Page 5 of Heart of Stone (Stoneheart MC #1)

HAWK

T he woman has fallen asleep.

Around me, music pulses loud enough to rattle the panes of the empty houses flanking my own. The brothers are drunk and rowdy, gunning their bikes and trash-talking on the front lawn. But the noise is nothing to the woman asleep on her porch across the street.

My jaw clenches, my fingers tightening around my beer bottle as I stare at her. If she’s out here, then who the hell is looking after her kids?

Not your problem.

I’d clocked her earlier in the evening and half-expected her to come across and ask us to turn the music down, but she’d sat on her porch, drinking her beer, eating her meal, and then falling asleep.

If she’s that tired, she should be inside in bed, not out on a porch where any man and his dog can take advantage.

I force myself to turn away before I do something stupid, like stalk across the road and shake some sense into her.

I turn back to the party, watching as women dance in the garage and on my lawn, trying to entice my brothers, whose hands linger on their bodies appreciatively. Here and there, people are fucking—and I have no doubt all of the rooms inside are taken up by at least one, if not more, couples.

“Great party.” Duck hands me a fresh beer.

I set my empty aside and accept the cool bottle with a muttered thanks.

The old-timer leans against the rail beside me, settling in.

Duck’s been with the Stoneheart Motorcycle Club for over forty years—patched in as a punk-ass twenty-year-old.

The only time he hasn’t worn the colors was during his service in the army.

He looks a little like Santa with his beer gut, white hair, and gray-white beard. And while he might be the one who dresses up to delight the club kids at Christmas, I’ve been in more than one tangle where he’s saved my ass.

A good brother to have at your back. A better one to train you on how to become the new sergeant-at-arms.

He eyes the patch on my chest, the one that declares my position in the club. “How’s that feel?”

“Fucking good,” I admit. “How’s that feel?” I tilt my bottle toward the space where my patch used to sit on his cut.

“Fucking good,” he echoes with a chuckle. “I’m old, Hawk.” He claps a hand on my shoulder.. “Club chose you, and I’ve taught you all I know. You’ll do well by it.” He chuckles again, leaning back against the rail. “Besides, I don’t have the patience to deal with the prospects.”

“Speaking of, how’s the new kid working out?

” I ask, referring to his latest apprentice.

Duck owns the only garage in town—a profitable venture thanks to his stellar reputation and side hustle restoring classic vehicles.

Last I heard, there’s a waitlist of rich pricks from out of state wanting Duck to give their cars a once-over.

Duck grimaces, shaking his head. “He’s not. Doesn’t want to listen to the girl. Shame. She’s a good teacher and knows her shit. Best employee I’ve ever had.”

I cock an eyebrow. “You keep saying that, but every time I come in, this mythical woman seems to be missing in action. I’m starting to believe she’s a fabrication of your imagination, old man.”

Duck nods toward the house across the road where Ms. Parent-of-the-Year nominee sleeps soundly on her porch. “Hard to say that when you’re living across from her.”

I blink, my brain slow to process. “ Her? ”

Duck nods. “Yep.” He lifts his beer, taking a long drag.

I glance back across, taking in the house with new eyes.

The neighborhood isn’t exactly up and coming.

Filled with abandoned houses and questionable characters, it doesn’t scream “place to raise a family.” In fact, if I hadn’t seen her walking into the house carrying a baby and wrangling two toddlers, I’d have assumed the place was abandoned.

A wreck of a car sits up on bricks, rusting gently in the front yard, fitting right in with the trash that pockmarks the dirt-and-weed lawn.

The house itself has seen better days—with its sloping roof, broken gutters, and peeling paintwork.

“Your best employee has three kids and lets her house look like that?” I ask, wondering if she’s blowing the old guy. I’ve never once seen Duck stray from his old lady, Maggie, but stranger things have happened.

Duck snorts. “Hell no. The girl is neat as a pin. You know why the garage looks so good? All her.” He elbows me. “Nearly as anal as you are about that shit.”

I point my beer at her yard. “Evidence suggests otherwise.”

“That’s her sister’s place. Or is it her cousin’s?” Duck pauses, then shakes his head. “Anyway, she’s the one with three kids—all under three, mind you. Twin girls and a boy. Scatty as a bag of dropped marbles. Dumps the kids regularly to take off with different jackasses.”

“And your girl picks up the pieces?” I ask, putting it together.

