Page 21 of Dusty and Dented (Fallen Angels MC #2)
A ndy woke slowly. The room was quiet, and she remembered falling asleep while lying on Dagger, listening to a movie. She didn’t know if the movie had ended or if he’d turned it off after she’d dozed off.
Dagger wouldn’t have gone far, not without telling her or leaving her a note, but she didn’t like it.
Her stomach churned and she had to fight the urge to curl up in a ball and pull the blankets up around her.
Instead, she glanced around the room, looking for the remote.
She didn’t care what was on, only that she needed noise.
She needed something to occupy her mind, or it would run away with all the possibilities and all the things that could be wrong.
She was still flipping through the options of what streaming service to pick, her eyes flicking periodically to the door, as if willing it to open and Dagger to come through it. When it opened and Dagger stepped in.
Her eyes went wide and she rolled her lips inward and bit them to keep from asking the questions rolling through her head.
“You’re awake. Good. We’ll go down and eat in a few minutes.
I need to shower real quick first, though.
” He didn’t bother to sit down to take off his boots but stood and bent over long enough to unlace them.
He toed them off and set them outside the bedroom door, then he went straight to the bathroom and closed the door.
She was left still sitting in the middle of the bed, blinking and wondering where he’d been and what he’d been doing to be splattered with blood like that.
At least she thought it was blood. It could have been red paint, she guessed, but she didn’t think so.
Though, as she thought about it, she couldn’t say why she didn’t think it was paint.
Andy sat in the middle of the bed, biting one lip, when the bathroom door opened several minutes later.
A puff of steam billowed out ahead of Dagger.
She blinked and couldn’t look away for a moment before she realized she was staring and forced herself to turn her head.
He had a towel wrapped around his waist, and while it met at the top, it gapped over one thigh, leaving more skin exposed than covered.
“Sorry. I forgot to grab clean clothes.” He went to the dresser, grabbed a few things and disappeared back into the bathroom before she could figure out how to respond.
Only a moment or two had passed before the door opened again.
When she glanced his way, she found that this time he wore a pair of jeans but still had no shirt.
He pulled another pair of boots from the closet and sat to pull on his socks and the boots, and she had a hard time looking away.
There were a couple stray drops of water on one shoulder that she was tempted to move closer and lick off.
Where the hell had that thought come from? Why would she do something like that?
How would he react? Would he welcome it or turn her away?
Who was she kidding—what man would willingly turn down sex? Was sex what she wanted or did she want something more? Something less? She didn’t know. She needed to figure out what she did want before she gave in to that impulse.
Dagger finished with his boots, pulled his jeans down over the tops and stood. She watched as he went to the dresser and pulled out a clean white t-shirt and put it on. then pulled on his leather vest.
That was when she realized he hadn’t been wearing it when he’d come in. Instead, he’d carried it and set it on top of the dresser before pulling off his boots.
Once he was dressed, Dagger turned back to her.
“Ready?”
“For what?”
“To go downstairs and eat. Getting out of this room and being around people will do you good. Plus, you need food. You’ve been through a lot and your body will need the energy to heal.”
She stared at him for a moment then, realizing that she wasn’t going to talk him out of this, she sighed and looked down at herself. She couldn’t go downstairs, among all those men, without a bra or in her sleep shorts.
“I need to change.”
“No problem. I’ll step out into the hall to give you some privacy.” He went to the door and stepped out and pulled the door shut behind himself.
Andy pushed herself off the bed and quickly dressed.
She hated the idea of anyone waiting on her.
She pulled on a bra and another t-shirt, this one was still loose but not hanging off her shoulders like the one she’d been wearing.
That one had been one of Travis’s that she’d stolen years ago.
It was soft and her favorite to sleep in.
Especially now. Next came a pair of cut offs.
After stepping into her running shoes and shoving her phone in the ass pocket on her shorts, she went to the door and opened it.
At first, she thought Dagger might have given up on her for taking too long, as she didn’t see him, but as soon as she stepped into the hall, she spotted him.
