Free Survivor: Steel Jockeys MC by Evelyn Glass Page A

up from within her, as all at once, her right foot hit an impediment and she flopped to the ground. She felt the mud fly up into her mouth, her limbs sinking down into the earth like it was trying to bury her alive. She scrambled up into a sitting position, trying to keep the weight off her ankle, which felt twisted as if she had set her foot in a gopher hole. Still, she tried to clamber to her feet, reaching for her handbag. It had gone flying out of her grip, its contents spilling into the dirt. But away from the lights of the station, she could barely see. She frantically pawed the ground, face hot and as stinging as if she'd scraped it on something.
     
    "Ruby!"
     
    She whispered a curse. How had Joe gained on her so fast? she wondered, though she knew he was fast and agile and athletic. She’d seen it from the way he hopped gracefully on and off the bike, and the ride didn't seem to have tired him at all.
     
    At last, Ruby felt her fingers close around the barrel of the Beretta, which had tumbled out her bag. She grabbed it and righted it in her grip, cocking it the way Fox had taught her. It was awkward and heavy, shaking in her hand. She had expected holding it and pointing it at someone would make her feel powerful, even glamorous like a movie heroine, but it didn't. She was tired, frightened, cover in mud, and she just plain desperate. Like everyone who resorted to violence. Like the Steel Jockeys. She was no better than them. How had it come to this?
     
    "Don't come any closer," she shouted, aiming for his chest, right in between the rib cage where his leather jacket hung unzipped.
     
    Seeing the gun pointed at him, Joe stopped in his tracks and raised his hands a little. But to her surprise, he didn't panic; didn't try to fight her or grab the weapon. As she stared at him, he calmly crouched down on his knees, right in the mud, the thick rubber soles of his boots oozing ever downward, as he stared down the barrel of the gun. He wasn't even shaking.
     
    He took off his riding gloves and calmly reached his hand out to her. She drew in a breath at the sight of the preposterously smooth, ivory skin, then up at his face, his full lips slightly parted in an expression of almost painful concern. Joseph Ryan was attractive, a realization that sunk into her stomach like a cherry pit she'd accidentally swallowed.
     
    How dare he be so good-looking? And how had she missed it? Fox Keene’s good looks were Hollywood-flashy, almost bombastic; heads perked up when he walked into the room. But Joe had seemed so unassuming at first in his dark leather, keeping his head respectfully down so as if not to seem presumptuous, until the moment when he became brave enough to look up straight into her eyes--and suddenly she was nearly blinded to realize how absolutely gorgeous he was.
     
    And it made her angry. It wasn't fair. She tightened her grip on the gun.
     
    No. She couldn't let him do that to her. She couldn't let herself fall under whatever spell he was obviously using his good looks to try to cast over her, to try to control her. It was a trick.  Something nefarious that would end in blood, like everything else the Steel Jockeys touched. Ruby growled under her breath like a wolf. It was true she felt a bit animalistic; tonight had brought that out in her.
     
    Joe stayed calm. "Put the gun down, Ruby. Please. You don't know how to use it."
     
    "Fox taught me how," she insisted. "In fact, he taught me a lot more than that. He taught me that you, every one of you, isn't worth the mud we're sitting in. He taught me that I was an idiot to listen to one of the guys who got my brother killed. I was an idiot not to listen. I should have killed you. Hell, I should have killed myself before getting on that bike with you."
     
    Joe only blinked, his long eyelashes cast down briefly at the earth. "Did you ever listen to Kyle talk about us?"
     
    "I didn't have to. I already knew."
     
    "You already had your mind made up," he