Nolan by Lane Hart, D.B. West

Chapter Eleven

Rita

Ihurry down the cereal aisle, grabbing the first thing my hand touches and tossing it in the shopping cart. It feels like I’m a contestant on one of those grocery shopping games where you’re working against the timer, buying as much shit as you can before time is up.

That constant ticking clock is how I’ve lived my entire life.

I get up at six a.m. to shower and get ready for my office job that still doesn’t have any benefits after six years. Then, I have about an hour or two in the afternoon to change, eat dinner, and then get my ass to the strip club where I’m still stuck working as a waitress. God, this is not where I thought I’d be at thirty.

But I’m so close to the finish line I can almost see it.

My little brother is a senior in college, so close to graduating with a four-year business degree. I’m so proud of Cory. He nearly fucked up his life before it started, hanging out with a bad group and missing school. But then suddenly he straightened out, graduated with decent grades, then went to community college for two years before transferring to get his bachelors. He’s so much smarter than me. All I’ve wanted for him since I was old enough to know better was to give him a chance at a better life.

Tuition, housing, and all that goes with the college experience has been a beast to wrangle with everyday living expenses, but Cory has helped as much as he can. I wanted him to focus on studying instead of working, knowing that if it got to be too stressful, he would drop out, and then working multiple jobs to support us both since I was nineteen would’ve been for nothing.

I wheel my cart down the last aisle, grabbing a half gallon of milk and orange juice before finally making my way to the checkout.

I luck up and find one of the self-checkout lanes clear, so I ring up the few supplies I need to get me through another week, bag them while waiting for the clerk to enter in a code or whatever, pay with a debit card, and then I’m out of there in record time.

As I push the cart across the bumpy, uneven parking lot to my car, I lift my phone from my purse to check the time.

I’m down to twenty minutes to unload groceries while eating a quick bite of…something, changing, and then it’s off to serve beers to a bunch of losers who come to see tits on a Monday night.

“One more year. Just one more year,” I say to myself as I shove my phone away and then scream when a hand shoots out and stops my cart an inch before it hits the bumper of my ancient car. I nearly give myself the Heimlich on the front bar of the cart when it rams into my chest. My long hair flies in front of my face as I relearn how to breathe.

“Jesus! Ah, thanks I guess,” I say to the stranger as I flip my hair out of my face. Then my jaw drops when I finally look up at his face. “Nolan?” I exclaim in disbelief.

I was startingto think that maybe I had imagined the tall, dark, and handsome man in leather and jeans. The one who showed up night after night at the club until I finally caved and went out with him, which led to several weeks of amazing sex before he disappeared.

“Oh good. You do remember more than my name,” he says, voice just as rumbly and sexy as I remember.

“Remember…of course I remember you! Hard to forget the man who treated me like a queen, until the day you left without even a freaking note!”

His forehead creases, and he just stares at me blankly as if I’m speaking in a foreign language.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. Remembering I don’t have time for this painful little blast from my past, I dig my keys from my purse to pop the trunk.

“You know, I was just as surprised as you are right now when I had my own visitor show up looking for me yesterday,” Nolan responds through gritted teeth. “Big guy, about seven feet tall, bald and wider than a football field. Does that ring any bells?”

I gasp in shock, eyes lowering to the grocery bags I get busy moving to the trunk. “Leroy…he-he really tracked you down?”

“If that’s the big guy’s name, then yeah, he did. And I didn’t have a fucking clue what he was talking about when he was cutting off my oxygen and telling me to give you a divorce!”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I wish the ground would just open up right here and now and take me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think he would actually find you, much less confront you!”

Damn it! The last thing I need is to have to sleep with the big, nasty bastard, but I can’t let him kill a man even if he did break my heart years ago.

“I’ll smooth things over with Leroy,” I say with a slam of my trunk. “Sorry he bothered you.”

“Why did you lie to him?” Nolan asks as I take the cart to the return rack where it belongs.

“It’s…a long story,” I say as I start for my driver door. “He won’t bother you again.”

“Rita, wait,” Nolan says. His hand grabs my arm when I reach for the door handle. “What the fuck is going on? I don’t hear from you for five years, and then you’re suddenly telling some asshole we’re married?”

“I don’t have time to go into this right now,” I say with a sigh as I jerk my arm free from his grip. It took too long for me to forget how good he could make me feel after he ran off without a word. Like a fool, I kept waiting for him to come back or call. Even a letter or email would have been appreciated instead of just wondering if or when I would hear from him again. “I have to go, but I am sorry he confronted you, Nolan. Really. I was desperate, and your name was the first one I thought of. From there it just sort of…snowballed.”

When a man as big and tough as Leroy sets his sights on you, even more determined to have me than Nolan was years ago, well, there’s not much I can do to stop him from just taking what he wants. The Rebel Henchmen MC aren’t known for being refused anything. Ever. And now that they provide security to the strip club, well, if I don’t give in to Leroy eventually, I’ll probably lose my job and the tips that I can’t live without just yet.

“You’re still working at the strip club,” Nolan says, making it a statement rather than a question.

“How do you know that?” I ask him.

“You’re better than that shit, Rita.”

“It’s only for another year and then I’m done.” I’ll never step foot in a strip club again when I quit, that’s for sure.

“You’re paying for Cory to party it up at school while you work your ass off for him?”

“Cory is doing great. He’s going to graduate soon, and then I’ll be free.”

“Free, huh?” he repeats. “With your new man, Leroy?”

“Deep down I’m sure he’s just a big softie,” I lie. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“It is my business when you send some crazy motherfucker to my doorstep, threatening to kill me because he thinks we’re married!”

“I said I was sorry, okay? What more do you want?”

“Nothing,” he grits out. “I don’t want a single fucking thing from you.”

With that, he turns around and strides off angrily before climbing on a shiny, new Harley and driving off into the sunset.