’t quite as simple as that.

  Tillie, her friend who owned this bar, came around and kissed the air near her cheek. “Hello, darling! Did we have a date I forgot about?”

  “Nope. I’m meeting a friend. We were down here for the shoot.”

  “Gawd, that shoot.” Tillie rolled her eyes. “We’ll be dead all night while they clean that mess up. Can I open a bottle for you? I’ve got a delightful Napa cab I’m pimping this week. Really rich, nice chocolate tones. Excellent conversation wine.”

  Lorraine doubted that Ed—Ronin would be much of a wine drinker, but she definitely was. “Sure. That’d be great. Thanks, Till.”

  Tillie waved, indicating the nearly empty seating area. “Make yourself comfortable. Unless there’s a sudden influx of movie people”—she said that with evident disdain—“this is going to be a paperwork night for me. We have the small plates menu up, though, if you’d like a nosh with your sip.”

  “I don’t know. Just the wine for now. We’ll see how it goes.”

  Tillie cocked her head. “Is this a date, Lorraine? Mercy! Are you back in the pool?”

  “No, Till. Just an old friend.”

  “Hmpf. It’s long past time, if you ask me. Douglas has had his baby trophy wife for two years, and you’re still solo.”

  “Tillie, enough.” Her friend had virtually no filter. Sometimes, that made for a hilarious night of conversation. Other times, like now, it was just uncomfortable and irritating.

  “Sorry, sorry.” She kissed Lorraine’s cheek. “I’ll decant the cab, and I’ll be out with some dark chocolate. Have a seat.”

  As Lorraine slid onto an upholstered chair and Tillie turned to head behind the bar, the door opened, and Ed—Ronin walked in.

  Tillie stopped dead. Lorraine’s heart did the same. Her brain, too.

  He’d showered on set and had changed into his street clothes. Now he wore jeans and a striped chambray shirt, the top couple of buttons open, just enough to show a hint of ink on his chest and the light dusting of dark hair that she knew covered his chest and tapered down his belly.

  Tillie looked back over her shoulder at Lorraine and stage-whispered, “Sweet heavenly LORD, woman, this should be a date!”

  “Tillie, get!” Lorraine whispered back, waving her hand. Her friend smirked and went to the door.

  “Welcome to The Oaken Barrel. I’m Tillie. How can I help you?” She’d managed to make every word of that sound dirty.

  Ronin nodded a greeting and then turned his head and nodded in Lorraine’s direction.

  “Of course. I’m about to decant a bottle of cabernet sauvignon for Lorraine. Should I bring two glasses?”

  He shook his head. “Scotch.”

  “Excellent.” With another conspiratorial and totally inappropriate look in Lorraine’s direction, Tillie flounced off.

  Lorraine stood again as Ronin approached her. “Hi. I wasn’t sure you’d come.” She took a step, meaning to—hug him? Do the Hollywood air kiss? She didn’t know. It didn’t matter, though, because he pulled out his chair and sat down as if she hadn’t stood at all.

  She sat again. He put his hands on the table and linked his fingers. He wore several rings—five—all of them heavy and silver. One had a large turquoise stone. She stared at his hands, becoming transfixed.

  He’d always had rough hands, hands that had known hard work. Growing up in Myrtlevale, he was a country boy and had been working and playing outdoors his whole life. She hadn’t known him as a boy, but she’d known him as a young man, and by then he’d already been working the woods for years—like his father and grandfather and great-grandfather.

  There had been a time when she’d felt like she’d lived every moment of her life waiting to feel those rough hands on her bare skin. Even now, she could remember their caress. She put her hand to her chest, as if that could quiet her heart.

  They had been a perfect example of opposites attracting. He was like most of the people in Myrtlevale, politically conservative and suspicious of the world outside the town limits.

  Though she had been born in the same local hospital he had been, Lorraine had been taken from that home while she was still in diapers and raised with her mother in Eureka, California. She’d come to Myrtlevale after high school, in an attempt to reconnect with her father, a logger just like Eddie. But the difference between the culture she’d been born in and the culture she’d been raised in had been night and day.

