Death Lords Motorcycle Club: Chelsea and Wrecker (The Motorcycle Clubs Series) by Ella Goode Page B

I can.
    “Those felons don’t dare step foot on my property or I’ll be calling Chief Schmidt. You just know that they are responsible for that poor Pastor Bloom’s death. I’d cast out my daughter, too, if she was sinning with two men. It’s just not right Mary.”
    Annie’s face turns beet red while her knuckles become white as she clenches the handle of the shopping cart. A former pastor’s daughter taught all her life to be nice, turn the other cheek, and do unto others nonsense, Annie freezes like hard ice cream from the back coolers of Carmichael’s Grocery.
    Unlike me.
    I was pushed out by a woman who preferred to seek out random strangers for sex than be bothered teaching her whelp right from wrong. I was raised by a man who was in charge of the roughest men in three counties. And I’m getting it regular from my stepbrother. I don’t have a store of good manners placing a check on my behavior.
    Plus, I believe in standing up for your friends and having their backs.
    “Don’t look in the mirror, Mrs. Trainor, because your green is showing and it’s not pretty,” I retort.
    “It’s no big deal,” Annie whispers. “You don’t need to defend me.”
    “The hell I don’t,” I answer hotly. Annie doesn’t understand, not yet, because it takes time to fully absorb that not everyone in the world exists to reject you. It’s hard when your only exposure to family is a bad one. Annie’s mom abandoned her and her dad turned out to be a neglectful shithead who tried to beat the sin of loving two men out of her. She spent twenty-two years believing she wasn’t worth more than being her dad’s assistant, a mere reflection of his supposed glory. But now she’s being loved by two hot men who’d cut off their own hands to prevent her from getting so much as a paper cut. It’s a lot to take in. “You’re family now. No one talks shit about my family.”
    “You’re one to talk, Chelsea Weaver, holding hands and kissing and Lord knows what else with that brother of yours. That gang is a den of iniquity and someday the good Lord will strike you all down.” Mrs. Trainor has abandoned the bread aisle and brought her filth straight to us. I open my mouth to let her have it when I feel a hand on my shoulder.
    “Mrs. Trainor, Grant Harrison is Chelsea’s step-brother. There is no blood relationship between the two.” Annie’s quiet but firm words send a soft glow through me, wiping out the hot rage. So she does get it. Family has each other’s back—all the time.
    “They are siblings in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of God,” Mrs. Trainor proclaims. She points a quivering finger toward us. “One of these days you’ll get your due.”
    “Maybe so.” I start walking. I want to get out of here. We can get cereal elsewhere. “But it won’t be because my brother is giving me too many orgasms.”
    I brush by her, pulling Annie behind me. Mrs. Trainor hisses something but I don’t hear it because I’ve shut her out. My stomach is churning and I know I’m red in the face—part from anger and part from embarrassment, but I don’t slow down.
    “I’m sorry,” Annie whispers softly as we exit into the sunshine and cold winter air. We both pull our jackets tight around our frames as we hurry to the truck. Annie must have started it with her remote back in the grocery so at least the vents are blowing out hot air when we climb inside.
    “What for? I think we’re both sinners in the eyes of Mrs. Trainor.” I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself. “I suppose one thing in her favor is that she doesn’t talk about you behind your back. Oh no. She shoves her insults and judgments right in your face.”
    Annie restarts the truck, the engine having turned off when we opened the doors. “That’s true. You going to tell Wrecker?”
    Wrecker’s my man, my step-brother, my partner in crime, my one true love.
    “Yeah. You gotta tell Michigan and Easy too because this is a small town and people