“Yep.” He makes a frustrated sound. “She’s going for custody this time. The mother disappeared two days ago. Far as I know, she hasn’t heard a peep from her since.” Duck squints into the dark. “She still out there sleeping?”

I glance across the road, taking in the sleeping woman with new eyes. “Yeah.”

The word feels heavy, sticking in my throat as a touch of guilt twists in my chest. I can’t see her face from here, but the memory of it lingers—the weariness in her eyes, the quiet strength beneath it.

I’d been so quick to judge, so certain I had her figured out.

But now the edges of that certainty blur, leaving me unsettled. She’s not the person I assumed she was.

Fuck. Maybe Axel’s right and I am getting jaded.

Duck shakes his head. “Shit for her. Gonna be shit for me if we can’t make this work.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You’re gonna fire her?”

He shrugs. “Might not have any choice if she can’t make the hours work. Three kids on one wage as a single parent? And they ain’t school-aged yet. Childcare is expensive. I like her—she’s a hard worker, good at her job, committed. But I got a shop to run and other employees I have to pay too.”

It’s all bluster. I know Duck, the man is a fucking pushover. If he likes her, he’ll do whatever he can to keep her on.

I lift my beer, taking a long pull as I consider her. “What’s her name?”

“Brandi—with an ‘i.’”

I snort, beer burning my nostrils as I cough. “You’re shitting me.”

It was a long running joke that I’d called my first bike Brandi. Loved that thing before it got wrecked after a jackass backed into it in a parking lot.

Fuck, I missed that bike.

Duck thumps me on the back. “No shit. Girl goes by Andi, though. With an ‘i.’”

I glance back across the street, considering her.

She sleeps, illuminated by a small light on her porch.

Her head slumps to one side, her hands resting in her lap.

Her ponytail has slipped, letting dark brown-red hair fall over her shoulder and down her breast. She wears a simple white shirt with dark-wash jeans, but that shirt is working harder than the devil to highlight her assets.

Curves. Curves for fucking days. An abundance of them that—had we met in any other circumstance—would have had me working to get her under me.

But I have new priorities now. Ones that don’t include getting involved with a woman and her kids.

“Nice girl,” Duck says offhandedly. “If you like curves, she’s a looker, that’s for sure.”

“No man?”

He shakes his head. “Never once got a hint of one sniffing around. Though the guys at the shop have tried.” He chuckles. “She puts them in their place quick smart.”

“She into girls?”

“Doubt it. Doesn’t check out the girls like she does some of the guys when they wander in. Never does a goddamn thing about it, though. Says a lot about her that she doesn’t shit where she eats.”

I lean against the porch railing. “You like her.”

He nods. “Thought about bringing her into the club for a while. She’d make someone a good old lady.

Smart, organized, helpful, knows how to keep her mouth shut.

But she’s cold—like ice. Puts up a wall to anyone trying to get close.

” He makes a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat.

“Shame. I expect it’ll be a while before any man bothers to see if she’s worth the defrost.”

“And is she?”

Duck chuckles. “You interested?”

I nurse my beer, watching the woman sleep as I dissect Duck’s assessment of her. Good worker, clean, dedicated, responsible.

Might be a problem.

“Not in that way.” I glance at him. “How responsible we talking?”

He strokes his beard, considering. “I see what you’re getting at, and you may be right. Too responsible. She hears or sees something—especially with those kids in the house—she might call it in, get us on someone’s radar.”

The club chose this location for a reason. The area is quiet, filled with dilapidated housing and tenants who ignore any after-dark dealings.

The house itself has a small frontage—but some previous owner blew out the back end, adding a bunch of rooms and space.

The backyard stretches the length of the block, complete with a carriage house we’d turned in the Chapel, a barn we’d converted into barracks for the prospects and visiting members, and an additional set of sheds.

It had been a farmhouse back in the day before the city sprang up around it.

After the financial crash in the early ’00s, our small town rapidly decayed as families defaulted and the local industry collapsed.

We’re just beginning to pull ourselves out of the mess.

It was a perk–or curse, depending on the day–of the job that I was tasked with protecting the club house, chapel and grounds. Free rent was always welcome, the headaches that came with cocky club members not so much.

Duck clucks his tongue. “Though, in fairness to her, she’s not said boo about the stuff she sees at the garage.”

As sergeant-at-arms, it’s my responsibility to consider any and all threats to the club—and neutralize them before they become an issue.

And little Ms. Responsibility has just become a threat I need to handle.