  She’d been his ‘hippie chick,’ in Birkenstocks, broomstick skirts, and layers of jewelry, loudly against everything he was quietly for.

  They’d had nothing in common at all, and from nearly the moment they’d met, that hadn’t mattered a whit.

  “You wanted to talk.”

  Lorraine forced her eyes up from his hands to his face. His eyes, quiet and deep, caught and held hers, but he said nothing more.

  Held in that gaze, and lost in recollection, Lorraine didn’t want to talk about the things they needed to talk about. She didn’t want to dredge up old hurts and add new ones to the pile. She simply wanted to know him again.

  First, though, one thing needed to be said, even if its power had died out long ago.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Empty words no
w.”

  “I know. But they needed to be said. They are true.”

  He nodded, as though he were not agreeing to the truth of the words but was simply acknowledging that they’d been said.

  Okay, he wasn’t going to help her out at all. Tillie came out with her wine and his scotch, as well as a pretty plate of assorted dark chocolates.

  Tillie put her hand on Ronin’s, and he cast his eyes up at her, clearly surprised by the touch. “Try the chocolate with the Glenlivet. Very nice.” Giving Ronin’s hand a little pat and winking none-too-subtly at Lorraine, she flounced off again.

  Time for small talk, something to temper the awkwardness. Lorraine took a sip of her wine and asked, “How long have you been in Southern California?”

  After a long swallow of his scotch, Ronin answered, “’Bout ten years.” He stared at the chocolates but didn’t select one. He also didn’t ask the obvious follow-up question or elaborate even the slightest bit. He’d never been exactly gabby, but this was ridiculous.

  Lorraine selected a square of solid chocolate and bit off the corner. Then she answered the question he hadn’t asked. “I’ve been in California since I left Myrtlevale. I started in Tahoe. The hotel opened a new property in South Lake Tahoe, and I transferred there. From there, I went to San Diego. About five years ago, I came up here. Worked my way from server to executive chef during all that time. About a month or so ago, I opened my own place. Mythic, it’s called.”

  “You were working today?”

  Wondering for what other reason he thought she had been wearing chef’s whites on the set, she stopped up that question and simply said, “Yes. I came in today to cater the lunch for the set visitors. Normally I don’t do craft services. It’s crazy that the one time I do, you’re working, too. I saw you do that stunt today. You’re so good. Even better than before.”

  Again, he only nodded.

  Swallowing down a lump of anxiety, Lorraine reached across the table and put her hands over his. “Talk to me. What have you been doing with your life all these years, Ed—Ronin?”

  He stared down at their hands, and Lorraine watched him, waiting. Then he pulled his hands free of hers and laid them on his lap instead. “Living.”

  “Did you ever marry? Have kids?” She knew those questions turned in her direction could lead them into dark places, but the odds of him asking were clearly slim. Even if he did, it was time.

  “No.” That answer made Lorraine sad and rueful, but finally he met her eyes again and asked a question of his own. “You?”

  “Yes, to both. I was married for seventeen years. And…I…have a son. Cameron.”

  “Was?”

  It took Lorraine a second or two to understand the root of his monosyllabic question. She’d said she ‘was married.’ Had been. Was no longer.

  “Yes. We divorced a couple of years ago.” She smiled, trying to give it a satirical bend.

  “I’m sorry.” His tone was sincere, and that surprised Lorraine. She would have expected some schadenfreude—she felt sure that she would have been at least a little pleased if the situation had been reversed—but he sounded truly sorry for her.

  “It was a mistake, what I did to us. I’ve regretted it almost since I did it.”

  He finished his scotch and abruptly stood. “It’s time I go.”

  Lorraine stood, too, feeling panicked. “Wait, wait. I don’t want to lose touch again. Please.”

  Again, he simply stared, his gaze feeling almost literally hot on her skin. Then he reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a black leather wallet, attached to a chain that dangled from his belt. He slid a card from his wallet and handed it to her. Night Horde MC, it read, with a picture of a red horse head with a flaming mane. Madrone, California. Ronin Drago. There was a phone number and an email address under his name.

