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She glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “Down the drive and make a right?”
“Yeah, take it all the way out, it’ll put you in the center of town.”
“Is there a hotel nearby?”
Caden stiffened. “You don’t gotta place to stay?”
Marissa turned, and again he had to focus on her face and not let his gaze travel south. “No, I usually just wing it.” Her eyes widened. “But usually I’m closer to a big city.”
Caden rubbed the scruff around his mouth. The only motel around there was the motor lodge. A usual hotspot for transients and truckers. It was also home to the meth-riddled junkies and ten-dollar whores. Not a place for her.
“There’s a few on the interstate. If you follow through, past the center of town, the entrance will be on your right. About thirty miles down the highway, you should run into a cluster of shit.”
“Thirty miles?” She glanced off into the distance. No doubt she was tired, and thirty miles was a far distance.
He had an open unit in the back. It had been sitting empty for a few months. He could offer it to her. Fuck no! The last place she needed to be was here, around Pop, around him. No, for as kind as she’d been to Pop, she was still a stranger.
“Well, I’m off.” She started to her car, and a burning ache built in his chest. Something didn’t feel right. Caden slowly approached. She slipped inside and closed the door. He glanced at her backseat. A few bags and two cardboard boxes. If he had to guess, her whole life was piled up in her backseat. Offer for her to stay, asshole.
“You gonna be all right? I can drive out, have you follow me.”
She blinked, and then her lips slowly curved. “That’s sweet of you.” Her cheeks flushed, and she shook her head. “I’ll be fine.” She paused. “Bye, Caden.”
He drew in a hard breath, beating back the desire, once again, to offer for her to stay.
When her car rolled into reverse, Caden knocked his knuckles into the door and shot up a wave before turning back to head inside. Once at the top of the landing, he looked over his shoulder. Fuck, he needed to lose this feeling of shit going downhill. She wasn’t his concern. Then why was he standing on the porch until her backlights disappeared? Caden spun around and ripped open the screen.
“She gone?”
Caden faced his brother. “Yeah.”
Kase smirked. “Check out the tits and ass? Too fucking bad she ain’t Colleen. Wouldn’t mind riding that train.” Kase had always had the dirtier mind of the brothers. Not to say Caden hadn’t noticed. Marissa, who he pegged in her late twenties, had legs for fucking days, and as for her tits and ass? Hell, he had to adjust himself three times from the wood he was sporting. He needed to get laid.
“He upstairs?”
Kase finished his beer and wiped his mouth on his arm. “Yeah. I’m heading out. Thank fuck it’s only twenty minutes away now.” He laid the bottle on the counter and pulled Caden in for a hug. It was the two of them, brothers. They were all they had, and Pop, of course, but his time was near the end, as they both suspected. Kase slapped his back and pulled away. They’d always had a mutual respect for one another, though they could go head to head as mortal enemies too.
It hadn’t been an easy road for either of them.
“Still can’t believe you came back,” Caden said as he leaned against the doorframe.
Hard to believe the place Kase couldn’t wait to ditch at eighteen was the place he returned to and settled into with the club. Technically, Ghosttown was a few miles away. But all the small towns meshed together. Caden had aspirations of leaving too, and then life happened and saddled him in his hometown. Of course, he didn’t despise it as much as Kase.
“Ghosttown ain’t Turnersville.”
Caden snorted. It was bullshit and total logistics.
“Yeah, I know. We got a fucking center of town here. Out by you, the town hall is a restored barn, population doesn’t even break a hundred, and there’s no titty bars.”
The corner of Kase’s mouth curled. “Not yet, brother. Plan on having the town warm up to us before we apply for a permit for the strip club. Gage is all into it.”
Caden laughed. “I bet he is.”
Leave it to Kase to fucking roll into little Ghosttown and then turn it upside down. Kase and his motorcycle club, the Ghosttown Riders, were in the process of moving into the town of Ghosttown.
Kase walked to the door. “Tell the kid to call me.”
The kid was Caden’s. Why his brother never called him by his given name was beyond reason. Trevor was sixteen going on manhood.
