Throttle MC: A Stepbrother Romance Read Online Free PDF Page B

much. 
    He finally seemed to realize he was hugging me too hard and let go, grabbing my shoulders in his big, bear-like hands.  He held me at arms’ length to look at me.  “Baby girl,” he rumbled, his eyes shining a little.  “It’s been a long time.”
    I smiled, willing my voice not to falter.  “Yes, it has.” Blinking back what threatened to be a flood of tears, I looked around the bar to see a handful of people had entered.  A few of them I recognized from the old days.  The others – younger, most of them – I didn’t.  “Hey, Gonz, Benny,” I said tremulously.  I waved at them as they stared back at me and smiled uncertainly in recognition.  Wrench stood in the back and nodded once.  I nodded back.  It was weird. I had expected my reunion with my dad to be awkward, but I had somehow thought that the guys would be less hesitant.  Gonz had always treated me like a little surrogate daughter, and I would have expected him to come up and give me a bear hug to end all bear hugs.  Instead, the guys I knew were hanging back.  They seemed to be waiting for something, but I had no idea what.
    “I, uh, just graduated from college,” I said, my eyes moving back to meet my father’s.  “I thought I’d come back for a visit before... well, before I made any concrete plans.”
    “That’s great, baby,” my dad grinned.  “I sure hope you’ll stick around for a while.” He really did seem happy to see me, I realized.  His eyes were glinting with that familiar twinkle I knew so well. It suddenly occurred to me that maybe things could just be normal between us.  My heart leapt to my throat as I allowed myself that thought.  Maybe we could let bygones be bygones and put the past behind us.  Maybe seven years hadn’t changed as much as I thought they had.  Maybe we really could more or less pick up where we left off.
    We stood there dopily, looking at each other.  No one else said a word.  In the ensuing silence, my dad’s eyes flickered toward the woman sitting at the bar next to my stranger.  She looked back at him, her eyes communicating something I couldn’t identify.  Something passed between them, and it occurred to me that Lon might have found himself an old lady.  I hadn’t known my dad to have a serious relationship since my mother.  Of course, I had to assume that as the president of the club, he had to have his share of the women who hung around the men of The Throttle, just like the others.  But he had always kept that side of things away from me when I was a kid. 
    Lon tore his eyes away from the older woman and looked back at me.  He seemed to hesitate, a frown of worry creasing his brow.  I almost laughed.  Surely he didn’t think that I would begrudge him his share of happiness, did he?  I could hardly expect him to stay loyal to the memory of my dead mother forever, after all.  I decided I needed to make the first move, to show him that I was more than happy to accept another woman in his life.  “I’m Hadley,” I said, stepping forward and sticking my hand out toward the woman. 
    Her eyes locked on mine, and she shook my hand in a sort of daze.  Smiling nervously, she said, “Hi, honey, I’m so glad to meet you.  I’m Randi.  I’m... your daddy’s old lady. He’s told me so much about you.”
    He hasn’t told me anything about you , I thought with a trace of bitterness, but pushed the thought away.  I had been the one to cut off ties with him, I reminded myself.  And our only conversation since the day I turned eighteen had been just two days ago, when I called him to let him know I was coming back to Cheyenne.  I could hardly have expected him to tell me about his old lady over the phone. 
    “It’s nice to meet you, too,” I said sincerely as I took her hand and shook it.
    Randi eventually pulled her hand away and looked over her right shoulder.  “And this,” she said, “Is Ryker.  He’s my son.”
    My stranger stared at me, his