He’d been leaning against the wall next to the door, one foot propped against it and his arms folded across his chest as he waited.
He was only missing the cowboy hat and cigarette to look like that old silhouette from advertisements.
She remembered one Mom had pinned to the wall when Andy had been a kid.
She’d wondered for years who it was and if it was someone her mother, or even she, knew.
She’d been embarrassingly old when she discovered it had been an advertising mascot and not some friend or relative.
“Ready?” Dagger’s voice didn’t seem to have any irritation, so she decided not to ask if she’d taken too long.
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Come on then, Sparky, let’s go see what’s for breakfast.” He led her down the hall, the way they’d come the night before.
As she descended the stairs, butterflies began to flutter in her stomach. Was everyone here? Did she have to face them all again? Would they all be staring at her again?
No, they hadn’t all been staring at her at Travis’s service, it had just felt like it.
Still, she took a deep breath and tried to relax but wasn’t sure how much good that had done. When they stepped into the main room, she couldn’t help but be surprised at how few people were there.
She recognized Raven and the woman with him, but her name didn’t come to her right away.
She nodded in their direction but didn’t slow, as she didn’t want to talk to anyone right now and following Dagger to wherever he was taking her was as good of an excuse as any not to.
There were several other faces she recognized because she’d seen them either at the service or here during the meal later, but she couldn’t remember anyone’s names.
No one approached them as Dagger led her to the kitchen and opened one of two refrigerators like she’d never seen anywhere but in a restaurant kitchen.
Since she’d worked as a waitress for most of her life, she’d seen plenty of them.
He stood in front of the open door, and she looked around the room.
There seemed to be miles of gleaming stainless steel.
And it all shined. She didn’t know what she’d expected to find down here, but this wasn’t it.
This place was cleaner than some of the greasy spoons she’d worked in and looked like it was prepared to feed at least a hundred people with little to no notice.
She was impressed but what did a group like the Fallen Angels need with a kitchen like this?
“Hey, you okay?” Dagger’s hand on her arm drew her attention back to him.
“Yeah, why?”
“I’ve been talking to you, but it was like you didn’t even hear me.”
“Sorry. I was thinking. Wondering about this place.” She let her gaze flick around the room again but kept her attention on him so he would know what she was talking about.
“Oh, we do a lot of barbeques and things like that. It’s easier just to have a nice kitchen.
Plus, someone found us most of this stuff at cost. So it worked out.
Back to breakfast.” He turned back to the refrigerator, the door still open so he could see what sat on the shelves.
“What do you want to eat? I’ve got some kind of potato casserole thing, there are a few burgers in here, a big roast I can slice some off of.
What strikes your fancy?” He turned to look at her again.
“The potatoes from yesterday?” she remembered those. They’d been scalloped potatoes and from the taste, they’d been homemade.
“Yeah. All of this is leftovers from yesterday. There’s enough here to feed us for a couple of days.” He watched her, an expectant look on his face.
“The roast sounds good, and the potatoes. Do you know if there’s any of those rolls left?” Andy’s stomach rumbled at the thought.
“I don’t know, but they won’t be in here. Probably in the pantry. I’ll get a couple of plates ready and start them heating, then I’ll go look,” he said, pulling out a large deep pan that she recognized as the potatoes.
“I can look. Tell me where.”
“That door over there.” He tilted the top of his head toward a closed door on the other end of the bank of refrigerators.
Andy stood inside the pantry that was bigger than the living room in her trailer and stared.
She didn’t know where to start. The huge room had floor to ceiling shelves on every wall and a couple of rows of shelves down the middle.
And they were all full. This must have cost several months rent to stock, and she couldn’t imagine what it had taken to haul it all in here and put it away. Much less to manage it all.
“You get lost?” Dagger’s voice behind her made her jump.
“Not really, just overwhelmed. Why do you have this much food?”
“Just in case,” he said with a shrug.
“In case of what? An apocalypse?” She turned to stare at him. He didn’t seem to notice as he went to the far wall and grabbed a zipper bag. He turned and held it up.
“We’re in luck.” He turned and left, leaving her behind.