Throttle MC: A Stepbrother Romance Read Free Page B

complication of Mister Can’t-take-no-for-an-answer, it was a terrible idea, probably the worst one I’d ever had, to come back to Cheyenne.
    The town where I had grown up.
    The town where my father was President and charter member of the Throttle MC.
    And apparently, my infuriating knight in shining armor was the VP.
     
    I hadn’t been back here in over seven years.  Not since my father had sent me away. For a better life, he said. 
    Better life, my ass.
    True, from an objective perspective, most people would probably say that Lon Cooper had made the right decision to send his only child away from the only home she’d ever known.  Even if he had sent her away from an extended family she loved, to a place that felt as cold and unfriendly as a prison. Most people would have nodded their heads in approval, and been certain that he’d surely saved me from a life of wasted potential.  Most people would say he had made the right choice to send me toward a future of more than just bikes, heat, and desert. 
    Most people weren’t me.
    My father, Lon Cooper, raised me alone.  My mom, Tessa Hadley Cooper, died when I was just a baby.  I don’t know how she died, exactly.  All my daddy ever said was that she had been sick, and I could never seem to pull much more out of him about it.  The other club members and old ladies probably knew better than to tell me more than Lon was willing to tell me himself.  At any rate, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how crafty I tried to be, I could never catch one of them up with my questions about her. 
    Even without a mother, though, I’d grown up surrounded by family.  Not blood relatives, of course, but family all the same: my dad’s club brothers, their old ladies, their kids... I was never lonely, never lacked for attention.  I never wished for anything more. 
    Well, nothing except a mother, that is. 
    Growing up inside The Throttle, I knew that the club’s business wasn’t always safe, and wasn’t always strictly legal.  But the details were generally kept from the women and children, so I never felt anything but secure.  The most worry I ever felt was during the occasional times when Dad would have to go away on club business.  Whenever he had to be gone overnight, I was left in the care of Cassie, one of the old ladies who had no children of her own.  Cassie would never let on that there was any risk, but as I got older I would sometimes see the worry lines appear in her forehead – lines that would disappear when her old man, Wrench, would come back safe and sound. 
    Although most people would probably be surprised to hear it, my childhood was pretty much idyllic.  That is, until around the time I hit puberty. After that, things just seemed to start going wrong. For one thing, my dad began to worry that the club was no place for his adolescent daughter.  Though I never wanted for female friends or women to ask about the mysterious changes taking place with my body, he grew more and more troubled about me being around The Throttle, and more and more obsessed with my future. 
    It didn’t help much that school was easy for me, and my teachers were always writing notes in my report cards about how bright I was.  One teacher in particular, Ms. Anders, even braved the unknown and came to see my father in the auto repair shop that served as the club’s main “legitimate” business, to advocate on my behalf.
    “Hadley should be encouraged to go to college,” she urged him as he stood looking at her, stone-faced.  “I’m quite sure that with enough effort, she could get into a top school.  There are many possible scholarship opportunities available for a girl with her potential.”
    “What makes you think she needs a scholarship?” growled my father, barely opening his mouth to bite the words out around his cigarette. Ms. Anders, terrified that she had insulted him, apologized profusely, got the hell out of there, and never showed her face at