  He was a biker—more than just a rider. He was Horde. That made sense, actually. Actually, it was perfect.

  “I have a card, too. Hold on.” She dug into her bag for the little business-card carrier Cameron had given her, with the Mythic logo etched into the silver. Then she found a pen, too, and wrote her number on the back of a card. “That’s my personal number.”

  Ronin took it and studied it. Then he gestured for the pen. When she handed it to him, he turned his own card over and wrote a number on the back as well. “And that’s mine.” He handed her the card and the pen. “Take care, Lorraine.”

  God, she really hated to hear him call her by her full name. As he turned, she reached out and laid her hand on his arm. He stopped and turned back.

  “I just…I don’t suppose you’ll let me hug you?”

  Yet again, he was motionless, standing there simply staring. Lorraine made the move herself, coming close and raising her arms. He didn’t deflect her, and she slid her hands up his chest and over his muscular shoulders. At last, he leaned down and put his arms around her, pulling her close.

  He was big and broad and quiet, opposite Douglas in nearly every way, and Lorraine felt something crack open inside her chest. She was home, here in this man’s embrace. She’d never felt anything like it since she’d turned away from him those years ago.

  It was over too soon; Ronin stood straight again, made distance between them. But when she looked up at his face, his eyes were focused elsewhere. On her shoulder.

  She had on a simple, dark blue, sleeveless blouse over a long patterned skirt. She’d in no way dressed to impress, she hadn’t had the opportunity, though she’d loosed her long red hair from its braid and fluffed it out before coming to meet him for this drink.

  Still staring at her shoulder, he lifted a hand and let his fingers trail down her bare arm. Lorraine closed her eyes and willed herself not to make a sound. The trail of gooseflesh, however, she had no control over.

  “There are more.” His voice was so much huskier than she remembered.

  Opening her eyes again, she looked at her arm. “Freckles?” she laughed. “Yeah, I suppose so. The curse of being a ginger: no amount of sunscreen can keep them from multiplying over time.”

  He bent down and kissed her arm. With that stunning development, Lorraine remembered something she couldn’t believe she’d forgotten: his adoration of her fair, freckled skin.

  When he stood straight again, his grey eyes weren’t quiet at all. They were on fire. He was going to kiss her—she knew it a heartbeat before it was true. He folded her into his arms again and covered her mouth with his, and with that, Lorraine knew that he, too, still felt something good between them.

  Forgetting that they stood in the middle of a wine bar, she held him close and opened her mouth to him, moaning when his tongue immediately found hers. The scruff of his beard abraded her mouth and chin in a wonderful, sensual way, and she tried to get her body even closer to his. Feeling his erection between them, she shifted and ground on him.

  He pulled away, gasping, his eyes still fiery and now heavy-lidded as well.

  “Eddie,” she whispered, brushing her fingertips across his lips.

  All at once, the moment died. The hungry need on his face was gone, supplanted by the earlier wary chill. He let her go and stepped back.

  “Eddie is dead,” he said and turned away.

  Before he headed to the front door, he laid her card on the table.

  Lorraine stood where she was, breathless. Confusion and desire warred with loss in her heart until her knees buckled, and she sat hard back in her chair.

  Tillie hurried out from the back, some kind of chocolate confection in her hands. “I don’t know what just happened, but I know it calls for much more chocolate.”

  Lorraine tried to smile at her friend, but her mouth was still too full of Eddie’s kiss.

  No, not Eddie.

  She stared down at the card he’d given her. He hadn’t taken hers, but she still had his.

  Ronin Drago of the Night Horde MC.

  CHAPTER THREE

  For most of his life, Ronin had needed no alarm to rouse him from sl
eep. He always rose at first light, even if the night, for him, had been short.

  In a habit that had begun even before his military service, he started every morning with a circuit of pushups: standard, diamond, one-arm, and decline. Twenty of each. Then, after a long drink of water, he went out to his back yard.

  He’d bought a house in Madrone even before the club had started making real money. His straight work brought him a reasonable income, and his ways had never been profligate. There were a few things he considered worthy of expense, but overall his tastes ran toward the minimal.