The Biker Who Married Me Without Asking novel · Chapter 1 of 48
Chapter 1: The Cake
Willa carries Travis's birthday cake into the Black Harbor clubhouse and finds her grandmother's ring on another woman's hand; Cade Donohue reads the engraving aloud, sets a paper in front of her with only the signature line showing, and she signs; he tells the room: 'Meet my wife.'
I walked into the Black Harbor clubhouse at nine o'clock on a Friday night with a chocolate cake in both hands.
It said HAPPY 29TH TRAVIS in blue icing, and I had stayed up until one in the morning getting the T straight.
Travis had texted me that afternoon.
"Come at nine, babe. I've got a surprise for you. Wear the green dress."
I was wearing the green dress.
Forty bikers in leather vests turned around at the door, and the pool game stopped.
Travis was at the pool table at the back, and he lit up when he saw me.
"There she is," he called, and he held up both hands like I was the best thing that had come through the door all night.
A tall blonde in a silver dress was wrapped around his arm, looking up at him with her whole face.
I stood there holding the cake and waited for him to explain her.
He grinned at me, the easy grin I had fallen for two years ago.
Then he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her in, and she laughed.
That was when I saw her hand on his chest.
It was a thin gold band with a small garnet.
I had worn that ring on a string around my neck for a year after the funeral.
I set the cake down on the nearest table before I dropped it.
"Where did you get that ring?" I said.
The blonde blinked at me. "Excuse me?"
"Babe." Travis kept smiling. "Let's talk outside. You're making this weird."
"Who is she?" the blonde asked him.
"My sister," he said. "Willa. She's a little dramatic."
The blonde looked at me, then at him, and her smile slipped. "You said your sister lived in Spokane."
"I'm his girlfriend," I said, loud enough for the back row. "Two years. He lives in my apartment."
Someone near the bar laughed once and stopped.
Phones came up around the room, one after another.
"That's my grandmother's ring," I said. "It disappeared from my jewelry box six weeks ago."
"Babe, come on."
"You helped me look for it, Travis. You got down on the floor and looked under my bed."
His grin finally changed. It got smaller and meaner.
"I bought that ring," he said. "I proposed to Bree with it tonight. If you think it's yours, prove it."
I could not prove it.
Grandma Edie had never kept a receipt or a photograph of anything in her life.
"It's engraved," I said.
"Everybody says that." He shrugged at the room. "She's had a rough year."
Bree tugged at the ring. It would not come off her finger.
"Give it here," said a voice behind me.
It was low and quiet, and every man in the room moved a little to make space for it.
Cade Donohue walked out of the dark end of the bar with a beer in his hand.
He ran the club, and I had talked with him twice.
The first time he had fixed my flat tire in the rain without a word.
The second time he had handed me a paper plate at a cookout and walked away.
He set the bottle down and held out his palm to Bree.
She put her hand in it.
He turned the ring once with his thumb and slid it off.
He did not look at it.
"For Edie, always," he said.
Then he put it in my hand.
I turned it to the light and read the same four words, in the same tiny letters.
My throat shut. I nodded.
Travis must have shown it around the club, I thought. That was the only way Cade could know.
"Travis," Cade said, without raising his voice. "A member who steals from a woman and lies to a second one under my roof answers to me."
"She's not even club," Travis said. "She's a girl I was seeing."
"Then she'll be something else in a minute."
Cade turned and walked toward a table at the far end of the bar.
I followed him because my legs didn't know what else to do.
Someone had covered the table with a red cloth and set a vase of roses in the middle.
There was a clipboard, two plain gold rings, a black helmet and a strip of small photographs lying face down.
I reached for the photographs.
Cade put his hand flat over them.
He was already holding a pen in his other hand, and he had laid a single sheet of paper on the clipboard with his palm over most of it.
Only a thin line at the bottom showed, with an X beside it.
"Sign here," he said, "and nobody in this room puts a hand on you or lies to you again."
"What is it?"
"Club paper. It puts you under my protection. Travis answers for tonight in front of everyone."
"I have talked with you twice," I said.
"Three times," said Cade.
He did not explain, and he did not look at me.
Behind us Travis laughed. "Go on, Willa. Sign whatever he puts in front of you. You always do."
He had said it for the room.
I looked at the thin line and the pen.
I thought of my grandmother's ring in my fist and a cake with the T drawn straight.
Nobody had ever asked what I wanted in this building.
So I signed.
Cade lifted the paper from the clipboard and turned to face the room.
"Everybody," he said, "meet my wife."
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